It’s that busy, busy time of year when the days just gallop by. (I am always grateful for the quiet of winter.) Between selling books—yay!—working on my next book, gatherings with friends, and yard work, my days are pretty full.
Time to take a little blogging break. I plan on returning on May 5.
Happy spring to those of you who live in the northern hemisphere. Happy autumn to those of you who live in the southern hemisphere. And happy Earth Day to all.
See you in May!
Spring has finally arrived in Maine.
Last Wednesday, we had small patches of snow in the backyard.
But the next day, on Thursday, April 12, the snow was completely gone. In the little pond down the road, the frogs were clicking and clacking, but so far, no peepers.
On Friday, the temperature jacked up to 80°F, and heat records were broken statewide. Too hot for April in Maine, that’s for sure. Fortunately, by Saturday the temperature had dropped to something approaching normal for this time of year.
The table is now on the patio, and we had lunch out there several days in a row. If you look closely, you can see bright green coming up in the garden.
The chipmunks are out of hibernation, and they have decided that our compost bin is their neighborhood grocery store. Note how they have chewed the side vents to make bigger holes for easy in, easy out.
Overnight, it seems, the goldfinches went from drab feathers to bright yellow. (Dawn, from the blog Change Is Hard, has noted this, too.) Because of the sun, the goldfinch’s colors are washed out in the picture below, but the bird on the left gives some idea as to the yellowness of the feathers. I’ll try to get a better picture in the upcoming days.
Now the busy season has begun: raking, removal of leaves from the various beds, adding compost, moving plants. To borrow from a comment on a blog I read recently—alas, I can’t remember which one—it now takes me a week to accomplish what I once could accomplish in day. Ah, well. What I lack in speed, I make up with persistence. Despite my dratted creaky knees, I am outside most nice days.
Minerva, the guardian of the front yard, is waiting patiently for me to come around. By now, she knows that I always start in the backyard and work my way to the front.
“Soon, soon,” I promise her.
Wisely, Minerva makes no remark.
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Books: In Which I Toot My Own Horn
Normally, in this section, I feature books that are not my own. But this week I can’t resist sharing a blog post written by my blogging friend Alys of Gardening Nirvana. The title of the piece is A Meeting of Libraries, Real and Imagined, and it features copies of my book Of Time and Magic as they make their way to various Little Free Libraries near where Alys lives all the way across the country. (Two of the Little Free Libraries are in her very own front yard.)
Holy cats, I was pleased! And those Little Free Libraries are utterly adorable. If you have a chance, click on the link in the above paragraph and take a look not only at my book but also at the sweet little libraries whose mission it is to put books in the hands of book lovers.
Many, many thanks Alys.
Snow-Gauge Clif
Spring is tiptoeing into central Maine. I won’t say that we are bursting with blooms yet. We will have to wait another few weeks for that in this area. But the snow is nearly gone from our yard by the edge of the woods, and this will be Snow-Gauge Clif’s last week to measure the melting snow in 2023.
It’s always astonishes me how quickly the snow goes away. About a month ago, on March 6, this is what the front yard looked like.
This is what it looks like now.
Last month.
Yesterday.
Here is the backyard last month.
And here it is yesterday.
Snow-Gauge Clif, we’ll see you in 2024!
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In Memorium: Jason Kay
A week ago, the blogging community lost a beautiful spirit—Jason Kay of Garden in the City. For the past few years, Jason had been sick with pancreatic cancer. Chemo kept the cancer at bay for a while, but at the beginning of 2023, it became clear that the chemo was no longer working, and Jason decided to stop treatment.
Jason’s family has written a lovely memorial piece about him. By clicking on the link in the paragraph above, you can read about Jason, about his love of gardens and his dedication to social justice, to making our country a better place for all people.
I had the great good fortune of meeting Jason and his wife, Judy. In October 2021, they came to Maine for a visit and to our home on the edge of the woods for a socially-distanced lunch on the patio. Alas, my gardens are not at their best in October. But never mind! It was a beautiful, warm sunny day, and we had a delightful time talking and getting to know each other. Clif, of course, made his legendary grilled bread.
Here is a picture of Judy and Jason in our backyard.
Judy and her family plan to update Jason’s wonderful blog: “[W]e hope you’ll stay as we continue to post occasional updates and photos of the garden and our family. As mentioned in an earlier post, we have hired a wonderful garden service, Vivant Gardens, to help maintain the garden.”
If you haven’t visited Garden in a City, please consider doing so. I have learned a lot about gardening from Jason, and I have marvelled at his gardens throughout the seasons and the years.
Farewell, Jason. Many thanks for all that you’ve done. You will be greatly missed.
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The memoriam to Jason seems like the right way to end this post. Next week I’ll return with reading, watching, and listening recommendations.
This week’s post is a day early in order to take note of a very important day—National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day, which is celebrated in the United States every year on April 2. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are one of my favorites, and I eat them regularly, enjoying the contrast between the salty peanut butter and the sweet jelly.
Naturally, not everyone in the United States loves PB&J, as we call it. My eldest daughter doesn’t like them, and I often wonder why the heck she doesn’t. But in the U.S. so many people like PB&J that the powers that be decided this delicious sandwich needed its own special day. It’s nice to know that sometimes justice is served.
One of my blogging friends, Platypus Man of Now I’m 64, has indicated that PB&J is not universally loved in the U.K. and that he has a horror of them. Well, each to his or her own.
In honor of PB&J Day, I am sharing with readers pictures of my delicious lunch this afternoon. For those who are celebrating this special day, bon appétit!
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Now on to a more serious matter—Snow-Gauge Clif.
In Maine, the last week of March was quite the week of melting snow. To show the contrast, I will post both last week’s Snow-Gauge Clif’s pictures alongside of this week’s.
Here is last week’s picture, taken on Monday, March 27:
Here is this week’s picture.
Here are pictures from the walkway.
Last week,
and this week.
Now on to the backyard.
Last week.
This week.
Let’s just say that when the snow decides to melt in Maine, it goes.
By gum, it’s almost staring to feel like spring, and I even took the Christmas wreath down.
I think this alone merits a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Don’t you?
Farther Afield
Last weekend we again headed south of the border to Massachusetts to visit our youngest daughter, Shannon and her husband, Mike. We also went there to pick up our eldest daughter, Dee, who had spent the past month in New York where she tended to business concerning her apartment. Now she is back with us for a while.
As we ate Chinese food and discussed books, movies, and television shows, I reflected on how lucky it is that we enjoy talking to each other so much. But bad weather was blowing up the coast, and we reluctantly left early before the worst of it came.
On the way home, I also reflected on how lucky I am to have access to podcasts and other other places on the Internet where I can discover new books, music, television shows, and movies. I live in a rural community in a rural state, and while I love all the nature that’s around me, I also love art and culture. The Internet allows me to learn and explore and to listen to new ideas that wouldn’t ordinarily be available to someone who lives in the hinterlands.
I realize that the Internet is not a source of unalloyed good. Plenty of trolls and bad actors make use of the Internet to spread their hate and lies. But there is also much good that can come from being connected to other folks and organizations. Because of the Internet, I have blogging friends around the world, and for this I am ever so grateful.
I hope we can find a way to minimize the harm of the Internet while keeping the many things that are good about it.
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Snow-Gauge Clif
Here we are at the end of March. In Maine this is an in-between kind of time, not exactly winter but not quite spring. In our yard at the edge of the forest, there is still plenty of snow, but there’s also a fair amount of bare ground. At least in the sunnier backyard.
It’s still too muddy to start with spring clean-up, but in a week or two I’ll be able to work in the backyard without fear of losing my shoes.
Here is Snow-Gauge Clif in the backyard.
Now around to the snowier front yard.
Just for fun, here’s a photo of this year’s Christmas wreath, which is definitely past its best.
In late March or early April, depending on the depth of the snow, I always take the holiday wreath apart and throw the greenery into the woods. I think the snow has melted enough to allow me to do this fairly soon.
It’s time, don’t you think?
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Listening
I came across Jorge Glem and Sam Reider on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts. As soon as I heard them I said to myself, “What can be more fun than an accordion and a tiny guitar (a cuatro)? As turns out, not much. But the music can also be soulful. One thing is certain, this is definitely a unique pairing.
Our Anniversary
Last Saturday counted as an action-packed day for two homebodies who can be found most days at their house on the edge of the woods. It was our forty-sixth wedding anniversary, and as is our wont, we planned a day of simple pleasures that revolved around food.
First, breakfast. I made a batch of vegan chocolate muffins from my own recipe, one that I have come to be inordinately proud of. With them, we had veggie sausages. A good start to the day.
For lunch we headed to Augusta to the Red Barn, which specializes in fried food. Both Clif and I are crazy about fried food, but for obvious health reasons, we seldom have it. But for our anniversary we figured, what the heck, and we threw caution to the wind. We brought our own dairy-free ranch dressing for reasons I’ll explain later. The food—piping hot mixed veggies—were oh so good.
Then it was off to our local supermarket to pick up nondairy cream cheese for a taste test comparison. Clif is lactose intolerant and not just a little bit. Because of this, we are always on the lookout for nondairy alternatives to food we love. Time was when supermarkets in central Maine did not offer much in the way of dairy-free products, but that is changing. On Saturday we found two cream cheese alternatives to go with crackers and drinks in late afternoon.
I am sorry to report that neither of the cream cheeses came through with flying colors. Vevan, the one on the left, had a muddy taste where the flavors were jumbled but nothing stood out, and the Kitehill, while marginally better, had a strange undertaste. Readers, if any of you have nondairy cream cheese recommendations, I’d love to hear about them.
Fortunately, we had better results with dessert. We’ve had this before, so we knew what were getting. The “So Delicious” on the carton is no exaggeration. This frozen dessert is one of the most delicious I have ever tasted, and that includes dairy ice cream. It is smooth, rich, creamy, and filled with chunks of cashews and chocolate. Who could ask for anything more? Its one drawback is the price—$5 for a quart. But since it was our anniversary, we figured we could splurge. Besides, $2.50 apiece for a dessert for a special day isn’t so very bad, and it was worth every penny.
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Snow-Gauge Clif
Today is the vernal equinox, and even in central Maine, we are seeing signs that spring just might be coming. I’ve heard the spring songs of cardinals and chickadees.
However, in our shady yard, the snow is still pretty high.
Here is Clif in the front yard.
And here he is in the backyard.
Still a ways to go before we are snow free.
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Listening
While my favorite genres of music are Alternative Rock and Folk Rock, I am also very keen on Baroque Music. I know, I know. Quite a spread there. When I work on my fiction, I always listen to Baroque music, and I’m particularly fond of Vivaldi.
So on this vernal equinox, here is a farewell to winter from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons: Winter. In Maine, we still might have a snowstorm or two, but we are definitely heading toward spring.
A nasty storm blew across the country, and by the time it hit Maine, the storm had become a nor’easter. Fortunately, central Maine was spared much of the snow and wind damage. Not so for southern and coastal Maine, where the wind blew hard and knocked out power for tens of thousands of folks.
We only got about four inches of snow, and although the lights blacked out once, they came back on, and we didn’t lose our power. Because it is March, the snow was wet and heavy but not hard to clean as there wasn’t that much of it.
Here are some scenes from what we hope will be the last big storm of winter. However, with the way this year has gone, who the heck knows?
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Today I came upon Mama’s Broke on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert, and I couldn’t resist sharing this with you. How good Lisa Maria Bates and Amy Lou Keeler are! They combine traditional music with innovative techniques, such as using chopsticks to play the fiddle. Enjoy.
Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.
—Joni Mitchell
The past two weeks have been hard ones. First we lost our beloved cat, dear little Ms. Watson. Then, our septic system decided to stop working—toilets wouldn’t flush, and showers wouldn’t drain. As I’m sure readers can imagine, this was no fun at all.
Being Mainers, we tried to fix the problem ourselves. Clif used his trusty plumbing snake to see if he could find a clog. He couldn’t, and we set up a camping toilet in the big bathroom. We used a dishpan for washing up, dumping the water into a bucket and then emptying the soapy water outside. (In the summer, when we haven’t had rain for a while, I sometimes use the gray water on my perennials.) So we had a system, albeit a primitive one.
Eventually, Clif gave up and decided to call the plumbers. I am happy to report that they came came swiftly as did the folks who pumped our septic tank. Finally, after the second time the plumbers came, they found the problem, and with their much larger plumbing snake, they were able to dislodge a big clog that Clif had mistakenly thought was the edge of our septic system.
I thanked the plumbers profusely as they packed up their truck to go off to help someone else with a problem. Smiling, they indicated it was all in a day’s work. For them, I suppose it was. For us, it was something akin to salvation.
Now, the toilets flush, the shower drains, and life is back to normal. The quotation at the beginning of this piece sums up how Clif and I felt about the situation.
Joni got it exactly right.
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Plumbing problems or not, Clif was out with his trusty snow gauge to measure the snow.
Here he is in the front yard by the driveway and then on the walkway leading to the front door.
Over the past week, the weather has been warm and sunny, and the snow has actually gone down a bit. Here are last week’s pictures for comparison.
And here is Clif in the backyard.
Again, last week.
The path to the compost bin was actually muddy this week, and I had to step carefully so as not to lose my Sloggers. In Maine, this counts as progress, but up the East Coast, a nor’easter is blowing, and tomorrow’s forecast is for another foot of snow.
Dang! Snow-gauge Clif and I are ready for the snow to melt, not to accumulate.
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READING
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
Note: There are moderate spoilers in this review.
With its spare, beautiful writing, this gem of a short novel—set in the 1980s—is nearly perfect. In the Irish town of New Ross, Christmas is coming. Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant, works long hours to ensure his customers have enough fuel to stay warm over the holidays. At home, his wife Eileen and their five daughters bustle to get ready for Christmas. In her own way, Eileen is as busy as Bill is. I’m guessing many women will identify with Eileen and the hard work of getting ready for Christmas. I know I did.
While making deliveries, Bill reflects on his life as an illegitimate child raised by a single mother who worked as a domestic servant for “Mrs. Wilson the Protestant widow who lived in the big house a few miles outside town.” Mrs. Wilson, frugal but kindhearted, provided Bill and his mother with a warm, stable home and even helped Bill as an adult. Fortunately, in New Ross, there is little antagonism between Catholics and Protestants.
There is, however, a convent in New Ross where on one side is a school and the other side a home for unwed mothers. The convent, in many ways, is important to the economy of the town and especially to Bill, whose daughters go to school there.
In a tense, heartbreaking way, Bill’s reflections of his childhood converge with bringing coal to the convent and what he discovers. Then Bill must must make a decision that will reverberate with his family for years to come.
I’ll certainly be reading more of Claire Keegan and have ordered Foster through interlibrary loan.
During the past week, we had three snowstorms, and the last one, on Saturday, was a corkah as we Mainers would say. Clif measured thirteen inches with his snow gauge, and the snow was wet, heavy, and hard to move. Our electric snow-thrower, Snow-Joe, just barely managed, and I did a fair amount of shoveling. Nature’s gym, as I like to call it.
Here is a picture or our car before we cleaned the driveway. Only a sliver of red shows through the snow.
More red in the snow as Mr. Cardinal comes to the feeder.
Now, on to Snow-Gauge Clif, who stood in a different place so that readers could see the tunnel that is our path to the front door.
Here he is in his usual place in the driveway.
And in the backyard.
It’s funny to think how in January there was so little snow that we were worried Snow-Gauge Clif would be out of a job this year. But Mother Nature said, “Not so fast,” and we now have snow aplenty. Good for the water table and the plants, but I think we have enough snow. I hope Mother Nature agrees.
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I want to thank everyone for the notes of sympathy I received in the comment section of my post about little Ms. Watson. I really do appreciate it as did the rest of the family. A lovely example of how kind words of support really do matter.
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READING
Our Spoons Came from Woolworths by Barbara Comyns
Note: There are moderate spoilers in this review.
Recently I have begun following a wonderful blog called JacquiWine’s Journal, which is mostly about books and a little about wine. For a book nerd like me, this blog is sheer delight. Jacqui especially likes novels from the mid-twentieth century, and so do I, particularly if the writers were women. These novel chart the ways women’s lives have changed over the twentieth century, and much of it is for the better. In one book I read, Elizabeth Jane Howard’s The Beautiful Visit—set in the early 1900s—a young girl’s parents forbid her from becoming a librarian because it doesn’t seem genteel enough to them.
Jacqui has introduced me to many good writers, and one of them is Barbara Comyns. Our Spoons came from Woolworths is a harrowing novel of living in poverty in the 1930s in England. The novel has autobiographical elements, and it follows the marriage of Charles and Sophia. Charles is a painter, and, among other things, Sophia works as a painting model.
A more hapless couple you will never meet. Charles thinks only of his painting and cares about little else. Sophia is innocent in most every way, including on how babies are conceived. As a result, Charles and Sophia live in terrible poverty, just barely scraping by. Not surprisingly, Sophia becomes pregnant, and there’s a harrowing scene of labor and delivery in a hospital where poor women go to have their babies. The woman are marched, literally, through the system and are left in their bloody shifts for far too long. In short, there is little tenderness, and the care is minimal.
Sophia’s fortunes improve because of an inheritance, but once that is gone, life becomes even worse.
Our Spoons Came from Woolworths is a gripping read. Sophia’s voice is plain, steady, compelling. Through it all my sympathies were with her, despite her poor judgement. For her selfish husband, Charles? Zero.
The end is a bit like a fairy tale, but I have to admit it comes as a relief.
Yesterday was a sad day for us. Our cat, little Ms. Watson, had been doing poorly, and when we took her to the vets, the diagnosis was liver cancer. As Ms. Watson had lost one pound in three weeks—a lot for a cat who only weighs twelve pounds—and had stopped eating, we decided to have her put down. Clif and I decided there was no sense in prolonging her misery, and our vet agreed.
Still, how hard it is to watch a beloved pet die, and I made use of the tissues in our vet’s office. We stayed to the very end, patting Ms. Watson’s head and talking to her. She was fourteen years old and had lived a long life, but we were hoping to have her for a few more years. We always want more, don’t we?
Ms. Watson was one of the sweetest cats we have ever had, but she came to us as an afterthought. Fourteen years ago, I went to the local humane shelter to pick up an orange kitten I had seen listed on their website. (I have a special fondness for orange cats.) In the cage with the orange kitten was his litter mate, a little black and white female.
The man working at the desk said, “I’ll give you two for the price of one.”
“Okay,” I said, figuring the kittens would keep each other company, and home I came with the orange kitten—Sherlock—and his black and white sister—Ms. Watson.
As it turned it out, Sherlock was a real handful. On a good day, you might call him “a character.” On a bad day, well never mind that. Let’s just say Sherlock was an alpha cat supreme, and he never let Ms. Watson forget who was in charge. Bullying would not be too strong a word to describe how he treated her.
Ms. Watson, on the other hand, was a sweetheart from beginning to end. Two years ago, when Sherlock was partly paralyzed and lying on the kitchen floor, Ms. Watson slowly approached him and gave him one, two, three soft licks on the head. (A little later, I took Sherlock to the vets to be put down, and, yes, I cried for him, too.) I think Ms. Watson understood how sick Sherlock was and was showing her sympathy.
Not surprisingly, Ms. Watson loved being an only cat. She became queen of the house and could roam freely without fear of being bullied by Sherlock. At night, when I watched T.V., my lap was her favorite place. She became very talkative, meowing her greetings or her displeasure, depending on the situation. In the morning, when I turned on our gas heater, she came running to sit by it and absorb the warmth.
However, the happiest day of Ms. Watson’s life was when our daughter Dee came to stay with us in the summer of 2021. Dee is a cat lover, and Ms. Watson, usually very shy, decided that Dee was her special person. Each morning, before Dee got up, Ms. Watson would be waiting by the door, and as soon as Dee opened it, Ms. Watson meowed her greeting. She often stayed in Dee’s room during the day, keeping Dee company while she worked remotely. It was a mutual admiration society, and Dee loved Ms. Watson as much as Ms. Watson loved Dee.
Ms. Watson’s passing is the end of an era for us. For the first time since we moved into this house—nearly forty years ago—we do not have any pets. For various reasons, we don’t plan on getting another cat, and this makes Ms. Watson’s passing all the more poignant.
Farewell, Ms. Watson. How we miss you. You will be in our hearts forever.
Notes From the Hinterland 