All posts by Laurie Graves

I write about nature, food, the environment, home, family, community, and people.
Snow-Gauge Clif, Winter

Enter…Snow-Gauge Clif

73 Comments

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.

************************************************************************

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

75 Comments

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

67 Comments

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

78 Comments

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!

 

 

 

Winter

Once More to the Lake

75 Comments

One summer, along about 1904, my father rented a camp on a lake in Maine and took us all there for the month of August. We all got ringworm from some kittens and had to rub Pond’s Extract on our arms and legs night and morning, and my father rolled over in a canoe with all his clothes on; but outside of that the vacation was a success and from then on none of us ever thought there was any place in the world like that lake in Maine.
—From “Once More to the Lake” by E.B. White

E.B. White (July 11, 1899 – October 1, 1985) is perhaps most famous for his beautiful children’s books—Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little, and The Trumpet of the Swan. But he was also a brilliant essayist, writing for magazines such as The New Yorker and Harper’s Magazine. If you have never read any of his elegant essays, I encourage you to do so. One Man’s Meat is an excellent place to start.

“Once More to the Lake,” one of the pieces in One Man’s Meat, is an elegiac essay about returning to a favorite lake White and his family visited in his childhood in Belgrade, Maine, not far from where I live. White went in the summer, which is when most folks from away come to Maine lakes. Years later, White returned to the lake with his young son, and the essay is a reflection of how things both change and remain the same, how his son’s experience was a mirror of White’s own boyhood experience.

Yesterday, I had a once-more-to-the-lake moment. I live in a town in Maine with so many lakes and ponds that at times it feels as though Winthrop is an island. According to centralmaine.com, there are more than three dozen lakes and ponds in Winthrop, and some of those ponds are big enough to be considered lakes.

My lake of choice was Marancook, which sprawls between two towns, Winthrop and Readfield. Instead of going in the summer, I went on a fine February day, where the sky was a deep, impossible blue. Although I don’t like to walk on the ice anymore—my knees are too creaky for that—I still enjoy parking my car by the lake and admiring the cold view.

Clif took these pictures, and this last one caught his shadow.

However, here my story diverges from White’s essay about how the years dissolve change from one generation to the other. Although there is some ice on Marancook and a few ice fishing shacks, there is also a lot of open water. Usually, by February, the lake is pretty much frozen solid, and there are so many shacks on the lake that it looks like a colorful village has suddenly sprung up. On a fine day, when sound carries, you can here people talking and calling to each other.

Not so this winter, which has been warmer than average, when storms in December have brought rain and flood rather than blizzards. How much longer, I wonder, will people be able to go on the ice to set up their shacks?

I don’t know. And yesterday, while I still admired the lovely view, I had a shiver of apprehension, of change coming so rapidly that even a generation ago, when my parents were young, it would have been inconceivable to have open water on a Maine lake in February.

 

 

 

Food, Winter

Ice, Snow, and Poetry

70 Comments

Last week, the weather was uncertain. First, we had freezing rain, and early Tuesday morning, I woke up to the roar of the town’s sanding-plow truck as it rushed past our house. Believe it or not, this sound is comforting to me. I am so grateful to the drivers of these huge trucks, which go out in the worst weather at all times of day. Our town takes good care of our roads, which in turn makes life safer for its citizens. In the winter, we have a lot of bad weather in Maine, but people must still go to work, to appointments, and do assorted errands. Having driveable roads is a must.

I’m not a fan of freezing rain, but its aftermath is pretty.

The icicles on the bird feeder,

and the icicles on the hedge.

Even the glazing on the salt and sand buckets,

as well as the glazing on the car.

Later in the week,  it snowed.

Snowy branches, snowy roof.

To clean the driveway, Clif had to use our trusty electric snow-thrower, Snow Joe.

Finally, on a cold January Sunday, there was poetry at the Wayne General Store in Wayne, Maine. Yup, Wayne, Maine. Population: 1,129.

The general store is a sweet place with mismatched tables and chairs, which gives it a very cozy atmosphere.

There is a bakery in the store, with delicious bread and pastries.

The event was host by David Moreau, a fine poet whom I’ve know for many years.

My friend Claire Hersom was one of the featured poets.

Also Lori Douglas Clark with David Moreau listening appreciatively.

How lovely it was to sit in this snug store, sip tea, have brunch, and listen to poetry. A finest kind of day as we would say in Maine.

Claire has very kindly allowed me to use one of her winter poems in my blog. Many thanks, Claire.

Thank You

– by Claire Hersom

 

Thank you

for the winter wind,

and the lake,

its water like a stone

 

and for this quiet time

to build words again,

tucked into the foothills

hard as iron like flowers

waiting for spring

 

and for change, its core –

a small violence,

inching soft, inner bodies

out of hard shells,

our frozen winter grief

out, where it can vanish

and blow away

as if air and sun were its wings

and it, a necessary and expected

flight

 

Previously published in The Anglican Theological Review

(italicized phrases from the hymn In the Bleak Midwinter, lyrics

by Christina Rossetti.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Winter

Mid-January: Brisk Weather and Storm Report

56 Comments

Winter,  it seems, has finally come to Maine. For now the rain is a thing of the past—may it stay that way until the end of March or the beginning of April—and cold weather has set in. We’ve also had some snow, very welcome not only for its beauty but also for its ability to insulate the plants from the extreme cold.

Here are some views from my windows.

First, the temperature a couple of days ago. Brisk, as Mainers would put it in their understated way.

With temps that cold we often get frost on some of our older windows.

And our backyard looks very wintry. Birds, in great numbers, are visiting the feeders. If you look closely, you can see a few juncos on the snow. The other day, Clif and Dee thought they might have seen a red-headed woodpecker, very rare for central Maine. I have never seen one and will be on the lookout.

Some people dread January and February, but I don’t. I find it cozy and restful, a time for popcorn and tea at 4 p.m. A time to watch movies and television series in the evening. I don’t mind the dark, and I don’t mind the cold. I suppose if I did, I wouldn’t live in Maine.

*******************************************************************

Recovery is slow from the storms we had in December, which knocked out power to 750,000 customers and flooded rivers in inland Maine, and in January, which didn’t knock out so much power but caused terrible destruction along the coast. Some business owners are finding that their insurance doesn’t cover flooding and are at a loss as to what to do. I am hoping that communities and grants will help these businesses recover from the damage.

In Maine, as in many other places, communities were built up along the coast and inland rivers, which were used as watery highways before the industrial revolution and the internal combustion engine. In central Maine, where I live, our state capital is along the Kennebec River, which I have often featured on this blog. The picture below was taken last summer, when the river was quiet.

The same is true for other small cities, including Gardiner, Waterville (where I was born), and Skowhegan, which are all along the Kennebec. Through the years, the Kennebec has occasionally flooded, but never in December and seldom as bad. Usually, the water laps the parking lots but doesn’t destroy buildings.

This time was different, but it is likely that such storms will become more common in the years to come. So, here is the question: How close to rivers should communities be? How close to the ocean shoreline? I don’t have an answer, but it seems like it would be quite a job to relocate main streets that are close to rivers. I can’t even picture where they would go, but perhaps this is a failure of imagination on my part.

In the face of such challenges, it is easy to feel hopeless about climate change and the destruction it will wreak. Just in the nick of times comes this episode of Notes from America with Kai Wright: Doom. Denial. ‘Hopium.’ What About Climate Action? In this episode, Kai Wright interviews people who have made a difference in their communities and are working to stop things from getting worse. So inspiring and well worth the listen.

On a similar note, one of my blogging friends, Caroline of Susanne’s Mom’s Blog, shares inspiring articles from around the world about people who are making a difference. The focus isn’t always on climate change—although sometimes it is—but the pieces always illustrate the power of creativity and how people can band together to do good things. When they want to.

The time has come when we should all want to.

Animals - especially dogs, Celebrate, Food, Winter

Second Christmas

82 Comments

Because our daughter Shannon and our son-in-law Mike spent Christmas in North Carolina with his folks, we decided to have a belated celebration the first weekend in January. Unfortunately, the weather gods had other plans for us, and a storm kept Shannon and Mike home that weekend. The next weekend, then, we decided.

However, those weather gods were plotting yet again to send a storm our way, but this time we outsmarted them. Shannon and Mike came the day before the storm and left the day afterward. I am happy to report that we celebrated the holiday in our usual simple, cozy way, and it really did feel like Christmas.

It was lovely to see the girls again.

And the storm that came to central Maine on Saturday made it feel all the more like Christmas.

On Saturday morning, there were presents and pumpkin bread. In the afternoon, appetizers and a new game—Betrayal at House on the Hill. In the evening, homemade cheddar cheese soup.

Dessert, unfortunately, didn’t turn out that way it should have. I pressed chocolate chip cookie dough in a skillet to be baked and brought warm to the table and served with vanilla ice cream. But even though the skillet cookie was nicely browned on top, the middle was gooey to the point of being raw. We thought that perhaps I should have used only half the batter. Readers, any suggestions? I’m willing to give it another try.

*****************************************************************

While the storm on Saturday wasn’t bad for central Maine—snow mixed with a little rain—it was devastating for our coast, which hadn’t recovered from the previous storm. More flooding, more property damage, more roads destroyed. It’s heartbreaking to see the damage. Even though I live inland, I love the coast, and as a Mainer, I feel connected to it. I have been to many of the places that were ravaged by the storm, driven on  roads now destroyed.

Governor Mills declared a civil state of emergency for all eight coastal counties. And rightly so. Those communities will need a lot of aid to recover from the storms.

All in all, in the past few weeks, Mainers have received quite the punch from storms causing damage that would have been inconceivable when I was young. Yes, we had a lot of snow, and the snowbanks really were taller than I was when I was a child. We plowed, we shoveled, and went about our business. As far as I can recall, there wasn’t much damage, and we hardly ever lost our power.

But these wind storms in the winter are something new, and because of the rising sea, the damage is made worse along the coast.

The effects of climate change are with us now, and we have to deal with increasingly destructive storms.

I can only hope that we have the personal and political will to stop the climate crisis from getting worse.

Here is a clip that shows one small part of the storm’s destruction. All along the coast, the story is the same.

 

Birds, Winter

After the Storm

78 Comments

In central Maine, we came through Tuesday’s storm just fine and were spared the worst. We didn’t lose our power, for which we were very grateful.

I did make some oatmeal squares ahead of time, just in case we needed to console ourselves in the flickering light of an oil lamp.

As it turned out, we consoled ourselves in the nonflickering light of electric lamps.

But we did get some snow, and then some rain, which made a slushy mess Clif had to clean with his scoop. It was too wet and heavy for our electric snow thrower.

The birds, who had sheltered in the woods behind our house during the storm, were out in full force on Wednesday morning. It’s hungry work staying warm during such bad weather. Most, if not all, are finches.

The Maine coast, however, wasn’t as lucky as inland. There were massive surges and flooding where roads and even some homes and businesses were destroyed. Here is a clip from News Center Maine that shows some of the damage from Tuesday’s storm.

It’s been one heck of a winter, and it’s just barely started.

 

 

Birds, News, Winter

Oh, for Pete’s Sake

68 Comments

As I mentioned in my previous  piece, I had planned to start posting on Wednesdays rather than Mondays in 2024. But guess what? Another nasty storm is forecasted to blow into Maine on Tuesday night and into Wednesday.  Along with a storm watch that will bring wet, heavy snow, we have received a flood warning and a high wind watch, with expected power outages. To borrow from the excellent crime show Fargo: Oh, for Pete’s sake. (Fargo is set in Minnesota and North Dakota.)

So instead of posting on Wednesday, I am posting today.

Tomorrow, I’ll be making a big batch of black bean soup, which we can heat up on the camp stove should the power go out. Also, because treats are important during a power outage, I’ll be baking oatmeal bars with chocolate chips.

What makes this storm so particularly galling is that on Sunday, we had the most perfect snow storm with six to eight inches of light fluffy snow. Clif and our daughter Dee were able to easily take care of the cleanup, and it was a pleasure to watch the falling snow while chickpea soup bubbled in the slow cooker.

Here is a picture from my dining room window taken during the storm. If you look carefully at the feeder, you might notice the falling snow along with a little bird feeding. I think the bird is a gold finch.

Here is another picture taken  from my dining room window this morning after the storm.

I must admit to feeling a little discouraged at the thought of having another power outage and all the work it entails.

But on a more cheerful note, I have received gifts from some of my lovely blogging friends.

Oranges and lemons from Betsy and picked in her own backyard.

Sweet Santas, again from Betsy, and a pretty quilting square from Judy of New England Garden and Thread.

Finally, a beautiful bookmark from Lavinia of Salmon Brook Farms.

With such thoughtful blogging friends, it’s impossible to stay down in the dumps for too long.

I’ll keep you posted about the storm.