All posts by Laurie Graves
First Lunch on the Patio
On Saturday, the weather was so fine—at least by Maine standards—that Clif and I had our first lunch on the patio. The temperature was about 65°F with a gentle breeze. For two winter-weary elders, it was warm enough for us to leave our jackets inside as we sat and ate.
Clif made potato pancakes for our lunch. In the picture, they look like regular pancakes, but they had a lovely mashed potato and Parmesan taste. We slathered them with butter and liberally sprinkled them with salt. Very tasty indeed. Especially when eaten on the patio.
As we ate, we were treated to all manner of fluttering birds and their spring songs. The wary goldfinches, cheeping loudly, clustered in a big cedar as they waited for us to leave.
But this bird was a little braver. (I’m thinking it’s a flycatcher. Eliza, what do you think?)
And the mourning dove felt perfectly comfortable patrolling for spilled seeds not far from where we sat.
Watching over everything was the backyard Spirit of the Woods.
I know. It’s really a dead tree that should come down before it falls where we don’t want it to fall. But I will be sorry when the tree no longer stands. Not only will we lose the wood spirit, but the birds will lose a place to hunt for tidbits.
But there. For several years, Clif and I have talked about taking that tree down, and still it stands. I am hoping the tree will be there for several more years.
After lunch, I worked on removing leaves from the beds in the front yard. Why is it that outside work is more satisfying than inside housework? It probably has something to with the sun and the sky and the birds, none of which are as present when you are inside.
Later on during the weekend, thanks to technology, I visited with my daughters and my son-in-law, and much of the talk was about politics and the coronavirus.
I also “attended” Rassemblement, a yearly gathering of Franco-American artists, writers, and creatives. Usually it is held at the University of Maine at Orono, but in this time of the coronavirus, it was held virtually.
The theme of this year’s gathering was legacy. This is from the Franco American Programs website: “The dictionary definition of legacy is, ‘Something handed down from an ancestor or a predecessor or from the past.’ As Franco Americans, what was handed down to us? And how does this gift act as both an impetus to create and as a restriction on our creations? What are we handing down to those who come after us? What was and is our legacy?”
Someone—ahem!—might have brought up that one of the legacies of Franco-Americans is that it was a patriarchal ethnic group, with an unhealthy separation of men and women. A spirited discussion ensued.
But more about that later.
Saving Soup
In a little swampy swamp just down the road, the peepers have finally started singing their spring song. For those who are unfamiliar with peepers, here is what they look and sound like. Peepers are tiny—one inch according to National Geographic-–but when they sing together, they make a sound and a fury. Clif and I wait for their song every year, and it wouldn’t be spring in Maine without peepers.
A post or two back, I wrote about giving a toy dinosaur to the boy next door for his birthday. Via Facebook messaging, his mother sent me a short video she made of him thanking us for the dinosaur. He was wearing a dinosaur t-shirt and was holding the dinosaur we had given him. Oh, that made us smile. Ingenuity in this time of the coronavirus.
On Facebook I also read some sad news. Scrummy Afters Candy Shoppe is closing their sweet little store in Hallowell. Recently, I posted a picture of some of the delectable chocolates that I had ordered online and had come through the mail. Here they are again. After all, who gets tired of looking at pictures of chocolate?
Fortunately, Scrummy’s is not going out of business entirely. They will continue to have an online store and a Scrummy’s van that will go to events when they are allowed to do so. But still, a blow for Hallowell, and I fear a harbinger of things to come for many small businesses.
But I am going to end this post on an upbeat note of how I saved some soup I made at the beginning of the week. It was a white bean soup. I simmered three cups of white beans, and when they were tender, I dumped them into a crock-pot. I added a bay leaf, dried thyme, sage, oregano, a little soy sauce, celery, and carrots. Onion and garlic and more water. When it was done, a half-cup of nutritional yeast.
And how did the soup taste? Well, it was edible, but it was blah. The thought of eating this for the next few days did not excite me. In truth, it filled me with a sort of dread.
But then I remembered something that the cook Samin Nosrat explained in her excellent series Salt Fat Acid Heat. That is, most soups and dishes benefit from a dose of something acidic. Lemon would have been perfect for this Mediterranean-flavored soup, but I did not have lemons.
I did, however, have diced canned tomatoes, which are acidic. I didn’t want the soup’s flavor to be dominated by tomatoes, but what if I added two cups to this big batch of soup? What then?
I’ll tell you what then—those tomatoes saved the soup without overpowering it. It jazzed up the soup in exactly the right way. No longer did I dread eating that soup until it was gone.
Instead, I actually looked forward to it. Clif felt the same way, and we ate every single bit.
I think this falls under the category of an old dog learning a new trick.
Earth Day 2020: In Celebration of Trees
“When you know that trees experience pain and have memories and that tree parents live together with their children, then you can no longer just chop them down and disrupt their lives with large machines.”
–Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees
Being a Mainer, I love trees too much to live in a place without them. All my life I have been surrounded by trees—first in a neighborhood, then in the country, and now in a small forest.
Around our home we have tall dark pines, massive oaks, solid maples that blaze in the fall, and slender beeches that keep their leaves all through the winter. When I sit on my patio and look up through the tree branches, I feel as though the trees are holding me.
Trees tell the story of the seasons. They harbor birds and give shelter to many other creatures. They provide food, oxygen, and shade. According to the writer Peter Wohlleben trees are even able to form a kind of society.
Why are trees such social beings? Why do they share food with their own species and sometimes even go so far as to nourish their competitors? The reasons are the same as for human communities: there are advantages to working together. A tree is not a forest. On its own, a tree cannot establish a consistent local climate. It is at the mercy of wind and weather. But together, many trees create an ecosystem that moderates extremes of heat and cold, stores a great deal of water, and generates a great deal of humidity. And in this protected environment, trees can live to be very old.
On a deep, psychological level, trees give us rich material for myths and stories, and Arthur Rackham’s illustration is a haunting example of this.
And who could forget Tolkien’s ents, sentient creatures that lived in a slow time of their own?
Is it too much to claim that trees embody the life-force of the planet? Not for this tree lover.
Therefore in honor of Earth Day, here are a few pictures of trees through the seasons, in my yard and around town.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
And now for a complete change of tone. Shannon is our Earth-Day daughter, born on April 22 many years ago. This is a hard time for celebrating much of anything. Therefore I am posting a picture of happier times, when our dear Liam was just a puppy and Shannon was having a jolly trot with him along the public beach in town. Makes me smile just to look at it. Happy, happy birthday, Shannon.
A Nugget of Gold in My Freezer
On Saturday, I delivered a birthday package to the little boy next door. Inside was a toy dinosaur. The boy is crazy about all things dinosaur, and he wants to be a paleontologist when he grows up. Or at least he did the last time I saw him, several months ago. With his mother’s permission, I tucked the package in the family mailbox across the street from their house. As I walked home, I was treated to a bird symphony of spring songs. What a delight!
As I listened the birds’ sweet songs, it seemed to me that things were much the way they have always been in April, with Spring slowly tiptoeing onto our road, into our yard. An illusion, I know. The coronavirus is ripping around the world, leaving death and misery in its wake.
But still. In my back garden bright green shoots of irises and daylilies are emerging.
They are joined by the dark red leaves of evening primroses, which tend to be hogs and need thinning every year. Good thing the yellow flowers are so pretty. I will bring some of the cast-off plants to the birthday boy’s mother. Last year she said she would like evening primroses for her garden. I can leave a couple of pots at the end of her driveway. (This is the same neighbor who brings eggs and won’t take any payment for them.)
With weather that is sunny and somewhat warm, I long to be out, the first time I’ve felt this way since last fall. Soon it will be hard to sit at my desk and write as the outside calls to me. But I’ll do it. Now that the children are grown, writing is the center of my life. However, my yard and gardens are a close second, and come spring it is never easy to stay inside.
Yesterday, as I was digging around the diminishing supplies in my little chest freezer down cellar, I found a square of Parmesan. If my creaky knees had allowed, I would have jumped for joy. It was like finding a nugget of gold. As I beheld the cheese, one dish immediately came to mind: Spaghetti with fried eggs, introduced to me by the inimitable Mark Bittman.
Bittman describes this dish as something that you turn to when you don’t have much time. Or much in your larder. Readers, it is so much more than that. For someone like me—who loves eggs, olive oil, garlic, and pasta—spaghetti and fried eggs qualifies as an honest-to-gosh treat.
Here are some pictures illustrating the process, which takes no more than a half hour from beginning to end.
First, brown two crushed garlic cloves in olive oil.
Discard the cloves when they are brown and crack four eggs into the olive oil. Simmer the eggs in the oil just until the whites are slightly set but the yolks are not cooked.
Dump this glorious mixture into a pot of piping hot spaghetti and stir until the eggs are broken up. The hot spaghetti will finish cooking the eggs.
Et violà. Top with plenty of grated cheese and lots of pepper for a special meal on a day when you are unconcerned about calories.
Note: For some reason, I don’t have the heart to post coronovirus statistics and the news from afar. Maybe it’s because spring has finally arrived.
Who knows? But for now, anyway, it’s back to writing about life at our home in the woods.
Doing My Bit
During this time of staying at home—extreme even for a homebody like me—I have been doing a fair amount of ordering online—mostly food to fill in the gaps in my larder. However, there is a twenty-five pound bag of hulled sunflower seeds waiting on the porch. After all, the birds have to eat, too.
Regrettably, most of the packages come from away, as we Mainers would put it.
However, I have been doing my bit to support the local economy.
Item: Absolutely delicious chocolate from a local candy store called Scrummy Afters Candy Shoppe. I’ve written about Scrummy’s before, and I am crazy about their handmade chocolates. Their store in Hallowell, a nearby town, is closed, but the owners are still making chocolates in their commercial kitchen. Those chocolates can be ordered online.
Here is what I ordered—Cashew & Toffee Chews and Salted Caramels.
Clif and I are having a little chocolate every day, trying to make the deliciousness last as long as possible. No doubt, we will order more when this batch is gone.
Item: Spring and Summer farm share from our own Farmer Kev.
It’s not all chocolate and bonbons here at our home in the woods. We also eat lots of fruit and veg. This year we will be well supplied by Farmer Kev, whose family we have known for a long time.
I’ve also written about Farmer Kev, who is an absolute wonder. In brief: The gardening bug bit Kevin when he was young—around twelve or thirteen—when he realized he had a passion for growing food. From his parents’ backyard, Kevin expanded to rented fields and finally to his very own farm. All by the time he was in his early thirties.
Here is a picture of a farm share from a past spring.
To say we are looking forward to Farmer Kev’s fresh, organic vegetables is a big, big understatement. Clif and I are already dreaming about salads, tomatoes, and corn on the cob. Garlic, onion, and green beans.
We will also get a fall and winter share, which will pretty much take us through the year.
Hail chocolate, spring, and fresh vegetables!
Coronavirus News from Maine
From the Bangor Daily News
Making Whoopie
Rock’s Family Diner in Fort Kent has experienced a drop in revenue as people are staying home to help stop the spread of the coronavirus COVID-19.
“Takeouts have been very slow,” said Peter Pinette, who owns Rock’s along with his wife, Sandra Pelletier Pinette.
Ryan Jandreau, a branch manager at Maine Savings Federal Credit Union in Portland, reached out to Sandra Pelletier Pinette — the mother of one of his high school classmates — hoping she would send him some of the baked goods he enjoyed while growing up.
Within a few days, Jandreau received a dozen of Rock’s homemade chocolate whoopie pies…
Jandreau posted a photo of the whoopie pies on his Facebook page, and before they knew it, the Pinettes were receiving requests from all over the country to ship out the popular Maine treats.
For readers unfamiliar with whoopie pies, here is a picture of delectable whoopie pies from the excellent Bluebird Bakery rather than from Rock’s. I have no doubt that Rock’s whoopie pies are delicious, too.
From Maine CDC
Maine’s number of cases of the coronavirus: 827 (Monday’s numbers: 698 )
Deaths in Maine from Covid-19: 29 (Monday’s numbers: 19)
The News from All Over
I feel as though no national news story can compete with whoopie pies, so I’m only going to post the numbers.
The Latest Numbers
Global Cases: 2,167,955
Global Deaths: 146,055
Luck x 2=No Power Outage
As the title indicates, we were lucky yet again. The wind blew, but it did not knock out our power. In Central Maine, there were no widespread power outages. This storm was primarily a coastal storm, and that’s where most of the outages were. Sure hope they get their power back soon.
One thing the rain did is take away the snow. As a reminder, here is what the backyard looked like last Friday.
From a slightly different perspective, here is what the backyard looked like this morning.
In deference to the wind, I moved the chairs and set them against the house. The little glass table went downstairs. Out they will soon come.
Now, fingers crossed that Winter is really and truly gone and will allow Spring to show her pretty face. In Maine, Winter’s cold grip is long and is only released grudgingly.
But in the end, Spring always has her way.
Here Comes the Wind Again
Lately, the weather has been a little iffy, even by Maine standards. Last Thursday, we had a Nor’easter that dropped a foot to a foot and half of snow on the state. The snow was wet and heavy and caused such massive power outages that four days later, some people still don’t have electricity.
Now, a rain and wind storm is ripping up the Eastern Seaboard from the South. The forecast is for wind gusts up to fifty miles an hour, which will bring—wait for it—more power outages. Sigh.
By some miracle, we did not lose our power last Thursday. Can we have such luck twice? I am not counting on it, and I have been getting ready—lots of water water set aside, laundry done, the house well heated. The usual.
Yesterday, I made bread. That way, if the power goes out, we’ll have the consolation of fresh bread.
To put a hectic spin on things, two days ago, Clif slipped on the snow, fell, and sprained his ankle. It’s not a bad sprain, and the fall certainly could have been worse. Much worse. But he is hobbling around the house and can’t do much to help get ready.
Therefore, this will not be my usual Monday post with news about the pandemic posted at the end. Instead, a brief one as I have more to do to get ready for the wind and the rain.
Onward and upward! See you on the other side.
I’m Dreaming of a White Easter
Yesterday, Mother Nature brought us a nasty little April surprise: A sizable snowstorm with wet, heavy snow. In central Maine, we got about a foot. The farther north, the higher the snowfall, with foot and a half in some areas.
That much wet, heavy snow can mean only one thing: Power outages. According to Maine Public Radio, 250,000 homes are without power, no small number in a state with a total population of just over a million. Exactly what we need in this time of the coronavirus.
However, by some miracle, courtesy of the weather gods, we still have our power. We were ready with pots of water on the stove and a well-heated house. (Normally, we keep the temperature a little on the cool side. But it’s best to start out from a warm place if the power goes out.)
The pots of water remain on the stove. The forecast is for high winds this afternoon, which means we might still lose our power.
In the meantime, as I write this, Clif is out there with Little Green, cleaning the driveway yet again. We sure do hope this is the last time until next winter.
Onward and upward!
Coronavirus News from Maine
From Maine Public Radio
Around the state extraordinary efforts are underway to help care for people during the pandemic. One example is in Lewiston where high school students with the Regional Technical Center’s culinary arts program are making and distributing 400 meals a day to those who either can’t get around or who don’t feel safe going out in public. It’s a student-led initiative that’s being supported by donations of all kinds.
It took root in their tip jar. The 60 students in the culinary arts program regularly serve up lunches and sell to-go dinners in the Green Ladle restaurant during the week. They’d saved up $1300 in tips for an annual school trip to Portland for a fancy meal, but when classes were suspended a few weeks ago, their instructor, Chef Dan Caron, says a student came to him with a question.
“’How many community members could we feed with that $1300?’ And at the time it was 500 people. Within seconds we were communicating through text messaging. They all said, ‘Let’s do this chef! Let’s do this, chef!’ and they donated their tips.”
From Maine CDC
Maine’s number of cases of the coronavirus: 586 (Monday’s numbers: 499)
Deaths in Maine from Covid-19: 17 (Monday’s numbers: 10)
The News from All Over
From Dr. Sanjay Gupta
New York state now has more cases than any country in the world except the United States, but there is a glimmer of hope: the number of people hospitalized in the state is going down as deaths have gone up. The nation’s top coronavirus expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, says it’s a sign social distancing is working.
The Latest Numbers
Global Cases: 1,612,646 (Monday’s Numbers: 1,280,046)
Global Deaths: 96,787 (Monday’s Numbers: 69,789)
My Own Take: A tiny sliver of hope for New York, but very small indeed. In Maine, at least, we are holding steady. Perhaps because of all the social distancing? Or the calm before the storm?
Peekaboo!
Notes From the Hinterland 