Night Walks

Just down from a chilly sit on the rise.  I was fooled by the “warm” weather for this time of year, in the 30’s by the thermometer, but the wind skidded the feel down to the 20’s.  Still I love sitting there at any season, looking out on the gentle roll of mountains, striated bands of ridges, opening and opening off into the distance.  I’m taking in as much as I can each day, letting it reside within so I can carry it with me.  When I leave for the holidays I don’t know when I’ll be back next, maybe not until April.  A bittersweet thought, so I’m letting it go, letting it loose. 

The pond is frozen solid now, a grey, opaque crust with powdered sugar snow sprinkled around its edges and dusting throughout.  I’m in the kitchen now, looking out across the road, a good fire creaking in the jodul stove, Christmas music on the stereo.  Richard’s gone until 3, so I’m alone to read, write, ponder, work on an upcoming play.  It’s hard not to want to sleep all day.  I guess that’s the body’s natural leaning this time of year, toward hibernation.  That’s fine with me.  Love naps, love dreams, love everything to do with that.  Sometime I’ll take my daily walk.

I’ve gotten in the habit of taking night walks down our road, 2 miles to North Road, 2 miles back.  There are things I miss from walking in the day – the vistas, being able to read a book as I walk if the mood moves me, my tryst with Robert and Lenice’s golden lab Anu when I pass their place.  She senses me coming and barks and barks making sure it’s me before she barrels toward me and at the last minute flips onto her back in an ecstasy of subservience; oh, she’s such a sweet, sweet dog.  The dark’s been calling me though.  I usually set out just after the last blast of incredible light from the sunset reflecta off the tall maples surrounding our orchards, the sun’s own brand of “Adieu, adieu, remember me.” I don my reflector vest, elastic strap a camp light to my forehead, and step out into the darkening landscape right around 4:30 (still so weird it getting dark at that time, my body feels off accepting that).  First, I walk the geese up to their house.  They go without a fuss, they know, they’re almost grateful for the shepherding.  “Show us the way.”  We go slowly, their pace, me whispering “thank yous” to them as they pad methodically along.  I love watching their pliable orange feet give and take with the earth, those marvelous, prehistoric looking triangles with claws, so quiet.  As they near their gate, they look down to measure the little hop they have to make over the 2 X 4, peering as if they’re in need of glasses.  I give them room.  Shmuel’s the last one in and then turns to give a ritual “don’t cross this line” gesture, sticking his neck out slightly.  To give the gesture a little oomph, he might shiver flutter his wings and nibble at the fencing across the gate after I snap the door shut, but that’s rare anymore.  We have an understanding now, between men, that that’s his place and outside’s mine.  The chickens may be ready to be shut up by then too, even though Richard has their “light” lengthened an hour before and an hour after the sun with a light bulb mounted on the ceiling near the door.  This keeps goings on in the coop a little more lively than normal.  2 birds are usually perched atop the door and I have to gently grab them by their feet and transfer them to a roosting bar before shutting the door.  At first this entailed a lot of fuss and feather flapping, but now we both are letting it be easy.  A “thank you” is in order for them too after the shift is made. 

Then I’m off.  Now it’s usually just the sound of the wind and the trudge of my muck boots in the sandy road.  An occasional passing car or truck, momentarily slowing when my reflectors or light bring me into view.  Yesterday, for the first part of the walk, I was taking words of a script off the page and speaking them to the surrounding woods, the words on the page illuminated by my head lamp.  The woodland creatures might’ve been wondering who this weirdo was.  It was fun, though.  And freeing.  The wind, the script’s words given new twists.  But most of the walk was just walking sounds.  It gets to be you can hardly make out anything.   I have a sense of where the road is going, and I have my little head lamp, whose ray at one point reminded me of the point in “It’s a Wonderful Life” when Clarence has jumped into the water to “save” Jimmy Stewart and the bridge watchman flips on a searchlight to fine the source of the frantic screams.  Anu saw the light coming down the road as I neared Robert and Lenice’s and began barking a good guard dog alert.  She didn’t recognize it as me, though, despite my calls to calm her down, trying to get her to come over.  She sounded a bit confused by it all, and was finally called in and I was alone again.

It’s cozy out in the dark, invigorating.  Without the distraction of views, the focus is completely on your thoughts.  Out in the elements with the headlamp acting as a kind of guide, illuminating what needs to be illuminated.  The houses look like ocean liners on a dark sea as you pass them.  A little bit of magic.  It’s all comforting.  So I suppose I’m taking the darkness in and letting it reside within me too, taking it with me wherever I go.  It seems fitting for this time of year.

Holiday shift

Taking a break from creating turkey leftover cuisine. Today, a big, thick turkey vegetable soup simmers on the stove top.  Christmas music is on in the living room, our favorite CD, St Martin's in the Field, something we picked up in London about 15 years ago.  We stick to the tradition of no Christmas anything until after Thanksgiving.  I hauled out a few things today since I'm here alone with the cats, Richard's off at a rehearsal. It feels good.  I feel slightly under the weather, probably just post Thanksgiving weariness.  Waiting for the local snowmobile club to come and put up their ropes and signs and reflectors on a piece of our upper property which the state snowmobile trail traverses.  We give our permission every year.  I'm still a bit on the fence about it.  Some riders used to disobey the signs and go all over our property, but lately all has been well.  And they keep the path well tended as it winds through our woods, so a year at a time, and this year, why not?    We had our first snowfall last night, just about an inch, but a nice coverlet for the trees, the tops of the grass still sticking through, like Walt Whitman's hair of graves.  It's a bittersweet sight, the snow.  The trees look like they're sleeping now, all tucked in.  We're definitely in for the long haul of winter weather (knock on wood.)  I went for a walk last night - well, it was barely 4:30 or 5, but already dark.  I refused to stay inside so early.  There was an inviting bite to the air, a few flakes dancing down, lovely.  So I donned my fleece, put on my reflector vest, my camping head lamp strapped loosely to my winter cap, and I trekked off into the wind and whoosh.  Not many cars or trucks, just me and the trees, watching over me, my friends.

Oh.  "Lo, How A Rose E'er Blooming" just came on, one of my favorite Christmas Carols.  It fits the day, my mood.  I'm a sucker for those carols with joy sung in a minor key.  It includes everything of life in it, sadness and joy right alongside one another always, always, always.

Chores done, soup on a low simmer, cats all decked out in slumber around the house.  I'll just carry some wood up from the cellar, stoke the fire, fill the woodpile, and then maybe take a little snooze.  Not bad, not bad at all.

Thanksgiving was fine this year, by the way.  A good group of friends filled with terrific conversation, substantial, hearty, talking of the challenges of our times and sussing out possible solutions and change, never dwelling on the problem, not fixed, never black and white, embracing all.  Very nourishing this Thanksgiving on all levels.  It was still hard taking some of our birds to the processor.  Rough.  My buddhist hair stylist cracked herself up wishing me a Happy Thanksgiving on Wednesday after a trim.  "Enjoy your murder," she said, guffawing.  "Sorry, I just couldn't help myself."  Buddhists!  You know I love 'em!

Flighty thoughts

Wednesday afternoon

Only 5 ducks on the pond now, 2 disappeared while I was in Nebraska over this past weekend. I didn’t realize how close I’d gotten to them until Richard shared the news with me in bed yesterday morning.  It makes me sad, they’re such comical figures.  Upon reflection, Richard said that he was sad too.  They’ve become a solid part of our place ever since they hatched early this spring.  We’ve watched them go from tiny little waddly survivors, scared to death of the prospect of even getting near our pond across the road to being full time residents there.  We smile each time they make their slightly mad laughing sounds that echo off the pond’s surface.  I’d like to think that they’re laughing with us, not at us, no judgment, but who knows, they may very well be commenting in a “what fools these mortals be” fashion, from their watery vantage point. Or it means nothing, it’s just the way they squawk talk.  Of course with the disappearance, the subject of a predator came up.  We lost a whole bevy of ducks last year in one fell swoop.  This time Richard prefers to believe a male and a female simply flew the coop, heading to warmer climes.  And there was no sign of struggle or violence.  I’d like to go with the migration explanation, but they’re vulnerability really affects me.  It brings up all these powerlessness issues.  I feel out of sync with the cycles of nature.  It’s a real task to let things be, to let them be what they are.  For instance, the 2 that are gone aside, we really have no idea how the rest of them are going to fare this winter, where they’re going to go when the pond ices over.  This doesn’t seem to bother Richard; why does it bother me?  Royce opines that they’ll stay as long as there’s a food source and then they’ll go.  How do they know where to go?  Being motherless ducks, do they depend on trial and error or is the knowledge lodged in their cells and feathers somewhere from bird generations immemorial?  A mixture of both?  I’m really riled up about all this.  Maybe it’s because I’m not good with death.  And it is the season of slaughter.  Hunters all around us, trucks parked alongside roads, camouflaged clad males everywhere.  Orange hats and vests, reflective gear a necessity.  Even my favorite dog Anu, Robert and Lenice’s dear yellow lab, has a bright orange kerchief around its neck whenever I pause to pet her on my Fuller Road walks.  It’s deer season.  There’s death everywhere.  Thank God for Anu’s running and tearing around, her licks, her gleeful embrace of life as a balancing agent.

We’re deciding which geese are going to go this year.  Richard’s already made up his mind.  The little bully gander that chases and bites his chickens has been marked for the stewpot.  Yesterday, Richard made up a little ditty and was singing it gleefully to the gander, dancing around him as he did.  The refrain was something along the line of  “You’re going to die!  You’re going to die!  Goodbye, goodbye!”  Richard’s an angel.  Also the goose with the deformed beak will probably go as well.  She’s just not able to get enough food and is getting pretty scrawny.  

I went over to Thunder Ridge Ranch in New Hampshire yesterday to pay down a deposit for our Thanksgiving turkey (this year we’ll be having a turkey and a goose from last year’s processing.)  They wanted to know which day I planned on picking it up – Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday – because they’ll plan on killing it the night before.   They also wanted to know the poundage of the bird I want and the highest pound bird I’d take.  They had been worried that they’re birds were going to be on the small size this year, but over the past few weeks they’d really been piling on the pounds.  I replied that we’d like a 20 pounder, but could go as high as 30.  “30 pounds is a pretty big bird,” the woman replied.  I didn’t know; I was just speculating on what would be helpful to them.  Who knew 30 pounds is considered a porker bird?

As often happens with hatching our own chickens, we’ve had an overabundance of roosters. You just never know what the hen/rooster ratio is going to be when hatching, it’s a craps shoot.  And there are many times when Richard, who has become pretty much a chicken expert, thinks that he’s raising some really good hens until they either face each other down in a kind of West Side Story knife fight stance or they start in to crow one morning, a raspy, muted attempt at maleness, when we were all but certain we had another egg layer.  2 weeks ago, we had 8 guys, and now we’re down to 4.  They’re all good birds - sweet, handsome fellows.  We try as best we can to assure they’re going to good homes, that they’ll be a sire among hens and will live a good life rather then immediately ending up in a stewpot.  One more free ad in Its Classified this week and then we’ll go from there.

Back from a quick walk around 3:30 and didn’t see any of the ducks on the pond.  An “oh no” grip in my stomach.  I quacked my best duck imitation.  Nothing.  Had they all gone?  I looked up the hill, our backyard.  Not a sign.  And then from out of the beige dried cattails swam the 5 remainers, cruising toward me with a “what’s up?  Got any corn for us?” nonchalance.  They looked so tiny with half their bodies below water.  So vulnerable.  I guess it’s like people, just love ‘em.  Love ‘em while they’re here.

Thursday morning.

Frigid this morning.  And when I looked out the window I saw that the entire pond had a thin, crinkly saran wrap layer of ice on it.  Where are the ducks, I wondered.  Richard, reading my mind, said, “There they are, walking on the surface.”  And sure enough, there they were, rolling with it.  I guess.  I’m concerned how they and the geese will take it.  As if this is going to be a big disappointment, they will be deprived of their connection with the water, the “who they are” really, for months.  I’ve been told I really need to make an effort to ground myself because there is very little earth in my … what … sign, chart, life?  I feel that, right now for instance, a bit untethered, affected by everything, tossed about by the winds of change, season change.  So what is the equivilent of “grounding” for water fowl?  Do they need to “water” themselves?  Does that connect them to the earth, to the essence of who they are?  Does it fortify and connect them?  Maybe.  Might be something to that.  I wish them well.

It's been a coon's age ...

... since I've posted this blog. How old does a coon get I wonder?

Standing and typing in the Manchester Airport, the New Hampshire version of Athena, the forecasted "nor'easter," outside the windows behind me.  It's a steady grey sog, traces of snow around the edges.  I drove into it from our place which is much colder and drier and snowless.  Post-election.  Maybe it's me, but everything and everyone seems a little bit spent, man and nature exhausted.  Recharge and renewal.  Talk of compromise, bi-partisanship, fiscal cliffs.   I'm just grateful that the television sets so noisy and ubiquitous and newsworthy in other airports are few and far between here.  A sense of quiet if you want it.


Home.  All the raised beds have been put to sleep, shredded brown leaves mixed in with a mixture of top soil and compost and covered over with a comforter layer of straw for the long winter snooze and reconstitution.  There's some new garlic planted, hearty big cloves from our first bountiful harvest this year.  What a stupendous plant garlic is.  It was the vegetable equivilant to daffodils this past spring, its curlycue stalks serpentining up through the straw and snow for a first showing of green.  The mint I experimented with had taken over and encroached under the herb hillside and through the hardware cloth at the bottom of the raised beds and up into the soil.  Tenacity thy name is spearmint.  Invasive tactics it picked up from bamboo.  I think I got it all; we'll see.  It brought back memories of my grandpa hacking away at it when I was little, trying vainly to prevent its Sherman's march through the southland of our side garden.   Its purple roots were everywhere, often bunched together in clumps with tiny, tiny tendrils feathering out like a miniature, landbound man-of-war.   They have been marginalized to far corners of the garden.

I harvested the last of our chard and lettuces last week before a steady frigid streak settled in.   Kale, parsley, and brussell sprouts are still going strong.  This is the first winter I'm going to try a mini-green house, a plastic pup tent over some kale and chard and an errant beet or 2.  I may even plop some more lettuce seeds down under.  So lovely the other day lifting up the plastic flap and feeling moist warmth inches away from 20 degree weather.  Wonderful.   A big pot of rosemary and a smaller one of thyme are inside where they'll test transplanting over the winter.  They seem to be enjoying the venture.   I moved our wood slatted compost pile about 4 feet down hill, tipping it over to reveal this miracle of rich new soil.   Humous, right?  Or is it still just plain ole compost?  I'm not quite sure.   I was just boning up on the do's and don't's of composting on line - the correct ratios of carbon and nitrogen, when to turn it, how much to aerate.  It seems I've been doing it all "wrong."  But nature has been a forgiving force.  She must appreciate the effort put forth, the aim toward sustainability.  It's incredible seeing how all our kitchen waste, leaves, egg shells, coffee grounds have been Cinderella-ed into this rich, rich friable brown substance from which next year's garden will grow.  It tickles me to no end.

Our birds.  Have I told you of our ducks?  There's 7 of them and they fill the air with ducky laughter throughout the day.  Everything's a great big yuck fest to them - our six geese, the chickens, our foibles, the concept of work.  "All is safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin."  Hilarious.  They are adorable.  Much more likeable than the geese.  The males have this rich dark green color that cover their heads and necks, very dapper those Beau Brummels.  They must have spent the family fortune on their duds because the womenfolk are pretty drab, beige, tan, white.  I love seeing them take flight which happens several times throughout the day, most of the times from our hill in back to the pond.  Some hidden signal goes off and they lift off like helicopters and fly in a straight line for a skid bottom landing on the pond's surface followed by laughter squawks.  You here them laughing in the middle of the night, someone cracked a joke at 3 in the morning last night.  They're a yucky bunch.  And always with a Buster Keaton mug.

Flock thinning will soon become the topic of discussion.  Richard and I put it off.  Some roosters and at least a couple geese seem destined for freezer camp.  It conjures up "Tale of Two Cities" scenes for me, the wagon creaking its way toward the guillotine.  Between now and Thanksgiving the axe will fall on many a bird.  Still on the fence about this taking of life.  Don't know if I'll ever be completely alright with it.

They have bid us gather at the gate so I'll send this off.  Have a great day everyone.  Be kind to your fine feathered friend - for a duck may be somebody's brother.  Be kind to your friend's in the swamp, where the weather is cold and damp.  Well you may think that this is the end ... well it is.

I wonder if Mitch Miller was a buddhist?

Pearl

Hear ye, Hear ye! For the month of September through mid October our short film "Pearl" starring Frannie Sternhagen and myself will be accessible on the New England online Film Festival (info below). It's been getting a lot of play at festivals and Richard and I are very proud of it. Richard produced it and I directed and adapted it from a Ted Kooser poem (US poet laureate 2204-2006 and Pulitzer Prize winner). Take a look see and pass on the good word.

By the way, Pearl, though set in Iowa, was shot a year ago this past April in Newbury, VT, and Piermont and Woodsville, NH.

The following from the head of the festival:

Now's the time to start telling your family, your friends, your co-workers, your Facebook fans, and your Twitter followers to check out http://www.newenglandfilm.com/festival, where they can watch your films from September 1 through October 15.

This year we are offering two awards in each of our festival's genre categories:
Audience Award: Given to the film in each category with the most views from Sept 1-30.
Jury Prize: Given to the film in each category selected by the NewEnglandFilm.com staff.

Between dusk and 10:30 thoughts on an early summer's evening

A storm is sneaking in outside, a light whisper of rain, so gentle. It was building up as the day’s light faded, but the darkening grey had no threat about it. Just a coverlet of clouds come to tuck us in for the night with a big slow drink of water for the parched grass, a good end to a full day.

Richard was right. It is a lost cause trying to save our mountain ash from the sapsuckers. And it breaks my heart. The bark is so acne scarred from past attacks, slathered over with black tree tar to no avail. The sapsuckers drill right into the black as if it’s a shooting range target. They first victimized the tree 3 years ago, the same autumn it was awash with brilliant orange berries, festooned like its very own Christmas celebration. That’s when they chose to swoop in. I fended them off, but even then Richard was a proponent to chop it down. “It’s no use,” he’d say. “You’re going to spend years trying to save it and in the end it will still die.” Then miraculously, it made a come back this year, against all odds. And we’d trimmed it, given it plenty of water and care, it leafed out turning impressively and healthfully green. Then the sapsuckers struck again, riddling the trees thin branches like machine gun fire. “It’s a lost cause,” Richard said from the porch the other day as I stood atop a wooden ladder, once more slathering loads of black tar on new wounds, wounds that dripped sap down its branches like blood in a triage unit. After the tar, I strung twine like garland from branch to branch then hung bits of aluminum foil to dissuade future attacks. I could feel myself getting all thin skinned and defensive at Richard’s remark and I tried to dredge up some snarky riposte, like some Camus quote I thought I'd heard years before, something about the only true causes to devote oneself to ARE lost causes.

“How much time did you spend on the tree yesterday?”

’20 minutes, a half hour tops,’ I said.

“Oh,” he gave in.

“And anyway, it’s my choice.” What a brilliant reply, so Camus-like, so existential. And now today, both this morning and this evening, new wounds. Out came the ladder, more tar, but it is a lost cause. I so love trees. It was very John Muir of me, but I patted the bark on the main trunk and commiserated with it, saying I was doing my best, but I didn’t think it was going to be good enough. It wasn’t exactly fatalistic in its reply. It was stoic, laconic. It was going to take things as they came. It would be fine no matter what happened.

The Canada Goose goslings are almost completely transformed. By tomorrow or the next day, they will look exactly like their folks. Then come the lead up to flying lessons. Quick flapping skirts across the surface of the pond, followed slowly, but surely by hikes up the rise behind our house where, following a trumpeting call from their parents like a starter’s gun, they take flight, airborne, coltish at first, a few clumsy landings, but then grace. It’s a thing to behold.

The garden’s in good shape now. After being downhearted about the devastation of certain plants by some unknown, unseen chomper, I read a piece in a gardening book, accompanied by pictures that looked very much like my riddled vegetables, that pests in certain cases were not such a bad thing. We shouldn’t be all too hasty to rid ourselves of them. And, as the pictures proved in before/after fashion, many plants bounce back admirably from such warfare and provide splendid, prolific harvests. Another lesson in faith. Still keeping my eye out for the Colorado potato beetle, however. Bright orange fellas and gals that lay lots of larvae on the underside of leaves that can devastate a potato patch in pretty short order. But I shall prevail. I shall be on the lookout and squash and squish any interlopers. My fingerling and purple potato plants are looking oh so swell. I’ve hoed them high with surrounding dirt hills and delicate purple blossoms have sprouted on several. I take that as thanks.

And because I invoked his name earlier, here's a swell Camus quote to wrap things up.

"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to be so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion."

Not bad, Albert, not bad.

Sweet dreams everyone.

First Day of Summer!

Hello Solstice! Hello longest, brightest day of the year! And it's HOT. Sweaty, drippy hot, midwestern humidity hot, change your clothes a couple of times during the day cause they're soaked right through hot!. The geese are under our porch panting, nodding off hot, the chickens are in the garage soothing themselves on the cold concrete hot, the cats are konked out on rockers and chairs, the ducklings are no where to be seen, and the blackbirds give off that quavery, quiver to their songs as if they're trying to imitate cicadas, reminding me of the hot hot, baling hay hot in southern Indiana in my youth. And I am drinking coffee, hot coffee. A clerk at my dad's drugstore always told me that it was the best thing to drink on hot days, it cooled you off. Sounds a little off, but I don't care, I like my joe, hot or not. The pond is calling me from across the road "Take a dip! You know you want to. Carouse with the trout, mingle with the minnows. Shall I? I shall soon, to celebrate summer and sweat and slow, slow, brightly lit HOT days.

Happy SIMMER, Happy SUMMER!