Tag: NH

FUN-DRAISING

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Looked up as I drove by a big green lawn the other day and saw it was dotted with pink. A bright pink unlike any flowers we grow in these parts.

Then I smiled, realized the house had just been flocked – there was even a note stuck on a stick.

In a flash, even at a distance (this was the kind of place that has a small pond between the house and the highway), I sensed the two dozen flamingos were all uniform, likely brand-new, unlike the motley band we “quarantined” for our own use all too many years ago now. Why, ours even multiplied in the course of their service – some of the dads were making new ones from plywood, rather than plastic.

Flocked, you ask? Oh, I was sure I’d told that story, somewhere.

 

BRAKE FOR MOOSE, TOO

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

On a May night five years ago, while driving home from the office, I did something I’d never before done: braked to keep from hitting an owl. Actually, I began braking because of a gray flutter in the foliage on the right side of the road – a deer, perhaps, or moose, because of the shoulder-height of the movement and color. Instead, the owl flew out over the road and continued for a hundred feet or more up Route 155 as I followed, before turning to perch in a tree, where I caught a glimpse of its shape.

Several weeks earlier, in the same stretch of roadway, I saw a smaller owl (or so I’d say) dart across the road, above the pavement by a dozen feet.

Earlier that week, I had two glorious commutes via the Mountain Route. The first, clear sky – brilliant green pointillism set off by sunlight and blue. Two days later, drizzle and fog – quite moody, especially with a matching live broadcast performance of Ravel by the Formosa Quartet, one that looked mostly, as it were, into the soft shadows rather than the usual sunlight. (Renoir, more than Monet or Serrat.)

How easily such glories can be lost in the memory. How wonderful, to revisit them.

CHEATING WITH TOMATOES

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 12 Comments

Where we live, getting a homegrown ripe tomato before the beginning of August is an annual challenge. And once they start arriving, we face a big battle against blight. In fact, we’ve given up on heritage varieties like Brandywine and Beefsteak and turned to more resistant hybrids.

So when the agricultural school at our nearby state university had its greenhouse open house last year, the opportunity to come home with a healthy tomato plant was an irresistible temptation. We kept it in a sunny window and under grow lights, taking it outdoors on days when the temperature edged above 50F. And just look at what happened into May!

Will we repeat the experience? It’s awfully tempting.

Is this cheating?
Is this cheating?

AN UPDATE, OF SORTS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

The world of fellow bloggers keeps reminding me how far behind the curve our northern New England calendar can be when it comes to springtime. We still have snow in parts of the yard, for one thing. Yet since we’re near the ocean, our weather is a week ahead of places only a few miles inland, meaning to our west or our north.

Still, there’s been a definite change in the air. A very welcome change. And even a few signs of green, in addition to the final gray puffing of the pussy willow stalks.

Let’s not neglect those gardening bloggers in the Southern Hemisphere, either, reminding us of their approaching autumn.

For many of us, then, it never lets up. Plug on as we will!

~*~

Although I’ve posted in previous seasons on our use of seaweed as a mulch for our garden, I don’t think I reported on the results. Yes, many things get lost in the cracks of daily living.

The short answer is that I’ve been returning to the beach lately to load up on more. A lot more. Since the master gardener in our household can’t seem to get enough of this magical mixture, I fill black plastic bags and tote them home in the trunk as I can. So far, that’s been five trips.

While last year’s weather wasn’t exactly typical, meaning we can’t factor out its impact cleanly, we can say that we had our best garden yet – and the seaweed appeared to play a big role.

Since our soil is largely clay-based, we’re usually plagued with garden slugs, but last year they were at a minimum. Apparently, the slugs don’t like the salty mineral nature of the mulch when it’s fresh, and they don’t like its prickly nature when it’s dry. On top of it all, the plants love the mineral nutrients. And so I’m trying to load up between the end of the frozen weather and mid-May, when the town down the road in Maine closes its beach parking to non-residents like me.

~*~

While I’m still thinking about the snowfall, I can say our seasonal total unofficially came to a hair under 80 inches. (Yes, we can still get more, but it will melt quickly.) We’ve had more, but this just felt onerous. At least we didn’t get any storms that dropped two or three feet in one swoop to push the season’s total into three figures.

Where we live, harsh winters come in one of two varieties: either unusually cold and dry or else with a heavier than normal snow total. This year we had both rolled into one. Four months of snow cover and all those near-zero lows (or below) have taken a toll on even the heartiest among us.

And, yes, the black flies and weeds are already appearing. Mud season is upon us, after all.

FORGET THE ROBINS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 5 Comments

Yeah, I know that seeing the first robin of the year is supposed to be a harbinger of spring, but the reality is that it’s possible to see them all winter, even where we live.

Just consider the day we looked out the window in the middle of February and saw 10 flocking together in our driveway – and believe me, we were a long way from the end of winter. There were more on the snow on the other side of the house, too.

The true bird of spring tidings is the buzzard. That’s right, the one more properly called a turkey vulture, back from wintering in Florida. (I happen to think there’s a lot of symbolism there. And they call the senior citizens “snow birds”? Maybe a better term would be “bait.”)

Yes, you can observe the stray vulture around here in the middle of winter, but they arrive in numbers just as the air’s turning from the depths. Sometimes it’s just as the last snow of the year is melting, in years like this when we’ve had a heavy and sustained pack build. Doesn’t matter, really. Somehow, they know.

Unlike the robins.

GLIMPSED FROM THE FREEWAY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

When I grew up in the heavily farmed Midwest, a beaver dam or lodge was a rarity, an awe-inspiring emblem of wilderness.

But if you pay attention while driving the freeways around here – including those near Boston – you’ll catch a glimpse of a beaver lodge and then recognize the surrounding pond, frequently soon followed by another.

The sight reminds me of a wonderful documentary I once watched on public television. The program followed the life of a beaver colony through an entire year, and then, at the very end of the hour, the camera pulled back from the dam and lodge to reveal a busy limited access highway at the edge of the pond.

It’s enough to make me appreciate both kinds of engineering.

This beaver lodge appears to sit securely in remote wilderness ...
This beaver lodge appears to sit securely in remote wilderness …
... until you turn around to see it's built right at the side of a busy freeway.
… until you turn around to see it’s built right at the side of a busy freeway.
Further back in the pond is the large lodge that first invited me to pull over to the side of the road.
Further back in the pond is the large lodge that first invited me to pull over to the side of the road.

 

WEATHER REPORT UPDATE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 4 Comments

Noticed a few months ago I wasn’t checking the weather forecast as much as I did when gainfully employed.

Back then, I faced an hour-long commute each way and knowing the outlook might prompt me to leave earlier or take a less vulnerable route. Trying to navigate a downhill curve in a freezing rain was one experience I never wish to repeat, and I’ve seen enough vehicles slide off the road while trying to go faster than the nasty conditions allowed, well, to keep me from trying to press my luck. Arriving early might also help, since we’d often be handed an early lockup on the first edition of the newspaper to give the delivery crew an extra edge, and anything to lessen the deadline pressure on all of us would be a blessing. A storm might even mean packing for an overnight at the office, as some of my colleagues did during one really big blizzard. The forecast could even prepare me for changing my plans at home beforehand when shoveling out the driveway would take priority.

This time of year, flash flooding, sleet, fallen limbs, or power outages can also be a problem.

This is northern New England, after all.

Now that I’m retired, the commute’s no longer an issue, except for my weekly trip to choir practice in Boston – and if the weather’s treacherous, I have the option of staying home, which was never the case with my job. Since we rarely need both cars on conflicting schedules, it’s much easier to leave them at the end of the driveway to cut down on the snow shoveling. Our biggest weather concern is frost at crucial times in the garden. Or, during the summer, the Atlantic water temperatures when I’m considering a swim at the beach.

This winter, though, has rekindled some of the obsession. We’ve had far more single-digit and zero-degree nights than usual, plus a constant snow covering with more than six feet total by the beginning of March, even as most of the storms have veered south of us. My fascination has come in tracking four different online forecasts and seeing how far off target they’ve been. As for agreement, forget it. You could just as easily toss a coin. (And that percentage thing they throw at us? A 60 percent chance of snow in practical terms means nothing: either it snows or it doesn’t. In other words, it’s all or nothing.)

Considering everything, though, it’s rather nice to not be complaining about the weather itself. I can more or less take it as it comes, thank you, with all of my sympathy to those who must venture forth, regardless. At the moment, I think I’ll put another log on the fire.

COCHECO MILLS CLASSICS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments
A typical water-powered textiles mill would have thousands of these foot-long bobbins feeding its looms.
A typical water-powered textiles mill would have had thousands of these foot-long bobbins feeding its looms.
A sampling of the designs that made the Cocheco Mills world-famous.
A sampling of the designs that made the Cocheco Mills world-famous.

The short distance between New England’s mountains and its Atlantic coast means its rivers and streams drop in elevation rather quickly, and that has provided both powerful currents and many opportunities for power-generating dams. As a consequence, the region is peppered with old mills – usually brick but sometimes stone or even framed wood – that were once the industrial backbone of America.

Downtown Dover, for instance, is built around the Cocheco Falls, where the river plunges into the tidewater. The falls are topped with a dam, and the diverted water once powered a complex of textile mills that produced world-famous calico, among other woven products. The Amoskeag Mills in Manchester, meanwhile, were noted for their denim, which supplied Levi Strauss in his legendary San Francisco production. Nor was fabric the only product coming from the mills. Everything from precision tools to locomotives to shoes and socks and cigars was being shipped from the cities and towns along the waterways.

Over the years, many of these mills have fallen into disuse through a combination of newer technologies, cheaper competition from steam-powered Southern mills, and overseas production. But the legacy remains.

As I learn from my elder daughter while examining a glorious sampling of cloth she’s intending to turn into quilts or comforters, the designer Judie Rothermel has recreated some of the classic patterns found at the American Textile History Museum in Lowell, Massachusetts, and reproduced them in partnership with Marcus Fabrics.

The Cocheco Mills Collection, issued serially over several years, is one of the impressive results.

Let me say, some of the technical results are mesmerizing while the colors are deep and delicious.

How did we ever stop making this?

BOBHOUSES

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 6 Comments

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Alton Bay on Lake Winnipesaukee is a popular site for bobhouses each winter.
Alton Bay on Lake Winnipesaukee is a popular site for bobhouses each winter.

When they lived way up in Maine, with a large lake just down their road, I remember hearing Eric tell about the morning he looked out the window and saw a traffic jam. Miles and miles from the nearest traffic light, here were bumper to bumper pickup trucks heading to and from the lake. Soon, he realized they were removing their bobhouses before the ice melted.

Bobhouses, of course, are part of the male culture of northern New England and many other frozen parts of the world. Since I don’t fish, no matter how much I admire fly fishermen and their skills, I really don’t appreciate the special savvy of landing one’s meal from under the ice. You can do it, of course, by drilling a hole in the thickness underfoot and then sitting or standing out in the cold. But the really serious guys build or buy their own little houses for the tradition – some are quite basic, while others, I’m told, come with TVs and Web connections. Still, I’m curious about what draws men from their warm homes to spend long days or evenings in a very cold environment. One of the answers is that it’s an excuse to drink with your buddies. Another is that it’s just to get away from the women. Except that it turns out some very adventurous women join in on the expedition. Are the fresh fish really worth this much effort?

Even so, that afternoon, Eric looked out again and saw another traffic jam, this time with trailers hauling their boats to the water. Presumably for more fishing.

How did they know this was the day the ice would go? What clues am I missing?

A SINKING FEELING

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

This is not where I envisioned sinking roots after so many years adrift.

Sinking, as a feeling of being lost or losing, after so many of feeling being lost or losing (or at least losing out). It’s not that I don’t like where I’ve finally landed – far from it. Rather, the sinking feeling comes from the battle with rot and squirrels and flaking paint and plumbing and, well, all the stuff about home ownership you never hear from a Realtor. All the stuff, too, that comes on top of what you’re supposed to be saving by owning rather than renting. (Ha!)

Still, there are other sides. For instance, at last, after so many years, I await asparagus and ferns rising from beds I’ve built from detritus. It may still be the depth of winter here, but I can practically hear what’s already happening in the soil, especially as our years in this spot gain layers.

I think, too, of the generations of families we follow, as if walking on a mosaic of bones.