Monthly Archives: August 2023

Animals - especially dogs, Gardening, News, summer

A Woeful Tale of Tomatoes and A Short Break

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In Maine, this has been one weird summer with so much rain that parts of the state have had flooding and road washouts. In Winthrop, the town where I live, we have escaped the worst of the flooding. However, the rain has taken its toll on my cucumbers and tomatoes.

The cucumbers have been a complete bust—stunted and producing only two fat, stumpy cukes that were inedible. The tomatoes have fared a little better, but they are not as lush and productive as they have been in previous years. Instead, they are tall and spindly with not much fruit.

I have had enough for some tomato sandwiches but not enough for making a sauce, the way I usually do in the summer. This has been especially disappointing for Dee, who loves my roasted tomato sauce.

Another casualty: the nasturtiums. I planted a whole row of seeds in the long bed by the patio in the backyard. While I do have a patch or two, most of the seeds rotted in the rains of June.

Still, I am a glass half-full kind of person, and some nasturtiums are better than none, especially when you see them close-up.

And to further cheer myself up, I took a picture of black-eyed Susans against the blue gazing ball.

Despite the rainy summer, Clif, Dee, and I have managed to slide in many lunches and suppers on the patio. Because of the rain, the mosquitoes are still a nuisance—most years they are gone by August—but we have citronella torches to help with the problem.

Right on schedule, the grasshoppers are buzzing, and the crickets are singing their sweet song of late summer. Always such a delight to hear nature’s musicians.

The delights of fall wait just around the corner—a time of apples and fires in the fire pit and warm days followed by crisp nights. But late summer is also a time to be cherished, the winding down of one season before the next season comes.

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Exciting News and a Short Break

Next Monday, our daughter Shannon and her husband Mike will be moving in with us while they look for  an apartment in the Boston area. (They already have one lead.) They have said farewell to their old jobs as managers of a senior citizen complex and are moving on to other jobs. With Shannon and Mike come two dogs and a cat. Our household will be very lively for the next few weeks.

Clif and I have done a lot to get the house ready for them, but there is still much to do. Starting today, I am going to take a break from blogging, and plan to be back sometime the beginning of September.

What a grand way to celebrate the end of summer!

See you in a couple of weeks.

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For the Dog Days of Late Summer

Listening: Who Let the Dogs Out

Party on!

 

 

 

People

A Coastal Farewell to an Old Friend: Sherry Ballou Hanson, 1944–2022

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On a blue and dazzling Saturday, I drove to Bailey Island in Casco Bay to celebrate the life of a dear friend, Sherry Ballou Hanson. The celebration, hosted by Sherry’s family, was held at Cook’s Lobster & Ale House, one of Sherry’s favorite places.

To say Cook’s is a restaurant with a view doesn’t begin to describe its stunning location. This is a picture taken from inside Cook’s as I looked out the window.

And here is the view around the restaurant, situated on a spit of land surrounded by the ocean.

I met Sherry—a fine writer—thirty years ago when we both belonged to a group called Maine Media Women (MMW).  As the name suggests, MMW was an organization that promoted women in all aspects of the media, from those who wrote poetry to those who worked at television stations. Sherry and I served on the board together, and over the years, we became good friends.

About ten years ago, Sherry was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and she and her husband decided to move from the East Coast to the West Coast so that she could be closer to her family. But every summer, Sherry would come back to Maine, rent a cottage on Bailey Island, and host a gathering for her MMW friends. She was the glue that held us together, and we looked forward to these gatherings where she generously treated us to lobster rolls from her beloved Cook’s.

As I’m sure you all know, ovarian cancer is a hard one to beat, and last summer, Sherry died after fighting many battles with this terrible foe. (For various reasons, her family had to wait until this summer to host the East Coast celebration of Sherry’s life.)

We filled one half of a large room at Cook’s. Sherry’s son and daughter-in-law spoke movingly of Sherry and encouraged everyone to introduce themselves and talk about Sherry. What came through, with both family and friends, was how much Sherry was loved. There were tears, and some people had to stop, unable to continue their remembrances. For me, most moving was Sherry’s young teenage granddaughter, filled with love and grief for a grandmother who did puzzles with her and helped her look for agates. As the granddaughter cried, her brother—Sherry’s grandson—held her hand. After that, I don’t think there was a dry eye in the place. I know mine weren’t.

I was reminded yet again that to be mourned is to be loved, that grief is an honest, fitting expression of what we feel when someone we care about dies. Eventually, we dried our tears, ate our lunch, and went outside to listen to some of Sherry’s poetry set to music by her son.

As I looked at the deep blue sky and the sparkling water, I thought that this was a Sherry Hanson kind of day, absolutely perfect for a beach lover who collected sea glass and loved to go to places where dogs were allowed. A hard-working woman who disliked people that “were all talk.” Someone who valued cleanliness and order but who knew how to have a good time.

Sherry’s East Coast friends have decided to continue the tradition of meeting every summer, to gather and remember this special person who brought so much to our lives. While Sherry might be gone, she is certainly not forgotten.

 

 

 

Books, Food, summer

Of August Days and Jeri Theriault’s Poetry Reading

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Sunday was one of those August days that draw tourists to Maine in the summer. Warm weather—around 80°—combined with low humidity and sunshine made for a perfect afternoon on the patio. As it turned out, we had invited our friend Jill over for drinks and appetizers, and we were thrilled that the weather gods decided to smile on us. Yes, we could have had drinks and appetizers inside, but how nice to sit on the patio and watch the birds flutter in out and of the woods as they visited the bird feeders.

A beautiful August summer afternoon in Maine. When the rain and cold and snow come, I will try to keep this day in my heart, to be warmed by the memory of good food and good conversation.

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From the Department of Good News

In this time of climate change when some people suffer from too much heat and others from too much rain, reading good news provides welcome relief. In her post “This week’s Small Pleasures #348,” my blogging friend Barbara of Thistles and Kiwis wrote about how bird counts are up in Wellington, New Zealand. Way, way up. Some by as much as 260%. If my knees weren’t so creaky, I would jump for joy.

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Listening: Poetry Reading at Greene Block + Studio in Waterville, Maine

Self-Portrait as Homestead by Jeri Theriault

Last Friday, I went to Waterville to hear Jeri Theriault read poetry from her terrific new book Self-Portrait as Homestead. Like me, Jeri is Franco-Amercan, and she also grew up in Waterville, a small mill city by the Kennebec River.

It gave me great pleasure to hear Jeri use the word “mémère” (grandmother) in her poetry. And what a thrill that the title of one of her poems comes from a street in Waterville’s South End, where I lived as a baby and visited every week as a child. My home, my geography, my ethnic group. While Jeri Theriault’s poetry ranges far from Waterville—to Iwo Jima and the Middle East—for me, Waterville was the center that rippled outward to other places. Perhaps someone not born and raised in Waterville would have had a different take, but that is what stayed with me no matter how far Jeri roamed in her poetry.

To add to the mood of the reading, Jeri’s husband Philip Carlsen and his son Mel played music between the poetry—Philip on the cello and Mel on the piano. So lovely, so lovely.

Jeri asked that the applause be held until the end, and she spoke about each poem, telling the audience how her poetry wasn’t memoir, which allowed her to use some artistic license; how she thought of the “self as house”; how the book was “supposed to be all feminist poems,” but somehow her father crept in. Jeri filled in her father’s silence with her own words as well as ones taken from a local newspaper article about his time in Iwo Jima.

After the reading, editor and journalist Bob Keyes had a conversation with Jeri, which illuminated her poetry and her process.

From her moving poetry to the music to the conversation, this was one of the best poetry readings I have ever been to. I bought Self-Portrait as Homestead, and instead of shelving it with my poetry collection, I will be tucking this one among my Franco-American books.

Jeri Theriault, on the left, with Claire Hersom, also a fine poet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Birds, Food, summer

A Mini Staycation

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Last week, Clif, Dee, and I took four days off—Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday—from our regular routine to relax and have fun. Our daughter Shannon, her husband Mike, and their dogs joined us on Friday and Saturday.

On Friday, the weather gods were in a good mood. Although it was hot, there was no rain, and off to Absolem Cider Company we went for a picnic and drinks. Mike’s aunt, Claire Hersom, met us there.

I had an utterly delicious drink of rum mixed with strawberry liqueur.

Dee took this picture of us. In the picture, Claire looks uncertain, but really and truly, she had a good time.

Clockwise: Claire, Mike, Clif, me, and Shannon

Chickens, hoping for a treat, joined us. They might have gotten some popcorn that made it to the ground.

Here are a couple more pictures of this lovely place, only five miles from where we live. How lucky is that?

On Saturday, the weather gods continued to smile for the morning and early afternoon, and we spent the entire time on the patio for a bagel breakfast and a lunch of Clif’s legendary grilled bread.

I forgot to take pictures of the food, but I did manage to capture this daylily against my Great Library/Elferterre sign.

Unfortunately, the rain came late afternoon, bringing flash flooding to some places. But Shannon and Mike and the dogs made it home safe and sound.

On Sunday we went to the movies to see Haunted Mansion. Not a great movie by any means, but it was a lot of fun albeit tinged with some sadness. 

On Monday, we had planned to go to East Boothbay and have a picnic on rocks by the ocean. But guess what? The forecast was for rain in the afternoon. As it takes an hour and half to get to East Boothbay, we decided to stay closer to home and have a picnic by the Kennebec River, about seven miles from us. However, the weather gods foiled us, and by the time the picnic was packed, we could hear thunder rumbling. Out to our patio we went, and we had barely finished eating when the rain came. Back in we scurried.

The rain did not last long, and we decided to console ourselves with ice cream at Fielder’s Choice in the neighboring town of Manchester. We might not have made it to the coast or even to the Kennebec River, but we had some wicked good ice cream.

That surely has to count for something.

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Reading

Tooting my own horn

One of my blogging friends, Carol Ann of Blogging for Joy, recently read Maya and the Book of Everything, the first book in my Great Library Series. She had such kind things to say about my novel. Many thanks, Carol Ann! I’ve written this before, but I feel like it must be noted again: Because of my blogging friends, my Great Library series has traveled around this country and around the world, too. No small feat for an indie writer. To borrow from Shakespeare: “I can no other answer make but thanks, And thanks; and ever thanks…”

Introducing…

Volume Five of Résonance, an online journal. The following description is taken from its website: Résonance  features works “primarily by and/or about the Franco-American communities of the United States….There has long been a need for this type of resource. Franco-American and other writers who wished to communicate the reality of this linguistic minority have often found no literary-focused vehicle to do so….Résonance is published by its Editorial Board in Orono, Maine, under the aegis of the Franco American Programs of the University of Maine.”

For new readers: Yes, Franco-Americans are an actual ethnic group in the United States. Between 1840 and 1930, about 1 million French Canadians immigrated to the United States. They primarily settled in New England but also spread out to other states where there was factory work.

In Maine, the state where I live, about 30% of the population is descended from French Canadians. That would include me—my family name was Meunier—and indeed French was my mother’s first language. My great-grandmother never did learn how to speak English, but the feeling was that she understood more than she let on.

Unfortunately, the Yankee Protestant population did not welcome us with open arms, and there was active discrimination and prejudice against Franco-Americans. In Maine, Ku Klux Klan membership was huge, with rallies and cross burnings other methods of intimidation.

For more about this, read David Vermette’s excellent piece in Smithsonian Magazine.

Sometimes, situations do improve, and Franco-Americans no longer face they discrimination they once did. By gum, thanks to the University of Maine at Orono and editor-in-chief Steven Riel, we even have our own journal, Résonance. And I am happy to report that I am the creative nonfiction editor.

Enjoy!