What's good for the gander ....

gan·der n
1. an adult male goose
2. an offensive term used about or to somebody who is thought to be unserious and frivolous
3. a look or glance at somebody or something (informal)

Interesting definitions. Surprising to me that the word “gander” in addition to the commonly known “male goose” can be an offensive term. “Unserious.” “Frivolous.” Hmmm? I know I’ve locked onto these terms in the past when I’ve considered Richard’s love of poultry from a detached and judgmental position. Well, most of that has gone to the birds, especially of late. The latest development? During my trip back north from a week stay in New York, Richard informed me that he’d found a gander for sale for $45 just across the Rhode Island line in Massachusetts which just happened to be – miracle of miracles! – to be on my route home since I had just been visiting a friend south of Providence. Richard asked me if I would be so kind to stop by, buy him, box him up, and bring him home. Now I may have given an informal look or glance at this idea, but quickly tabled it for the greater cause of health care reform at our household and said a resounding YES to the Public Option of more poultry at our home. After all, Richard does have a legitimate business interest in this. He wants to get as many Pilgrim goose eggs laid as possible and ship them off to interested buyers around the country. And since we have 2 geese of laying age AND since each one of them could produce 30-40 eggs each in the goose laying period from late February through April AND since many major hatcheries have discontinued Pilgrim geese this year, this could be a profitable enterprise. And we could get a few more goslings ourselves. Not a bad proposition; they’re adorable.

So I drove my Subaru Outback Massachusetts way and visited the Berman’s who very kindly gave me a tour of their compound, a glorious and warm menagerie of goats and chickens and geese and dogs and cats. Lovely, lovely. It took me a little while to choose from the male geese, Schmul being the pappy of the other 3 and the larger, obviously. He was dominant and squawky, but I was able to pick him up a couple times and coo in his ear, ducking swipes he made at my nose. And oh what a fine and proud fellow he was. And a protective and fine father I was assured. After about 45 minutes of back and forth, my decision was made, and a box was made up for Schmul with hay and holes a plenty. The packing process went with ease and the box was put into the back for the 3 plus hour drive. Along the way, I would coo to him, give assurances and love. He did well. He even gave a nice hearty and brassy honk at the gas station I stopped at along the way, a fine trumpet to the air.

We arrived home before nightfall, and Richard came out of our house, all smiles, eager as a kid on Christmas morning. We carried the box up to the pen to introduce Schmul to the girls. It was cold, about 14 degrees or less. Chilly. But they warmed pretty quickly to one another, the girls a little stand-offish and proper at first and then Ginger started flirting with a little nibble on Schmul’s tail feathers. Since then Ginger has gone to following him everywhere, granted “everywhere” is a fairly small area, but still it’s pretty sweet. Love is in the air.

I’m sorry this installment is brief, but there are pictures. I’m also writing this from afar, Richard and I are in Tempe through the 27th and our dear neighbor Royce is taking care of our flock in our absence. As always when I’m away, Vermont is in my heart. I'm so glad and grateful that we live there, so grateful for all our friends, and grateful for all the ganders in our life, especially the frivolous and unserious ones that turn into hidden riches, their own version of the goose that lay the golden egg.

Happy Holidays!!

We’re also in the midst of a renaming quandary. I love Schuml, but Richard wants to carry on the “Gilligan’s Island” theme. We may have to go with Professor Schmul. Not bad.

Coaxing Recalcitrant Geese To And From Their Coop

Last night I was shepherding the geese back up to their coop and something happened that has never happened before. Snow covering the ground is a new experience for them, and they had been out in it all day, sticking mostly to the backyard, our covered porch, and around about the chicken coop where they got their exercise harassing the various breeds of poultry that would come out for a brief stretch. Now as the light in the sky dimmed – 4:30 pm, still amazing to me - they pretty much knew it was time to head up hill to their lodgings. They have given me a little trouble in the past, acting like kids that don’t want to go in yet, complaining for a little more time to stay outside and play. This was different. Maybe it was the white of the landscape that had erased all trace of familiarity. Maybe it was the slog of trudging through snow where once there had been firm, shallow earth and grass. Maybe it was an instinctive maternal energy, I don’t know, but after a mild resistance to going uphill, they both stopped and sat down on the snowy ground as if they were on a nest. I urged them on once, cooing encouragement, and they walked a few more steps, only to stop and nestle down again. And it wasn’t a stubborn defiant act; it was restful, calm, “this is where I belong and it is good.” They looked so sweet and content. But the fact remained that they had to get to their coop and they weren’t budging. And so, expecting them to scatter, I reached over to cradle them both in my arms and carry them AND THEY LET ME!! If you have been reading this blog you’ll know how rare verging on impossible this is. Though they’re devoted to and firmly imprinted on both Richard and me and follow us in a quick waddle or arm flapping flurry wherever we go outside, when we do turn directly to them for a bit of affection, a hug or a nuzzle, they scurry dash away, as if we’re trying to look up their skirts or something. Not this time. I bent down and reached around them both and lifted them off the ground. There was a brief flapping of webbed feet straining for earthy purchase in the air, but it was gone almost immediately. They relaxed. I congratulated them on their behavior and enjoyed the cuddle of goose down all the way to their open door. A quick dispatch through the door, a rustle, a quick trip to the galvanized feed pail to fill up their food tray, a water bucket check to be sure that it hadn’t iced over during the day, and then a slow shut of the door, wishing them both a good night. Once the door was shut, I stood there waiting to hear them cluck talk to one another in muffled tones and then the watery sploosh of them submerging their heads in the water bucket before taking a silent drink. It’s the sound of all’s well with the world to me.

Right now, both Richard and I are nestled inside, hunkered down for the 4 to 9 inch snow that’s forecast for today, the eastern version of the storm that’s been working its way across the country. The Vermont edition of said storm looks quite fetching so far. The chickens are staying in today. I went up around 8 to let the geese out, late for us, and Ginger came to the door, immediately assessed the situation and the countryside and with an “Are you kidding?” attitude, retreated back into the house. Mary Ann, who’s become the more adventurous of the 2, came to the door next and almost jumped down, her head down in intense concentration gauging the jump, her right foot doing test waves in the air. But it was not to be. Ginger’s constant chattering in the background may have worn her down for she too stepped away from the door. Plan 2 needed to go into effect. What is Plan 2 you ask? I have no idea. Actually, it would be Plan 3 for Plan 2 would be to just keep them in their house all day, a Plan we discovered Royce had opted for a couple of the days we had been gone recently.

Plan 3! Open their back pen. First step, continue covering the fenced in area adjacent to the coop so there’s a little protection and they can come out and slowly get used to the new climate with a sense of extended shelter. I went down to the now snow covered pile of old barn wood we’d taken off before putting the new pine siding up and placed it over the back entrance and then stooped hobbit-like and walked in the fenced in area underneath the sheltering boards and opened the back door which then turns into a comfortable ramp for them to use. I had to scrape a path through the wood shavings at the door, shavings that cushion the bottom of their coop, a bottom frequently in need of refluffing with a rake. You can figure out why it’s in need of constant refluffing. I was no sooner out of the pen then they both ventured out, curious, seemingly quite comfortable, exploring and poking through the fallen brown leaves and cornstalks on the ground, grateful for an outdoor stretch. I tossed in a bunch of lettuce and cabbage leaves Richard got yesterday from a feed store, compost in place of the grass they usually forage for all day. They liked that. They didn’t much care for the dried timothy grass I tossed in as well. It’s supposed to be good for them, but we may have to soak it before they find it palatable. All in all, though, Plan 3 seems to be working. The only thing we’re wary about are predators. A weasel could easily get in the back pen. We’re banking that it may be a little too early in the season for predators and that geese are much larger than chickens, possibly better able to defend themselves, but what do we know, this is our first winter wintering our poultry; we’ll learn through experience. We’re monitoring the coop from our back kitchen window to make sure they’re fine. So far, so good.

Off to other writing now, just wanted to keep checking in. It’s pretty gorgeous here. I would say about 3 to 4 inches on the ground so far. Not much snow falling at the moment, just a lot of blowing about. It’s good. It’s all good.

Have a great day.

First Snow

This is a picture of Richard and me from last year, oh say around February, when the snow had been hanging around for 3 months in fairly prodigious amounts. Not the record breaking of the year before that, but still impressive. I love this picture, the way the reds in my jacket and Richard's hat and the coop in the background break up the white, white, white of the world around us. I love the joy that comes out of the picture, the joy of being outdoors, alive, with Richard. And there is an exhilaration about being out in the snow here, I don't know what it is, it's gooney sometimes, but it brings a smile to my face. There's a white washed feeling to it, a cleansing, a wipe the slate clean, starting over, let's see what's up next lift to it all.

First snow. There had been a dusting of snow in October that had worried us into "oh no, is it starting already?!!" thoughts, but they had passed and the snow melted away into a sunny and glorious November. I'm not going to count that October fake out as a "real" first snow. Today feels like an official beginning to winter, though it doesn't "officially" begin for a couple of weeks yet. Richard and I had spent a soggy rain to sludge to snow weekend in New York City seeing friends and shows and wondering what was going on weather-wise back up north. Driving back today, with Richard reading out loud to me most of the way from Kenneth Turan's terrific new book about Joe Papp "Free for All," we watched as the accumulation steadily increased from patchy to full cover, until by the time we reached our exit it felt as if we were returning to a completely different country from the one we'd left only 3 short days before. Winter togs had been donned. White is in and it's going to be staying for a while. Maybe for months. And for today, that's just fine. It's new, it's fresh. No gnashing of teeth, no rending of clothes. Well, maybe some periodic gnashing, but no rending. I need those clothes. It's cold now.

We got home just before dark. Royce, our next door neighbor who watches over our birds and cats when we're gone, had put the birds up, so I had missed seeing our goose girl's reaction to the whitening of their world. They hadn't been thrilled by the October dusting, in fact, they'd tried to fly over it. I went up to their house where they were craning into their little side window to look out. They always look like little kids when they do that, looking out of the window for Santa Claus. They tapped on the panes of glass with their beaks as I got closer. They're adorable. (As I'm writing this, Richard has been talking to me about breeding them in the late winter/early spring. We've recently found out that Pilgrim geese are on the endangered list AND lay only once a year, but during that period each female lays up to 40 EGGS A PIECE!! Richard wants to sell the eggs. I think it could work. A Pilgrim goose egg-shipping enterprise, right here, right now.)

Up by the goose house, looking out at our place in the fading light, felt so good. It made me feel as if I were inside one of those perfect Christmas snow globes that someone had just gently shaken. It felt so good to be home, so good to be here, alive, near Richard. He was in the chicken coop at the time, gathering eggs, and scraping up (!!!) Well, you get the picture. At least he kept that kind of activity inside the coop so as not to sully the white perfection of my snow globe, glad to be home, picture.

We're in the kitchen now closing in on bedtime. The fire in the wood stove has embered out, the Christmas music from the living room stereo has faded away, and my eyelids are headed for sleepy time village. It's nice and cozy and the flannel sheets will feel just fine on the eve of this first snow. I welcome it in. Another season shift. So here's to flannel and fleece and scarves and gloves and all nature of wraps and sweaters. Here's to Christmas carols and hot cider and hot mulled wine and warm fires and candlelight and star light and Orion in the sky and the moon in all its faces and silhouettes of tall pines against the indigo skies and birds at the feeder and foot prints in the snow, here's to quiet and bird call and hibernating in all its forms, here's to sleep and dreams and slowing down and taking stock and warm nights reading books and planting seeds of new thoughts and new projects and the hatching of new ideas. Here's to our first snow, blanketing the good earth, covering the mulched, newly planted trees, covering the garden and the pond and the hill, flocking the pines and spruce and firs, giving a little taste of wonder, a dusting of magic, an uplift to our world.

Coming off a Cleanse

Richard and I are in Indiana visiting my sister for Thanksgiving, connecting with our Midwestern roots (I’m a born and bred Hoosier and Richard grew up in Illinois) while feeling the New England tug on our hearts. Vermont travels with us wherever we go with thoughts of the hills, the pond, our chickens, cats, and geese. Oh God, we’re hobby farmers.

We just came off a 9-day cleanse, something we had been talking about doing off and on over the past few months and suddenly, without much forethought, we saw an opportunity to squeeze it in right before the “season of gluttony” officially begins. I’m being a bit harsh and judgmental there for Thanksgiving is my favorite of all holidays, Richard’s too. This year we’re spending it around family, a rare occurence for both of us. I have a feeling that goes against the norm for most Americans, but for me it has fit well with the nomadic lifestyle of an actor where each year I get to gather a family of friends around me with whom I choose to share this day of gratitude. That said, it’s good coming at the holiday in a different way this year. We’re enjoying it. After a day of travel, we’re at my sister’s house by ourselves today, making the very beginning motions of preparation for Thursday. It’s laid back and meshes perfectly with the grey November day outside.

But back to the 9-day cleanse. For the most part it was a breeze, save for the first 2 days when withdrawl short circuit jolts your system, not only the literal withdrawl from things like sugar and caffeine, but withdrawl from ritualizing everything to do with food, from having your day built around the preparation and eating of meals, from the world itself. Then you settle in to the world of cleanse and everything looks and feels different, slightly heightened, a bit dreamlike and woozy, and you feel more yourself, let loose from the roller coaster spell of sugar and caffeine highs and lows replaced by a steady and sure energy. And a voice inside whispers “Oh, so this is how I’m supposed to be eating; oh, these are the portions I’m truly hungry for; oh, this is the weight I should be; oh, this is the way my face, skin, eyes should look; etc, etc, etc.” You feel HEALTHY, resilient, spry, renewed, reborn, grateful. Seeing your face emerge out of baby fat, watching your belt hitch in another notch, space appearing in pant’s waistlines. This isa good thing. Good cleanse, nice cleanse. Thanks you, cleanse.

And then the cleanse ends.

And you return to the world, the world of eating. And it feels as if you’ve been gone a looooonnnnnnng time. Culture shock. “Now how do I do this again? How do I keep what I have and incorporate food back in? “ For instance, coffee. I love coffee (I think). I know it’s a bit of an addiction, I know it can get out of hand, but ooooooh I love it. And yes, I could easily replace the word “love” in that last sentence with the words, “crave,” “jones,” “itch for,” “could kill for,” etc , but …. well, no buts, there you have it. During the cleanse, after the first 2 days of withdrawl, Richard and I were quite content drinking non-caffeinated tea, surprisingly so. It was warming, satisfying and delicious, especially with a spoon full of New Hampshire maple syrup to sweeten it. Yum. So yesterday was the first cup o joe for a while. And it was good. Just one tall cup midday instead of what had been the norm before the cleanse – a goodly amount on rising and another pick me up around 4. This morning though, I mildly resented the cup of coffee I had. It was tasty, yes, hit the spot, good to the last drop and all that, but I didn’t like what it did to me. It jacked me up, made me slightly edgy and irritable, and I knew the energy wasn’t me, not the pure me I’d spent some good quality time with over the past few days. And I have a feeling I’m on the edge of border crossing. Now is my time to either stay in that country of me or go back into the country of coffee where I’m slightly, ever so slightly an automaton, slightly, ever so slightly at the mercy and whim of a stimulant, as if I’m lacking something in myself to stimulate me, as if I NEED it. A cleansing thought. No resolution yet. I’ll keep you updated.

Other cleansing thoughts? Well, it was uncanny how many parallel cleansing activities cropped up during this past week, activities like finishing incomplete chores and jobs around the house and homestead, ridding files of old papers, talking about old issues that may still be barnacleing on to our spirit whether they regarded issues between ourselves or friends and family. Very cleansing. After all these are the days to slow down, to hunker down, hibernate. When I was growing up or in times past, there was an acceleration around this holiday time of year, a beginning of a frantic, obligatory rush, breathless pace, back and forth, “only 30 shopping days left!” scream of activity that I think goes against the grain of what is naturally supposed to be happening this time of year. It feels so right in Vermont, close to the cycles of nature, to take your clues and cues by just looking outside. Energy is being pulled in, green is gone until next spring, time to cut back, mulch, cover up, wrap up, conserve, wrap up, warmth is within not out. This is the time for some quiet time, for some contemplation, to lay seeds for next year, to plant ideas. To cleanse.

Or not.

One more cleansing thought. Our pond is back brimful and sloshing over the spillway down a channel to our neighbor’s pond a quarter mile away. It’s miraculous how quickly it filled back up after the end of our excavation work 3 short weeks ago. The water is clear and pure and the geese are having a ball swimming in it each day, a last burst of freedom before the temperatures freeze it over. How wonderful. And the reflection of the tall trees and sky on its surface makes you feel as if you have double the blessings. Two skies for one, one below and one above; sometimes it’s hard to tell which is which, especially in pictures. That’s how I feel living in Vermont much of the time. Wondering what’s real, what’s not. Feeling this steady, sure, easy and natural happiness. A newness. A buoyancy. A withdrawl from the world to discover my true energy. That’s call for true Thanksgiving.

And that said, I have to end this installment with one of my favorite last lines of any movie. It’s “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” and in the final scene the title character, a young girl, newly graduated from high school, stands on her rooftop in turn of the last century Brooklyn with her younger brother, played by a tough young actor resembling Leo Gorcey of the Bowery Boys. She is rhapsodizing about life and love and marveling at how everything is turning out well and she turns to her brother and says “I love you” to which he replies: “Ahh, cut the mush.”

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Morning Amblings

Wood fire stove, warm, cats lounging, inside looking out to brown, beige, fir and spruce-greened countryside and woods. A chickadee’s munching on a suet cake outside the window on the bird feeder we just put out. Sofia is avidly watching the munching progress from her perch on the back of our green easy chair, a chair whose nether regions have easily (relentlessly) been frayed into a cat scratch post. Our pond has its first full skin of ice today which has baffled the geese. “What gives? What happened to the cool, liquidy, splattery stuff we like to bathe and flap frolic in?” I’m inside for the day, writing, breaking up the writing every once and a while for a short walk about outside. The cold weather makes me smile inside and out, it awakens something tickly, don’t know what, don’t care. Similar weather growing up in Indiana made me feel bleak. There was a sameness to it. What’s the difference here? Maybe the spruce and fir, the break-up of the brown and beige. Also, the hilly countryside, our rise up back. Maybe a different time in life, appreciating it all more, the moment, the seasons in this ‘50’s season of my life. Whatever, that smile wells up from deep within me and I so appreciate it. Gladsome tidings.

Opposites and contraditctions, I’m attracted to that. Cold without, warm within. Growing older, feeling younger. Writing about depression and suicide, having a greater zest for life. (That may come from the act of writing itself. If I don’t have a creative outlet of some sort, it’s as if a valve has been shut, a flow interrupted, an essential connection severed, oxygen taken out of my blood, breath held.) I marvel at life. It is marvelous.

This morning I woke with Richard early and meditated, stoked the fire, fixed coffee, fed the cats, saw him off and then went up to the goose house to set them free from their coop, had our back and forth wing-flapping dash “hello!” to the day. They accompany me about the property as I wander up the hill and then over to the pond to see its fill progress. Yesterday – or it might have been the day before – I saw an old board washed up near shore and remembered a piece I had begun the week before. Here it is in its unfinished state:

“There’s a board floating on our pond, a board we neglected to pick up from the bottom as we were cleaning out debris during our recent excavation. Every morning it’s in a different place. At first I was disgruntled by the sight of it, peeved, then I felt mocked – all signs of an evolved, unreactionary, at one with the universe state on those particular days. Now (at least for today) I’m seeing it as a floating meditation, something very eastern; I think I should write a haiku or 3 for it. I shall.

Board floating calmly
Nothing else for you to do
Just bored with nature.

Floating like “Wilson”
Dreaming of the open seas
And skinny Tom Hanks.


A lone floating board
Weathered by water and storm
Do you yearn for shore?

I could never float
Never got the hang of it.
I preferred submerged.

Under the surface
That suited me much better
Trying to sprout gills

Looking up at sky
And the underside of boards
Goose butts go by too


Floating on top’s fine
‘midst the reflection of trees
Dream from where you came.”

Thanks for taking a morning amble with me. Have a good day.

I've been remiss, but ...

Okay, here's the deal. I wake up in the morning to the glory of this place - the stark, chill, bracing beauty of it all - and in the midst of the daily letting loose of the geese and our flapping runs back and forth across the hill or the strides up the hill for a view of the browns and beiges of the landscape or a jaunt over to the pond (many times with the quietly observing geese) to see the progress of the fill or the slight shell of ice that's formed during the night or the breathing in of the air and feeling so alive, in those moments I'm all ready to skedaddle across the road and sit and ratatat off a fine installment on my blog. BUT I have prioritized. There's another writing project I too easily can put onto a back burner that's demanding to be put front burner full flame. And so, I blink my eye and it's 9 pm (which in Vermont feels like 1 am) and I'm wiped and have no juices. I've stories to tell and shall, but for tonight I shall simply share a few photos of Richard's chickens, our enlarging and expanding pond, and a fresh moose print in the new soil alongside our pond which recently had been silt at the bottom of it.

PS If you squint while looking at the pond picture, on the left, about midway up the picture in the pond, you can see about 4 feet of our newly put in white standpipe periscoping up. That pipe is now an inch away from being submerged. The spring waters flow on.

Time Change

Time change

We gained an hour yesterday, a little Halloween gift from the ghosts and goblins, a touch of magic in the air. Presto chango, here’s a little more light in the morning. It’ll help you feel like a touch of spring ahead with this falling behind. The catch is now it’s getting dark at 4! Ah well. So time is a little off in the household. Sofia’s meowing away in the early am. (Though I don’t think it’s the time change with her; I think it’s mice getting in somewhere that she wants to terrorize and feast upon.) Richard’s finding it hard to sleep, was up and at ‘em at 4 this morning. I followed shortly thereafter, wide awake at 4:30, so I got up, meditated and breakfasted with him, and saw him off to his job. Around 7:30 I took a walk and it was magnificent out. Clear, fresh, new. The time change looked very good on things. No feeling of death and decay despite the denuded trees. They looked very natural, very like themselves. And oh their silhouettes looked so sharp and bold against the Diebenkorn blue in the sky. And the eastern larches on top of our hill shimmered gold in the sunlight. Man. It’s still a miracle to me that they lose their needles. A deciduous needle-bearer. Magical.

Time change.

You barely notice time changing here. That’s the appeal. Eastern standard, daylight savings are meaningless terms. We’re on nature’s clock here, we turn it over to her. I like that. And without any television, with just periodic check-ins to podcasts to see what repetitive sturm-und-drang the world is frothing up for its addictive amusement, it helps us keep a distance from manmade definitions of both time and change. I’ve always felt a little apart from the regular pace, a “regular” life. Maybe that’s why I chose an artist’s life (or it chose me, who knows). At different stages of my life so far, I’ve enjoyed the nomadic aspect of it, home being the job itself and wherever that took me. I’ve also enjoyed the artist’s schedule that really isn’t a regular 9-5, you have a rehearsal schedule and then it shifts to a performance schedule. And that schedule is completely different if I’m doing something on stage, on television, or on film. Everything’s always changing. And then there’s the stepping into the specific schedule or 9-5 of my character. I get to taste someone else’s life for a period of time and then shuck it. Thanks for the visit, thanks for the change, been great getting to know you, and know me a little bit more in the process, and so, so long, I’m off to the next time change. An additional plus is if I’m doing a character from another time in history, I get to indulge my desire to time travel, an itch I’ve had since I was a kid. Glory, glory, hallelujah. (Funny how that phrase just came up because I’ve frequently been drawn to the American Civil War.)

Time change.

I love the seasons marking the change of time, the circular, comforting change, to be expected. I love how the skies change. Now Orion’s coming back at night like a welcome old friend returning to celebrate the holidays. My birthday’s coming up. There’s another time change. On December 2nd I’ll be 55. Unbelievable. Aging, such a weird thing. I don’t think there’s a lot of vanity attached to it, no regrets, or nostalgic longing for days gone by, an aching for youth. But I did share a belief I have with a friend the other day, a magical belief - somewhat embarrassing to admit, but it’s there nonetheless - that aging, when it comes up in my mom, or my Aunt Sis, and other relatives or friends of my mom and dad’s generation, is something that they can cast off like a common cold and after the cold disappears they will get young again, that aging is really reversible. A magical setting the clocks back. Presto chango. (I can picture my mom reading this section right now and saying: “It’s only a number. I’m going to be around for a long time.” And I’m sure she will be. She seems to defy time and aging.)

Time change.

The same friend with whom I shared my magical aging belief the other day has been and continues to be a stalwart midwife in a creative becoming of mine and in rereading my piece-in-progress he noticed that an additional theme woven into it turns out to be that of aging. No accident there, no matter how unintended. Aging. I think I like how time is changing me. I don’t know if I give it a hell of a lot of attention except at moments like this when I’m specifically reflecting on it. Inside – and I know I’m not alone in this – most days I feel younger, more buoyant, more youthful as time goes on, while outside, well whenever I catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror, I’m just thrown. The reflection back does not jibe with how I feel inside. ‘So this is what the world sees,” I think. And now that I think about, this inside/outside didn’t jibe when I was literally literally “youthful.” My youth may have looked young from the outside, but inside I felt so old and jaded and “know it all”, heavy with important, meaningful thoughts. How funny that time has brought a presto chango in me that what was on the inside in youth is now on the outside of the 54 year old me and what was on the outside is in. Magic.

Time change.

There’s a numerological belief I don’t quite get, but that I find intriguing, namely that there’s some alignment we’re in now that is almost identical to that at the time of the American revolution and that this period of turmoil and shifting ground and crumbling foundations is to be expected and will continue for the next 15 years. It feels right. It certainly explains a lot – Tea Partiers, Glenn Beck being compelled to rewrite Thomas Paine’s works, any side to any argument being so “up in arms”, charging that the other side is being disloyal, being un-American. I think it invites one to not expect or force quick fixes on anything, it urges one to ride it out, to be compassionate maybe, kind possibly, patient, to remember to laugh, keep a sense of humour. What appeals to me most is the idea that time changes and then again it doesn’t. People in different times, under different circumstances are forever springing ahead and falling behind. There’s a timelessness about it. So why not enjoy the rollercoaster ride. Or find a still center. Or maybe a little bit of back and forth between both of those things.

Time.
Change.
Time to change.

A Bit of This, a Bit of That.

It’s 10 til 8 and I’m ready for bed. To tell the truth, I was sleepy at 6. What am I going to do when the time changes and it gets dark at 4? I need a social life or a trip to NYC. Either that or simply cave in to the advanced teaching the cats are giving me which can be distilled down to 2 handy words: Sleep More. They’re all konked out around the kitchen in various relaxed positions, basking in the warmth of our jotul wood stove. Richard and I and our visiting friend Vasily did some major strengthening of our stove’s piping system yesterday as well as some major root canal work in our lined chimney flue. After having no trouble at all with our wood fires this month – and we’ve been having a lot due to a cooler than usual October – the smoke backed up on a fire we were starting last Friday morning, seeping through some wider than usual seam cracks in our metal pipes that diagonals up from the stove to the flue. We extinguished the fire, and immediately got on the horn to our trusty chimney cleaning guys, who were at first unreachable and unwilling to return phone messages and then were found to be booked, so we gladly took matters into our own hands. We did what we could on the kitchen level - disassembling the pipes, shop vac-ing up the hard ash coating on the inside of the pipes as well as sucking up bits of crud in our flue base. Then I chim-chim-chireed up to our roof spine to unplug a creosote clog, due, we realize now, from a combination of burning a lot of pine and birch wood lately and at low temperatures. There was a hefty clog up there. I could reach down the chimney a bit with my arm and crunch through it, and then I continued the clean by detaching the hose from our shop vac and feeding it through the flue, first from the top down and then from the bottom up. (We learned later that the local volunteer fire department will loan you a chimney cleaning device they have at their station which sounds as if it’s a wad of fuller brush brushes connected to a heavy chain that you fish down your flue and then give it the ole up/down, up/down.) But still, success!! We cleaned our chimney ourselves. Down from the rooftop, we reconnected our pipes with heavier, tougher, tighter screws and have begun burning our fires hotter to burn off the remaining plaque of creosote. A job well done. Feels good.

And back to today and my fatigue, there’s a reason I’m wiped - I’ve been working a good part of the day toting wheel barrows full of wood chips to cover the winter rye grass seed I’ve been sowing on our newly muddied pond banks. Our pond cleaning excavation is done, a good deal of the rich silt bulldozed up and mounded on the shore. To keep it from seeping back into the pond, we have sculpted it pretty well into the landscape and where a mound might be more vulnerable to erosion, we have placed fallen logs as barriers, that and sewn rye grass which we hope will sprout and grow before a solid freeze sets in. Today’s wood chip cover should help the germination. And the pond is refilling quickly. With a couple days of rain coming, the fill rate should increase. It’s good to see it coming back. Richard’s happy, the geese are happy, the locals are happy. I’m okay about it. It has been funny seeing all sorts of vehicles slow down to gaze at our empty pond and question what’s going on – hunters, mail carriers, school bus drivers, neighbors, bank tellers, on and on. It’s proven to be quite a conversation piece. No one seems to have ever seen an empty pond. It’s looking good, though. And not just the pond, but we’ve been thinning the woods beside the pond, cutting a majority of the saplings that were growing in profusion. It’s really spruced up the surroundings. And opened them too. Like a clean, new canvas. What would we like to create next?

I don’t think I’ve told about the wood chipper yet. It was a gas, a full day of feeding this machine piles and piles of thinned saplings and branches and various and sundry pieces of wood around and about our property. Monumental. We really began on Thursday night when I rented the machine and brought it home, hooked on to my Subaru Outback, and set out to grind up a bit of refuse in the rain to get a jump on the job. Friday morning we woke early and continued on through mid-afternoon when I had to get the chipper back to the rental place. It was purported to be able to grind 6” diameter trees! We never tried that, but it really sounds as if they’re stretching the threshold of credibility there. No way. That said, though, it very impressively dispatched trees with 4” girths and I find that impressive. The job was fun and tiring. By the end of it, I was spent, spent, spent and aching. But in the dark back from having returned the chip meister, I carried on, strewing the aforementioned rye seeds in order to get them on the ground before an all day rain the next day.

And speaking of the next day, as a sort of reward – though it had been planned for a month or so – the next day we drove down to Hartford Stage Company and spent the entire day enjoying a marathon viewing of Horton Foote’s “The Orphan Home Cycle” – 9 hours of theatre. It’s New York bound and though it still needs a little honing and toning work toward the end, it’s a spectacular achievement. What a great gift after a day of labor, a full day in the theatre. And rich, compelling, enthralling theatre to boot. My body thanked me, my spirit thanked me. It was grand. And it’s apt that Horton’s play cycle was given its world premiere in New England because he wrote it all, this legacy of a Texas life, while he was living with his family in the backwoods of New Hampshire in the mid-to-late 70’s.

Richards going to a chicken swap on Sunday in hopes of thinning out his flock. The clean up of prodigious amounts of chicken poop every morning and the prospect of that continuing throughout 6 months of winter I think is getting to him. He hopes to thin out the coop by a third. I’m wondering what we’re going to do with the goose poop when the hoses ice up. We use them three times a day to spray the green stuff off our porch. Of course, soon there won’t be any green stuff to eat or defecate. Just a corn/sunflower/grain mixture. Still … well, this winter with the birds will be an interesting journey of discovery, solution, and opportunity.

Almost 9 now and it’s so quiet here. Just a slight hum from the fridge and little metallic clicks from the wood stove. I like it. Richard’s off teaching an acting class about an hour away and I’m here with the cats and the fridge hum and the fire, slightly sleepy, maybe ready for a book or two, maybe a little more writing on another project. Life is good.

Ginger and Mary Ann and our drained Pond at peak color

These were taken about a week or so ago around peak color. Now you have an idea of what walks with our geese look like. Also our pond has excavators in it as I write, mucking around in the goo. The plans are to put a new drainage pipe in today and then we'll decide whether to let the pond fill back in or allow the sides to dry and scoop out a little bit more of the gunk a few weeks down the road. We shall see.

Amazing seeing the silt build up from decades. The geese wandered over with us this morning to take a look at the progress. They hang close behind us, striking various meditative poses, as if they were silent advisors, emissaries flown in from the bird kingdom to offer their 2 cents worth of wisdom. They're pretty terrific padding about on the carpet of fallen leaves, perfectly comfortable and content to be with us. Yay.

Leafy Memories

I’m sitting here listening to Aaron Copland’s “Our Town Suite” at the suggestion of a friend of mine and it’s simply gorgeous. Arresting and sad and flowing, a sense of majesty, and that swelling force that all of Copland’s music has for me, a sense that life goes on and on and we’re ALIVE! Embrace it all, the sad joy of it, the surprising heartbreak, the little miracles, the beckonings, like music, urging you on and on and on. Copland is so American, the essence of being American to me, the deep flowing, discordant all of it. And “Our Town” is just splendid. “Appalachian Spring” has always been a favorite and recently “The Promise of Living” has become a close second, but “Our Town” – so New England – may pass them both. If you’ve never heard any of these 3 pieces of music, treat yourself to them.

It’s been a full day of outside chores and shoring up for the winter. We were treated to a sunny day today with a touch of warmth which was most welcome. It’s been coooold for October, in the 20’s a lot, 18 this morning. You know what? I know I live in Vermont, but that’s too soon for these temperatures. Today, Richard and I finished planting the new trees we just got over the weekend – a Robinson crabapple and 2 Norway Spruce, all 3 on sale in Thetford at a spectacular nursery. Chris, a friend of mine who works there, kindly offered to drop the trees by since he lives in the vicinity. What a mensch. The trees seem so suited to our land. We’re glad to have them here and welcomed them with mulch, top soil and plenty of water.

I’m such a sucker for trees, always have been. I loved our towering oaks in our backyard in Fort Wayne, loved to climb them, up, up high, as far as I could go and sway in the wind clenching on to the thin trunk up high there, at one with the leaves. Pretty glorious.
Here in Vermont, I love the ancient sugar maples, of course, but oh the birch and eastern larch, the fir and spruce and pine. And the ash, splendid. I’ll take them all! Oh, what would my life be like without trees?

But back to chores. We’ve been moving wood that’s been curing all summer down into our cellar, a job that’s almost done. And just in time too, because the next pile in need of curing is ready to take its place. This afternoon, with our neighbor Royce’s help, we felled 4 HUGE gnarled trees, I think they’re called “Popples”, at least that’s what Royce calls them, which is the eastern name for Aspen. Royce tried to discourage me from piling it up for fuel wood for next year, claiming that it doesn’t put out much heat, but I was not dissuaded. I want to experience it for myself. Besides, Popple is not going to comprise the whole wood supply. We’ll have a good variety of hard and soft woods, deciduous and evergreen. Until sunset, the air was filled with the buzz of my chainsaw as I cut and sheared and trimmed the fallen giants, with Richard toting or dragging the branches and logs to various piles, in wait for the chipper we’re renting this Friday. Sawdust will fly!!

All morning was filled with insulation work up in the old hay loft of our “once” barn. We measured and cut all sizes and shapes of 3 inch thick solid foam insulation, puzzled them into the appropriate spaces, and then spray foamed any remaining gaps into non-existence. Next up? Sheet rock and/or blue boarding.

I’ve been trying to get to writing this particular for a while now, but chores and travel and friend’s visits got in the way. The other grey afternoon, I was driving down to White River Junction for some errand or business and was listening to a CD of Donald Hall poems read by Mr. Hall himself, and there’s one poem about leaves that starts with he and his family after a football game in Ann Arbor years ago, walking home, kicking the leaves, the autumn leaves, and this action conjures all of these memories connected to leaves. And listening to that magnificent poem did the same for me. Autumn, late autumn memories, leaves past peak, most of them on the ground. I remember my sister and I playing in the leaves that late November Saturday and Sunday, refusing to come in to watch the coverage of John F. Kennedy’s funeral. “It’s history!” my parents pleaded. And I was a history nut as a kid! But oh the delight to run and dive into piles and piles of brown oak leaves in our back yard trumped history hands down.

That is unless Mrs. Macy had come out to spray our piles of leaves down with her hose the night before. Mrs. Macy was the “crazy woman” who lived next door to us. Among other weird things, she thought my sister and I were trying to kill her. I don’t know where she got that idea, but it didn’t help matters much when I was in our back yard once playing with my bow and arrow and I shot my arrow straight up in the air and the wind took it and it landed SPROING! just a few feet from where she was tending her garden. There was a scream and I cringed thinking that wasn’t going to help her paranoia much. She claimed our leaves blew over into her yard. And that’s why the late night leaning over our fence to hose our piles of unruly leaves into a soggy compost heap. Not much fun tearing into that spongey mess the next day. Yeck!

And she was a bit crazy. I remember coming home from Methodist Youth Fellowship one Sunday night in December and saw a paddy wagon in her driveway. She had walked into our across the street neighbor’s house in her bathrobe and slippers, locked herself in their bathroom and crawled under their sink, refusing to come out. They finally had to take the door off its hinges and the doctors took her away in a straight jacket. And what does this have to do with autumn leaf memories? Nothing, but it’s a good story, and lets you know that things were really hoppin’ in Northern Indiana suburbs in the mid-60’s.

My mom and sister used to mail me autumn leaves from Indiana when I was going to school in California. I went 3 years without experiencing autumn and my heart ached. They knew this and would send me envelopes filled with red maples, yellow elms, maybe a hawthorn or a sassafras. Oaks definitely. And what color did oak leaves turn? Didn’t it vary? I forget. I just remember them in brown piles on the ground.

Oh, raking leaves! I forgot about that too. Now that was not fun, no matter how much I Norman Rockwell up my autumn memories. And yes, Mrs. Macy, the wind would definitely whip up those leaves, which was especially frustrating if you were raking leaves for a little extra pocket change and the wind was not in an agreeable mood when it came to keeping leaves in neat piles long enough for you to come back and stuff them into large plastic bags.

The smell of fallen leaves. Mmmmm. Slightly musty, woody, comforting, like walking into a tobaccoists shop, that big honkin’ humidor with all the aromas that makes you want to take up pipe smoking immediately. I was walking on the wooded paths back to the end of our property a couple days ago, and the whole forest floor was strewn with a carpet of gorgeous leaves. And not crunchy, not a sound, just a comfortable, padded, forest support. Oh, and the whole forest floor was covered for as far as I could see. And I looked up and there was the sky again, no leafy green canopy, no, not until Spring, not until May, mid-May. Now it’s bare branches reaching up toward the sky, the stars, the sun. Just a few leaves left. The leaves have left. And the leaves left look like tree teeth in an elderly tree mouth. And that just reminded me of Jack-o-lantern smiles, those big grins with carved single teeth.

And now, I’m spent. I must to bed. Nothing more to say. And I’m left with an image from Donald Halls’ poem that I’d like to share with you where he talks of coming to his New Hampshire grandparents during college, up to help bring in the last vegetables and then pile maple leaves up against the foundation of his grandparent’s home, weighted down by spruce branches, this to insulate their home for the winter. Afterward they would sit silent in the kitchen – Donald Hall, his grandmother and grandfather – all sipping black coffee that his grandmother had made, rocking in rockers, nothing to say. There’s a kinship I feel with that long ago image, with that shoring up the home for winter, rocking around a wood stove to give one warmth, satisfied after a good day’s work out in the cold, with nothing left to say.

It’s a scene that could've been accompanied by Aaron Copland music.

Autumn check-in

It was a frosty morning this morning. Yesterday's snowfall was gone, but for a few crunchy traces as I walked up our hill for an early am glance at the color. The temperature was a bracing 20 or so with the whipping wind making the trees dance and wave. I enjoyed the cold. It warmed my heart, made me smile. Funny, that. A moment ago I had been conversing with Ginger and Mary Ann after we had had our ritual wing-flapping dashes back and forth across our hill to wave away the night's cooped up feeling and welcome the day. As we carried on with our post-dash gabble I could hear the faint cry of goose calls high above us and when I looked up, sure enough, there was that familiar "V" high in the sky heading south. Over the past few days Ginger and Mary Ann have tilted their eyes skyward whenever they've heard that sound and its frozen them in place. In wonderment? In curiosity? Is there a longing? Do they recognize it as a group of their early summer friends? Who knows? It's comforting though this expected familiar ritual. And I've seen it in some form since I was a child at this time of year, but being out in the midst of nature, I feel closer to it, more intimate with it. It's stunningly beautiful.

We're past peak color now, just past, but still the colors continue to change and marvel. It was fun sharing the season with my mom who has now come to visit at all times of year. She's a vigorous 79 and was eager to help pitch in with moving our firewood pile from the side porch where it's been curing all summer down into our bulkhead and then stacked once more in the cellar. She was lateraling those logs down like a pro and she had no aches the next morning. Good for her. Over the weekend of her visit we tooled around all over the state and on Sunday we took in the Apple Pie Festival in Dummerston, Vermont, down near Brattleboro. It was alot of fun taking part in this little town's annual event of baking and selling 1500 pies - slices and whole pies - and having their little ville invaded by tourists, most of whom came by motorcycles. So incongruous seeing all these leather clad post-50 and 60 year old cyclists striding around this quaint, clapboard Vermont town. Sort of silly and wonderful all at the same time. It was a good day for coffee too and we tried all kinds throughout the day - in the food tents at Dummerston, at Dirt Cowboy in Hanover, at the rest stop on the 91 heading south out of White River Junction, and of course at home, care of Vermont Kingdom Coffee Roasters at home (thanks Rob and Yves!!). We were pleased with all the coffee suppliers. Yum. [Vermont Kingdom Coffee Roasters is Reason oh, let's say 29 I love living in Vermont. Excellent, EXCELLENT coffee!]

That's all for now. Hope everyone's enjoying their autumn!

Cockfight Club

Yesterday, my mom (visiting from Indiana) and I were treated to a showdown in our backyard. A host of wild turkeys had meandered down our back hill and were congregated around our apple tree just up from our garden, feasting on the fallen fruit on the ground. There were 15 to 20 birds in all, big and impressive, with at least 3 toms in amongst the bunch. Most were staying around the tree, but a few were beginning to wander down toward Stony Coop, Richard's main chicken coop. That's when Mumble Stump, our speckled sussex rooster, decided to march into the fray and set boundaries.

Richard and I have noticed how protective Mumble Stump is of the other hens. But yesterday as he walked into the field of battle, proud and decked out in his colorful plumage, I noticed how much smaller he was compared to all the turkeys, especially the toms. It was a David and Goliath confrontation in the making. He was not deterred. He marched right out to where they were and then began pecking away at the ground, no direct confrontation, just an "I'm here now, let's see what you're going to do" stance. Slowly one tom after another came to confront him and contend his dominance, spreading that impressive Thanksgiving array of tail feathers like a good hand of cards, but each time Mumble Stump would face them down and they'd sulk off, the tail feathers drooping behind them. It was truly impressive. I was so proud of him. He had good reason to wave his wings and crow his superiority. Then after facing down 3 males he began walking right into the whole bunch of them in an attempt, I take it, to move them all on. This is when I really feared for him. But there seemed to be no fear in his confident gait. He was erect, determined, brave, at ease. Around this time, I began wondering where the goose girls were through all this hubbub, whether they'd even taken notice, and just as soon as the thought came, as if they were mind readers, there were Ginger and Mary Ann, calmly making their way up the slope. And then, as if the torch had been passed, Mumble Stump stalked away from the field of battle and let the girls take over clean-up action. His work was done. I watched as Ginger made her way to the apple tree, neck out, beak open in her version of a hiss, Mary Ann protecting her rear. The turkeys decamped and harumphed their way up the hill toward Royce's and were soon gone.

I quickly went to get a victory munch for Mumble Stump, a nice plastic container of corn. Chickens came from all over the hill to join in the celebration. And another first, Mumble Stump ate out of my hand - just one peck, but that was progress. What a beautiful bird he is. And how brave he was. I wonder if that's simply instinct? He did it because that's what was called for, no thought. He just did it. What a great show!

And this morning I woke to the field of "battle" blanketed in our first snow. Ah Vermont.

Go Fish

The other night in fading light and wearing fashionable hip waders, I found myself knee high in muck at the bottom of our recently drained pond, scooping up struggling trout and transferring them to a large plastic bin that Richard and I (and his visiting mom, Frieda) then drove down the road to our neighbors where we waddled the bin down to their pond and new freedom. A successful fish transfer. It was a harried affair, but we did feel better afterwards, having saved about 18 trout, good-sized ones too in the bunch.

We'd been trying to net them for about a week, but they proved elusive and quick. It's tough trying to communicate with fish and assure them that what you're doing is for their own good when it looks just like when you're trying to catch them and fry them up. However, they should know better since we always catch and release here. Dumb ole fish. The other night, though, I felt so sorry for them, their water supply having dwindled away, and now swimming in murky, muddy water. I wondered what their gills must've been like struggling to breathe in that soup. After dumping the 18, I returned to the pond, flashlight in hand, Richard's cars headlights focused down from the road, and tried to get a few more, but it was just too dark. That night it rained and the next morning the level of the pond had risen to a recent level above the old dented, graphite drain pipe put in 40 years ago. Harumph. But those fish remaining must've been in heaven with refortified water levels courtesy of both the sky and nearby springs. You Go Fish.

Plans for the pond? Scooping out that puppy, digging some silt ponds on the border of the pond proper where the water coming in can deposit its siltly gunk without filling up the larger body of water. Also, we hope to extend our lawn area over there and dry out the silt over the winter to be able to use it later as treated top soil in gardens and on lawns. Learning, learning.

Autumn comes

It’s officially autumn and back and forth weather and wildlife have been the theme leading us into the equinox. Over the past week we’ve had temperatures ranging from 30 to 79 and we’ve seen moose, bear, a blue heron with a wing span a terydactyl would’ve been proud, and signs of a rather large coyote. Just an hour ago I was trotting back down our road a mile or so away (because I hadn’t timed my dusk walk quite right and was hurrying home in order to batten down all the chicks and chickens and geese before real dark) when a truck coming the opposite way stopped at a crest on the road and the family inside cheerily asked “Do you see what’s behind you?” I turned to greet 2 moose calves silhouetted and still, watching us, less than a quarter mile away. They HAD been following me and I wonder now for how long. They were gorgeous and soon they skittered off into the woods. Similar to the way the bear did yesterday that I met driving into town yesterday, right where the dirt road turns paved at the old meeting house. Again, he or she was about a quarter mile away and galumphed across the road from the woods into a tree line along a field that was in the process of being hayed, the big round bales. It’s a combination wonderful and taking it in stride these wildlife sightings. We expect it and it surprises us at the same time. Wonderful, wonderful.

And along with the wonder comes the realization that with the change of season (Yay Autumn!) we’re also moving into predator season who would find it wonderful to be full of one of our feathered flock. This is when fox and coyote and fisher cats and other sharp toothed creatures like weasels and mink tend to feast on birds as the food sources of summer dwindle and disappear. We haven’t gone through a winter yet with this many birds under our care. Richard seems confident and I’m trying my best to defer all dominion over to him. But you see – and maybe this is why I didn’t want birds in the first place – now I care for them. It would destroy me if anything were to happen to Ginger or Mary Ann. The chickens too, I suppose, though Richard has a closer intimacy with them, a bigger stake. And Richard’s chicks keep coming. Taffy, a Buff Orpington gifted to us by our friends Valerie and Keith that has blossomed from a scrub muffin into a beauty, is now broody and sitting on 6 eggs. Grace, a sex-link Barred Rock, hatched 5 chicks a couple weeks back and spends the days parading her brood about and teaching them how to scratch and fend for themselves. She’s a tough mother, a task master. It cracks me up watching her scratch the earth firmly with one of her legs inevitably losing track of one of the grey chicks in proximity and suddenly there’s a tiny shriek squawk as one of them goes flying caught up in the force of one of Grace’s backkicks. This is a daily occurrence. As Frieda, Richard’s mom, would say: “Toughen up, big baby!”

Speaking of toughening up, there’s a whole list of chores to do for the coming cold that we’re clipping off in good measure. It reminds me of the Aesop fable (I think it’s Aesop) “The Grasshopper and the Ants.” I think we’re hovering somewhere in between those 2 insects, but things are getting done and we’re enjoying it. An added occurrence is our pond draining. We haven’t had a substantial rain for a while, so there for a couple weeks as the level went down, we thought it was due to the dryness. But then we recalled that we had had dry spells before and the level of the pond had not varied. After all, it is spring fed. So one day Royce, our neighbor who grew up in our house, came by to inform us that 40 years ago when his dad built the pond, he had gone to the bottom of it to cover the pvc pipe with a piece of wood and cover the wood with a big rock. “I wondered when that board was going to rot through,” Royce intoned in his inimitable fashion. I was in NYC when this disclosure came and Richard told me that he and Royce spent a day trying unsuccessfully to find the end of the pipe that was in the pond. They found the pipe end that was draining on the other side of the pond’s dam, but though they dove (in COLD water!) in search of the other end, fed a hose through, and made tapping noises in an attempt to locate it by ear - silt, rocks, and gunk impeded any progress. At first, it was depressing watching our pond slowly sink from view, but now we’re heartened, seeing it as an opportunity to clean it up. We’ve already been moving branches and submerged trunks and an old beaver dam, once below the surface, awaits our disassembly above. The pond has never been cleaned in 40 years and it’s big. We asked a local excavator to come over and price the job of cleaning out the muck and he estimated $10,000!!! And this is without having to transport any of it by truck; we’d be able to use it all on parts of our land. I think we’ll pass. Now we’re conjuring up creative alternatives to demuck the pond. We understand it’s much like topsoil so we plan to beef up sunken places near the pond’s and in our yard and on our hill, tilling it into the present soil. We’ll either let it dry out and stay empty for the winter’s duration and once the bottom’s dry, scoop out the lion’s share of dried much OR simply put another board on top of the pipe opening once we locate it and try and get the pond back to a fine level before the winter’s freeze. After all, the counter argument goes, it’s been fine for 40 years without cleaning.

Tomorrow we rent a muck pump which should help drain this puppy in pretty short order and we hope get rid of some of the muck in the process. The draining means our trout need to be transported to a neighbor’s pond AND our geese are going to be disappointed. (And how do I know they have an emotion like disappointment? Search me.) It’s really a completely selfish regret on my part. I love watching them swim on our pond. That image should be beside the word “serenity” in the dictionary. They are gorgeous, effortlessly paddling about the water, the simple grey and white of their feathers set perfectly against the hues of the pond and the surrounding woods. But they have enjoyed the exposure of new shoreline. They’ve squished around in the black gunk, nibbling away at twigs and submerged what nots. And whenever Richard and I have gone over to spruce up the swamp and pond’s edge, Ginger and Mary Ann are right there to lend a curious eye, a sideways discernment.

And so it goes, so it goes, so it goes.

The night it dropped to 30, Richard and I were out in our gardens by flashlight, snipping chard, lopping off pumpkins and butternut squash from their soon to be mottled vines, harvesting cabbage, and covering up spices with sacks and discarded cabbage leaves. Oh what a clear, starlit night looked down on our scramblings. It was fantastic really. A rush, a charge, a bracing embrace of how much we love this place. Then upstairs to swaddle ourselves underneath blankets and wake to make one of our first fires in our wood stove.

Happy Autumn, everyone. (Sorry I’ve been away from the blog for awhile.)

This morning about 7:15

This is what greeted us this morning. From the vantage point of our upstairs bathroom window, we watched them come down our hill in back. We stood frozen in place by the quiet majesty of it all, the mother first, then the calf, and then over the crest of the hill came the bull moose. They were tentative, listening for anything amiss, but moved on steadily with a lumpy, beguiling grace. Mumblestump, our crowy rooster, had been stirring up a racket until the moose family showed up and then he got noticeably mum. (Out of fear or respect, I wonder?) Finally Richard said he had to get his camera and as I watched from our barn loft window as they passed down our drive and onto our front lawn on their way to our pond and the forest beyond , Richard was on our screened porch IN THE BUFF taking these pictures. What an astounding and wonderful beginning to the day. (The moose, I mean, not necessarily Richard in the buff. Though that can be wonderful too.)

It all beats the hell out of tv.

Have a great day, everyone!

Just climbing into bed and ...

Richard was reading me his latest installment on his blog ("Poultry Chronicles" for all you birdy set) and in my mind I saw one of those old timey movie calendars with days being ripped off, time passing by, and I thought to myself "It's been AGES since I've written something for my blog so sit down and concoct something." The sandman has already sprinkled a goodly amount of magic dust on my eyelids, but before I go to Sleepytime Village, I'll just whip through some of the things that have been filling my days:

- Put together a HUGE vat of Green Tomato Chutney, a recipe from my dear friend Lisa's New Zealand mother, thus putting to good use the many tomatoes I snatched from the jaws of blighty doom last week. Victory! So 10 pounds of green tomatoes into the chutney vat and jars and about 4 pounds I let ripen in the sun on our front porch and then tossed into a spaghetti sauce.

- Attended an inspiring town hall meeting for Health Care facilitated by our independent Senator Bernie Sanders which resparked my desire to champion the cause of Single Pay Insurance. Because our representatives and senators (and, sadly, President) seem reluctant (and afraid) to allow Single Pay to be looked at as an option on the national level, it seems that the state level, especially in Vermont, would be a viable alternative. I'm looking into educating myself much more on this topic and seeing how I can best be instrumental of service in this process. I'm also fascinated about the boogie man fears that are festooned onto the word "socialism." It seems to me that America's brand of democratic socialism has spoken more for the common man and his rights and privileges then any other party. Why would that be demonized? Very interesting.

- Realized from the drop in the temperature to the high 30's at night during this last week that autumn is at hand, so we've redoubled our efforts and energy toward finishing up some building projects before cold weather really sets in. I'm a little bit bummed that fall has fallen when I feel we haven't even had summer yet, but it's hard to not love these gloriously beautiful, nippy mornings. And more warmth is still in store. I can feel it in my bones.

- Writing, working on several projects, letting them have their own time, sometimes down time, and then joying in them anew when they get back on an active track again. I love that I write.

- Delight and gratitude for friends and family visiting, for creativity, for running with our geese, for daily walks up our road, up our rise, for the change of weather, change of season, still feels like "back-to-school" weather to me.

And aprospos of nothing, we've found several piles of bear poop on our land. Good sized piles at that. Wow! Cool!

And 30 Years Ago on my bicycle trip - I was in San Francisco, visiting friends, having a little romance, and looking back over the entire adventure. Wow. On my way back to Providence, RI where I was living at the time, I would stop down in Alabama to see my mom get remarried to my soon-to-be stepdad Joseph O'Hara. It would be a fine time.

San Francisco was swell. It was good to return to the city in which I'd spent 2 years while attending conservatory. And the city was dazzling that August, extraordinary weather. And on one of these days I met a beautiful blond man from Minneapolis, Ron Beese, and we spent a wonderful 3 days together. One of those days we had a picnic in Golden Gate Park. It was a gorgeous, laid back day, we were in shorts, our shirts off, getting some sun, enjoying each other's company, the buzz of a romance we probably both knew would only last for a few days. We started to make-out. And in the middle of making out, I realized "Oh my God, we're in public, there are other people around, kids playing nearby." But for the first time I think, that thought didn't freeze me up. 'This is right,' I thought, "this is natural, I'm having a great time with someone I really like and I'm enjoying being affectionate with him. I'm not doing it to prove anything. I'm not doing it to rub someone's nose in it. I'm doing it because I love it, I enjoy it, it gives me pleasure, and I'm not hurting anyone." That was such a freeing thought. What a gift. What a beautiful gift that was. And after those 3 days were over, I never saw Ron Beese again. I've often wondered what happened to him over the years. I often wished him happiness, a good life. Who knows if he's even still alive. But he brought new life to my life and I'm grateful for that. Thank you, Ron, for a wonderful time. Be well wherever you are.

Then and Now

Then - August 22, 1979 11:00 am Half Moon Bay

Wind blown in 1/2 Moon about 35 miles and 2 climbs from San Francisco. Splurging on breakfast - well earned. I feel lots of memories and good thoughts along the way plus lots of hills. I was just thinking of all the people who have wished me well, safety, and Godspeed along the way ... you can't miss with that many people rooting for you. It's not the end or nearing the end of the trip by any means. Friendships founded, events to come. And now I've got a chronicle and coffee. What could be more serene?

Now - August 22, 2009 7:25 am Vermont Sitting down to write with the hummy churn of the dishwasher to accompany me. The geese are swimming studies in serenity across the road, the cats have had their morning romp and are settling down for their post-prandial snooze, and a grey fog is cloaking everything in a cloudy embrace. Not bad.

Wishing you all a bit of serenity today.

Hamlet - 30 years ago

30 Years Ago on my cross country bicycle trip I was in Santa Maria, California, visiting a host of friends who were at PCPA (Pacific Conservatory for the Performing Arts) for the summer performing in plays that included "The Front Page", "Fiddler on the Roof", "The Moon is Blue", "As You Like It", and "Hamlet." I had been cycling up the coast from San Diego after helping my friends drive across the desert at Yuma. I felt in shape again, bearded and tan, but I hadn't known that riding south to north up California's coast meant that the wind would be against me most of the day. This had moved me to get up as early as possible for the winds didn't really pick up until around 10 am. And they could be strong.

For the past few days, though, I had taken a break and enjoyed a feast of theatre. Most of it had been very fine. I'd also gotten a slight crush on a dancer in the company, but dancers always had been my weakness. Nothing came of it which was just as well. The theatrical piece de resistance was their production of "Hamlet." The actor playing the title role, Danny Davis, had been one of the main actors in the American Conservatory Theatre where I had been a member of the conservatory from 1976 through 1978. (Most of my friends at PCPA had been my classmates.) Danny had always been kind to me, especially after having seen our First Year production of "The Rainmaker" in which I played the father, HC. The production had tapped into Danny's Texan roots and moved him considerably; he'd seen all our performances. Danny was the last person you'd picture having come from Texas with his deep, resonant baritone voice and nary a trace of dialect. I'd respected his acting at ACT, but had never been moved by it. He'd also been a bit of a prima donna. But as "Hamlet" the night before, he had blown me away. And I loved him for it. Because of its force, I'd decided to spend one more night at PCPA in order to see it again, this time in another venue. At PCPA most productions were shown indoors at the theatre in Santa Maria and outdoors at their other theatre in Solvang. Seeing Danny as "Hamlet" embodied one of my favorite experiences in acting, namely, when I've underestimated someone and been proven wrong. The production, directed by Alan Fletcher, was so exciting and clear and accessible with Danny always at the helm. You could feel the audience on the edge of their seats. And the audience there was quite a cross-section. You had stalwart theatre goers, patrons of the arts, but there were also just regular joes from the community, farmers, local business people, and I could see the power of theatre in their reactions. Here was a production that could be taken on so many different levels. You could focus on the poetry of it, the existentialist struggle going on in "Hamlet", or you could just enjoy it as a murder mystery, a great yarn. Any or all were equally valid and that made the experience so alive. That's what makes theatre great. It still ranks as one of my favorite productions.

There was a melancholy that was starting to seep in to the trip and maybe that's another reason I could relate to the Melancholy Dane. I knew my trip was coming to an end. I could count the days to San Francisco when my great adventure would be history. And then what? There was a sense of moving on simply being around the actors in the company that a little over a year ago I had been taking class with in conservatory. That too had ended. They were different, I was different. We had both moved on. One of my favorite songs at the time was Judy Collins rendition of "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?" and it accompanied my mood perfectly. I felt a little bit alone even when I was in there company. Ah well. Such is life. Adventures and surprises still lay ahead. And the magic of that time and that "Hamlet" still resonate. I wonder what further magic 30 years from now will hold?

Blight

I joined my Irish ancestors in spirit yesterday as I uprooted all our potato plants riddled with blotches and yellowing with blight. No potato famine for us, though, for I was surprised to find a wealth of well-formed and healthy potatoes buried in the ground like hidden treasure, enough to fill 2 plastic milk crates. This morning though I saw that the blight had indeed traveled to the upper end of our garden and gotten our tomato plants too, so today, into a heavy black construction bag the plants will go and all of the green tomatoes, heavy on the vine, will have to sun ripen on window sills. We’d been hearing about the blight for months in conversations ranging from Epsom, Indiana to Thetford, Vermont. We’d also known that the wet and humid conditions we’ve been having this summer weren’t helping matters any. That said, I thought we were going to escape it, stay out of harm’s way. But there you go; it’s here, we’ll deal with it. And now I understand that we can’t plant nightshade plants in that soil for, well, the stories vary, anywhere from 3 to 5 years to EVER. Now there’s a range for you. It’s nature’s version of a toxic landfill. But taken all in all, not planting tomatoes or potatoes or peppers or eggplant or petunias is not such a blight for us. I don’t really eat many potatoes (a nutritionist once told me to never again let a potato pass my lips for I was getting plenty of starch and carbohydrates from other sources) and Richard eats tomatoes and eggplants sparingly otherwise his arthritis flares up. So there you are. And now we will have 2 huge chunks of garden to plant other vegetables, even spring vegetables again that will be ready to harvest before the autumn frosts begin.

Summer has finally found us. For the past week the weather has reminded me of the dog days of summer in Indiana – hot, sunny, the air thick with humidity. Frequent dips in our pond have been the order of the day. I wish our geese would stay in and swim with us when we dive in, but they quickly hasten to the safety of the bank and observe the weird, splashing creatures from afar. Because of the heat, my daily 4-mile walk down our country lane comes late in the day, sometimes not ‘til around 7. I slather Skin So Soft on to keep whatever bug happens to be around at that time of day away and shoulder my ramshackle pack diagonally across my chest, making me feel like Johnny Appleseed. (Trivia: Johnny Appleseed nee John Chapman also has an Indiana/New England connection – he was born in Leominster, Massachusetts, and is buried in the town I grew up in, Fort Wayne, Indiana.) My shoulder bag is not filled with apple seeds, however. Most often nowadays it has a copy of Ted Kooser poetry in it, as well as whatever paperback I might have a hankering to read along the way. Also, always, there’s something to write on – a legal pad or small steno notebook or several large index cards. The walk is a combination meditation in motion and walking work place. I’m amazed what comes through that might have been blocked or not even thought of working at home, sitting at a desk. And the walk sets me right with myself. It keeps the blights of inertia and over-seriousness at bay.

It feels as if there is an over abundance of blight these days, both real and imagined. I’m so glad we don’t have television, especially with the ongoing health care harangue. Just the tastes of the “debate” I get over the internet are enough. I would think it would be next to impossible to distinguish between what is a blight and what is a boon with all the talking heads and “experts” and newscasters and plain screamers frothing up the waters. Being an actor I know how easy it is to chameleon into someone else’s passion or agenda or life drive. Some times in “real life” I unwittingly do the same thing and am won over by the sheer surety of someone else’s take on anything without taking the time to question whether I really feel and think the same way. It’s seductive. And so often issues are presented as if they should have a simple explanation, black and white, “this is it”, succinct enough to fit into a sound bite, and then NEXT. It encourages one to be a bully; no matter what side of the debate you are on, the other side has to be full of unevolved, pig-headed idiots. “If only they would see (definition: “agree with me”) then the world would be a better place, God damnit!” Being a recovering bully and black and white person of MAJOR PROPORTIONS I speak from experience. Today, much like the geese, when the splashing of controversy occurs, I often opt to head for shore to watch at a safe distance. The geese head for shore out of instinct, to keep their distance from any potential predator. My predators are old ways of acting, a kind of knee jerk “oh yeah?!!” attitude left over from long ago teenage battles with my dad where even if I didn’t know what the hell I was talking about I was going to stay in the battle to WIN AT ALL COSTS. There’s an aspect of that that, sadly, sounds very American. Just win, that’s all that matters. And when the “other’s” viewpoint blotches my skin with rage, it’s very seductive to go on the attack. Again, speaking from experience, living by that kind of blight leads to many airborne infections that take years to heal. With the health care debate and with many issues, I recognize that I need to educate myself. I don’t know the issues thoroughly. I’d love to just take others word for it, many of whom are heroes of mine, but I need to check the facts for myself, no matter how much they may move and inspire me. And I need to take the time it takes to know how I feel and think. This is easier said then done. Sometimes I feel out of it in Vermont and wonder if we’ve decided to move here to keep our distance from any controversy. I don’t think that’s true. It’s just where life has seen fit to plant us for now. And it has afforded me time to reflect on things that I wouldn’t have given myself time to do so otherwise.

It’s nearing noon and heating up. I’m on the front porch with a couple of napping cats, listening to a hen back in Stony Coop push out an egg. Labor pains. The geese are conversing atop our pile of top soil just to the side of the house. The wind’s picking up. And I’m trying to figure out how to bring either the Irish or Johnny Appleseed back into the wrap up of this blight blog. This is going to take a little thought.

Let me tell you about my morning

We stir around 5:30. That’s when Sofia comes up for her ritual batting around of things on my desk and general noise making. I get up, take her in my arms – she’s particularly seductive and purry at this time of day – and after a few caresses, I dispatch her PLOP into the attic. Back to bed, her muffled cries falling on deaf, sleepy ears. At 6:20 I’m up again, this time for good, even though I tell Richard I’ll be right back. I’m up to let all the birds out and let Richard sleep a little bit more. (He needs his rest; he’s off to judge Bar-b-que pork at the North Haverhill Whole Hog Festival today. We’re both very proud.) I put on my flannels because it’s been a bit cool mornings, in the high 40’s during the night. There’s a faint protest from the “No, No, not yet” voice inside of me pleading that “We’ve barely had any summer, we can’t have cool weather already!!” But this morning the cool feels comforting and right. I let Sofia out of the attic on my way down the stairs to the kitchen where all our cats congregate and begin a slow swim back and forth in front of the sink and refridgerator, waiting for their food to be dished out. I get it out of the fridge and set it on the counter to warm a bit while I head outside for the freeing.

At the front door, I shimmy into my Wellingtons and slam out the front screen door expecting to hear the goose girls honk out to me, but they’re quiet this morning. It’s a fine day – quiet, clear, fresh. As I pass Stony Coop that Richard’s just painted a fine red to match our barn I hear Mumble Stump and all the hens stirring, ready to be let loose to the world. And I can hear Ginger and Mary Ann nibbling on their wire mesh front door; when I round the corner of the coop they kick into excited chatter. They’re soon out, flapping their wings, stretching, having a good long drink while I open up the back of the the chicken coop, Stony Coop, as well as the back fence door, and the front. They scatter out. All but one and that’s our new broody hen, a Barred Rock like Nanna, but this one’s mean. This one will peck you when you reach your hand to pet her or check the eggs beneath and she pecks hard. She’s a big grump. We’ve decided to call her “Grace” in honor of both of our grandmothers, not that they’d peck at us or that they were particularly grumpy, but the name “Grace” just seems to fit.

Off uphill to the next coop, with chickens and the geese girls parading all around me. The girls veer off to the kiddie pool for a swim and wash. I can hear jays screaming up in the trees. They’ve been like bands of bandits lately, swarming down to feast on chicken feed when no one’s about. The garden looks fine. Our tomato plants have so far avoided the blight that’s been plaguing everyone around here. That’s – knock on wood – good because if it does hit, it takes the plants quickly, ruining all the fruit and turning the stalk and leaves black. You’re then instructed to burn the plants and not plant nightshade plants there for 3 years! Other plants are fine and can be planted in that ground without fear of disease, but not tomatoes or eggplant. Our tomatoes still have a ways to go before they’re ripe. One woman at a dinner we attended last night wryly opined that because of the soggy weather setback, her tomatoes should be ripe “by mid-November.”

I set the second coop free and discover there had been a sleep-over last night, some of the hens that usually roost in Stony Coop came over here, maybe because of Grumpy Grace and her pecking. The sleep over crowd flocks out and the morning predictables begin, namely Mumble Stump humping every hen in sight. He races, darts, flies, grabs, muscles his way to the “woman” of the moment. There’s no cajoling, no sweet talk, not even a little foreplay, no, not in Mumble Stump’s barnyard. There’s no time. There are other hens to hump. Don’t worry girls. Once he gets this all out of his system, peace will be restored. (The name Mumble Stump has been inspired by a combination of “Harry Potter” and a friend’s son’s pithy naming of their own chicken.)

I’m on the front porch now, writing. Peace has been restored. Every once and awhile I can hear a flutter from the back yard and a loud crow - Mumble Stump is an acoustical genius, he knows exactly where to place himself for prime resounding echo effect. And now one of the hens is squawking an egg out in Stony Coop and one of the goose girls is honking in commiseration. Oh, I’m spoiled. I love it. I love the absence of artificial noise - no radio, no television, sometimes music on the i-pod player, but not this morning. Right this moment the sounds surrounding me are an assortment of bird song from the forest, clucks and squawks from the coop, and a little mysterious nibbling from the girls. That’s how they experience most of the world, through nibbling. Morning’s are potent to me, they set the day off on a meditative tone. I find myself more in the moment than I’ve ever been in my life. More present, instead of thinking about what the day holds, what’s next, what am I not doing that I should. And I find myself smiling a lot, inside. There’s a stillness there that I’m enjoying more and more. It’s good. It sparks appreciation. Wow. Dusk and sunset used to be my favorite times of day, the time where I would get back on track, back into myself if I had wandered off, like Peter Pan stepping back into his shadow, a coming home. I still love that time of day, but mornings are edging evenings out. Starting the day out well. Taking time to see and be. Being home. I like that.

It’s just passed 10 and Richard calls from the fairgrounds to say that he’s judging 3 whole hogs at 11:15 and should be free by 12:30 for lunch. So Mike – Richard’s brother who’s visiting us for a week, in from Las Vegas – and I will meet at the ATM truck and venture off for a good pork gnaw. Until then, I’ll enjoy the time remaining here.

This is my life right now. This is my morning. I hope yours is fine.