Over the Labor Day weekend son Chris and his partner Michelle visited us.  They gamboled on the lawn with their French bulldog Bibi, sat on the piazza with drinks – and we all drove to Williamstown and the great Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute and its wonderful exhibit about Pablo Picasso’s (1881-1973)  relationship to, and admiration of Edgar Degas (1834-1917).  The exhibit was really fabulous. It was amazing to think that these two artists who seem so different in time, and in style, did in fact overlap, and that Picasso was such an admirer that a number of his paintings  are a creative echo of some of Degas’ works.

In another gallery there was a small exhibit of John Constable (1776-1837) landscapes, like the one above, which was NOT on display. I like Constable because he worked from nature and depicted life of ordinary country people of his time. As a reader of English novels from Jane Austen on, I have my own  fantasy views of the landscapes and the life that people lived in those rural areas. My views of that life, however romantic they might be,  is partly what  makes my life here in Heath a joy.  Others may wonder how we survive on our hill which strikes so many people as isolated and rugged, but to me it is beautiful, and a place where I can concentrate on the essentials of a happy life – a loving husband, good children and grandchildren, charming and helpful neighbors and friends, a good library with good books, good food – and every other good thing. Another Englishman had it exactly right, “The world is so full of a number of things, I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings,” said Robert Louis Stevenson. And so say I.

My Family Branch at the Reunion

Magical things happen at family reunions. The youngest set seems to bond almost instantly with their cousins two or three times removed (I don’t really know how that works) and even the oldest generation gets to hear stories about their parents that they never heard before.

My Aunt Doris, the only representative of her generation at this reunion, said she never knew that as a 15^th birthday present my grandparents arranged for me to accompany my grandfather on a business trip to Chicago. We went on the elegant Twentieth Century train and I had my own roomette. My grandfather was nervous about being accused of hanky panky as he traveled with a skinny girl, exactly 15 years old, but his business associate chucked me under the chin at dinner, winked and said he would be happy to be my sugar daddy. In 1955 I giggled a lot and barely knew what he was talking about.

My cousin, Peggy Larson O’Connor, and two of her daughters, Meg O’Connor  Nelson and Kelley O’Connor Shastany, organized this Gilford, NH reunion with lots of help from the rest of the O’Connor branch. The food was fabulous and endless. The swimming pool kept the young set cool while elders like myself chatted in the shade. One topic of conversation was about change. How fast the children change, and how we elders are changing and what these changes mean.

I chatted with my cousin Susan at lunch. Now that her two children are grown she is thinking about the changes she and her man are considering. Growing their own food.  Raising animals for meat. And moving out of Massachusetts.  To  Maine?  Or West Virginia?  Cold or warm?  Hmmmmm – lots more to consider in those conversations.

As we talked cousin Travis joined us. It turns out that not only is he doing all those ‘homesteading’ things in Burlington, Vermont, he works at Invervale Center (www.intervale.org) , the non-profit organization founded by Will Rapp, who earlier in his life founded Gardener’s Supply which became an employee-owned company in December of 2009.

Intervale’ s mission is “to strengthen community food systems. Since 1988, we have pursued this mission by preserving and managing 350 acres of land, supporting viable farms, increasing access to local and organic food, improving soil fertility, protecting water quality through stream bank restoration, and educating young people about agriculture and healthy food. Through these efforts, we have established an exceptional agricultural and environmental resource within the city limits of Burlington.”

I told Travis that many of Intervale’s initiatives sounded similar to our own local CISA (Community Involved in Sustainable Agriculture).  He is familiar with CISA and agreed, but I learned that Intervale combines elements of other organizations in our area.

We have Nasami Farm which propagates and sells a large number of native plants and provides education about the importance of native plants to maintaining a healthy ecosystem.  Intervale has a conservation nursery with the more limited  mission of growing native trees and shrubs for riparian  conservation, stabilizing river banks and buffer areas.

Intervale also takes 30,000 tons of kitchen, yard and wood waste every year and turns it into compost which is sold in bulk or in bags as potting soil or seed starting mix. It is considered Vermont’s leading compost producer.

Farmers cannot succeed without business skills as well as agricultural skills. CISA and Intervale both know this, and both provide training for farmers. Both also help with marketing initiatives.

One of the most fascinating aspects of Intervale Center is the acreage they have leased to independent farms in three categories: Incubator farms are the newest which receive training and help with equipment; Enterprise farms which have been operating for at least three years; and Mentor farms  which have been operating for at least five years and provide mentoring for those incubator farmers. I was happy to note that all Intervale farms follow the organic standards set by the Vermont Organic Farmers (VOF) organization.

CISA and Intervale are examples of the way our society’s attitudes about our food are changing.  Organic farmers are no longer considered a kooky  fringe  and more of us are thinking about food miles, and food security.

We are beginning to recognize that agricultural methods and food distribution have real costs to our environment and our health. This realization means we also have to pay attention to the way public policy  affects our food supply and examine the full costs of our food supply.

Who pays for the irrigated cattle pastures in the far west? Who suffers from shortages of clean drinking water in cities?  Why do big agribusinesses get government subsidies while dairy farmers can’t get make any profit on the milk they sell?

In 1939 my grandfather, an immigrant from Sweden, and Uncle Wally (then age 25) and Aunt Ruth bought a 300 acre farm on Lake Champlain outside Burlington where they raised five children.  My birth family spent a few years working on that farm as well. Those childhood years with my cousins remain important to me.

As I looked over the New Hampshire landscape, and thought about the Vermont farm landscape of my childhood I could not help thinking that while a farm is a significant part of my personal history, the future of farming will be important to my grandchildren and their cousins splashing in the swimming pool, and indeed to the future of our nation.

Between the Rows  July 31, 2010

Blueberries on the bush

Netting the blueberries was the big garden task of the weekend.  Between the heat, the thunderstorms, adventures with visiting grandson Tynan, picking raspberries and preparing to host the  Heath Gourmet Club on Saturday night, this job kept getting postponed. Finally, on Sunday, with the sun shining and a deliciously cool breeze blowing, we set to. The berries are just starting to  ripen here at the End of the Road, but the birds are starting to circle.

We planted our blueberry bushes at least 27 years ago. For many years we just threw nets over them to keep the birds away, but we finally got smart and built a PVC pipe cage. The cage covers the five bushes that are planted in a straight line. If we had thought of the necessity and practicality of a netted cage we would have planted the bushes in a block.

Black plastic netting goes over the pipe supports and is tied in place with twistees.  In the photo above you can see that two large bushes live outside the cage, providing a few early berries for us, and many berries for the birds. I may not supply the birds with sunflower and thistle seeds, but I do provide a good supply of blueberries.

The netted berries supply us with a long season of freshly picked berries that do not have to be picked daily the way raspberries do. They are the most considerate of berries, hanging on the bush for days without rotting or spoiling. In fact they are considerate of the gardener’s labor as well.  Once these bushes were planted in our naturally acid soil, they have not needed any other care.  I occasionally cut out small dead branches; that is the only pruning required.

I pick my blueberries at my leisure and enjoy the these healthiest of fruits in the summer, and through the winter, pulling bags of them out of the freezer. At my leisure.

Drew and Anthony in the raspberries

All week we had been waiting for our daughter Kate and her family to arrive. We knew they had been at her husband’s family reunion at a state park in NY, celebrating his parents 80th and 90th birthday – and their 60th wedding anniversary. I expected them to arrive mid-week, but there was no word. We called Kate’s cell phone. We sent emails. We sent Facebook messages. No word. No word. No word. Had they been carjacked? We did internet research and found phone numbers for two of Greg’s sisters.  We called. We left messages. Finally, we heard. They stayed in the park (no Internet in the park!) camping after the official Sunday party, visiting and enjoying the park and the family.  And learning that Greg’s very proper parents had more than a whirlwind courtship. They met on a group date, went out together twice more before they had to part to their respective, distant homes. They corresponded and arranged a wedding that took place six weeks later.  Those mad romantic fools!

Drew and Anthony

Kate, Greg, Anthony and Drew finally arrived on the Fourth of July. A whirl to measure them on the door – and learn that Drew grew 7 inches in the last year and is now just a mite taller than his brother! Then off to a Mohawk Trails Concert with classical music, Broadway music – and Small Change joined by famous jazz French hornist (and Heathan) John Clark playing their special music. I don’t know how to classify it, but the boys, and we, had a great time!

Once home we sent the boys off to pick raspberries. Usually when they are here they pick blueberries, but the raspberries are early this year. You can see I really need to thin the raspberries better. Thinning and pruning sufficiently are two of my weaknesses. I find it so hard to cut back when the plants have been successful and grown vigorously. We had those raspberries on ice cream in the Cottage Ornee after supper. The evening was cooling down and the Cottage caught the breeze. The ice cream was still really good after a hot Fourth.

As we walked from the raspberry patch to the house the boys noticed a runaway rose.  This rose has not runaway into the field from it’s nearest neighbor, but from . . .  ?  It looks like one of the Farm Girls who grow some distance away. Did a bird spread the seed?

I used to think this was an apothecary rose, but now I am doubtful. Whatever it is, it is thriving in a very wet spot and spreading by root into the adjoining field.

The roses Terri Pettingill gave me from her mother’s house in Maine have never really thrived here, but this  one is sending roots out into the field as well.  Controlling roses is trickier than I ever thought it would be, and sometimes it requires a ruthlessness I have not been able to muster.

I was driving up our road yesterday noontime when I saw a doe standing  in the middle of the road. As I slowed down a tiny, very young fawn came scrambling out of the brush on the left side of the road. Mama leapt into the brush and the field on the right, but baby could not quickly get up the bank. Either instinct or good training made her instantly fold herself up as small as possible in the drainage ditch by the side of the road. She did not move a muscle, even when I quietly and slowly got out of the car to take this photo. I used the zoom and did not get too close; she remained absolutely immobile.  I drove on a little further and stopped the car again, waiting and hoping that Mama would come back to take the little one away, and I could get another photo. No such luck. I parked the car at our house and walked back, not very far, but mother and child had gone.  It is not often one gets a look at such a new fawn. It was a special moment.

A warning. I would never have touched this fawn because a friend who is an expert on such things told me that if the fawn had the smell of a human on it, the mother would abandon it and it would be vulnerable to predators. We do have a lot of coyotes in our area.

Our family tree

I found that terrific windstorms yesterday had knocked over one of our linden trees, Tilia cordata. In 1991 we invited our three daughters and three granddaughters to visit on Memorial Day to each plant a linden tree along the pasture fence to the west of the house. Tracy was almost 10, Tricia was 5 and Caitlin was only 13 months, but they all got their pencil sized linden trees in the ground.  However, time brings change, not all of it good.

Linden trunk

When I left for Norwalk on Sunday, three of those trees were still standing; the other three had come down at different times over the years. In fact the two trees that now remain, at the beginning and end of the row were both damaged, one by a plow and one by insect damage, but both have coppiced, which is to say that new shoots have grown out of the trunk.  They look more like bushes now than trees.

I checked the trunk  of the newly fallen tree which broke off right at ground level. The wood is splintered but it is not rotten.  The winds were described as ‘wind shear’ and ‘mezzo-cyclones’ .  Whatever they were, the winds  came from the north, as usual, and were strong enough to knock the tree down right at the soil level.

Lindens, also called basswood, or lime trees have interesting uses. Basswood is light and good for carving. For those who enjoy flowery or herb teas, ‘lime flower’ tea is really made with the blossoms of linden trees.

Caitlin's many trunked tree

Lindens are beautiful trees, with wondrously fragrant flowers. Unfortunately they seem not be be ideal trees for Heath.  Still, Caitlin’s tree, as well as her mother’s, are healthy in their shrubby shape for the moment.

Good things happened while I was away, too.  The white lilacs and the Sargent crab have begun to bloom. Sitka and Alchemyst roses were delivered as were 10 black raspberries and three new blueberries from Nourse Farm.  My husband heeled them in and tomorrow I will be in the  garden all day planting and watering. Probably weeding, too.

The trug is a vintage piece that I acquired when my friend and mentor the late Elsa Bakalar moved from her house and garden to a retirement village.  It acts as a kind of amulet, providing the confidence to overcome the weeds and slugs.

A hat is essential for working in the sun. I carried this hat along with many memories back from our time in Beijing. This is a traditional hat still worn by Chinese farmers.  It is very light, with a shallow crown that keeps me cool. It still has the original shoelace chin ties which are especially useful in the Heath breezes. With a cool head I can ponder the chore list – off to the vegetables, or shall I gather rosebuds?

Of course, that special season of the year, Black Fly Season, requires a special hat – and long sleeves. I buy many of my accessories at Avery’s General Store and Fashion Emporium in the Village of Charlemont. They not only had the hat in my favorite shade of rose pink but the gauzy veil with functional elastic edging. When I return from a trip to Avery’s I know there will be no flies on me.

Ladies who lunch wear kid gloves, but for pruning the roses these are the gloves for me. A friend who understands the challenges of the rose gardener gave them to me last year. They are West County Gardener Rose Gloves and I was pleased that they were made in my west county neighborhood, but alas, they are made in some west county of California. I like them more than any gloves I wore at dancing class in 1954.

No ensemble is complete without the proper footwear. My Ladybug clogs are coordinated with the blue jeans and blue Atlas gloves. The versatility of the clogs cannot be overestimated. They  walk with ease and flair through dewy grass, the fine turf of a garden party, and even a stroll through a garden center or nursery.

To dress up the little blue jeans, all it takes is a softer hat. My style choice is to add a chiffon scarf for that uptown look, an overblouse in an abstract flower print and the effect  –   timeless style.

Although I am still surrounded by lawns and fields of snow, the sun has been shining with the predictable result. The snow is melting slowly and almost invisibly.

Melted snow is running off and down the road. Have I ever mentioned that we live on a hill? Some of this water is actually coming from the hill that continues to rise behind our house.

Is this water from the invisible melt beneath the snow, or is it coming from one of the many intermittent streams in our field, sometimes flowing  just  beneath the surface?

One April when two four year grandsons and I went off for a walk we never got further than this ditch filled with running water. Dams and boats and a busy waterfront were constructed. There was mud and joyful shouts of ‘Gooey! Gooey!” I had to hose the boys off before I could bring them back in the house.

My husband got this frog’s eye view of the rushing water that gained volume and speed before  plunging into the culvert.

As warm as it has been during the day, the nights are still clear and cold. The maple sugarers rejoice.

The Wizard of Oz

The Heath Elementary School joined other august institutions of learning like Yale University, Brandeis and Tufts (to name only a few) in working with the innovative Double Edge Theater in Ashfield, an international center for performance. collaboration and training. This year the production was an original adaptation of The Wizard of Oz.

This all school performance that involved everyone from kindergarten munchkins and bees, to a very dramatic Wicked Witch of the West (is it possible she was only in 6th grade?) must have kept a large costume crew busy as bees, making clever costumes for 3 scarecrows, 3 tin men, 3 cowardly lions, crows, bees, monkeys?  and many witches covering all the cardinal points of the compass – south, southwest, northeast, west  . . .

Munchkins

By the time I took this photo the Munchkins and  . . .

Oz guards

the guards , they were enjoying being a part of the audience, waiting to take their bow.

A Horse of Another Color

I couldn’t resist taking a photo of the Horse of another color – even though it had shed its four legs.

Putting on a school play calls on collaboration between the arts, literature, theater, music, set and costume design and the creative skills to put flesh on a concept.  It is a joy to see the confidence of the students who step forward to belt out songs, dance down the yellow brick road and buzz around, taking the spotlight and relinquishing the spotlight to others in turn.

Many thanks to all the many many parents, staff, and other volunteers who bring this richness to the school and to the broader community.

Some of my raw materials

As we prepared to leave the bookmaking workshop at The Art Garden, Jane Wegscheider, our teacher and muse, said those of us planning to attend the Valentine workshop should start collecting the memorabilia or photographs that we would need.

Hmmmm. This suggested that we would not be making traditional Valentines with lace and ribbon, or even clever and artistic Valentines like those Sandra Denis was selling down at the Arts Coop in Shelburne Falls. I was particularly taken with one that showed a candle with a shiny gold flame and a gorgeous moth singing ‘I’m attracted to you.’

But Henry and I have been married too long for mere attraction. How would I express that?  MAPS!  Henry loves maps and we have traveled many long roads together. I even have a photo that my  cousin took of our backs as we walked down a dirt road in Leyden with Kathy, my youngest in 1972. I always called that photo The Road to Pork Corners, the mythical rural place where we would finally settle down.

About ten years ago Henry went back to school at Umass and got a degree in Geography with a specialty in cartography, the making of maps. His skills helped Heath get their first official tax maps while he served as an assessor. Maps would be my theme.

More raw materials to be photocopied

I made copies of maps and photos of roads we had traveled from The Road to Pork Corners, across continents, and to The End of the Road.  Our life in eight pages.

The Road to Pork Corners 1972

When I began I expected to make a simple card, albeit with several pages, but it became something more, something unexpected, with layers, complexities and embellishments I never imagined.  Something like our life.

Layers upon layers, with embellishment