Where better to be in October than New England?

The Saxtons River flows easterly from the Green Mountains, emptying into the Connecticut River, just south of Bellows Falls, Vermont; these photos, taken from the New Hampshire side of the Connecticut, show the mouth of the Saxtons River. (The bridge carries US-5 traffic.)

Mother's house is in North Westminster, a tiny village between Bellows Falls (with which it is mostly contiguous) and the slightly-larger village of . . . Saxtons River!

(Thanks to Photoshop, anyone can be an Impressionist!)

The patio, half-scrubbed (also by power washer). When finished you could see that it really was made of concrete, not blacktop!

But I was there to work!

The brick walls of the house had (thanks to annual snowpack) accumulated quite a coat of moss (which eventually eats away at the mortar); I brought our power washer along and, as you see, there's nothing like having the right tool!

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The barn's front (lower half) was painted this summer) but the upper half had not been done, so that was the first priority.

And here's the last section to be completed. (I'd like to add a little "commercial" for the "Little Giant" ladder system; it really made this job easier; only this last section had to be done using it as an extension ladder; the rest was done using it as an "A-frame" with shelves on each side for the paint bucket.)

The results on the northeast wall and sidewalk. (The patio would be just to the upper left of the sidewalk pictured.)

The view from one corner of the property shows one of the maple trees and some of the pines (you can just see the barn between them).

Here's the top of the bluff, overlooking the driveway, on what we in the family know as "Paul Fall Hill" (you don't want to know!).

The view from the top (of the ladder), looking more-or-less east. The birch trees have lost most of their leaves by this time.