A Sunny Mother’s Day

May 12, 2014 Clif Graves 2 Comments

On Mother’s Day, in central Maine, we got oh so lucky with the weather. The day was sunny and warm. At the little house in the big woods, Shannon and Clif made a bang-up brunch for me and Gail, Mike’s mother. While brunch was being prepared, Gail and I sat on the patio, chatted, and luxuriated in the sun. How wonderful to be able to sit outside without a jacket! And how nice, just for once, not to have to fuss over a meal, to relax and talk while someone else fussed.

For our Mother’s Day brunch, Shannon and Clif made home fries, waffles, a sausage and cheddar breakfast casserole, and a fruit salad.

Then there was dessert, chocolate soufflé cupcakes with mint cream, a Smitten Kitchen recipe. This cupcake is rich and flourless and has become a favorite of mine. Shannon made it last year for Mother’s Day, and I requested it this year. Best of all, these cupcakes can be made the day before and still be moist the next day.

We had dessert outside on the patio, while the dogs ran and sniffed around the backyard, and the goldfinches tweeted and twittered. Gail and I complimented the chefs—Clif for his wonderfully light waffles, and Shannon for the tasty breakfast casserole, crisp home fries, and incredible cupcakes.

I commented on how Shannon only started cooking when she was in her late 20s, and Gail was surprised. “She’s such a good cook. I thought she had been cooking for a long time.”

Then Shannon said something that I’m still mulling over. “Even though I wasn’t interested in cooking, I had a mother who cooked, so I knew the basics—stir frying, sautéing, baking. I wasn’t completely inexperienced.”

Maybe so, but if my memory is correct, Shannon didn’t do many of those things when she was at home. Could watching me really have given her a head start? Or, is she just a quick learner? Whatever the case, Shannon has become a fine cook, and I’m always eager to eat a meal she’s prepared.

After everyone left, it was still light, and Clif and I went on a bike ride. After the ride, we sat by shimmering Marancook for a while, watching the sun set and some brave souls wade in water that must be very cold.

A lovely ending to a lovely day.

News

Notes from the Hinterland: In Bloom and Unfurling

May 9, 2014 Clif Graves 3 Comments

Although everything is late, spring has finally come to Maine. The hermit thrushes are back with their pan-pipe songs. Yesterday, I saw a hummingbird—time to put up the lovely red feeder Clif bought me for Christmas. It’s been sunny and warm enough for lunch on the patio, and mild enough, even, for an hour on the patio when Clif comes home from work. Best of all, the black flies, the scourge of the north, have yet to rear their ugly little heads. Dare I hope that this will be a sparse spring for black flies? I sure do!

In the garden, in the woods, by the road, flowers are blooming, and plants are unfurling. Here are a few pictures I recently took:

Such a busy time of year. For the next few weeks I will be digging, planting, and, in general, grubbing in the yard. There is also a lot going at our library, with the expansion entering its public phase. (I’m a trustee and a volunteer.) There will be a kick-off celebration next week, and—surprise, surprise—I was the one to organize the food.

Busy or not, I’m still cooking dinner every night, of course. Clif and I hardly ever eat out, and I even have a recipe to share—chickpea cutlets—and another to experiment with—chili made with black bean “meat balls.” But these recipes will have to wait for either a rainy day or June.

In the meantime, here is a picture of the chickpea cutlets, adapted from a Mark Bittman recipe. My, my, they were tasty, if I do say so myself. A definite make-again dish.

This Sunday is Mother’s Day, and at the little house in the big woods, there will be a waffle brunch, complete with home fries, fruit salad, and an egg dish. I’m told there will even be chocolate cupcakes for dessert.

Happy spring and Happy Mother’s Day to all!

News

Notes from the Hinterland: Slowing Down to Observe

May 6, 2014 Clif Graves

Spring in Maine continues to be cold and gray. I am still wearing my winter garb—turtle neck, sweater, big corduroy shirt—and that is inside the house. Outside, I am even more bundled up.

Despite the recalcitrant weather, the grass is turning a bright green, and undeterred by cold, the perennials in my garden are bravely emerging from their winter sleep. However, I’ve heard that many farmers are behind in planting peas. The soil is just too cold for seeds to germinate.

But right on schedule, the maple flowers have started falling from the trees. Although May brings many delights that are much showier than this delicate flower, I’ll miss the cheerful red fringe on the maple trees in my backyard.

Until I took a picture of a maple flower and then cropped the photo, I had never really examined this little flower. I had never noticed the wave of stamens, the burst of petals, the lighter center. Instead, I had seen them the way an impressionist painter might, a welcome dab of red in a landscape just beginning to show color.

The maple flower is a reminder for me to slow down, to look closely at what surrounds me. All too often I rush through my days, checking off one chore after another: Vacuum, make bread, tidy the kitchen, work in the garden, do laundry, write, type the minutes for the last library trustee meeting, bike to the food pantry to volunteer. Chores certainly need to be done, but there must be some kind of balance between doing and looking. Listening and smelling should also be added to looking. Perhaps a better word would be noticing. Or observing.

After all, what kind of life do we have if we are so busy doing that we never take the time to notice, to observe? Whether you live in a suburb, in a city, or in the countryside, there is always something to notice—the changing of seasons; nature, even in cities; the weather; sun and rain and clouds and sky; other people; buildings; animals. There is so much to observe, wherever you are.

Best of all, you don’t have to have a lot of money to observe closely. This is something the greedy financiers, who have grabbed and ruined so much, cannot take away from us. Despite how much actual money you might or might not have, a life spent observing, looking, and noticing is a rich one.

I’m thinking it might be time to buy a magnifying glass, so that I can look even more closely at the little marvels all around me.

Food for Thought

A Franco-American Doc, Poetry, and Potluck

May 2, 2014 Clif Graves 7 Comments

Yesterday, I went to the Lewiston-Auburn College with my friend Claire Hersom to the third annual Poetry & Peace Potluck. Not only did this event include an abundance of poetry and food, but there was also a documentary called Down by the River’s Edge. The film is about the Otis Paper Mill in Chisholm, the southern end of Jay, and the people who worked in and lived by the mill, which closed in 2009. Not surprisingly, the predominant ethnic group was Franco-American. (By one estimate, Franco-Americans make up 30 percent of Maine’s population.) But Chisholm also had Italian and Slovakian immigrants as well. Who knew there were so many ethnic groups in the Jay/Livermore Falls area? I certainly didn’t.

Down by the River’s Edge is a combination of stills and clips of interviews with people, some of them quite old, who had worked in the mill. The film did a nice job of weaving in the various elements of life in a mill town—the history, the hard work, the big families, the crowded living conditions, the sense of community, the Catholic church, and the fun that people made for themselves.

Susan Gagnon, the writer and director, was on hand for a discussion after the film. She told about how she wanted to expand the stories told about mill towns, which usually included the words “dirty” and “working class.” Growing up in Chisholm, Susan saw a vibrancy and a keen sense of community. She became aware that the story of the workers at the Otis Paper Mill had never been recorded, and Susan had to “beg and borrow but not steal” the many stills featured in Down by the River’s Edge.

The story of Maine is also the story of the Ku Klux Klan, who were a major presence in the state and marched against Franco-Americans and other Catholics. Susan decided not include that segment in her film, and while I understand that her focus was on the people and the community of Chisholm, it seems to me that to not include something about the Klan was a major omission.

Nevertheless, Down by the River’s Edge, four years in the making, is a good film. Not only is it worth seeing, but it also tells the stories of people who for too long have not had a voice.

After the documentary came poetry, and many of Maine’s notable poets were at the Poetry Peace Potluck. Henry Braun, Gary Lawless, Robert Farnsworth, Jeri Theriault, and my personal favorite, Claire Hersom, are just a sample of the fine poets who read yesterday. The general themes were peace, May Day, and workers.

Claire read “In America Dreaming,” which ties in Walt Whitman, the Civil War, and the Vietnam War. She gave me permission to quote from the poem, and here are the last two stanzas, especially lovely and poignant and wistful.

Isn’t that what you wanted, to have a place
and a breeze
blowing against your face.
And when it got too loud to hear the birds,
to hunker down, hold on the the sway of the world?

Sometimes at night, I think I hear you
endlessly calling to the universe.
I see you illumed in the night’s shadows
rambling across the meadows
climbing the old stone walls
searching for a way back.

In the front row, Susan Gagnon is third from the left, and Claire Hersom is fourth from the left.

Animals - especially dogs

Sing Little Bird

April 30, 2014 Clif Graves 2 Comments

At the little house in the big woods, we are lucky to have birds year round. However, in the spring, we have even more, and the trees are a aflutter with the little beauties. In addition, they sing to attract mates and to establish territory. This means the backyard in spring is an audio delight as well as a visual one.

Needless to say, the birds don’t pose for me so that I can take their pictures. As I sit on the patio, I have camera in hand, waiting, waiting for a good shot. Because the birds are always on the move, I take a lot of bad photos of them, but occasionally I get a relatively good one in the mix.

Here is one of a purple finch, caught in the act of vocalizing.

Sing, little bird. Sing. Spring is here.

Nature, People

Of Squirrels and Maple Blossoms and Spring Chores

April 28, 2014 Clif Graves 4 Comments

This year, spring is coming in fits and starts. One day it will be warm and sunny, and I can have lunch on the patio. The next day it will be cold and gray, and time spent spent outside involves wearing a fleece jacket and maybe even gloves. (Thank goodness I’ve been able to ditch the hat!)

But however fitfully, spring is here. Above the bird feeders, the maple tree is fringed in red. In the garden, irises and day lilies are a tender green. Finally, the peepers are singing at night. A most welcome sound.

Chickadees, purple finches, goldfinches, tufted tit mice, and nuthatches come to the feeders. So do the squirrels—red and gray. They are stymied by two of the feeders—one has a baffle, and the other is weighted so that it closes when the squirrels step on the bar. The birds, much lighter than the squirrels, can land on the bar and eat without the feeder closing on them. The squirrels yearn to eat from the feeders, but experience has taught the squirrels that it is a waste of effort to try to get seed from them, and nowadays they seldom try. Most of the time, the squirrels just gaze longingly at the bird seed, so close, but so inaccessible.

It seems to me that it is unfair to think of squirrels as rats with bushy tails, as some people do, and to resent them. Like the birds, squirrels are concerned with making a living, and they must deal with harsh weather and predators, two of which live with me. Given the opportunity, my cats would gladly kill the squirrels, but the squirrels are fast and watchful and so far have eluded capture.

However, it can’t be denied that squirrels will clean out a bird feeder in a day or two, and my budget simply isn’t big enough to support the squirrels’ big appetites. (Like me, they are good eaters.) So I compromise. Once a week, I fill the tube feeders that are not squirrel proof, and when the seed is gone, it is gone until the next week’s filling. As always, life is a series of compromises, some big, some little. For me, this is an acceptable compromise. The squirrels, no doubt, have a different take on the matter.

After the hard winter—the snow and the storms and the wind—the backyard was a tangle of blown-down sticks, pine cones, and dog-do. In other words, a real mess. I am happy to report that while almost nothing is in bloom, the backyard is clean and raked. It is ready for us and for family and friends as soon as the weather allows.

Now, onto the front yard, to rake, to remove the leaves from the flower beds, and to the most dreaded chore of all, cleaning the heavy sand from the edge of the lawn and the end of the driveway. Last year, I hurt my back when I scooped that heavy sand, and I was out of commission for several days. This year, I am going to take it very, very slowly.

This is no time of year to be out of commission for several days.

People

Earth Day, Birthday

April 22, 2014 Clif Graves 1 Comment

Our daughter Shannon’s birthday is today. Happy birthday, Earth Day girl! What a cool day to have a birthday.

Because of everyone’s schedule, we celebrated Shannon’s birthday on Sunday, which turned out to be such a warm, lovely day that we were actually able to have appetizers on the patio. The first patio gathering of the season and a great way to kick off what I hope will be a long string of patio days.

The yard is certainly not at its best. There is much clean-up to do, and there are no flowers in the garden. Only green shoots. But it didn’t matter. As we ate, drank, and talked in the warm sunshine, the dogs ran and sniffed around the yard. Chickadees and nuthatches and tufted titmice came to the feeder. The red buds of the maple tree were in crisp outline against the deep blue sky. So what if the mud by the gate had to be barricaded with a pallet, a wheel barrow, and two trashcans so that the dogs wouldn’t be a muddy mess? We didn’t need hats and mittens to be comfortable outside. Welcome, welcome, spring!

For the meal, we had grilled steak—one of Shannon’s favorites—as well as tortellini tossed with roasted garlic and olive oil; glazed carrots; and homemade cornbread. There were presents, cake, and ice cream. Shannon also loves our homemade peanut butter balls, so the previous day, Clif and I made a half-batch to give her, and we recycled a Valentine’s Day box for the chocolates.

Shannon is keen on playing games, and she brought a rather complex board game—The Eldritch Horror—for us to play. After cake and ice cream, we cleared the dining room table and spread the many pieces out. At first we all just moved randomly around the board, but gradually we dimly understood how to find clues and stop the monsters, and we moved with more purpose. One of the things I really like about this game is that rather than stress competition, where player is pitted against player, this game encourages cooperation, where to win against the monsters, the players must help one another. Because the game is complex, there is nothing cheesy about the cooperation. I have never played a board game like this, and it was a good change from the usual knock the other players off the board kind of game.

All in all, a good day with fine weather, a birthday celebration, and an interesting new game that we agreed could be played on the patio when the day stays warm into the evening.

Community, News

The Library Expansion Begins

April 18, 2014 Clif Graves 2 Comments

And the walls come tumbling down... — And the walls come tumbling down…

For the past few years, a dedicated group of volunteers—full disclosure: I am one of them—has been working on raising money to build an addition for our town’s library. Our goal is to raise 1 million dollars, a lot of money for a little town comprising mainly middle-class people. The plan included tearing down an old Masonic hall adjacent to the library, with the new addition being built on the footprint of the old building. (The library expansion committee looked into refurbishing the Masonic building, but it simply wasn’t strong enough to support the weight of all the books. However, the woodwork has been salvaged to use in the new addition.)

The goal of the expansion campaign was to take down the Masonic building when over 70 percent of the money had been raised for the addition. Well, glory be, we finally reached that mark, and yesterday the Masonic building was torn down.

I rode Blue Beauty—my first bike ride of the season—to the library and took photos of the demolition. I must admit I had mixed feelings as I watched the building come down. On the one hand, I was excited that we are finally beginning the project that so many of us have worked so hard on for so many years. On the other hand, as the building was being torn apart, the wood cracked and groaned, and I really felt as though I was watching the death of something old that had once been beautiful. So sad!

I stood next to a man who had gone to meetings in the Masonic building, and he seemed philosophical about the building’s demise. “The Masons don’t have the membership they used to have,” he told me. “And that building was in tough shape.”

Yes, it was. And now the Masonic building is gone. From its “ashes” will rise a new building, one that will expand the library, which is bursting at the seams. When the expansion is built, the library will be able to breathe freely and more easily fill its vital role in our community.

People

Snow in April and a Birthday Celebration

April 16, 2014 Clif Graves 3 Comments

This morning, when I looked out the window, this is what I saw in my backyard.

Never mind! Yesterday, I went to Portland, where I had lunch with Shannon and Kate to celebrate Shannon’s birthday. We had a long, long lunch and a great chat. After eating, we took one of our famous selfies.

Although we had a wonderful time, it was also a bittersweet get-together. Kate has moved from New Hampshire to Pennsylvania, and if her house in New Hampshire sells soon, this will likely be our last birthday gathering. Another “fellowship” has broken up. We have been meeting to celebrate birthdays for quite a few years—I can’t remember exactly how many—and we have had such good times, not to mention terrific food.

Well, life is like that. People move away, for excellent reasons, and although we miss them terribly, we also know it is best for them.

Shannon and I have decided to continue meeting for lunch for our birthdays, but it won’t be the same without Kate.

Community, People

A Fun Fundraiser with Sweet Tooth Fudge

April 14, 2014 Clif Graves 1 Comment

Yesterday afternoon, 84 boxes of fudge were delivered to the little house in the big woods. Fortunately, most of that fudge is going to other people and will not be staying here long. Karen and Jeff Toothaker, of Winthrop’s very own Sweet Tooth Fudge, had volunteered to make fudge for a fundraiser for the town library—we will soon be building an expansion—and I volunteered to coordinate this fundraiser. Hence the 84 boxes of fudge delivered to our home.

To say that I have “a sweet tooth” is an understatement. I have never met a dessert that is too sweet for me, and my favorite foods include chocolate, donuts, pies, and, as it happens, fudge. In truth, I am a sucker for fudge, and Sweet Tooth Fudge—smooth and oh-so creamy—is among the best I have ever eaten. (Top honors must go to my mother’s fudge, of course.)

Is Sweet Tooth Fudge the best in central Maine? I certainly think it is. I haven’t tasted any fudge that is better, and most of what I have eaten isn’t even half as good. Sweet Tooth Fudge definitely gets the Good Eater seal of approval.

And what a sweet fundraiser this was! The Toothakers are wonderful to work with, and the fudge practically sells itself. Clif brought a sign-up sheet to work, and Kelly, one of his co-workers, asked who was making the fudge. When Clif told Kelly it was Sweet Tooth Fudge, she immediately signed up to buy 2 boxes.

Because this was a fundraiser for the library, Karen came up with clever literary names to describe the fudge. I especially liked Come Spring by Ben Ames Williams, “inspired by our driveway in spring! A layer of vanilla fudge spread with Jif peanut butter topped with puddles of chocolate fudge.” And I also really liked Talking Walls: Discover Your World by Margy Burns Knight: “Chocolate was first discovered in the tropical rainforest of the Americas. It is now enjoyed everywhere. You choose—pure chocolate or chocolate walnut.”

When Jeff dropped off the fudge, we chatted a little about the fudge-making business. Jeff estimated that he and Karen spend 1,000 hours a year on fudge—14 weekends in which they sell the fudge, and 3 evenings before each weekend to make the fudge. A lot of work, but fun work, Jeff said.

I also had the opportunity to visit Karen and Jeff’s fudge-making facility at their home. One whole room is devoted solely to fudge making, and with its shelves and double sink, the room is neat, orderly, and spic and span. January, February, and March are Sweet Tooth’s slow times, but during busy months when they have lots of fudge on hand, Karen told me I could come to their house to buy fudge directly from them. As I have a brother who is very keen on chocolate fudge and have other family members and friends who like fudge, I expect I will be buying fudge from the Toothakers on a semi-regular basis.

Naturally, I might slide in a box for myself as well. After all, the fudge keeps for 3 weeks, and I can have a thin slice every day for dessert. This will allow me to stay within the parameters of my perpetual diet and yet finish the fudge before it becomes hard and dry. Of course, Clif would help me, too, so there is little chance that a half-pound of fudge would languish in the cupboard.

Anyway, many, many thanks to Jeff and Karen Toothaker for doing this fundraiser for the library. One sweet step at a time, we are getting closer to our goal of raising money for the expansion.

Notes From the Hinterland