Category Archives: Snow-Gauge Clif

Food, Movies, Snow-Gauge Clif

A Weekend of Drinks, Food, and Movies, and the Return of Snow-Gauge Clif

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For some reason, last weekend turned out to be a flurry of having friends over and eating out.

Our merriment started on Friday afternoon when we invited our friends Dawna and Jim over for wine and appetizers.

We tried to solve the problems of the world as we sat around the dining room table, sipped wine, and nibbled on appetizers, but of course we didn’t have much luck.

As we talked, our jade plant glowed in the sun. Clearly, Jade was on our side. She, too, wonders what the heck is going on in this country.

On Saturday morning, we headed to Waterville to the Maine Film Center for the Nigerian movie Mami Wata, the final movie in the wintertime film series Cinema Explorations.

This wonderful movie is set in a remote African village where the water deity Mami Wata is revered even though she is mostly absent. When a stranger is washed up on the shores, the power balance shifts, leading to conflict and death. This fable of a movie was filmed in an impressionistic way, which adds to the power of the story. What a fine way to end the film series!

To celebrate the successful film series, our friend Joel, who coordinates Cinema Explorations, joined us for brunch at one of my favorite restaurants, Front and Main.

I had some delicious ployes, Acadian buckwheat pancakes popular in northern Maine. Front and Main makes ployes a little thicker than is traditional. but my, my, they were tasty.

Then, on Sunday, to kick off the Academy Awards ceremony, we went to Tj’s Place in Winthrop for drinks, snacks, and pizza.

I had a pomegranate martini, and it was excellent.

Clif ordered onion rings, which he said were properly cooked and delicious. (Dee and I aren’t fans of onion rings.)

We also had pizza.

Afterwards, full of food and drink, we headed home to await the start of the Academy Awards ceremony. Two of our favorite movies—Flow (go Latvia!) and I‘m Still Here (go, Brazil!)—garnered awards. Best picture of the year went to Anora, a film about an exotic dancer. It was not our favorite movie of the year. We all felt that it lacked nuance and focused too much on the explicit sex. Granted, the subject lends itself to this treatment, but didn’t Anora have any other qualities or interests that didn’t involve sex? Say, model trains or mahjong? It seems not. Ah, well…we were apparently in a minority about this movie.

Still, all in all, it was a good night for independent films, small movies with relatively small budgets, and we are always in for those kind of movies.

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And Now the Moment You’ve All Been Waiting for…the Return of Snow-Gauge Clif

Longtime readers of this blog always look forward to the first Monday in March, which brings the return of Snow-Gauge Clif (aka my husband, Clif). Each Monday, Snow-Gauge Clif will grab his trusty red yardstick to head outside and measure the depth of the snow. He’ll continue to do so until all the snow is melted, usually sometime in April.

Here he is, on March 3, this first Monday in March, in the front yard.

Snow measurement: 18 inches

And here he is in the backyard, which gets more sun than the front yard.

Measurement: 12 inches

Will the snow be gone by the beginning of April, or will it be gone by the end? We never know the answer to this nail-biting question. Each year is different. So stay tuned for the Monday adventures of Snow-Gauge Clif.

News, Snow-Gauge Clif

One Heck of a Nor’easter

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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.

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Snow-Gauge Clif

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.

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Listening

Moon Shadow by Cat Stevens

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Snow-Gauge Clif, Spring

Has Spring Sprung?

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The front yard is dry enough for raking, and in my own slow, creaky-kneed way, I have almost finished with the front lawn clean-up. We had plenty of high wind this winter, which meant lots of sticks, acorns, and pine cones to pick up.

You might be wondering when this task had ever been accomplished by mid-March. The answer? Never.

Here is what mid-March—March 20—looked like last year. This might be stating the obvious, but there was no raking the front yard last year during mid-March. That task waited until mid-April.

Some readers might recall that we had a bad storm in December that knocked our power out for many days. Because it rained so much and the ground was super-saturated, a tree—roots and all—fell over.

Fortunately, it fell in the side woods away from our house, which means we don’t have to do anything about it. Nobody ever goes there, and it is barely on our property.

On a good note: The mud has dried up in record time. No more  footprints on the path in the backyard.

Will the weather gods play tricks on us and send snow our way? Possibly, but because all the winter snow has melted, whatever snow might come now will soon be gone.

This week promises to be busy one filled with good things. Clif and I will be celebrating our anniversary, I will be visiting a friend I haven’t seen since the pandemic, and with our books, we will be going to a spring craft fair on Saturday.

More about all this excitement next Monday.

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Listening

Continental Breakfast: Courtney Barnett + Kurt Vile

This is one of the sweetest music videos I have ever seen, and watching the two musicians—Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile—interact with family and friends and each other never fails to make me smile.

Watchin’ the waves come in at nightFrom my back porch stoop, porch swing swingin’ on its ownSee it’s just an inhabitant of some holy ghost
Books, Snow-Gauge Clif

Au Revoir, Snow-Gauge Clif

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The title of this post tells it all. Today, March 11, our yard is officially free of snow, and there is nothing for Snow-Gauge Clif to measure. In the past, we would hope to be snow free by our youngest daughter’s birthday on April 22. Some years we were. Other years, we weren’t.  This year, we are way ahead of April 22.

First, the front yard, with Snow-Gauge Clif,

and a broader view to chronicle our snow-free yard.

To the backyard.

Therefore, unless we get some snow in March—and we could—it is time to say au revoir to Snow-Gauge Clif who was only with us for two weeks this year. What the heck! Can this really be happening in Maine? A snow-free yard in mid-March? It seems that it is.

Onward to yard work, usually an April chore.

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Reading

Crewe Train by Rose Macaulay
Published in 1926

The story of a girl—who doesn’t like to read, doesn’t like art, doesn’t like theater, and is what we Franco-Americans would call lazy—is not a natural fit for me. And so it was with Denham Dobie, the protagonist in Crewe Train. My initial take on Denham was that she was a boring lump of a young woman, and I almost stopped reading the book after the first twenty pages.

But then something unexpected happened—Rose Macaulay’s writing and her sympathy for this unsociable, unambitious character won me over. By the end, I was as worried about Denham as I would be if she were a member of my own family. Well, all right. Maybe I’m overstating the case. Still, I brooded about Denham.

When the book opens, Denham is living in relative freedom with her father, also unsociable, in Andorra, a small country between Spain and France. When Denham’s father dies, Denham’s aunt—her mother’s sister—takes her back to England in the hopes of training her to be a proper young lady. But this is no Pygmalion story, and Denham is no Audrey Hepburn.

Initially, Denham does try to please her fashion-conscious aunt. She  falls in love with and marries a kind but conventional man named Arnold, who likes to mess about in boats and play games with Denham. But Arnold also likes London and books—he works as a publisher—and plays and dinner parties. He likes being around people, and Denham does not. For her small talk is a misery, and she would much rather be  rambling around outside.

Denham and Arnold are an odd, uneasy couple, and I wound up feeling sorry for both of them as they tried to accommodate each other’s opposing tastes.

I won’t reveal the ending except to note that the casual cruelty of Denham’s aunt sets in motion an unhappy chain of events. Crewe Train, while not a tragedy, is a sad book despite its flashes of humor.

One more thing to note: Crewe Train was published in 1926, and in my experience, writers of that time frequently included racist words and descriptions in their books. So it is with Crewe Train. Not the worst I’ve read—that honor goes to the otherwise delightful Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day—but not good all the same.

Nevertheless, Crewe Train is a book worth reading. Denham, for all her flaws, feels like a woman ahead her time, flailing as she tries to live on her own terms, unencumbered by possessions, free to wander the countryside, unconcerned with domestic duties.

All Denham wants is a simple life, not so easy for women of her class and generation in the 1920s.

 

Snow-Gauge Clif, Winter

Enter…Snow-Gauge Clif

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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.

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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.

 

 

People, Snow-Gauge Clif, Spring

Spring & In Memorium: Jason Kay

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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.

 

Celebrate, News, Snow-Gauge Clif

Peanut Butter & Jelly Day and Snow-Gauge Clif

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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?

Music, Snow-Gauge Clif, Winter

March Marches On

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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.

Celebrate, Snow-Gauge Clif, Winter

An Anniversary Weekend and Snow-Gauge Clif

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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.

Books, Snow-Gauge Clif, Winter

Septic System Problems, Snow-Gauge Clif & and a Review of Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

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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.