Something About Sunsets

There is something about sunsets that always makes me melancholy.  Dylan Thomas whispers in my ears.

 "Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should rave and burn at the close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

Yet, nighttime has its own magic, especially in winter.  Snowshoeing through the woods at night, with a bright moon on the snow, owls hooting, stars glistening, is so exhilarating that morbid feelings about night fade away.  Maybe I can develop a change of feeling about sunsets if I try to perceive them as about drawing in for a pause or respite from the day, for reflection and contemplation.

Just had to throw this in here.  I had the opportunity to grandmother-sit my granddaughter for the whole day on Saturday, and we had a blast.  There is nothing like baby cuddles, little hands in yours, and watching the marvels of discovery in a bright new mind and soul. 

Weelll...not so fast

The aforementioned, well loved, but declared nearly dead pet has made an astounding recovery.  After vets proclaimed he had hours to live, with a bleeding and ulcerated spleen, Lisbon rebounded.  He's up on his feet, eating well, even frisking around.  Just goes to show you... that's why I'm not ready to sign a living will just yet.

Another Goodbye

We're saying goodbye to another dog.  Lisbon, 13, seemed off yesterday: he had trouble walking, breathing and did not want to eat.  A trip to the vet, some x-rays and ultrasound revealed a malignant tumor in his spleen, and his spleen was leaking blood into his abdominal cavity.   Nothing to be done to save him, but he was (so they said) not in pain or great discomfort, so we brought him home.  They did not expect he would survive the night.  Today he is still here.  He is eating and drinking, and even took himself outside in the fresh 22inches of snow to relieve himself. 

Although we realized it can't be too long now, this dog has already beaten a prognosis of death by cancer.  Three years ago, he was diagnosed with cancer of the nasal cartilage.  Then he was given months to live.  Well the vets still can't figure out what happened because, they say, dogs do not survive cancer.  I guess it's catching up with him now. 

Poetry

Today arrived the first books of poetry I have ever purchased. (And,this the first post I have written from my iPad. Relation?). I bought two disparate poets: Dylan Thomas and Charles Bukowski. I'll let you know how it goes. I can tell you now, though,that typing on an iPad is quite anti-creative. Blah!

The Promise of Spring In November

The secret is - bulbs.  This small patch of bare earth and dead leaves now looks desolate and uninviting.  Yet it is one of the places in my yard that holds the secret promise of Spring inside its heart.  I planted about 100 bulbs about the yard.  As I planted on a sunny but raw and windy day, I thought about the hopefulness of planting bulbs, the belief in the future, in the cycle of life and return of warmth and color. 

Those bulbs, those small brown packages of hope.  They look dead.  All boxed up in dusty packages on clearance racks of large monocultured chain stores, underneath florescent lights, with bits of themselves flaking off like a bag of onions in the grocery store.  The bulbs are on clearance racks this time of year because the chain stores are eliminating the outdoor gardening sections to make way for Christmas.  The population's attention has shifted, again.  But, it's not really past the season to plant bulbs quite yet. 

And, there they sat, the silent promises of beauty and scent, of rebirth and rejuvenation, nearly religious chalices, all but ready to be tossed aside.  I reclaimed a few packages, knelt in the wind, dug through dead debris and cold earth for hours.  I measured the correct depth for each type of bulb, and laid each in its rightful place.  And smiled.  What better ritual for accepting oncoming Winter and the loss of daylight savings time?

The arrival.  That stroller is loaded with 2 cats in 2 separate cat carriers and a full diaper bag with enough toys and food to address a 7 hour trip.  And still she smiles.

The first weekend home, we feel the need for open spaces, sunshine and views.  We climbed the hill of the orchard.   Aaaahhh.  Let New Hampshire sink in.

Big Day

Today is an exciting day.  One of my daughters is arriving by plane today - and she is not going back!  She is moving back to New England.  No, sadly, she is not moving in with me.  My daughter and her family are going to live in Massachusetts with my Mother, a shorter commute to Boston where her fiance has a new job.  But she is now only an hour away, instead of 1600 miles and a half day airplane ride away in Florida!  Plus, she (with granddaughter Sophie and fiance Joe) might come up to my house on the weekends!

Photos on next post....  

Wish I Had My Camera

I supposed that is nearly every bloggers' lament.  How many times do I have to think it before I put my camera bag in the car?  The past two mornings have been visually stunning.  We have had many cold nights and even frost, so the lakes and ponds have cooled down.  Then, the weather turned amazingly warm and humid with rain and thunderstorms.  Then, the last 2 mornings were clear skies with thick fog blanketing the woods and ponds.  The morning light through the mist setting the autumn colors aglow has been absolutely amazing.  Yet no memorable photos here!  The best I did was a few terrible shots from my cell phone as I am driving down the highway on the way to work chiding myself. 

This is why you should always have your camera with you!

I Feel So Rich

It's about the ripeness of fall.  The garden's bounty.  The color abundance.  The clear, fresh air.  

Combine that with almost liquid pleasure of a good book, its cornucopia of language tumbling into my brain and filling me like rich dessert.

Combine that with the luxuriousness of Sunday, all that time to indulge yourself in doing whatever you want.  I get to peruse the garden and gather the vegetables I want.  This Sunday I've made carrot cake from the carrots I pulled, potato and beet soup with sage and mint.  Orange, cream, purple and green.  All creations from things I've pulled out of the ground. 

Nourishment for my body, delight for my eyes, richness for my soul.

Wasn't it Just August?

When I think of posting, I find myself going back to the same theme: time passing quickly.  I picked up a carton of something from the fridge the other day that had a "sell by" date of August 28th.  I actually started to use it, thinking, "that's not so bad, it was just August a week or so ago!"  I practically plopped right down on the floor right there in astonishment when I quickly then realized August was 2 MONTHS ago.  I mean, really, what happened to September?

I know I am repeating myself.  How many times can I say "where did the time go?"  This time, though, I nearly felt as though I must have been in a coma or something.  I literally stopped a moment to go over the events of the last few months in my mind to make sure I really did not step through a time portal.  And, no, I did not.  We went to our local annual fair - which I blogged about last year - and the annual boat show - we stayed at a fancy hotel in Newport.  I remembered being sad I missed my granddaughter's first birthday since she is in Florida, but she's moving back to New England next month so I'll get to see her all the time!  Weekends were full of harvesting and processing food from the garden and soaking up the beautiful weather and scanning trays and trays full of slides which cataloged my entire childhood.  Yes I remember, it was a good September.

This is my Austen Powers impersonation.

I was not responsible for my hair!

All of a Sudden, It's August

It happens when you awaken one morning and it feels as if it is too early to get up.  It's dark.  Not night-dark, but dark in some sort of fuzzy, non-specific, sleepy headed way.  The pre-conscious impression is that it is still early yet. The light is dim, unformed.  The sun has not yet risen.  Or, maybe it's very foggy, or overcast.  At any rate, one's slightly more conscious mind thinks, I'm going back to sleep. 

Then you catch sight of the clock on your way back down to the pillow. 

And you know in your bones that it is August.  Still warm, even blastingly hot of high summer sometimes, but the sun is rising much later, and with that day shift you almost feel the Earth's weighty glide towards autumn.  Propelling you through seasons and time.

The morning's walk in the woods is silent of bird songs.  They are replaced by the rattle and plunk of falling acorns.  Crickets and cicadas buzz.  The light is flat and it, and lawns, are shifting to gold.  Nature's energy feels mature, ripe, unhurried. 

I think I know why summer seems so short.  Constant change.  From the first crocus pushing their miraculous petals through melting snow, to milkweed fluffs drifting over browning fields, the passing from spring to summer to fall is ever changing.  Series of flowers bloom, each according to its own clock.  Pop, fade.  Pop, fade.  Spot to spot in the garden, like the longest fireworks display imagineable.  Fruiting plants emerge colorful buds, to flowers, to fruit growing fuller and more colorful each day, and then drop to the ground.  Birds nest, hatch eggs, fledglings grow until they fly away.  The summer scene changes every week like the episodes of a television show.

In contrast, winter is still, unchanging sleep.  Once the all green turns brown and black, and the snow falls, and the migrating birds have left and the hibernating animals burrow and sleep, the scene does not change.  Though birds flock to the feeder, they are the same every day, all winter.  No young ones getting bigger all the time.  No gradual shift of species from one month to the other, as flowers would: red ones flocking in December; blues ones arriving in January. 

Maybe the change is more subtle.  The deer get thinner.  The snow changes consistancy.  I guess there is always the lengthening of days - but we can miss that all together when we rise in the dark, and return home in the dark for several months no matter the change. 

How does one feel the passing of time in tropical places where Nature does not sleep?  Are there different rhythms of the cycles of life that simply go round and round, skipping that long pause of winter's quiet?  Does the light tell you what time of the year it is?

Summer Vacation

We climbed mountains.

We played games.

We created art.

  I had the wonderful experience of having my older granddaughter spend almost two weeks with me at my home while my daughter headed West to visit my son.  My granddaughter is an amazing little person, with acute observations and adventurous spirit.  I got to play non-stop the entire time. 

After the visit in New Hampshire, I returned her back home to Florida.  While there, I got to see my other daughter and my younger granddaughter, not yet old enough to spend a week with me.  I had more days of amazement at the intelligence, grace and beauty of my daughters and granddaughters all. 

I can't say it any better than Delwyn does.  Happy Days.

                                         

                                               

There's a Hole in My Wall!

This is the very view from the seat in which I began this post, until the mosquitoes attacked.

(Hey, I just wanted a little LIGHT in my house.)

Yippeee!

This is part of a kitchen renovation.  The kitchen sink used to be behind this hole, and now it's

on the other side of the house.

This will be French doors, and the room behind them will be filled with light...and repainted.  The red trim was "country," circa 1981.

The dogs think it's great!

From the Water

The view from the water in a busy port city is fascinating.  First, it is not the perspective that a typical viewer usually has.  Most things are oriented to the street: the door of a shop; its window displays; signs; flowers and landscaping; lighting. 

The water side is the working side.  The delivery access.  The place where the seafood catch is delivered to land.  The docks where the gasloline tanker unloads its cargo. 

Back doors.

It's the place where ships are built.  This is the oldest continuously operating shipyard in the United States.

You get to see the undersides of bridges.

And all the while, you're on the sea, smelling the sea and its air, feeling its power and majesty.

The Gift of 50

I thought that turning 50 meant the gift of a wakeup call.  Here was a shockingly clear marker defining the last half of my life.  There were 50 years of life spent, spent, spent.  "Wake up," 50 said.  "It's slipping away."  "Pay attention."  Although happy and feeling saturated in the moment, I also sometimes felt as if my hands were outstretched, fingers grasping at the ephemeral substance of time, trying to hold it still.  It was the primary reason I started this blog.  I needed to pay attention by recording my days and experiences through words and photographs.  I marked time by trying to remember details and focus on the moments of my day.

It came to me the other day, that the very act of that grasping makes time even more evanescent.  The energy it takes to notice the fact if its passing chases it farther instead of keeping the moment close. The bittersweet irony of time.  Like a dream.  Instead, immersing oneself in the moment by living it, and forgetting about how quickly the moment is passing, makes the moment the most realized.  Just gulp the moment and swallow and love it and move on to the next.

More Adventure

I am so excited about this little beauty.

No, not my dog (though she IS cute).  I have been wanting to kayak for years and years.  Now the adventure begins.

I live in a place that offers so many opportunities to get outside and explore by water.  There are so many lakes, ponds and waterways, as well as a gorgeous rocky rugged ocean shorelline (this kayak is too small for that, though).  I can't believe it!  Now I can throw this on or in the wagon and head out for adventure whenever I want.  The potential is tingling in my fingertips.

You Can Tell It's Hot When the Pool is 85 Degrees

...and the vegetables and flowers have to be watered every day.

...but, the dog still just wants to play.

Red Eft

I started this post nearly one month ago!  What has happened to the time?  This was June - perfect weather days with occaisional rain.  These adorable little creatures are called Red Efts.  They appear on the forest floor after rain, turning my morning walks with the dogs into a tiptoed dance as I try to avoid stepping on them.

I've seen them summer after summer, but did not know until now that what you see in this photo is but a stage in the life of a Eastern Spotted Salamander.  At other times in its life, it lives in the water.  It is born in the water and lives there in a larvae stage, with gills, for several years.  Then it leaves the water and lives on the land for several more years as this bright red teenager.  Finally, this flamboyant creature returns to a pond and turns a more camouflaged olive green.  This little thing can live for 15 years!

For some reason I am delighted to have discovered this fascinating and unexpected life journey of this unassuming little creature who so bravely stands its ground on the damp leaves as the dogs and I clamber past.  There truly is wonder all around us. 

And now, nearly a month later, this photo can make me smile, feel the cool morning dampness and hear the quiet of that morning, even as I sit now in the nasty clamour of air conditioners in the middle of a heat wave.

review - Last Night In Twisted River

Several of you have asked me what I thought about John Irving's latest, Last Night in Twisted River.  Unfortunately, from the very first pages I was disappointed to realize that his writing simply isn't very good.  John Irving's talent instead lies in his imaginative plots, where characters do unexpected things and are very colorful.  Mr. Irving describes the North Country, as people from New Hampshire call the Northern parts of the state that border on Canada, very robustly, if not stereotypicallly.  The rougue North Country spirit is embodied by one of the characters, and he is facinating.   The other two main characters are not as interesting.  The son turns out to be a writer, educated at Exeter in New Hampshire, just like all of Mr. Irving's other books. 

Because I was not inspired by the writing, though, I neglected it.  I let it sit for long periods unread and unloved.  So much time passed between resting and reading (it's a long book), that by the end I finally became fond of the main characters and wished I had paid more attention to them.  Still, I have to say, bad writing, bad plot, but loveable characters who grow on you.