Today is a typical Maine March day—gray, drizzly, depressing. In Maine, Covid-19 cases have not dropped, and according to the New York Times, Maine’s Covid risk is deemed very high. In addition, there are forces throughout the country that are on the rampage, trying to make voting as hard as possible for people who don’t look like they do, as Bruce Hornsby would put it.

Plus, WordPress has cast its wicked magic, and I am trapped in the kingdom of Block Editor. I know some bloggers actually like it, and that’s great. But for a poor old hack like me, who has more projects to fill my time than there are hours in the day, the last thing I need is a new blogging format to figure out. (Whine, whine, whine just might lead to wine, wine, wine late this afternoon. 😉 ) Eventually I’ll get used to Block Editor. I just hate spending this much time on it when I have other writing to work on.

Therefore, this Friday I really, really needed simple pleasures to cheer me up, and just in the nick of time, all the way from my blogging friend Betsy in California, came this assortment of deliciousness. An added bonus is that I had never had kumquats before, and what a treat to sample these tart, citrusy gems, which come from Betsy’s backyard. (The lemons come from her backyard, too, and the artichokes from a farmers market.) Many, many thanks, Betsy!

Onward to media! For a soothing, fun show—much like The Great British Baking Show—you can’t beat The Great Pottery Throw Down, recommended to me by my blogging friend Quercus. Several things make Throw Down a bingeable series: quirky judges, plenty of time spent getting to know the various contestants, and the sheer audacity of some of the items that are made. For example, toilets. Have you ever thought of constructing a toilet out of clay? And then actually have it flush? No? Neither have I, and to tell you the truth, I wouldn’t have the faintest idea how to go about it. While I could probably manage a badly constructed plate or mug, a toilet is an engineering feat far, far beyond my capabilities.

We watch the show on HBO Max, which requires a subscription. You might be able to get the show on other channels.

Because I mentioned Bruce Hornsby in my opening paragraph, this week’s featured music is “The Way It Is” by Bruce Hornsby and the Range. Some of you might remember this terrific song from 1986. Unfortunately, Hornsby’s message is still relevant today.

But on a happier note—dang, that man can play the piano.

Here are favorites and simple pleasures from other blogging friends.

Ju-Lyn, from Touring My Backyard, is enjoying a new extension of the Singapore Botanic Gardens.

From Thistles and Kiwis, so many delightful simple pleasures, including food, dance, books, going to the hairdresser, and blogging friends. Hear, hear for blogging friends, who not only expand horizons but remind us that there are so many good people around the globe.

The fourth week of March has brought some big changes to our yard in the woods. The past few days have been warm—60°, very mild for this time of year—and sunny. The snow has shrunk to the point where it seems we are in April rather than March.

Our shady front yard still has a fair amount of snow, but it is slowly melting.

In the backyard, however, real progress has been made, and much of the snow is gone. The expression on Clif’s face indicates he can hardly believe there is so little snow in our backyard in March.

Last week, going against Tootlepedal’s wise advice to the contrary, I decided to tempt the weather gods. Grabbing the metal shovel from our dilapidated shed, I chipped ice and shoveled snow from our patio. Normally, I just let the snow and ice melt on its on, but this year I was keen to have the chairs back out so that I could sit in the sun on nice days. And, because Clif and I have not yet been vaccinated, safely have friends over from time to time.

Voilà! Snow-Gauge Clif taking a much-needed break after he was done with the exhausting work of measuring snow.

Today, the temperature rose to 60°F, which really is a heatwave for this time of year. My friend Judy came over for a visit, the first since around the holidays.

How nice it was to sit in the sun and chat with her. We were actually both a little hot.

Will the snow gods send us an early spring blizzard? Perhaps, but I sure hope not.

Stay tuned!

 

In Maine in March, Spring is a fitful affair that comes and goes. Sometimes it seems like winter; other times, there is a hint of something soft and warm in the air.

Yesterday definitely felt like spring. The temperature reached the mid-50s, a heatwave as far as Clif and I are concerned, and in the afternoon, after our work for the day was finished, out we went for a walk.

I know from reading other blogs that some people get snowdrops and daffodils this time of year.

In Maine we get footprints in the mud,

water rushing down the side of the road,

and a bucket to collect sap for making maple syrup.

But because Clif and I are Mainers, this is what we are used to, and all these modest signs of Spring are thrilling to us. There might be more cold weather, there might even be snow, but Winter is relaxing his icy grip.

Also on yesterday’s walk, we thrilled to the sight of the snowbanks pulling away from the side of the road.

We stopped to chat with our friends Cheryl and Deny, who were out in their fenced-in backyard with their dogs. Our friend Judy, with her own dog, was visiting. How good it was to see them all, lovely dogs included.

We waved to other neighbors who were sitting on their front porch.

“Heatwave” I called.

“Yes, yes,” they called back.

And to follow a tradition that I’ve begun this year, here are Clif and I waving to you.

It might look as though I have some kind of third appendage hanging from me on the far left. Instead, it is the sleeve of my jacket. I grew so warm that I had to take off my jacket and tie it around my waist.

What can I say? I’m a “Mainah,” and after the cold of winter, 55°F with no wind feels pretty darned warm.

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This week for music, I’m going to branch out from my beloved Tiny Desk Concerts to feature a YouTube video of “The Impression that I Get” by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. It seems to me that during this difficult year, most of us have been knocking on wood, and I bet these musicians are, too.

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Here are favorites and simple pleasures from other blogging friends:

Dawn, from Change is Hard, featured her smiling Sheltie.  And what could be better than a smiling Sheltie? Not much.

On the other hand, the birthday of a beloved child is pretty darned special, too. Ju-Lyn, from Touring My Backyard, and her family recently celebrated her lovely daughter’s 21 birthday. Happy birthday, Jo!

Thistles and Kiwis wrote about all the cool things popping up in Wellington—art, parks, food. What a great place!

From last week to this week, the snow has barely melted. It is, after all, early March in Maine, which is much like February—still in winter’s grip with the possibility of one or two major snowstorms. The temps go well below freezing at night, and when we get up in the morning, the house is a tad below 60°. A little brisk, as we Mainers might say.

Here is Snow-Gauge Clif in the front yard.

And here he is in the backyard.

Outside our living room window, icicles hang from our shrubs.

But as we make our slow way through March, I can feel a softening. For one thing, the days are longer. It is light well before 7:00 a.m., and it doesn’t get dark until 6:00 p.m. Sheer bliss from the days of December, when the dark closed in at 4:00 p.m.

Also, perhaps most cheering of all, the birds have begun their spring songs—chickadees, tufted titmice, cardinals. How I love to hear them. The bird feeders need to be refilled frequently as the birds are coming more often than they did during the winter. Perhaps they are fortifying themselves for the hard work of starting and raising a family.

This week, the forecast is for temperatures to be in the 40s and even the 50s. A regular heatwave after the cold of February.

Am I ready? You bet I am.

As soon as the patio has a clear spot for the chairs, and the weather is consistently mild—above 40—we’ll begin having socially distanced visits again.

Long-time readers of Notes from the Hinterlands will know what March brings to central Maine—the return of Snow-Gauge Clif.  Each week until the snow is gone, usually sometime the end of April, my husband, Clif, will venture forth with his trusty red yard stick to record the melt rate.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but by the time March rolls around, even Mainers who like winter—guilty as charged!—are ready for the snow to melt and for spring flowers to start blooming. But in northern New England, Winter is no hurry to make way for Spring.  We just have to wait. And wait. And wait some more.

So without further ado, here is Snow-Gauge Clif, measuring the snow the first week of March 2021.  When this picture was taken, it was raining, and there was about a foot of snow on the ground.

Here is Clif in the front yard.

And then in the backyard.

We always hope the snow will be gone by April 22, which just happens to be our youngest daughter’s birthday.

• Although I am confirmed homebody, this time of year my thoughts turn to places that are warm and free of snow. “Island in the Sun,” by Weezer, exactly captures my longing to escape March in Maine. (As I write, the rain has stopped, an Arctic wind is blowing, and the temperature, with the wind chill, approaches 20 below zero. And that’s Fahrenheit, friends. Plus we have lost our power.)

A few days ago, I received another unexpected treat in the mail—how lucky am I?—this time from my blogging friend Ju-lyn of All Things Bright and Beautiful. She sent me a Chinese New Year’s card, all the way from Singapore, along with two lovely bookmarks made by “crafty older daughter.” What nimble fingers crafty older daughter has.

Such a delight! Thank you, Ju-Lyn. The card is on the metal bulletin board by my desk, where all I have to do is glance to my right to see  the jaunty lanterns and the impressionistic market. And thank you crafty older daughter. The bookmarks, ready for action, are on my nightstand, next to my TBR pile of books.

On Netflix, Clif and I have been watching—all right, binging—a delightful series, Call My Agent (Dix pour Cent in French).  Set in Paris, the show is about ASK, a company of agents and their assistants that works with promotes, soothes, and takes care of actors. The agents and assistants are quirky, competitive, and flawed without being hateful. Famous French actors—Juliette Binoche, Isabelle Huppert—make hilarious guest appearances. Sometimes the episodes are laugh-out-loud funny, and sometimes they are moving as Call My Agent explores issues that actors, especially women, must face. If you love movies, especially French cinema, then this is a series to watch. As Arlette, one of the agents, notes, “When things are getting you down, there’s always the cinema.”

Yes, there is.

Now onto music! I am a huge fan of R & B, and Leon Bridges, only twenty-six when this Tiny Desk Concert was filmed in 2015, seems to be channeling those who came before him, especially Sam Cooke. Music for the ages.

Here are some favorites and simple pleasures from other blogging friends:

Ju-lyn, of All Things Bright and Beautiful, features a gorgeous pineapple cake that is also a work of art.

Thistles and Kiwis features, along with mouth-watering food, the fabulous Botanic Gardens, which are within walking distance of where she lives.

Piglet in Portugal has many things to smile about: a new website, a new book that identifies wild flowers in her local area, and weight loss.

 

At the top of this week’s list of favorites is a bag of Mrs. Dunster’s Bakery Donuts we bought at our local supermarket. Once a week, I allow myself a treat day, and for me, a donut connoisseur from way back, there are few treats better than a donut. In all my long years of eating donuts, I have never had  commercial cake donuts better than the ones made by Mrs. Dunster’s.  I will even go one step further: Few local bakeries make better cake donuts than Mrs. Dunster’s does. They have the satisfying heft, tang, and taste of homemade donuts, that special je ne sais quo that is often missing even from locally made donuts.

But here comes the bad news. Mrs. Dunster’s Bakery is located in New Brunswick, Canada, and Maine is the only state in the nation where you can get these nuggets of deliciousness. Maine might be a small, poor, remote state, north of north in the lower 48, but dang we have a good source of commercial donuts readily available at our local supermarkets. Best of all, these donuts freeze beautifully. And a good thing, too, because as much as I love donuts, I am not about to eat a whole bag in one day. While these donuts might be fresh, they are not going to last a whole week in the bread drawer without going dry. So into the freezer they went, where they will wait for future treat days.

Now for a literary pleasure. In this week’s New Yorker, I came across Rivka Galchen’s excellent personal history essay “Better Than a Balloon,” in which she describes what it’s been like to have lived for ten years in a decidedly untrendy neighborhood in New York City, near Port Authority and Penn Station. As someone who has been to both these places many times, I can vouch for the truthfulness of Galchen’s descriptions of the sleaze and the shabbiness of the area. And yet this neighborhood—where people work, live, shop, and eat—is also full of vivid life, a community even, where much is made of Galchen’s young daughter when the two go out and about.

“Better than a Balloon” is New Yorker writing at its finest. Galchen expertly weaves in the personal with her observations of people and place. We get a sense of her and her daughter and this dirty but dear neighborhood that she has called home for a decade. It is a long piece, and I was sorry to come to the end. How often does that happen?

In the United States, February is Black History Month, and from the NPR website, I learned that “NPR Music’s Tiny Desk series will celebrate Black History Month by featuring four weeks of Tiny Desk (home) concerts and playlists by Black artists spanning different genres and generations each week.”

Here is the fabulous Meshell Ndegeocello—quiet, powerful, honest, poetic.

 

Favorites and small pleasures from other bloggers:

From Thistles and Kiwis, an adorable cat puzzle for Valentine’s Day.

From All Things Bright and Beautiful, visual Valentine’s Day treats in Singapore.

From Change is Hard, jaunty daffodils, which always brings a smile.

An unexpected gift came in the mail yesterday—a box of fudge from Sweet Tooth Fudge. I have long been a fudge enthusiast, and Sweet Tooth Fudge, right here in Winthrop, makes some of the best. Ever. This treat was sent by Shane Malcolm Billings, the much beloved former Adult Services Librarian of our town’s library. On the enclosed card, Shane wrote that he was sorry to learn of Sherlock’s passing and hoped the treat would provide some comfort during a sad time.

How very thoughtful! I really miss our punk of a cat and was moved by Shane’s lovely gesture. Many, many thanks, Shane. And the fudge is utterly delicious.

As for music…I have another Tiny Desk Concert to share. Are you surprised? I am so keen about Tiny Desk Concerts that for Christmas Mike and Shannon got me my very own Tiny Desk Mug, which I regularly use for the many cups of tea I drink during the day.  This mug, sturdy and large, is now one of my favorites, and I use it all the time.

Anyway, this week’s Tiny Desk Concert features the luminous Alicia Keys, who combines an astonishing musicality with warmth and mindfulness. What a musician!

 

Here are some favorites from other blogging  friends:

Thistles and Kiwis, once again, showcases some delicious food she ate this week.

Ju-Lyn at All Things Bright and Beautiful celebrates Chinese New Year during this time of the pandemic: “In the spirit of togetherness, we will usher in the Lunar New Year in the best way we can.” Happy Chinese New Year to you and yours, Ju-Lyn!