Sawyer Hall is our Heath Post Office, Police Office, and Town Library with Town Offices for the Selectbord, Administrator, Tax Collector, Assessors, etc. upstairs, but for for many years a good portion of Sawyer Hall was used by the Grange for suppers, and even for dramatic productions. I remember when we moved here in 1979 the Library was closed because the building was being renovated. Someone gave me a tour of the large open upstairs where a small…
The days are longer and the sun is brighter, so even though snow lies deep on the ground we know that spring is coming. That means that the annual Master Gardeners Spring Symposium held on Saturday, March 19 at Frontier Regional High School is coming up, too.. This year I am presenting a slide show of Elsa Bakalar’s perennial gardens in all their glory. Elsa passed away last year, but her memory remains green for many of us.…
Recently I was able to find a used copy of Constance Spry's book Flower Decoration which includes a few black and white photos of her arrangements. Actually, she did not use the word arrangements, but decorations. If you look really closely at the decoration on the cover of this book you can see that it includes fruits, seed heads, and grasses in an almost invisible vase. I suspect this is not one of her own arrangements by a painting…
Joule Unlimited is a biotechnology company in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It "produces clean, infrastructure-compatible fuels directly from sunlight and waste CO2 in a single-step, continuous process that requires no costly biomass intermediates, processing or dependency on precious natural resources." I become more fascinated by some new technologies at the same rate I become afraid of other energy technologies like 'hydrofraking.' We need to look at the implications of the whole system and hydrofraking puts our water supply at risk.…
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Cold moon, cold moonlight Tucking another blanket around the newborn. by CarolPurington from Family Farm: Haiku for a Place of Moons We have no newborn, but this haiku captures the way I feel as the winter night falls. When bedtime arrives I gaze out at our snowy landscape, chill and luminous in the moonlight; I am happy to slip between my flannel sheets, and tuck a warm quilt around me. Then I dream of spring when the snow…
Saturday morning I substituted for our wonderful Assistant Librarian, Lyra, who is on maternity leave and tending lusty young Jupiter. Needless to say the three chickens I had lost to a weasel during the week was a topic of conversation with library patrons. I said we put out a rat trap and a Havahart, but did not think that peanut butter was the kind of bait to attract a weasel. Everyone agreed that peanut butter did not sound…
Many of us know Mary McClintock as a writer who delights in good local food, celebrates the farmers who raise it, and brings us advice from the cooks who really know what to do with it. I know I have enjoyed her Wednesday food column, Savoring the Seasons, ever since it began nearly four years ago. I’ve learned a lot about vegetables unknown to me including the gilfeather turnip. During her California youth McClintock probably didn’t spend any…
The snow was falling when I woke. I hope this is the first of the four final snowstorms predicted for this winter. While the snow is beautiful, the view inside the hen house was not as lovely. For the third morning in a row I went out to find a dead chicken, killed by a weasel. I don't know if it is possible to keep a determined and hungry weasel out of a hen house. I will spare…
Every year I add a few roses to my garden. The Rose Walk has expanded, the Shed Bed was added and now I have a Rose Bank. Many of the roses are shades of pink; Blanc Double de Coubert, Mount Blanc and Madame Plantier are white, but aside from the spiny Harrison's Yellow, yellow roses have been missing. I am trying to add that range of color this spring. April Moon is a soft yellow Griffith Buck hybrid…