Finally, spring has arrived in Maine. The air is warm but not too hot. The perennials in my gardens are coming up green and strong. When the day is fine, out I go to clear my beds of leaves and other debris and then spread rich black compost on them. This will be followed by some organic fertilizer.
Longtime readers know how much I love winter—I’m a northern woman, after all—but when spring finally arrives, I am absolutely smitten by this lovely time of year, despite all the work it brings. Maybe because of all the work it brings.
Also, while I still have creaky knees, they have improved by quite a bit. (I was on medication that unfortunately affected my joints. I am no longer taking that medication.) Clif is willing to help with the wheelbarrow and fetching bags of compost from the local feed store. Between the two of us, we are making good progress with the yard and gardens.
But spring in Maine is brief, and I have one month to get things sorted in my gardens. Therefore the time has come to take my yearly break while I garden as fast as my sixty-seven-year-old body will allow. I will keep up with blog reading as best I can. If we have a rainy spell—pray God we don’t—I’ll post a brief piece.
But until June, my posts will be far and few between.
Happy spring to all who live in the northern hemisphere, and happy fall to those who live in the southern hemisphere.
Hummingbirds have been spotted in Maine. I will be ordering another red feeder for the other side.
Today, I am taking a break from Politics Friday. I have a bad cold—as do Clif and Dee—and my head is too muzzy to write about anything. I will be back next week.
This week is going to be a little topsy-turvy. Instead of politics Friday, here’s a politics Monday. The reason for this is that last weekend, all across the country, there were massive protests against the Trump Administration and all the horrible things it has done. It seemed best to feature one of the protests while the memory of the weekend is still fresh.
As far as I know, the protests were completely peaceful. No fights, no looting. Little Maine valiantly did its part. In Augusta, the state capital, an estimated 4,000 people showed up. Not too shabby for a small city with a population of about 18,000. Unfortunately, because of my creaky knees, I didn’t attend. (I am thinking of getting a cane with a seat so that I can join future protests.) However, my friend Beth Clark and her husband John were there. She generously agreed to write a description of the event and gave me permission to use her photos. Many thanks, Beth!
Beth wrote:
“As much as I wanted to go to Saturday’s protest at the state capital, we had been told that an earlier rally had credible threats of possible trouble. I listened to an ACLU Zoom about knowing your rights in a protest and ways to safeguard yourself. I even wrote my daughters’ phone numbers on my arm, in permanent ink, in case my phone or personal effects were taken away.
“I am happy to report that none of my angst was necessary. Everyone present was polite, supportive, and willing to help out. The band played, and people sang “God Bless America” and the “Star Spangled Banner.” Participants chanted, “This is what Democracy looks like” and “Hands off our…”.
“John and I were surrounded by seniors. Some had walkers, wheelchairs, or canes. Others appeared feeble and had loved ones supporting them. As we watched a stream of protesters, we were heartened to see many young adults in the crowd. There were children marching with parents and grandparents, and three generation families were visible.
“Posters illustrated well the diversity and scope of the government actions that were being protested. They were variously humorous, angry, artistic, ironic, or simple.
“The day was cold, but warmth spread through the audience as eloquent speakers, without name calling or blame, identified the issues at hand and the need for change. The fact that an older Palestinian man and a young Jewish woman co-presented illustrates the desire for open communication and cooperation. As the protesters took to the street in an orderly fashion, the passing cars honked, waved, and gave thumbs up. I was glad I participated and that it was truly a peaceful protest. I came away feeling supported, appreciated, and mobilized to do more.”
Finally, here is a video from YouTube that expands on what Beth wrote. You’ve got love a protest that includes horns and drums.
What a difference a presidential election makes. Before November, I was full of enthusiasm for my blog, especially for my Thankful Thursday posts, where I wrote about the good things in my life.
Now, I have little enthusiasm and energy for my blog. I am just so sad, and the hose of sewerage coming from the first two weeks—has it only been two weeks?— of Trump’s presidency doesn’t help. In the face of such malevolence, writing about life on the edge of the woods seems trivial, my thankful posts naive.
And yet I have missed the blogging community. I’ve intermittently kept track of blogging friends’ posts, but it’s not the same as reading and posting regularly. So here I am. This piece is a tentative first step in returning to something approaching a normal blogging schedule.
Despite my heavy heart, I have still been reading novels, listening to podcasts, and watching television series and movies.
For reasons that shouldn’t be too hard to figure out, I have become obsessed with World War II. (No, I am not comparing Trump with Hitler. Bad as Trump as, he doesn’t reach the horrible evil of Hitler.)
A French television series I have become particularly engrossed with is Un Village Français (A French Village.) Covering the years from 1940 to 1945 (and beyond), the series centers on Villeneuve, a fictional French village, and how the various inhabitants cope with the German occupation of France. Some villagers just try and live their lives, no easy thing to do when the Germans are occupying your community. Others collaborate. Some join the resistance, an uneasy coalition of Communists, Socialists, and Gaullists, among others.
There is a huge cast in A French Village, with the focus on a group of main characters, all of whom are vivid. Because this a French production, there are affairs aplenty, but they never sink the show or get in the way of the central issue: who resists and who collaborates? Warning: main characters do get killed. Don’t get too attached.
As I watched the show I asked myself, what would I do? Would I resist, or would I keep my head down? I think of Marie, one of the main characters in the show and a hero of the Resistance. In one scene, she is biking madly down the road on some important Resistance business. Her expression is resolute, and the camera focuses briefly on her shapely legs. (Back then women biked in skirts.) I hope I would be like Marie, but in all honesty, I can’t say for sure that I would.
The series is not without its flaws. There are plot contrivances and jumps that don’t always make sense. Nevertheless, A French Village is a monumental achievement and very much worth seeing.
How to watch it? Here’s the rub. Some of the seasons—but not all—can be viewed on Amazon. The missing seasons are important, and I don’t recommend watching it this way. For those who get Kanopy, a library streaming service, all seven seasons are available. Our library system also has the seven seasons available on DVD. Yours might, too. Finally, the series can be watched via the streaming service MHz Choice, which costs 7.99 a month.
As the title of this post suggests, I am taking an extended break. For how long, I don’t know. I’m going to be honest—this election has really knocked the stuffing out of me—and I need time to regroup, to refocus. Somehow, writing about our happy little lives on the edge of the woods no longer holds interest for me. In time, I hope this will change, but I’m not sure that it will, and as this is a lifestyle blog rather than a political blog, taking a long break seems prudent. From time to time, I will be checking in with blogging friends’ posts to see how things are going with them.
There really isn’t much more to say. Our country is headed in a dangerous direction, toward chaos, vengeance, and authoritarianism. Most of Trump’s Cabinet picks seem to come straight out of Gotham City—the fabled hometown of Batman—with Trump being the biggest Joker of them all.
Before leaving, I do have a quotation and a song to share. First the quotation, from Jan Struther’s book Mrs. Miniver, published in England in 1939, a very bad time for the world.
“However long the horror continued, one must not get to the stage of refusing to think about it. To shrink from direct pain was bad enough, but to shrink from vicarious pain was the ultimate cowardice. And whereas to conceal direct pain was a virtue, to conceal vicarious pain was a sin. Only by feeling it to the utmost, and expressing it, could the rest of the world help to heal the injury which had caused it.”
I can’t help thinking about how disappointed and horrified all the Americans who fought in World War II would be to see where our country is going. They fought for this, for a convicted felon and a bully to lead the country?
During the next four years, however painful they might be, I will not be looking away. I’ve joined a local women’s advocacy group and will be doing my small bit to resist.
Finally, here’s the Tears for Fears song, “Mad World,” covered by Gary Jules. It perfectly captures how sad and perplexed I feel.
Note: It’s that busy time of year when Clif and I go around to various holiday fairs to sell our books. Therefore, until the new year, I will neither be reading blogs on the weekend nor commenting on those posts. It seems to me that those who post on the weekend also post during the week, which means I will be mostly keeping up with the comings and goings of blogging friends. Also, I am cutting back my own posting to once a week, on Mondays. After the new year, I am planning to resume Thankful Thursday posts.
Oh, Those Leaves
Right now the leaves are falling everywhere at our home by the edge of the woods.
On our front steps,
on the chairs on the patio,
and on the table, too.
A couple of afternoons each week are devoted to leaf cleaning.
Clif takes out our trusty battery-powered lawn mower that crunches and sucks up the leaves.
Here’s the yard before lawn-mower Clif has done his thing.
Last Friday, Clif and I drove to Brunswick to have lunch at Wild Oats Bakery & Café with two special people—my blogging friend Carol Ann of Fashioned For Joyand her husband Kevin.
Carol Ann and Kevin live outside Washington, DC, and they had come to Maine for a wedding. A while back, Carol Ann had let me know they would be in Maine in October and asked if we would like to get together.
My answer? Yes, indeed! I love meeting blogging friends, who prove to be just as delightful in person as they are on their blogs. This time was no different, and the four of us immediately fell into an easy conversation as though we had known each other for a long time.
We talked about family—we each have two children—and our jobs. Carol Ann has read my Great Library Seriesand had kind words to say about Maya, the main character, and the rest of the gang. Thanks so much, Carol Ann.
Carol Ann and Kevin have a Tesla named Natalia, which they drove to Acadia National Park, where they spent a few days before the wedding. Carol Ann noted that at the motel where they stayed, there were two Tesla chargers as well as two chargers for non-Tesla EVs. As Clif has observed, we are reaching a tipping point with EV charging points being pretty much everywhere. With the recent ferocious weather, it’s about darned time. (For those interested in the discouraging history of Evs, Who Killed the Electric Car is an excellent doc.)
Recently, Kevin drove Natalia to Iowa for a class reunion. He made it there and back again without any troubles. Clif and I have been EV enthusiasts for a long time, and it warmed our hearts to hear this. We are very much hoping to get an EV when our Honda Fit is past repairing.
We also spoke about home, for us a rural town in Maine and for them a neighborhood outside DC. Both have advantages—our town is in a region where there are many lovely lakes and ponds. It’s a quiet, down-to-earth community, and there is no keeping up with the Joneses. Their community, just outside DC, has many cultural opportunities, including some of the best art museums on the East Coast. Two hours in the other direction, there are sandy beaches with roaming ponies. (I sure would love to see those ponies.)
For me, the conversation took an especially pleasant turn when Carol Ann quoted from the excellent 1995 BBC television seriesPride and Prejudice. I have watched this series many times, and it is one of my favorites. (I’ve also read the book several times.)
When we got home and I mentioned Carol Ann’s and my mutual love of Pride and Prejudice, Clif replied, “You two are birds of a feather.
We certainly are. And here’s a picture of the two of us, both smiling with our eyes closed. And note the similar color of our hair—Carol Ann, on the right, is Italian American, and I, on the left, am Franco-American.
At Wild Oats, we chatted for about three hours, and when we parted, I said “Au revoir” rather than goodbye.
Until we meet again.
From left to right: Kevin, Clif, Carol Ann, and Laurie
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This post is dedicated to our blogging friend Platypus Man of Now I’m 64. He follows both our blogs and wished he could have joined us. Alas, an ocean separates us. You were there in spirit Mr. P, and if ever you and Mrs. P come to the East Coast, Carol Ann and I would be so thrilled to meet you.
How time does fly. I had planned to return to blogging in June, but then the days slipped by until it was July. Now comes theMaine International Film Festival (July 12-21), and let’s just say that when you plan to see 32 movies in 10 days, there won’t be much energy left for blogging.
So now I’m shooting for the end of July or the beginning of August. I’ve missed the blogging community, and I’m looking forward to returning. As time has allowed, I’ve checked in on blogging friends, and I will be much more diligent when I return full time.
So what’s been happening? I’ve been working on my novel Darcy Dansereau, but have yet to finish it. We had a wonderful Fourth of July holiday with our daughter Shannon and her husband Mike.
It’s been horribly hot—for Maine—in the 90s with high, high humidity. If I wanted heat like this, I’d move south. As it is, I’m looking longingly at northern Maine, where the temps are 10 to 7 degrees cooler.
But the biggest news is that our daughter Dee will soon be getting an electric car, a Tesla, and our electrician Steve Wight, has installed the charger. A very exciting time for us. Before long, we will be tooting here and there in an electric car.
Unlike the humans, the flowers have liked this heat and humidity. It has rained enough to keep them and this gardener happy. The astilbes were especially lovely, and I’ll end this post with photo of these pink beauties.
Spring is always a busy time. In Maine, gardeners have approximately one month—May—to get everything in order. For me, this includes clearing the leaves from my flower beds, no small task when you live on the edge of the woods. Then, there is the adding of compost and fertilizer, and with my creaky knees, it’s a challenge to get this done before sweet June arrives.
Also, I am working hard to finish my next YA fantasy, Darcy Dansereau, and for various reasons, completely separate from creaky knees, the progress is oh so slow. But I still plan to have the book published in fall of 2024. Onward, ho!
All this is a roundabout way of saying that I will be taking an extended blogging break from May well into June. I’m not exactly sure when I will return. When time allows, I will pop in to read other blogs, but this will not be on a regular basis.
Spring is a beautiful time in Maine, and I leave you with these red-tipped branches against a bright blue sky. I took the picture when I was sitting on our patio, one of my favorite places.
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.
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.
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.
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Notes From the Hinterland 