All posts by Laurie Graves

I write about nature, food, the environment, home, family, community, and people.
Celebrate

A Meeting of Opposites

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Life is certainly exciting in Maine. On Thursday, April 4, we had a Nor’easter that brought us twelve inches of wet snow and widespread power outages. By, Monday, April 8, most of the snow was gone, and it was warm enough—60°F!—to sit on the patio and watch the solar eclipse. While we weren’t on the edge of the path of totality, we were close enough for a fascinating view of the moon meeting the sun.

Because the eclipse was, well, an event, we decided it would be all right to have drinks even though we don’t usually drink in the afternoon. Clif had gotten special glasses at our library, which meant we could safely watch the sun as the moon covered it. Nothing like burnt retinas to spoil an eclipse.

Clif swept the patio—the first sweeping of the season—and brought up two chairs and a little table. Here is Clif in his groovy sunglasses, toasting the eclipse.

The yard was a mess—downed branches everywhere courtesy of the nor’easter.

Still it was fine to be sitting on the patio and not need a heavy jacket. In the back woods, I could hear the little stream rushing to the Narrows Pond. A male cardinal sang his spring song, claiming his territory, our yard. Mourning doves cooed, and chickadees called to each other.

The eclipsed started at about 2:48, with the edge of the moon sliding over the sun. First a quarter of the sun was covered and then a third. The light from the sun grew dimmer. As Clif put it, the sun looked like a fat crescent. As the moon continued to slip over the sun, the crescent looked less fat until it resembled a crescent moon.

By 3:05, two-thirds of the sun was covered, and it felt chillier. But the birds were still calling and tweeting. It was not dark enough for them to stop. It was more like dusk. Except it was a little past 3:00, and even in the winter, dusk doesn’t come that early. By then the sun was a sliver, but even a sliver of sun throws quite a bit of light. (Solar power, baby, I’m looking at you.)

One of the loveliest aspects of the eclipse was the way the sun shadows danced on the patio. Over the years, I have seen the patio in shadow and shade, but never like this.

As I watched the eclipse, I thought about how poetic it was for the sun and the moon to come together. One is bright and extroverted; the other cool and introverted.

A meeting of opposites.

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Listening

Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles

Because, what else?

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A  Wee Break

For the next two weeks, I’ll be taking a short break from blogging. Lots to do, including a trip to Boston to celebrate my daughter’s birthday.

See you all on April 29.

 

News, Snow-Gauge Clif

One Heck of a Nor’easter

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Last Thursday, the predicted nor’easter hit Maine, and it was every bit as bad as the meteorologists had anticipated—lots and lots of wet, heavy snow, the kind that breaks branches, which, in turn, fall onto power lines. The storm blew in early Thursday morning, and by 5:00 a.m., our power was knocked out.

Up came the folding table and the camp stove. We might not have had power, but gosh darn it, we did have hot tea, a soothing drink in a cool house. Temperature: 55°F. Clif started a fire in the wood furnace down cellar and brought up a bucket of water for the toilets.

It was chilly, even with the wood furnace, but at least it was up to 60° by midmorning. Settling on the couch, I wrapped up in a blanket and read the delightful A Vicarage Family written by Noel Streatfeild. Published in 1963, A Vicarage Family is a semi-autobiographical novel about, well, growing up in a vicarage in an English village in the early 1900s. Teenage Vicky, a stand-in for the author, is difficult, moody, and intense, a writer in the making, and the episodic novel revolves around the challenges, many of them self-inflicted, that she faces. As the snow fell, I read, glancing up occasionally to stare out the picture window at the white landscape.

Dee, who works from home, is prepared for power outages, which have been all too common this winter. She bought a big battery, which allows her to use her computer for the whole day. In this era of weird weather, those who telecommute must be prepared.

Fortunately, the high winds that came with the nor’easter did not make it inland, but Facebook friends who live on the coast reported that the wind was gusting at 50 mph. Because of the heavy snow, along with the wind at the coast, there were widespread power outages from central Maine to the midcoast to southern Maine. By 1 p.m., half of Central Maine Power Company’s customers were without power—330,000 out of 675,000.

When it came time for lunch, we were all chilly and ready for canned soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, which Clif prepared on the camp stove.

Even though it was canned soup, it tasted pretty darned good as my Yankee husband would say. (A shameless self-promotion photo, I know, featuring a mug advertising my third book.)

Here are more pictures of this snowy April day.

Behold our driveway. It was beginning to look a lot like Christmas, don’t you think? We got about twelve inches of snow.

A closeup of the trees.

Now to the backyard.

My poor clothesline took a beating. Clif had already repaired it once, and the way he bolted it now prevents us from being able to fold it down for the winter. Clif feels confident he can repair it again. Fingers crossed.

With such widespread power outages, we were sure we were going to go for days without power, but we were one of the lucky ones. Our power came back on at 2:15 p.m. on Thursday, and it stayed on. Oh, were we happy.

Other folks have not been so lucky. Despite the crews working tirelessly since Thursday, there are still 9,000 customers without power this Monday morning on April 8. As the title states, this was one heck of a storm.

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Snow-Gauge Clif

All this snow provided Snow-Gauge Clif with opportunities to measure snow. (Was it only a few weeks ago when we foolishly wondered if we were done with snow?)

By Sunday, when the pictures were taken, the weather had become so warm that much of the snow had melted. Snow-Gauge Clif measured three inches of snow.

For readers who live in places where there is little or no snow, here is the giant curl of dirty snow plowed by our kind neighbor next door. When the town’s snowplow goes by, it leaves a wall o’snow at the end of the driveway, a formidable barricade when the snow is deep and heavy, the way it was after this nor’easter.

Now, let’s hope the weather gods are done playing tricks on us. Please, no more snow until next winter.

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Listening

Moon Shadow by Cat Stevens

In honor of the solar eclipse, whose path goes right over Maine today, here is a classic by Cat Stevens. I listened to “Moon Shadow” many, many times when I was a teenager. Somehow, the song seemed appropriate for today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Celebrate, Spring

When What to My Wondering Eyes Did Appear…

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But a beautiful flower in the front yard in my garden. So unexpected in April.

No, not really. April Fools’ Day! I have to wait until August for those beauties.

Here is an actual scene from my front yard, taken this morning of Clif with his trusty snow-gauge. He measured four inches of snow at its deepest.

And the weather gods aren’t quite done with their little pranks. On Thursday, snow is predicted, about nine inches, with gusty wind.

Something to look forward to.

Ah, well. At least Easter was a fine sunny day. We started in the morning with a Crustmas celebration, a wonderful idea we got from the podcast the Library of Lost Time. In short, Crustmas is a celebration of toast—one of my favorite things to eat–where you bring the toaster right to the table and toast a variety of breads and then slather them with a variety of spreads.

As the hosts of the Library of Lost Time noted, Crustmas is not just for Christmas. No, it isn’t. Crustmas is appropriate for any special celebration. It’s easy. It’s economical. Best of all, it’s delicious. For our Easter Crustmas celebration, we included scrambled eggs and veggie sausage.

In the afternoon, we went to the cinema to see Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.

Ghostbusters is a fun movie where the plot is not that important. A powerful vengeful spirit who can freeze everything solid wants to take over the world. You know, the usual. What was enjoyable was the interaction between the characters, the old and the young, as they tried to figure out their place and purpose. Dan Akroyd was particularly moving as he acknowledged his  passion for hunting ghosts and his sympathetic reaction to the struggles of teenage Phoebe, the granddaughter of Egon Spengler, one of the original Ghostbusters.

Speaking of Ghostbusters, here’s something to jazz up your Monday. I hope there’s nothing too strange in your neighborhood.

 

 

 

Celebrate, Television, Winter

The Return of Snow-Gauge Clif

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Well, it happened. The weather gods decided to play one of their little tricks on us, and on Saturday a storm blow into the state. Where we live in central Maine, we got mostly snow, about ten inches, and we kept our power the whole time. The coast was not as lucky. From New Hampshire to mid-coast Maine, they got freezing rain, enough of it to knock down trees and power lines.  At its worst, after the storm, 184,000 Central Maine Power (CMP) customers were without power, and today, Monday, 80,000 still don’t have it. (CMP has 675,000 customers.)

However, as the saying goes, it’s an ill wind that blows no good, and so it is in Winthrop. Ten inches of snow means the return of Snow-Gauge Clif.

How long will it take for this snow to melt? I’m guessing it won’t be long. Rain is in the forecast as are temps in the 50s. Will Snow-Gauge Clif return next week? Stay tuned!

During the storm, from the bathroom window, I snapped a picture of this pretty fellow, a cardinal. The cardinal is not as clear as I would like him to be, but nonetheless I thought the red against the snow was pretty.

Last Tuesday, March 19, was our forty-seventh wedding anniversary. Holy cats, Clif and I have been together for a long time. Because Tuesday was a work day for Clif (he does book design), Me (I write books), and our daughter Dee (she does web work),in the evening we had a simple celebration of nuts and drinks as well as veggie sausages and dairy-free ice cream. The goblets were given to us by a good friend on our first wedding anniversary, and we bring them out every year for a celebratory drink.

On Friday, before the storm, we took the afternoon off and had a fried day. Both Clif and I love fried food, and we are lucky enough to have a digestive system that easily handles this kind of food. (I know from previous comments that not all my blogging friends can eat fried food.)

However, this capacity for fried food has its downside. Without vigilance, we could eat way more fried food than we should.  However, I am happy to report that we do use restraint and only have fried food a few times a year.

Here was our line-up for Friday: fried onions (Clif), fried mushrooms (me, although I shared a few), and fries (both of us). And a whoopie pie to share for dessert.

The food was very, very tasty and served piping hot. So cheer to us! In another three years we will have been together for fifty years. Yikes, that’s a long time.

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Watching

The Gentlemen, television series, 2024
Created by Guy Ritchie
Available on Netflix

Along with having an enthusiasm for fried food, I am also keen on quirky crime dramas. The Gentlemen definitely qualifies as a quirky crime drama, and Guy Ritche’s fingerprints are all over it. Clif and I were so caught up with the story and the acting that we blew through four episodes on Saturday morning while it snowed outside.

Eddie (Theo James), an aristocrat, is called home to the family estate where his father is dying. After his father’s death, Eddie learns, much to his surprise, that he has inherited the estate. He is a second son, and always thought his elder brother Freddie would be the one to get the estate. Neither Freddie nor Eddie is pleased with this turn of events, but the will is clear. Eddie gets the estate.

Eddie also receives another surprise. For some years, his father has been renting out a barn to a weed enterprise run by the delightfully deadpan Susie Glass (Kaya Scodelario), who is about the same age as Eddie. Eddie wants the weed business to move; Susie does not.

To complicate matters, they both have brothers who have a knack for getting in trouble. Naturally, complications ensue as do murder and mayhem. James and Scodelario have a wonderful chemistry. Are they attracted to each other? Are they out to get each other? Or maybe both? This tension gives the show a nice energy.

The supporting cast is equally delightful, with each character, no matter how brief the performance, being distinct and memorable.

I’ve read that season two of The Gentlemen might be in the works.

Fingers crossed.

 

Snow-Gauge Clif, Spring

Has Spring Sprung?

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The front yard is dry enough for raking, and in my own slow, creaky-kneed way, I have almost finished with the front lawn clean-up. We had plenty of high wind this winter, which meant lots of sticks, acorns, and pine cones to pick up.

You might be wondering when this task had ever been accomplished by mid-March. The answer? Never.

Here is what mid-March—March 20—looked like last year. This might be stating the obvious, but there was no raking the front yard last year during mid-March. That task waited until mid-April.

Some readers might recall that we had a bad storm in December that knocked our power out for many days. Because it rained so much and the ground was super-saturated, a tree—roots and all—fell over.

Fortunately, it fell in the side woods away from our house, which means we don’t have to do anything about it. Nobody ever goes there, and it is barely on our property.

On a good note: The mud has dried up in record time. No more  footprints on the path in the backyard.

Will the weather gods play tricks on us and send snow our way? Possibly, but because all the winter snow has melted, whatever snow might come now will soon be gone.

This week promises to be busy one filled with good things. Clif and I will be celebrating our anniversary, I will be visiting a friend I haven’t seen since the pandemic, and with our books, we will be going to a spring craft fair on Saturday.

More about all this excitement next Monday.

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Listening

Continental Breakfast: Courtney Barnett + Kurt Vile

This is one of the sweetest music videos I have ever seen, and watching the two musicians—Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile—interact with family and friends and each other never fails to make me smile.

Watchin’ the waves come in at nightFrom my back porch stoop, porch swing swingin’ on its ownSee it’s just an inhabitant of some holy ghost
Books, Snow-Gauge Clif

Au Revoir, Snow-Gauge Clif

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The title of this post tells it all. Today, March 11, our yard is officially free of snow, and there is nothing for Snow-Gauge Clif to measure. In the past, we would hope to be snow free by our youngest daughter’s birthday on April 22. Some years we were. Other years, we weren’t.  This year, we are way ahead of April 22.

First, the front yard, with Snow-Gauge Clif,

and a broader view to chronicle our snow-free yard.

To the backyard.

Therefore, unless we get some snow in March—and we could—it is time to say au revoir to Snow-Gauge Clif who was only with us for two weeks this year. What the heck! Can this really be happening in Maine? A snow-free yard in mid-March? It seems that it is.

Onward to yard work, usually an April chore.

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Reading

Crewe Train by Rose Macaulay
Published in 1926

The story of a girl—who doesn’t like to read, doesn’t like art, doesn’t like theater, and is what we Franco-Americans would call lazy—is not a natural fit for me. And so it was with Denham Dobie, the protagonist in Crewe Train. My initial take on Denham was that she was a boring lump of a young woman, and I almost stopped reading the book after the first twenty pages.

But then something unexpected happened—Rose Macaulay’s writing and her sympathy for this unsociable, unambitious character won me over. By the end, I was as worried about Denham as I would be if she were a member of my own family. Well, all right. Maybe I’m overstating the case. Still, I brooded about Denham.

When the book opens, Denham is living in relative freedom with her father, also unsociable, in Andorra, a small country between Spain and France. When Denham’s father dies, Denham’s aunt—her mother’s sister—takes her back to England in the hopes of training her to be a proper young lady. But this is no Pygmalion story, and Denham is no Audrey Hepburn.

Initially, Denham does try to please her fashion-conscious aunt. She  falls in love with and marries a kind but conventional man named Arnold, who likes to mess about in boats and play games with Denham. But Arnold also likes London and books—he works as a publisher—and plays and dinner parties. He likes being around people, and Denham does not. For her small talk is a misery, and she would much rather be  rambling around outside.

Denham and Arnold are an odd, uneasy couple, and I wound up feeling sorry for both of them as they tried to accommodate each other’s opposing tastes.

I won’t reveal the ending except to note that the casual cruelty of Denham’s aunt sets in motion an unhappy chain of events. Crewe Train, while not a tragedy, is a sad book despite its flashes of humor.

One more thing to note: Crewe Train was published in 1926, and in my experience, writers of that time frequently included racist words and descriptions in their books. So it is with Crewe Train. Not the worst I’ve read—that honor goes to the otherwise delightful Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day—but not good all the same.

Nevertheless, Crewe Train is a book worth reading. Denham, for all her flaws, feels like a woman ahead her time, flailing as she tries to live on her own terms, unencumbered by possessions, free to wander the countryside, unconcerned with domestic duties.

All Denham wants is a simple life, not so easy for women of her class and generation in the 1920s.

 

Snow-Gauge Clif, Winter

Enter…Snow-Gauge Clif

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First, the good news. All around the world, blog readers have been waiting for Snow-Gauge Clif, and this week he is making his first appearance on the first Monday in March, the way he has for many years.

But—and I expect readers knew there would be a but—I’m not sure how many more weeks you will have of Snow-Gauge Clif. Normally, he goes into April, sometimes to the middle of the month. This year, unless there are some major snow storms, he’ll be lucky to make it to the middle of March.

Let’s begin with yesterday’s temperature. (This year’s photos were taken on Sunday, March 3.)

For Mainers, this is an eye-popping temperature in March. Heck, once upon a time, we were lucky to get this temp by the end of April.

Not surprisingly, the mud is in full swing. In the backyard, the footprint left by my Sloggers tells the story. Squish, squish. I’m itching to get back there and do some clean-up. Not until the mud dries up.

The ice on the patio is m-e-l-t-i-n-g.

Will the ice be gone by next weekend?  We shall see. At this rate, we’ll be having drinks on the patio by the beginning of April.

And, now, the man you’ve all been waiting for—Snow-Gauge Clif!

In the front yard in 2024, where there’s  a bit more snow than the backyard.

For a comparison, here’s last year’s picture taken on the first Sunday in March 2023.

Now to the backyard this year, 2024.

In the backyard last year, 2023.

In March 2022, on the first Sunday of March, front yard and back.

This is an El Niño year, which always brings a warmer winter. But. Not. This. Warm. I can’t recall a March with so little snow.

Stay tuned for next week.

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Reading

The Curse of Pietro Houdini
By Derek B. Miller
Originally published: January 16, 2024

I have read some very good books this year—An Owl on Every Post (Sanora Babb); Offshore (Penelope Fitzgerald); Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries (Heather Fawcett)—but if I read a better book than The Curse of Pietro Houdini by Derek B, Miller, I will be surprised. Beautifully written and meticulously researched, The Curse of Pietro Houdini follows the perilous journey of fourteen-year-old Massimo, orphaned during the American bombing of Rome in 1943.

Fleeing Rome, Massimo meets Pietro Houdini, who saves the teenager from a vicious beating from thugs. Onward the two go, first to Montecassino, a Benedictine Abbey, where Houdini presents himself as a “Master Artist and confidante of the Vatican.” After that it’s on to a little village. Along the way there is an art heist, gold theft, murder, and great sorrow. But there is also wisdom and humor, love and generosity, which Miller deftly balances with the horrors of World War II.

The characters in The Curse of Pietro Houdini—among them Massimo, Houdini, Brother Tobias, and even the mule Ferrari—are vivid and quirky but never cartoonish. The shifts in perspective among the characters are nothing short of brilliant, and, yes, I have a serious case of writer’s envy.

This is a book to buy for yourself and a book to buy for others.

 

 

Movies, Winter

Three months of March

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For most Mainers, March is the worst month of the year. After the long dark cold of December, January, and February, what we would like is a softening, some sign of spring. Instead, what we traditionally get is wet heavy snow, sometimes lots of it, followed by snowbanks packed with pebbles and dirt and then worst of all, at the end of the month, thick, dirty, oozing Mud. And, yes, I intended the capitalization. In March in Maine, Mud is a force of nature to be reckoned with. I have lost a shoe in the mud going out to the compost bin.

This winter, it feels as though we have had three months of March, with so little snow that some outside events in the area have been canceled. This February, we’ve had mud. The chickadees are singing their spring song, and friends have spotted red-wing black birds. Really? In February? So it seems.

Readers, fair warning: This does not look as though it’s going to be a good year for Snow-Gauge Clif. More about that next week.

Here is what our backyard looks like right now.

So many pine cones had dropped that I decided to go outside to gather them for kindling for our wood furnace down cellar.

How to cap this odd month? With a trip to Absolem to meet friends for drinks. My drink, which is featured below, was a delicious blueberry cider.

What will March bring? We shall see.

Watching

Drive-Away Dolls
Directed by Ethan Coen

Ethan Coen is one half of the talented Coen brothers team—the other brother is Joel—and together they have made and directed terrific movies such as Fargo, No Country for Old Men, and The Big Lebowski.

Recently, they have parted ways creatively. Joel Coen would go on to direct a striking version of Macbeth. Ethan has given us Drive-Away Dolls, a stinker of film that leads me to conclude that Joel was the talented brother of the team, and whatever Ethan might have contributed was guided and controlled by his older brother.

The plot is a classic Coen brothers set-up and should have been fun: Two young women, an odd couple, decide to go on a road trip and hook-up with a company that allows them to drive a car for free to Florida. In the trunk is a brief case hidden with the spare tire, and it turns out the women were given the wrong car. A bickering pair of gangsters come after the women, and what mostly ensues is explicit sex, lame jokes, and a stupid denouement, which all come together to make the movie seem far longer than its 1 hour and 24 minutes runtime. However, in all fairness, I must add that some people at the cinema were laughing away at jokes we thought were lame. Even though the jokes left us cold, they tickled the funny  bones of other folks.

I decided to write about this movie for two reasons: One, to warn fans of the Coen brothers what they are going to get if they decide to go to Drive-Away Dolls and are expecting a quirky, snappy movie reminiscent of the brothers’ past films. And two, if readers do decide to go see this movie, I would be very interested in reading what you think about it. Did you love it or hate it?

I enjoy reading opposing views as much as I enjoy reading views that match mine. So do let me know what you think of the movie if you see it and have a chance to leave a comment.

 

 

 

Food for Thought

A Haunting Tale

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To a large degree, we are all here because of chance. If my mother had married another man, there would be no me. The same is true for my brother. Another daughter or another son, perhaps, but not the two of us with our exact genetic inheritance.

However, for my friend Ed Vigneault, the story of his existence is even more weighted by chance, a tragic, improbable tale that started sometime around 1815 in the waters off the Magdalen Islands, a small archipelago in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. The archipelago is part of the province of Québec, and its French name is Îsles de-la-Madeleine. Population: 12,781.

According to Wikipedia, the territory once belonged to the Mi’kmaw Nation, and they named this cluster of islands Menquit, which means “battered by waves.” Later, it would be called Menagoesenog, or “battered by the surf. ” Both names give a vivid description of the rough waters that pound the Magdalen Islands, and through the years there have been over 400 shipwrecks. Some of the islanders are descendants of the survivors. And even though he isn’t an islander, this brings the story back to my friend Ed and the year 1815, long before Ed was born.

A ship from Europe, probably from the British Isles, was sailing to Canada. But before the ship reached port and was somewhere near the Magdalen Islands, a terrible storm blew in, a tempest. The ship was obviously in trouble, but the storm was so bad that none of the fisherman from the islands dared go out to rescue the passengers.

As the islanders feared, the shipped crashed against the rocks, throwing passengers into the ocean.  On a beach near Dune du Sud on the island Havre aux Maisons, bodies washed onto the sand. As the islanders searched for survivors, they found a heartbreaking sight: A  dead woman clutching a baby, who, incredible as it might seem, was alive. That baby was Ed’s great-great-grandmother, and a family—the Cummings—on Havre aux Maisons adopted her, naming the baby Sophie Peine. Because of her tragic beginning, Sophie was also known as “La Petite Misère,” which I’m sure needs no translation even for those who don’t speak French.

I first heard this story, told by Ed in broad outlines, at a gathering at a friend’s house, and I was immediately gripped by it. In my mind’s eye, I could see dead bodies—some face up, some face down—washed on a sandy beach. Waves break over them, pushing them farther up the beach and then rolling them back a little. With resignation, the islanders come to the beach, searching for survivors. Dead, dead, dead. Then they hear an infant cry and find baby Sophie in her dead mother’s arms. I think of the force of will it must have taken for that mother—Ed’s great-great-great grandmother—to hold on to that baby, to not let go as the ocean threw them toward the rocks and the sand. If the mother had loosened her grip just once, the baby would have been swept away to drown, and there would have been no Ed.

Knowing I was interested in hearing more, Ed and his wife Becky invited me over for tea one morning so he could fill in the details. He told me that when his niece and his sister started doing genealogy, she discovered the sad story of Sophie Peine. He spoke of how Sophie lived to be a woman and married a man named Bénoni Arseneau. They would have many children together, and eventually they moved to Natashquan, in the Province of Québec. The community is so remote that until 1996, it could only reached by either plane or boat. Ed’s great-grandmother would be born in  Natashquan, and it was in Natashquan, on dry land, that Sophie, La Petite Misère, died.

When he was done talking about his family, Ed brought out a small plastic container. Inside was sand, scooped from the beach on the island where Sophie and her mother washed up. On top of the sand was a little piece of driftwood.

Ed said, “I like to think this piece of wood came from the ship Sophie was on.”

I just nodded. Such a lovely thought that connects Ed to his great-great-grandmother, the improbable survivor of a storm that took so many lives, including the life her own mother.

 

 

 

Books, Celebrate

A Year of Books

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Last weekend we celebrated my son-in-law Mike’s birthday. Because they live in Massachusetts, Mike, our daughter Shannon, and the dogs came to Maine on Saturday to spend the night.

The day was astonishingly warm for early February in Maine.  When it comes to the weather nowadays, my thoughts always turn to my parents, who never would have imagined it could be so warm in midwinter. Such big changes.

Mike chose to go to Absolem Cider Company to celebrate his birthday. It is one of his favorite places in central Maine. It is one of mine, too.

Here we are, on the way to the barn at sunset. Note how shiny with mud the path is. It felt more like March than February.

However, inside all was cozy and dry. Soon we had our drinks, and it was cheers to the birthday boy.

Here is a picture of Mike and our daughter Shannon.

After our drinks, we went back home for presents, and this year, Clif and I had come up with something special for Mike—twelve books, one to be opened at the beginning of each month throughout the year.

I got the idea from my friend Doree, who had done this for her sister for Christmas and had written about it on Facebook. Immediately, I was smitten by the idea, and my thoughts turned to Mike and his birthday in February. Mike is an avid reader, and I knew he would be thrilled to get a book a month. Also, and this is sheer coincidence, of everyone in the family, Mike’s taste in books is most similar to mine, which made picking out books for him very easy.

Last Thursday, Clif and I wrapped and labeled the books. As we did so, I thought about how giving these gifts was a joy from beginning to end—choosing the books, deciding which books should go for which month, wrapping the books, and then seeing them laid out on our dining room table, small packages of delight waiting to be opened.

A closer look at February’s book.

And what was February’s book? Here is  New York, by the late great writer E.B. White, whom I mentioned in last week’s post.

It was so much fun to watch Mike inspect his books.

“This is amazing,” he said more than once.

Happy birthday, Mike, and happy reading!