foliage

Every year I wonder how to document the array of leaf colors that New England is so famous for. Orange, red, yellow and (best of all) combinations of those three colors never cease to surprise and amaze me. Giant tour buses ply their way down tiny tree lined roads showing tourists from all over the world the magnificence of New England at this time of year. Stone wall, farm field, birch and maple. This is home.

Of course those buses pass through here year round because we live around the corner from Henry David Thoreau. On many a hot summer day, I swim in his pond. He's just a neighbor, someone we take for granted. There are those who make a pilgrimage from far across the globe to see his tiny cabin and the pond where he wrote Walden. We walk in the footsteps of greatness here in Lincoln and Concord. A long lineage of writers lived here. Emerson, Alcott, Thoreau.

But back to the leaves. How to document them this year? On a rainy morning last week, I got my answer. I park my car under a maple tree that never disappoints when fall comes around. After a rainy night the leaves had dropped onto my car and were glued to the wet windshield. This is it. Autumn leaves in all their glory. Enjoy!

harvest

This week we picked up our last share of veggies from our CSA, Lindentree Farm. Funny to walk down the path wearing a warm coat against the wind and kicking red and yellow maple leaves that are scattered there. Not long ago it was summer and too hot to even try picking raspberries. We have really tracked the harvest with this weekly ritual of pick up. The vegetables that are available change week to week. Above is the last offering; celeriac (celery root), brussel sprouts, potatoes, sugar pumpkin, green peppers, green tomatoes, purple cabbage. The big surprise this week was popcorn (bottom photo.) It has to dry out for a month and then we can saute the kernels in hot oil. I love how the ears look with their whimsical curly tops. It is a food that Dr. Seuss might have invented. Corn that pops!? It takes a great imagination to think that one up!

How will we eat now? we wonder. Do we have to enter a grocery store? Eat food that has been trucked in and flown in? We'll make it through, we are lucky to have access to such good food and any food we want. But I now know fresh onions are actually juicy, fresh carrots are really sweet, fresh eggplant is easy to peel, unlike store bought which is kind of rubbery. Fresh tomatoes don't just look like tomatoes, they taste like tomatoes.

The hardest thing for me to give up will be the zinnias. Any day now, I will wake to find them blackened by a hard frost. The "cut and come again" variety has produced orange, red, pink and yellow flowers all summer long. I will miss walking out the front door, picking them from the garden, arranging them in a glass jar and taking them to place in the center of the table at my writing classes.

Last week one of my students commented on them, "you still have zinnias?"

" Yes," I said gratefully, "for now."

birthday boy

Too big a job for the neighbor's kid?

Give me that rake, I'll take care of this.

Happy birthday, Donny!

Thanks for always being there when we need you. No job too large!

with love from B, R and J

Lazy Sundays

Hi all,

Last Sunday I summitted Mt Sherman (elevation 14,036 ft) with a group of 16 students from the High Mountain Institute's Rocky Mountain Semester where I'm working this fall. A Sunday activity of climbing a 14er is just one example of the yin and yang of these 11th graders' lives at HMI... one day they're in a classroom studying calculus, and the next day they're on the roof of Colorado. They're having a ball. Thought I'd share a fun photo from the top.

I hope everyone is enjoying their fall.

Love, Eliza

Charlie

Charlie has made a fire in the dark green enamel wood stove. Three chairs are pulled up around it and to the left, there sits a formal couch covered with worn green velvet. Behind the couch is a wall of books; red, yellow and blue bindings with gold lettering fill the shelves. Propped up in front of them are black and white photographs of his family; of parents and grandparents and two smiling boys in flannel shirts and overalls blinking in the bright sun.

He wears sneakers. The laces thread through the first four loops on each foot, frayed from being tied and retied over the years. There are splatters of paint on the white canvas, not from the pale watercolors he uses to paint landscapes of marsh, estuary and vast beach. These paint drips are dark brown, a result of a recent house project, staining a newly built porch most likely.

His shirt is pale blue, his pants tan. He holds a brown bottle of beer by the neck as he gesticulates with the other hand, telling a story. Behind him on a desk is the grey Royal typewriter. Charlie is one of two friends who still sends typewritten letters. I save them. Partly because he is a keen observer and sees the world with gentle humor and mostly because I realize how much I miss receiving typewritten letters. I love the uneven ink- the pale a from overuse, the solid q. The letter closes with his signature written with fountain pen in watery blue, "Best, Charlie."

After dinner, we walk outside and look up at the dark Ipswich night. The milky way stretches from one side of the horizon to the other. He points to the center of it, we look up, crane our necks and squint. "There's my favorite constellation" he says quietly.

"Can you see it? It's a bird with wings."

something funny

The prompt today in writing class was..."something funny"

My brother used to borrow money from me. I had a private stash of bills and coins that I had been given as allowance or as payment for doing small chores.

Even at ten I was thrifty. But when John's smiling face appeared at my bedroom door,

I was elated to have the attention of this sibling six years my senior.

"Hey, can I borrow five dollars?"

"Sure!" I was pleased that I had money. I had saved

every cent I'd ever gotten. I even picked up stray pennies when I saw them.

"Ninety nine more and I'll have a dollar," I used to think.

Time went by, summer turned to fall, John headed back to boarding school. Eventually I decided it was time that I was payed back. I had recently learned about interest

on a loan from my father. He liked to insert useful information into the conversation at dinner. It suddenly dawned on me. I wanted my money back WITH INTEREST!

I wrote John a stern letter explaining that if he didn't pay me back soon, I would start charging interest. I addressed the envelope in my most careful, firm handwriting. I affixed a stamp to the upper right hand corner and mailed it. All that was left to do was wait for a response.

On Sunday night he called. I sat upstairs on my parent's bed listening in on the extension as he talked to my parents about his week, school and plans. Before hanging up, John directed his comments to me.

" Hey Barb! I got your letter!"

I waited for the apology, the promise of what was owed me and more arriving in the mail any day now.

He continued, " I read it to the guys on my hall. It was really funny!"

crane's beach 4:30 pm

October 8, 2010

Breakfast: two soft boiled eggs laid by chickens who reside in town, tomatoes from our garden, blueberry jam from Maine, tea. Notebook and pen for morning pages.

farm fields and concord river beyond

At the check out buying carrots, apples, beets, squash, spinach.

Concord Bookshop, checking in on my brother's book.

(Loon, a Marine Story by Jack McLean)

on writing

We all have time to write. We have time to write

the minute we are willing to write badly, to chase a

dead end, to scribble a few words, to write for the

hell of it instead of for the perfect and polished result.

The obsession with time is really an obsession

with perfection. We want enough time to write

perfectly. We want to write with a net under ourselves,

a net that says we are not foolish spending our time

doing something that might not pay off. When we write from love,

when we let ourselves steal minutes as gifts to ourselves,

our lives become sweeter, our temperaments become sweeter.

-Julia Cameron

The Right to Write

what I will miss when I die

Zinnias.

Sunlight in the front hall that only slides it’s way through the window at certain times of year. This sliver of light is a reminder to me here in this small house that the universe is large and the earth turns. Larger things are happening as I let Calley out, slide on shoes and walk down the driveway to pick up the paper.

I’ll miss the seasons. The abundance of fall when raspberries weigh down each branch on the snarly bush. I stuff my mouth feeling each one will be the last as frost hovers on the horizon. All this bounty will be killed in an instant as temperatures sink below 32 F. I’ll have to wait another year for this taste so warm and resonant of a life lived loving this fruit. I remember my mother and Canada and making raspberry jam. Seeds and all.

I’ll miss the feeling of water on my body from years of splashing and kicking. I dove off the dock into the cool waters of Lake Memphremagog. I jumped into the icy waters of Penobscot Bay, shrieking from the shock of cold on the surface of my skin at first and then feeling utterly alive. I swam in quarries on Vinalhaven Island. I won’t miss that. Why do I imagine cars at the bottom and dead teenagers trapped deep down in the rock? Swimming in quarries makes me nervous because I know death comes and too soon.

I will miss lightning bugs and other mysteries of childhood. The constellations remind me of how small we are. Human on this precious orb; earth. Lucky this time to have lived in paradise. What will the next life hold? Nothing could be this good.

NOTE: I am alive and kicking, no end in sight. The title of this post was the first assignment we were given at the writing retreat this past summer in Taos. At first I was alarmed at the idea. Then I realized...it's about life. I've been using it in writing groups this fall. What will you miss? Try it!

Boston Local Food Festival

clover

Our friend, Fan Watkinson, has spent over a year as part of the Sustainable Business Network of Greater Boston (SBN) planning a Local Food Festival to be held on the Boston Waterfront highlighting local farms and businesses related to local food.

Today was the day and it couldn't have been a nicer one to be out on Fort Point Channel in front of the Children's Museum aside the glistening water of Boston Harbor. We wandered around sampling all we could find; edamame hummus, bison burgers, indian food, Tazo chocolate (salt and almond my favorite), bruscetta topped with fresh tomato, olive oil and basil and chugging down pumpkin and ginger root beer. No need for dinner tonight! It was great to see the event so well attended and vendors who had come from all over New England.

Great work Fan and SBN! We look forward to this becoming an annual event. I will choose products by these companies when I have a choice, doing my part to support local agriculture and business.

(Thanks also to Peter for the warm welcome and directing us to those amazing bison burgers!)