The New World

So...COVID-19 anyone?

I know my pals from all over the world are being impacted by this new virus, and thought I would check in after a long absence.

I am fortunate, in that probably the least affected would be a germaphobic hermit living in the woods shunning society!

My biggest impact is that my daughter had to come home from college and finish her year online.  Today was a CHem 2 exam, stressful for both of us in that I tried to make myself invisible and she was stressed out.

However, I have a small chicken roasting the the toaster oven, stuffed with sage and celery and onion, cozied up to a couple of baked potatoes, and  the fortune that she is a a budding chef peeling and chopping carrots as I type.  All that is left is homemade gravy.

Hang in there, stay creative, love your family! More soon!

Where's Spring?

While last winter did not strike me as having the lowest temperature-it certainly gets top consideration for longest lasting.

Winter began in November and is not willing to let go yet.  We had 6 inches of snow a couple of weeks ago-frost still in the ground, and half the pond still has a floating layer of slushy ice.

Usually when the ice goes, it goes.  But we have had consistly cold temperatures-and on any day hoping to get a poke at 60F, we have had stiff winds out of the Northeast.  Northeast, with Canada a stone's throw away, is bad enough, but the frozen pond lies to our Northeast, acting like a giant refridgerator on those promising sunny days with 40 mph wind gusts.

I coudn't wait to rake out my perennial beds-two days later they were full of leaves again-from the woods, I suppose-and empty flower pots and seedling trays scattered about the borders as well.  Once the last few chickens go to the chhicken version of the afterlife, I am going to convert their coop to a garden shed so I won't be chasing tools and containers all over the yard.

The robins came back, and the snow made them miserable.  They flew from the staghorn sumacs to the edges of the stream, making the banks look like a flock of wild turkeys had gone through.  Maybe they had, but I haven't seen them since my neighbor's son and boyfriend starting blasting them morning and night when their highbush blueberries were ripe late last summer.

I got a pretty big kick watching the flock headed by Mom and daughter crossing the lawn with their -highest count 18-juvenile turkeys.  They would go down to the stream to drink and head back to the blueberry patch and meadow every afternoon.  Usually I have a tom or two and a couple hens this time of year, but I haven't seen them, either.

I guess that particular hen is no more-I watched her with her little ones as young as day old through the summer last year.  They used to roost in my big hemlocks.  The first time she wnet to roost wiht them she was too high for them and they couldn't get up.  WHat a racket of distress those little turkeys made!  Momma finally had to get down and find an easier place for them to reach.

As they grew, they would all climb the bank next to the house, which, if they flew straight out, would gain them about twenty feet up in the trees without too much effort.  They they would fly from tree to tree getting higher as they went.

They didn't bother any of my garden-I was worried about the ripening pumpkins, but they left them alone.  I put the last pumpkin on the lawn last fall and said, "this is for the deer" and believe it or not, one morning there were deer prints-sometime in January- where a doe and yearling had come out of the woods and pawed the frozen pumpkin out of the snow and ate it over a period of several nights.

Deer also apparently love evening primose crowns.  I let some self sow in the garden-the bees like it, and I find the yellow flowers and stalks interesting-but apparenty the deer relish it, as well.  That was fine with me-I have plenty and it self sows readily.  

Cutting

Ok, I know I get obsessive about stuff.  I annoy the crap out of those close to me because I will just not shut up about some things.  Then the same crap will just play over and over in my head, and when I think, "ok, I am going to force myself to distraction and ignore it,"  right away something will happen that will thrust the whole issue back in my face.

I mean, Trump actually used the word "coyotes" last night in his rant about terrible things the country faced. My daughter says it was slang for immigrants, but it was still weird.

The local who owns the large (50+) acres behind me has moved from harassing the neighborhood with coyote "hunters" and bait piles of rotting meat, to having the local Larry logger come in to cut it.

When I bought mine 20 years ago, that piece was supposedly "Resource Protected" between the marshland and the deer wintering habitat.  Somehow it was not marked that way on the newer zoning map, so there goes what should be protected habitat down the road in an 18 wheeler pulp truck.

I recognize that regrowth forest needs to be thinned, so I am not necessary against the cutting of trees.  I have had to take out a couple here, and the others have benefitted.  But I am talking gorgeous more than century old eastern hemlock and white pines, seeming like they are at least 100 feet tall, monarchs of the forest, food and home to dozens of species, gone down the road in a logging truck, beheaded and de-limbed, great red gashes of bark streaking down the sides.  Laying in the back of the truck stacked tight, sawn into lengths, next to their brothers and mothers.

I step outside at twilight and smell resin in the air.  I imagine the great stumps weeping, for it has been well into the 50's during the day and the sap is surely running, running, over the stump and soaking into the ground.  It's the lifeblood of the ancient softwood, pumping water out of the ground to spill back out, like a vision of a headless chicken spurting arterial blood, only this is a tree and it can only lie there and weep.

Another Year

Sometimes I feel like I am living in the wrong hemisphere. I like it hot.  I guess growing up in the mid Atlantic states in the late 60's and 70's being a sunworshipper does that to you.

Tans were all the rage back then-the darker the better.  And my sisters, 6 years older, were part of that fad, and being a good little sister I of course mimicked them.  Towel over the eyes and baby oil on the rest, wait 20 minutes, flip, 20 more, then dip.  A couple of hands of gin rummy under the umbrella, repeat.

I do like storms, though, and after the blizzard of '78 I decided I should move to Maine if I really wanted to see snow.  I should have had my head examined.  Haha.

I just re-read my post from last March, and I didn't shovel those last few storms.  Then the driveway turned into muck central when it melted and we had to park at the end and squish our way up for two weeks.  (Unless I wanted to rake the ruts in every afternoon-NOT)

I'll be an empty-nester soon.  Been busy going through the college application process with the Willow, who wants to major in medicine.  She will be going off in the fall.  Her brother, the Firebird, is about to complete his under grad studies in Mechanical Engineering and decided to persue his Master's.   He's applied to do some more work for NASA, but it's unclear if the shutdown has affected that.

Me, I'll just have to re-invent myself. (Taking suggestions! :) )

Spring?

Well we have been very happy thinking that we were going to have an early spring!  We started winter a bit late but it came on like gangbusters!  I think we had record cold here but I didn't have a thermometer to say for sure.  I know it got so cold one night our toilet cracked.  My neighbor cracked her big woodstove.  Oh, it was cold!  I am guessing more (or is that less?) than -20F.

Then we had a bunch of snow.  Not any big big storms, but a bunch of 8 inchers and 5 inchers and 4 inchers and 7 inchers and it was so cold the banks got as high as if we had a couple of 2 footers.  I stopped paying to have our drive plowed a few years ago when I paid several hundred dollars one month at $25 a pop.  Then we still had to shovel and dig out the mailbox.  SO I bought a couple of snow scoops where you just push the snow around.

Well, most of the storms this year ended up being such that the WIllow couldn't help, either late starts at high school or snowing at night...So I moved a lot of snow, because our drive is like 250 feet long.

After one of the bigger ones that took me two days to clear, my dear recently widowed elderly neighbor called me to ask if I could help get her unstuck -her SUV.  It was right after Christmas.  She had pulled in right through what we call the "heater bank" which is the mountain the road crew leaves across the end of your driveway when they plow the road.  SO, she had pulled in and left it overnight-and it froze in. 

We dug and put down salt and sand and ugh!  Finally we got lucky and a local with a plow drove by and yanked her out and plowed her driveway!

But somehow I had hurt something-ever heard the term "bust a gut"/  Between all that shovelling and then trying to dig her out-so my abs have been pretty tender especially if I go do something like split wood or try and rake in the ruts in the drieway-we are now in mud season.

Well, imagine my thrill to hear that we have a winter storm warning in effect for tomorrow night!  12-18" all day Thursday.  Oh boy.  Well, I am NOT going to dig out this time.  I will leave it at the end of the driveway and hike in.

  After all, it's going to melt eventually, right?

Happy

A lot of October Happy Birthdays going out to friends, family, and mentors!  You know who you are!

We've had a beautiful year for foliage despite the drought.  You can see both in this post's photo taken ten days ago.

I think we have had 3/4 inch of rain since then, but the water level is even lower.  Go figure.  It's dry dry dry.

I had a chance to spend some time in the harvest fields-butter nut squash and green peppers.  I assumed the first picker I met was hispanic and started talking to him in Spanish .  Later he was insulted that I thought he was Mexican and told me he was from Albania.  Oops. (and they speak Albanian)

I wondered why I couldn't understand the other guys and gals and then I learned they were speaking Portugeuse- because they are from Brazil.  How cool is that?

All of them are here as interns.  One specializes in Dairy, one is training to be a food inspector, another in plant genetics.

We spent time discussing all manner of things from culture, perceptions, politics, farming and personal life. My head rang in deep Porteguese accented voices for days.

One of the hardest workers hails from Columbia, but his English is very good.  We occasionally exchanged niceties across languages-to his "Thank you," I would reply, "De Nada," to an eyeblinding flash of white teeth over the shoulder in appreciation. All of those I met from South America had the most perfect dazzling white teeth.

This property finally saw frost two nights ago.  Got the summer squash, zuccini, impatiens, marigolds and finished off the coleus which were already protesting the temperatures.

Yes folks, it's chilly.  Got a fire going a little bit ago, but I sit up here in the eyrie with the window open.  Freezing, I just went down to check the stove and it was out.  It was 55F in the kitchen brr.

I know the Brazilians will be glad to head home the end of the month.  One of them has never seen snow-if this keeps up, that might change.

Dreaming

I dream a lot, every night.  I am not sure what is meant by different sleep cycles, because as soon as I drift off I am dreaming.

I dream in color.  I usually don't remember my dreams and the best I can do is feel them at the fringes of my awake state.  The more I try and grab them and bring them closer for inspection, the faster they fade.

It's like trying to pick a piece of eggshell out of the bowl of eggs.  Some unseen force just keeps pushing it further away.

The other night I had a dream I remembered.  Just a very short one.  The dreams that seem to be easiest to recall are the ones that suprise me enough to shock me to wakefulness.

I was on the banks of a shallow rock strewm river, looking diagonally across.  On the other side there was a grassy patch under some large trees, and a man and woman sat there on a blanket, perhaps having a picnic or sharing a bottle of wine.

The man became aware of my presence and stood up and starting walking towards me.  I say walking, but it was a loose, swinging dipping gait.  The epitome of cool.  He was familair to me, and I thought in my dream that only he could move like that and still look amazing.

He entered the water and waded directly towards me, splashing his arms and dipping his head like an otter or dolphin.

I was some kind of observer-I was watching through a lens, or perhaps I was a lens, because I had no feeling of an actual body.  But somehow he had recognized my presence, and made straight towards me, perhaps showing off in his movement like a water loving dog expressing his joy in the cool water.

His smiling face came extremely close, like someone peering into a camera lens, and I woke up.