the weather the weather the weather

dear friend

the weather as always is strange here where it's nearly november. 
our first snowflakes fall past my window.
this is not the strange part.

the strange part was yesterday eve they were haying across in the field.  
tractors and trucks with their summertime hum, 
loading the bales.

and our silver maple has taken a vow to renounce deciduosity. 
tho all other trees have turned red/gold and bare, 
she wears green.

lightning strikes

NPR has a little map showing the last 18 months of lightning fatalities in the USA.  i clicked on one near my home, and it was the lightning death of a teenage boy. crazy, huh?

when i was a child my parents had some friends who had escaped the nazis and brought their two little kids to this country, where the kids, playing in a field with their metal wagon, were struck and killed by lightning.  i actually recently found this article about them online, with no date, but i think it was from 2001, as i also found his obituary from 2004.

that story stuck with me through my life, a profound example of something or other.

recently i asked my friend Vicki and her mom what they would do if they were out in a field and heard thunder, would they lie flat, would they squat, or would they (bad move) RUN.  

my friend's mom said "i wouldn't be out in a field.  i'd be at the mall."  is this why statistically mostly men are killed by lightning?

in which i make it stop raining

weeks and weeks ago it got rainy a bit almost every day and my shoes would be soaked after a bit of gardening.
then it got rainier, raining some every day, sometimes really really hard.
and HOT too.  the humidity was around 90 to 93%.

how hot was it?  this hot

i've never found rainboots in narrow sizes, but i was desperate and ordered some i found online because people in the comments said they had a narrow fit.

they were due to arrive on Friday.
NOW it will stop raining, i told everyone. because I ORDERED BOOTS.
probably have a draught!

meanwhile it rained even more. and harder.
then FLOOD WATCHES.
and i got stranded in Windsor due to flooded and washed out roads one night and had to call some folks i know and ask to sleep on their floor!

friday came, no boots, flooding getting worse, i realize the email said the NEXT friday.  
don't worry i told everyone, my boots will be here next friday.

by wednesday i was sleeping with essentials all packed and the car facing out right by the road. everything was soaking, the river was roaring and roaring, thunder and lightening were added to the mix.  
more storms moving in for thursday.

a mushroom grew on our doormat!

 but thursday came and YAY the next batch of storms had veered north.  AND MY BOOTS ARRIVED!

aren't they adorable?  no more rain in the forecast.  but SHHHHHH!!! i am sending them back...way to wide to stay on, even with thick socks!  don't tell.

i love them but they won't stay on

spring week - and other oddities

this is how spring came over the last few days:

day 1  full cover snowfall
day 2  melting, swollen river
day 3  robin evensong
day 4 peepers loud at dark
day 5 crocuses
day 6 ants in the cat's dish
day 7 bright sun and open windows

the week before, on my way south, security confiscated and destroyed my unopened (forgotten about) raspberry soy yogurt from my carryon.   my penknife was allowed.  the yogurt was deemed more of a threat.

Sunny with patches of brown and snowing

well now it rhymes. does that make it a poem?

what is spring up to?
unpacking her bag?
hey, wait -- that's not spring!
it's old jack frost in drag.

see, he's wrapped her blue skies
over his frosty suit
just as soon as she catches him,
he'll get the boot!

sunny with patches of brown

out the window i stare hard at Spring - is she unpacking?
or living from a suitcase??
the birds will know.
oh wait! hahaha!
it isn't Spring at all!
it's Jack Frost in drag
what jokers they are!.

for love of winter

sunny and 30 F today!  i took some more rugs out and broomed them...didn't bother with my jacket, and walked on the frozen snow in my sneakers.  w00t!

had some eggs to use up so i found a simple and delicious quesadilla recipe.  this used up all the eggs (so now am out of eggs) and have now to use up a bunch of cilantro, 1/2 can of black beans, and most of a jar of salsa, 2/3 a package of whole wheat tortillas. 
 there is also cheddar cheese left over but that won't be a problem!

for the book groups i am trying to read Pillars of the Earth, and for the other one, Founding Brothers.  omg they are both so bad.  xtian told me to read Geek Love and the library got it for me -- a paperback covered with tape and well used.  i'm already into it.

what are they thinking?  this looks like it must be popular, can't they spring for a new paperback at least?  but i know it's not that easy accessioning a book, lotta paperwork and stuff.  anyway, Geek Love will save me from death by ponderous tomes.

An autumn of visitors!

it's true -- Vermont is the new North Carolina.
here it is december and no snow covering the ground.
how will santa even find us?
here's how it looks:


















a little time off now after such a busy fall.
first came college friends to brookfield,
then halloween kittens

we blew up our 'scream' and had it around for halloween
and again for thanksgiving, when there was a wedding
at our house!


















28 years and they are finally legal
at least in the Republic of Vermont.
the scream was not part of the wedding,
altho we considered including it.















saturday morning a flock of turkeys went through our yard

but crossed the road just as i found my camera.
why did they cross the road?

of course we do need it

cars pass swish rain chills
yesterday's lovely spring day
rap rap on the roof

                                        ~mudpie

the wrong door

open the door
walk into sunshine, birdsong, flowerglow.
how could this happen?
have i these long cold months
been opening the wrong door?

                                           ~mudpie

the sun is coming back?

the sun came up early yesterday! 

made a believer of me

spring is a long slow dance -

step forward, step back

and mud mud mud

meanwhile, speaking of mud, 

mudpie put pots of herbs at her tiny houseboat window, 

even tho Raglan Shire is still covered in snow.

feels good to see them there.

warming trend?

when i drove out of the driveway this morning at 9,

the temperature (according to my car's thermometer) was -6 F 

(that's -21.11 C to you differently temperatured). 

tonight at 9:30 when i drove back into the driveway,

the temperature was 25 F (-3.89 C). 

feels like a heat wave coming in!

winter lightness

as the nights get colder and colder,
and we add yet another quilt from the closet
once winter sets in the pile gets heavy and then top heavy!

one night it all slides to the floor and has to be retrieved and sorted out.
finally we can barely move and it's time...
time to fold up and put away the blankets and quilts and get out the Real Winter Stuff...
the big down comforters and the flannel sheets!
oooo it's wonderful!

some things about hurrican irene's effects on the residents of my village

a truck went into the flooding river - did the road give way? ms O tied a cable to her car, other end to her husband (some say it was an extension cord) and in he went to pull the guy out of the truck.  once he had the guy, D. drove her car away pulling them from the river minutes before the flash flood of the jumped river came down and took the truck away.

during the storm we were evacuated at the fire station. nobody could get any information. that night we could get home to our house, after the rain let up and the flood stopped rising. still no way to get information. but then we started getting calls from friends (we have an old wired phone we hooked up) who were telling us what they saw on TV - where the storm was and what we could expect during the night.  we had calls from california, south carolina, ohio, and even ethiopia!

that night i looked down from the upstairs window into the wind tossed black-black electricityless night and saw for the first and probably last time in my life foxfire softly glowing on a rotten log below!

early in the morning after, mr A arrives at the village mom & pop store with a check for $1000 and the instruction that anyone needing food should be given it free.  food was free all day to all comers anyway.

partly because the store had no generator to keep the freezers going.  lots and lots of food was sent up to the volunteer fire dept, as was all the food from the school (it was to have been the first day of school) and a big cookout blowout town wide dinner was held at the fire dept for anyone who could get there.

later the store located a generator to use, but food remained free to all for the rest of the day. the streets were full of people all day, exchanging information and help, and the volunteer firemen were everywhere pumping out cellars and giving out whatever supplies they could. by the next day the national guard had arrived with bottled water, MRE meals, cleaning supplies and more. mr X who has his own helicopter went back and forth overhead taking arial photos for whatever use may come in the future.

early the morning after, old mr O started calling the government to get permission to volunteer to work on the flooding.  after many hours he got the OK and took his Great Big Yellow Machine to the flood where he spent all afternoon and half the night clearing under the bridge, digging the riverbed back to where it belonged, and when he was done the river was back in it's bed, altho of course everything it carried off, including the road, was still gone. i think he had the time of his life!

as the assessment and pumping continued all day, the street was like a party - no traffic could go, but everyone was out walking and talking. two of the firemen were catching 3 and 4 inch trout from sinkholes with their bare hands, and taking them back to the river.

.

tired and muddy!

less than a week and the road to the south is passable again!
i drive out to shower at kathe's, stupified by the new scenery,
the young who rioted in london were a puff of air
compared to the rioting of vermont brooks
let loose from their beds for a day to rearrange the landscape to their liking.
here and there i pass a house that looks solid and untouched
my heart leaps with the wish that i lived there.

something glowing

last night we slept fitfully waiting for the wind that follows the eye, listening even as we dozed off and on, still dressed and downstairs in case a tree, one of the many big big maples now rooted in nothing but soft deep mud should fall on the house. there was not a light in the village because there was no electricity and the stars THE STARS were a wonder beyond telling and as i gasped at a shooting star above i glanced down at the grass below the window and something was glowing.
what glows at 2 am? a wind-dropped solar light would not be still bright, reflective paint would have nothing to reflect, a rectangular glowing shape in the grass maybe 18" long and 2 or 3 wide. nothing in my experience could explain this.
the next morning on the back porch i remembered the glowing thing and looked over where i'd seen it.  and there it was.  an old rotten piece of tree branch.

if it's july, it must be summer!

just when we quit staying home because it was raining
stopped bothering with umbrellas
took rain as the natural condition of life
it stopped
and the sun came out

-----------------------
sorting out the garden's jungle mornings, evenings
(hatted --
against my dermatologist's anxiety)
i tear out thriving 'wrong' plants
leaving the 'right ones' to flourish.

these to discard these to keep what is the point of this
i ask myself,
enjoying the sun thru my shirt
the sweat under my hat.
a waste of time.

the garden will never be done year to year the weeds the thinning
wasting time,
wasting time...
the time i could be wasting
some other way.

Gorey was right they are going bonkers! 

 

april 23 easter in ogunquit

we look at each other and at the falling snow
should we go?

the crocuses vanished!

the car slides on the road even before we are out of the village.
we drive on eastward slowly! cautiously!
finally -- behind a salt and sand truck
slow but not slippery.
into new hampshire it is 33 degrees --
a slippery road temperature -- and snowing.
it lets up for a bit, but then before concord
even deeper snow. on we go.

finally it is 35 and a freezing rain.
gradually, gradually, the land is lower
the trees shorter, the ground flatter
"i smell the ocean" says john.

the bridge, the state of maine,
its motto "maine --cold, but damp"
the hotel, a good dinner.

next morning winter's fist unclenches
its open hand offers bright sunshine!

long rolling waves, the marginal way,
children in easter clothes go barefoot on the beach

coats are shucked in surprise!
a perfect day!  are we really in maine?
more fishy meals consumed
we sit with the coatless many --
where did they all come from?? --

click to enlarge!

in late afternoon sun watching the ocean

  and the next morning
in bitter wind and icy rain.
we start for home.
and along maine's shore road,
forsythia has bloomed!

in defense of northern spring on April sixth

a friend in maryland emails:
Sympathy to you both......my lilacs are blooming and the purple martins have returned with nesting materials in their carpetbags.....82 degrees yesterday

my maine friend responds:
Ah, but talk to us in July or August, when WE'RE at 82 degrees 

and i am seized with inspiration and my love for the north and my annoyance with those who think we are somehow held here against our will and are to be pitied, and i emal back:

or talk to us now!
when snowflakes are falling
and the white hills with their bare black trees
backdrop for the fields, white with brown showing
and vernal pools form where soon
frogs will thaw - riotously desperately fatally mating
yelling their heads off about it

and talk to us now
while the streams crash and thunder
as boulders moved by the roaring waters
are fueled by the melting ice
that crashes into the bridges sending the river over the land
and the birds maddened in their homecoming excitement
trill and call raucously all day
in the misty air of the hot sun on the cold snow

i've learned to love a wilder spring
not the generous ripening sort
from my southern childhood
all perfume and soft breezes
now i love the crazed dance
of a crooked crone and her consort
staving off death
dancing wild and desperate
clamouring for life
drinking the cold maple sap
straight from the bucket

That'll tell 'em