After these early weeks of New York grief, subzero weather with little cheery snow, an inordinate amount of contract work from my old company, I finally finished the novel I've been working on all year. At 70, I have basically no chance of publishing it, but the thought of not writing another one is yet one more grief. So, I figured out a way of starting a new novel without embarrassment. As I wrote and edited my current one (working title Love After 55), as I dug into the characters and rewound the plot, and imagined weather and rooms, and googled things I didn't know, I discovered how much I loved reading the revisions. In fact, the book became not the one I wanted to write but the one I wanted to read. It almost doesn't matter if others don't like it, or don't read it, or think it's simple-minded and pretentious. I really like it!!! I'm not trying to write anything important or even necessarily thoughtful.
In any case, I have some additional tips on how to settle into retirement outside a small upstate city if one doesn't want to write a novel.
Take non-credit classes at the local communicate college. My choices are "Starting a Food Business", "How to Cook Chicken Milanese (which includes how to cook tiramisu-- the main reason for taking this one-night class), Basket weaving (Seriously. I need a new trash basket in the bathroom).
Join a gym. Have joined Planet Fitness, which is incredibly cheap ($10 a month) has a very well-planned process for building strength using their machines. I've had two orientations, neither of which involved working out, so I was able to feel righteous without having to exert any energy.
Find a local bar/restaurant hangout. Ours is Daba and Helskinki. Unfortunately, the Daba chef-owner is looking to sell his place and start an apple farm, but he's asking a lot of money, so it will take awhile. In the meantime, it's bartender, staff, food, and other hanger outers make it our favorite. We use Helsinki mainly for eating but it also has a nice staff and a great music venue for boomers (Amee Mann, Chris Smithers, Nick Low, and various favorites' offspring, like Amy Helm and one of the Allman kids, who have similar styles to their parents. It also provides dinner that you can eat close to its small stage and good natured fellow audience members.
Buy snowshoes. I already have skis and skates but Michael, cleverly, won't do these things, and the increasing conviction that solitary sports involving feet sliding out from under me suggests I might need some alternatives. So I bought snowshoes for both of us. Had one good day of snow, and we trudged up the hill.
Convince your friends to move up. Have three so far. Am working on others.
Create mass emails inviting others to visit. Be sure to have enough aerobeds.
Thursday, January 16, 2014
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
Living Below Zero
Oddly, it has been this cold streak that has bolstered my intention to be here and leave New York.
Before the holidays, up in Hudson, the weather was dull and mediocre. Sky gray. No snow. Walking was a brown trudge past large sticks known in better times as trees. Temperatures hovered slightly above freezing, and the air was mucky with humidity. The barn's forced-air heat was not enough to battle the chill efficiently, and, because we are now paying for our heat, we keep the thermostat set at degrees well below what I was used to in our over-heated Manhattan apartment. I was cold all the time and shivered continually, reminding myself of an old fridge ice-maker about to break down. At night in bed, I clung to Michael and my cats. I binged on gluten in various forms and took no exercise.
My days were spent working on a major annual project from Medscape, which, after finishing last year, was one of the impetuses (impeti?) for retiring. "Yay, I don't have to do this damn survey and write 600 captions again!" And here it is, supporting not only me but my husband and son as well, who have a contract for designing its hundreds of charts and slides. The work has thousands of annoying details with the potential for riddling errors, and the results are only mildly interesting. Working on a flat fee, my hourly rate quickly dropped to slightly above minimum. I couldn't get back to my novel. None of the things I had planned were working out. I missed my old life.
Then came the holidays with its welcome distractions, parties with old and new neighbors, visits from my nun sister, kids, friends, and lots and lots of better food. And, my very own revelatory Christmas present to myself, an LL Bean flannel nightgown. So when temperatures plummeted in the last few days, blasting frigid air around our inadequately insulated barn apartment -- the Christmas miracle -- I'm not cold. I have learned to clothe myself! I can stretch out in the dark with my nighty. And by extension, I now have learned to layer during the day -- long sleeved shirts and sweaters. When I go out I have finger mittens (everyone should have them), a hooded coat, and scarf. Inspired, by this learned warmth and the more interesting world outside, I am willing to venture out. Also, I'm done with the damn project. I've returned to my novel and expect to finish at the end of the month. I hope to create a few interesting posts. I'm looking at Facebook (maybe that's not such a great idea). And we are talking to some people today about building up here. Slowly, slowly, inching are way out of the city. Maybe.
Before the holidays, up in Hudson, the weather was dull and mediocre. Sky gray. No snow. Walking was a brown trudge past large sticks known in better times as trees. Temperatures hovered slightly above freezing, and the air was mucky with humidity. The barn's forced-air heat was not enough to battle the chill efficiently, and, because we are now paying for our heat, we keep the thermostat set at degrees well below what I was used to in our over-heated Manhattan apartment. I was cold all the time and shivered continually, reminding myself of an old fridge ice-maker about to break down. At night in bed, I clung to Michael and my cats. I binged on gluten in various forms and took no exercise.
My days were spent working on a major annual project from Medscape, which, after finishing last year, was one of the impetuses (impeti?) for retiring. "Yay, I don't have to do this damn survey and write 600 captions again!" And here it is, supporting not only me but my husband and son as well, who have a contract for designing its hundreds of charts and slides. The work has thousands of annoying details with the potential for riddling errors, and the results are only mildly interesting. Working on a flat fee, my hourly rate quickly dropped to slightly above minimum. I couldn't get back to my novel. None of the things I had planned were working out. I missed my old life.
Then came the holidays with its welcome distractions, parties with old and new neighbors, visits from my nun sister, kids, friends, and lots and lots of better food. And, my very own revelatory Christmas present to myself, an LL Bean flannel nightgown. So when temperatures plummeted in the last few days, blasting frigid air around our inadequately insulated barn apartment -- the Christmas miracle -- I'm not cold. I have learned to clothe myself! I can stretch out in the dark with my nighty. And by extension, I now have learned to layer during the day -- long sleeved shirts and sweaters. When I go out I have finger mittens (everyone should have them), a hooded coat, and scarf. Inspired, by this learned warmth and the more interesting world outside, I am willing to venture out. Also, I'm done with the damn project. I've returned to my novel and expect to finish at the end of the month. I hope to create a few interesting posts. I'm looking at Facebook (maybe that's not such a great idea). And we are talking to some people today about building up here. Slowly, slowly, inching are way out of the city. Maybe.
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Wrote This Sitting on Our Hill Two Years Before We Moved Here
This place is nothing but seasonal shifting. We've been here 10 years and it is all about the weather. Today is early April, with birds wildly cheerful, but there is a weirdness about the incipient green tipping the hills within my view. It should be slightly less apparent and more in keeping with the still-grayish light.
Looking for closure, whether New York or here, I am kidding myself that I have much future at al. My 69th birthday next week, only a few years of words left. Am I really so unhappy that I never became a writer? When I was a kid upstate, the first book I ever read had vivid colored pictures and a font that still knocks at my memory with joy. The pride in my first terrible weird poem drove me to add "not copied or traced" to the end of every work of youthful authorship. I didn't want to be an author, then. I was an author, confident in my baby books, my stick figure words, self-adoring every sentence.
After I grew up and understood that no one had any interest in copying or tracing my work, this early foray into the importance of copyright still served me in my work in publishing other authors. However, I did not become an author myself. I only wanted to be one. My novels were a series of unfinished plots and cloudy characters. I could only write self-indulgent entries in my journal -- pretty much the blogs I'm writing now.
I should wrestle this writing thing to earth here and now. The fantasy of this elusive authorship has dogged me all my life, including, for the past decade up and down the Taconic Parkway, between working in New York and replaying the kid in Hudson. The decision to quit my job and finally give writing some effort near the place where it all began rests on this hill looking across at the Catskills.
If Michael and I leave New York permanently, it will disrupt the lives of our sons Jeremy and Willie and my own life in the center of the noise, clutter, and chaos that have kept me energized and driven for nearly 60 years. I will need to quit a job I have been paid nicely to do, and, with its occasional moments of actual writing, has kept the itch for actual authorship at bay. I will be returning to a place uncomfortably close to the suffocating conservative town that I gleefully escaped years ago, with never any regrets. And, if, in the end, if we move here and I can't write because I have no stories, will it mean that my life has finished in defeat Will this hill with its view of the Catskills and the Berkshires be enough to compensate for the loss of the city that I've loved nearly all my life?
(As if on cue, Robin has suddenly perched at the very top of the pine tree in front of me and its precise orange is a sudden exultation in space. A tiny perky surprise out of the almost unendurably slow fuzzy expansion of spring. And I could swear that birds around me are now calling to each other "right, right" pause "here ".)
Looking for closure, whether New York or here, I am kidding myself that I have much future at al. My 69th birthday next week, only a few years of words left. Am I really so unhappy that I never became a writer? When I was a kid upstate, the first book I ever read had vivid colored pictures and a font that still knocks at my memory with joy. The pride in my first terrible weird poem drove me to add "not copied or traced" to the end of every work of youthful authorship. I didn't want to be an author, then. I was an author, confident in my baby books, my stick figure words, self-adoring every sentence.
After I grew up and understood that no one had any interest in copying or tracing my work, this early foray into the importance of copyright still served me in my work in publishing other authors. However, I did not become an author myself. I only wanted to be one. My novels were a series of unfinished plots and cloudy characters. I could only write self-indulgent entries in my journal -- pretty much the blogs I'm writing now.
I should wrestle this writing thing to earth here and now. The fantasy of this elusive authorship has dogged me all my life, including, for the past decade up and down the Taconic Parkway, between working in New York and replaying the kid in Hudson. The decision to quit my job and finally give writing some effort near the place where it all began rests on this hill looking across at the Catskills.
If Michael and I leave New York permanently, it will disrupt the lives of our sons Jeremy and Willie and my own life in the center of the noise, clutter, and chaos that have kept me energized and driven for nearly 60 years. I will need to quit a job I have been paid nicely to do, and, with its occasional moments of actual writing, has kept the itch for actual authorship at bay. I will be returning to a place uncomfortably close to the suffocating conservative town that I gleefully escaped years ago, with never any regrets. And, if, in the end, if we move here and I can't write because I have no stories, will it mean that my life has finished in defeat Will this hill with its view of the Catskills and the Berkshires be enough to compensate for the loss of the city that I've loved nearly all my life?
(As if on cue, Robin has suddenly perched at the very top of the pine tree in front of me and its precise orange is a sudden exultation in space. A tiny perky surprise out of the almost unendurably slow fuzzy expansion of spring. And I could swear that birds around me are now calling to each other "right, right" pause "here ".)
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
CELEBRATE or celebrate
Three events:
1. A couple weeks ago when I was alone upstate, I watched Jiro Dreams of Sushi and Big Night back to back. The first is a documentary about Tokyo's master sushi chef, who was 85 when the film was made and has spent his life perfecting the layers of small raw pieces of fish and vinegared rice. The second is about two Italian brothers living in New Jersey in the 1950s, whose restaurant is about to fail. They are conned by their competitor into believing that Louis Prima is coming to their restaurant and they spend all their money on one celebratory meal, which includes a timpani, a large pastry drum layered with pasta, ragu, vegetables, and eggs.
2. I was in New York last weekend to see my sister and brother-in-law perform in the chorus of The Occasional Opera, an annual birthday event put on by an old school mate of his. About a decade ago, the schoolmate, a radiologist in NYC who also plays the bass violin, was asked by his wife what he wanted for his birthday. He wanted an opera party, so he invited a few colleagues who also sang or played, sent them music in advance and they all came over and performed it in his living room. Everyone had such a good time that they did another opera the following year, and then the next year -- each time inviting more friends -- both amateur and professional, until the event outgrew the radiologists' living room. For the past few years, these birthday operas have occurred in a church next to Lincoln Center, and now includes a full chorus and orchestra and a mix of professionals and highly talented amateurs singing the leads. No one is paid. Everyone rehearses only on Friday and Saturday morning, the chorus has only an hour with the orchestra. On Saturday night a hundred or so family and friends come to watch and, at intermission, to eat dozens of deserts downstairs that the performers have brought in. The resulting glorious sound is miraculous, a convergence of friendship, talent, and the deep passion for music.
3. The next day we went to the Cloisters, where 40 speakers had been set up in a circle in one of the halls and every 15 minutes played Thomas Tallis' motet Spem in Alium. Each speaker is a single voice and when you stand in the middle you are bathed in angel voices. We listened to it twice between wanderings around the museum.
I came back upstate deeply depressed for a day. Here, life's meaning relies on Jiro's sushi making --the pleasure around the making and gradual improvements in small things (heartier vegetable plants, tastier pumpkin soup, balanced colors in the flower garden, stronger skiing). New York is Big Night, with its instances of great joy (brilliant amateur art and music accidentally discovered, brilliant professional art and music intentionally created and available, astounding meals, great loves, sudden leaps in my career, children's milestones.)
The basic question then, does one live life for the high experiences created serendipitously or come upon by accident or for the incremental small pleasures brought on by a plodding discipline and attention to detail. I have, of course, lived generally in the former sphere, with the occasional foray into writing and cooking that resembles the latter, sort of. Now, I have no choice. At 70, the peaks in the sine waves are by physical and emotional necessity lower, and maintaining the objective of CELEBRATIONS can only result in chaos and sorrow, while these small textured daily celebrations can be sustaining. (I actually made the timpani when Big Night came out. It took two days to make and looked great. Individually each layer was terrific, but when it was put together, the converged flavors became muted and the result bland.)
1. A couple weeks ago when I was alone upstate, I watched Jiro Dreams of Sushi and Big Night back to back. The first is a documentary about Tokyo's master sushi chef, who was 85 when the film was made and has spent his life perfecting the layers of small raw pieces of fish and vinegared rice. The second is about two Italian brothers living in New Jersey in the 1950s, whose restaurant is about to fail. They are conned by their competitor into believing that Louis Prima is coming to their restaurant and they spend all their money on one celebratory meal, which includes a timpani, a large pastry drum layered with pasta, ragu, vegetables, and eggs.
2. I was in New York last weekend to see my sister and brother-in-law perform in the chorus of The Occasional Opera, an annual birthday event put on by an old school mate of his. About a decade ago, the schoolmate, a radiologist in NYC who also plays the bass violin, was asked by his wife what he wanted for his birthday. He wanted an opera party, so he invited a few colleagues who also sang or played, sent them music in advance and they all came over and performed it in his living room. Everyone had such a good time that they did another opera the following year, and then the next year -- each time inviting more friends -- both amateur and professional, until the event outgrew the radiologists' living room. For the past few years, these birthday operas have occurred in a church next to Lincoln Center, and now includes a full chorus and orchestra and a mix of professionals and highly talented amateurs singing the leads. No one is paid. Everyone rehearses only on Friday and Saturday morning, the chorus has only an hour with the orchestra. On Saturday night a hundred or so family and friends come to watch and, at intermission, to eat dozens of deserts downstairs that the performers have brought in. The resulting glorious sound is miraculous, a convergence of friendship, talent, and the deep passion for music.
3. The next day we went to the Cloisters, where 40 speakers had been set up in a circle in one of the halls and every 15 minutes played Thomas Tallis' motet Spem in Alium. Each speaker is a single voice and when you stand in the middle you are bathed in angel voices. We listened to it twice between wanderings around the museum.
I came back upstate deeply depressed for a day. Here, life's meaning relies on Jiro's sushi making --the pleasure around the making and gradual improvements in small things (heartier vegetable plants, tastier pumpkin soup, balanced colors in the flower garden, stronger skiing). New York is Big Night, with its instances of great joy (brilliant amateur art and music accidentally discovered, brilliant professional art and music intentionally created and available, astounding meals, great loves, sudden leaps in my career, children's milestones.)
The basic question then, does one live life for the high experiences created serendipitously or come upon by accident or for the incremental small pleasures brought on by a plodding discipline and attention to detail. I have, of course, lived generally in the former sphere, with the occasional foray into writing and cooking that resembles the latter, sort of. Now, I have no choice. At 70, the peaks in the sine waves are by physical and emotional necessity lower, and maintaining the objective of CELEBRATIONS can only result in chaos and sorrow, while these small textured daily celebrations can be sustaining. (I actually made the timpani when Big Night came out. It took two days to make and looked great. Individually each layer was terrific, but when it was put together, the converged flavors became muted and the result bland.)
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Adagio at Five O'Clock
Driving out of town around 5:30, having bought wine and hideously expensive but wonderful cheese (goat bris and a harder cow cheese from France), my IPhone, plugged into the speaker, started playing Barber's Adagio (more popularly known as the Elephant Man theme music). The piece is so loaded with beautiful sorrow that I decided to keep driving until it stopped. I went down Middle Road past our barn, going about 40, and then drove through nearby farm land, low green hills and wide fields of dry corn stalks belted by the road curving through them. The sun diving into the west suddenly splashed the deep shadows of this autumn landscape into glorious swatches of color until the air itself was gold and red. The music drifted with the car, matching the shifts in the scenery as if God was playing to its changes. I reached the end of the country road at the exact moment the music stopped. It was fucking unbelievable. That night I roasted local chicken and braised yellow beans from the garden and undercooked potatoes for friends who just bought a house nearby after living in Venice, Italy for 15 years. We got drunk and talked until midnight. I don't miss New York. I never thought I'd say that.
Soup Tasting at Greenport Fire Station
My neighbor Gale suggested we go to the soup tasting held at the Greenport Fire Station, a flat unpretentious building sitting along one of the route 23s that run through and around Hudson. (For some reason, Columbia County swarms with route 23s and 9s, followed by various letters to differentiate them. The past and present county fathers and mothers appear to lack the imagination to make numerical leaps to a 10 or 24.)
The soup tasting is an annual event, intended to raise money for the fire station. One could choose three bowls for 6 dollars if you wanted to take them away, or you could buy one bowl if you were eating there and keep going back indefinitely. Gail and I were doing take out, so we were given three small plastic bowls and a paper bag. About 20 steamers and slow cookers were lined up along one wall, womanned by several wives of the local firemen, some from our very own Becraft Pumper, the fire house that protects the end of Middle Road, where Michael and I rent out apartment.
The opposite side of the room was filled with men chowing down -- many of whom were husbands of the soup makers. In the center table Gary Mazzacano, a Middle Road neighbor and also the Fire Chief and recently defeated Republican primary candidate for sheriff, was surrounded by his fire acolytes. He joked around with Gail, whose husband Shawn is a volunteer at the Becraft Pumper, the fire station at the end of our Middle Road that hosts monthly breakfasts of pancakes, any egg type you want (including the chef's irresistible scramblers), corned beef hash, and bagels and toast. I met Sean for the first time one Thanksgiving when he, in full fire regalia, came pounding through the front door of our apartment into the kitchen, where I stood humiliated in front of my smoking oven. He turned and called back to his fellow firefighters, "Burned turkey!" And left.
At the Greenport Station soup tasting event, the clam chowder is particularly highly regarded, cooked up by an elderly lady who Gail hoped was still alive this year, and who was and actually promised Gail the recipe. Other excellent soups included creamed turkey, corn chowder, cabbage, sausage and black bean, a very thick chicken noodle, split pea, a crab bisque and Sunday soup (a hearty tomato beef stock loaded with meatballs). There was also a Mac and cheese soup, a yellow lava-flow that was a little intimidating.
As I walked the line, I made expansive sounds and exclamations about the soups and how I had a terrible time choosing my three because they all looked so fabulous. The women behind the soup vats offered polite smiles in response. I checked out the crab bisque but rejected it because, as I said loudly (everything I said there was loud), it would kill my husband.
Out front a table was set up with paints and what looked like coloring books. Dawn, however, was missing. Two super obese men, sitting in front of a fire truck guarding a gaggle of pumpkins that were for sale, nodded at me. I didn't go back into the firehouse to see if I could locate Down and the secret of her stock. I sat in the car with my soup and waited for Gail, who was successfully cadging recipes inside.
A friend of ours who ex-patted from Brooklyn to a farm 2200 feet up in Bovina, NY and is trying to grow root vegetables and pigs is called by the locals a "citiot". I think this might have resonated with the soup ladies.
"Is it worth it?" I asked heartily.
Gary also lives on Middle Road, so all of his neighbors, including we Democrats, put up signs for him, which apparently weren't sufficient to beat the opposing Republican in the county wide primary, who the paper said "trounced Mazzacano" and who apparently didn't need signs, because I never even knew his name. We hope Gary runs again, although I'm still a registered Dem in Manhattan so I can't vote for him anyway.
"Sure," she said, and she did smile but not with any sense of irony, which was a little worrisome.
I went for the clam chowder, pea soup, and the turkey -- the latter because, as I announced to the room, I can't figure out how to make decent turkey soup. I wondered, again loudly, if the woman who made the turkey soup actually used stock, since I explained turkey stock is usually so awful. I made other stock words, and the woman overseeing the turkey soup looked at me blankly and said that Dawn, the turkey cook soup, was outside doing face painting and suggested I go out and ask her.
"Good idea. Thanks so much," I said with a creepy effusiveness.
The soup tasting is an annual event, intended to raise money for the fire station. One could choose three bowls for 6 dollars if you wanted to take them away, or you could buy one bowl if you were eating there and keep going back indefinitely. Gail and I were doing take out, so we were given three small plastic bowls and a paper bag. About 20 steamers and slow cookers were lined up along one wall, womanned by several wives of the local firemen, some from our very own Becraft Pumper, the fire house that protects the end of Middle Road, where Michael and I rent out apartment.
The opposite side of the room was filled with men chowing down -- many of whom were husbands of the soup makers. In the center table Gary Mazzacano, a Middle Road neighbor and also the Fire Chief and recently defeated Republican primary candidate for sheriff, was surrounded by his fire acolytes. He joked around with Gail, whose husband Shawn is a volunteer at the Becraft Pumper, the fire station at the end of our Middle Road that hosts monthly breakfasts of pancakes, any egg type you want (including the chef's irresistible scramblers), corned beef hash, and bagels and toast. I met Sean for the first time one Thanksgiving when he, in full fire regalia, came pounding through the front door of our apartment into the kitchen, where I stood humiliated in front of my smoking oven. He turned and called back to his fellow firefighters, "Burned turkey!" And left.
At the Greenport Station soup tasting event, the clam chowder is particularly highly regarded, cooked up by an elderly lady who Gail hoped was still alive this year, and who was and actually promised Gail the recipe. Other excellent soups included creamed turkey, corn chowder, cabbage, sausage and black bean, a very thick chicken noodle, split pea, a crab bisque and Sunday soup (a hearty tomato beef stock loaded with meatballs). There was also a Mac and cheese soup, a yellow lava-flow that was a little intimidating.
As I walked the line, I made expansive sounds and exclamations about the soups and how I had a terrible time choosing my three because they all looked so fabulous. The women behind the soup vats offered polite smiles in response. I checked out the crab bisque but rejected it because, as I said loudly (everything I said there was loud), it would kill my husband.
Out front a table was set up with paints and what looked like coloring books. Dawn, however, was missing. Two super obese men, sitting in front of a fire truck guarding a gaggle of pumpkins that were for sale, nodded at me. I didn't go back into the firehouse to see if I could locate Down and the secret of her stock. I sat in the car with my soup and waited for Gail, who was successfully cadging recipes inside.
A friend of ours who ex-patted from Brooklyn to a farm 2200 feet up in Bovina, NY and is trying to grow root vegetables and pigs is called by the locals a "citiot". I think this might have resonated with the soup ladies.
"Is it worth it?" I asked heartily.
Gary also lives on Middle Road, so all of his neighbors, including we Democrats, put up signs for him, which apparently weren't sufficient to beat the opposing Republican in the county wide primary, who the paper said "trounced Mazzacano" and who apparently didn't need signs, because I never even knew his name. We hope Gary runs again, although I'm still a registered Dem in Manhattan so I can't vote for him anyway.
"Sure," she said, and she did smile but not with any sense of irony, which was a little worrisome.
I went for the clam chowder, pea soup, and the turkey -- the latter because, as I announced to the room, I can't figure out how to make decent turkey soup. I wondered, again loudly, if the woman who made the turkey soup actually used stock, since I explained turkey stock is usually so awful. I made other stock words, and the woman overseeing the turkey soup looked at me blankly and said that Dawn, the turkey cook soup, was outside doing face painting and suggested I go out and ask her.
"Good idea. Thanks so much," I said with a creepy effusiveness.
Walking the Easement: First Steps Toward a House
Two young men showed up this morning to monitor our easement -- the 70-ish acres of land whose development rights we donated to Scenic Hudson. Mike, the main contact, is a tall thin guy, wearing a plaid shirt, jeans, and good boots. With him is Dan, a volunteer who's apprenticing. He's shorter, more heavy set, holding a yellow GPS instrument. Both are, as one would expect, entirely pleasant and engaged in their work.
We walk up the path that Michael has mowed, going westward up the long hill. The goldenrod ruled this year, now all stalky and dry, but still lending a mellow yellow to the general space. A few milkweed are scattered through them, their satisfying pods split open and silken with seeds ready to take off. Passing over the hill, there is a sudden expansion of a lower field and a satisfying invasion of St. John's Wort, a plant that has some proven ability to reduce depression -- but perhaps because it's entire growing cycle provides pleasure -- from it's puffy yellow flowering in the summer to the phalanx of small, hard brown seeds that march up its stems in the fall.
The path forks into two directions: west and north. We turn right along the back edge of the field until we reach our neighbor's road, which borders the north side of our property. We follow it west beside a grove of pine trees and stop at the line between Olana and our property.
From there we retrace our route back up the road and across the field to the original fork in the path; there we turn right and head south to end of the path, where we break through the brush, grass, and bushes to check our little pond, which was originally dug to catch run-off from the apple orchards. When we first bought the land, Michael could mow all around it, but the pipe that drained off the water from the surrounding hills had collapsed and the area has become too swampy. For a couple of years, I had cleared out some of the brush around the pond and planted iris and day lilies, but it was too tough to maintain. Now the pond is basically inaccessible but still a great landing spot for heron and a breeding ground for frogs.
As we push back through the grass, I ask Mike and Dan if they get bitten by deer ticks. Mike says he's just recovering from Lyme disease and Dan had it earlier. We all stop and check ourselves and Mike shakes off two ticks.
Back on the path, we head up to the highest spot, my favorite place, which opens to the Catskills on the West and the Berkshires to the East. I can sit up there and meditate, do yoga, or just veg out. In the summer, the neighboring house is blocked by trees and I figure I could go naked if I wanted.
We head back and across the upper field toward the site on the south side of the property, where we will be allowed to build, if that's what we decide to do. There's too much brush (and probably too many ticks) to fight our way through to get any sense of the site itself, so we head back to the barn, where I'm able to unload my last two pumpkins on the boys before they head off. They approve of our ideas for a house and say they enjoyed walking our land. This is the first step.
We walk up the path that Michael has mowed, going westward up the long hill. The goldenrod ruled this year, now all stalky and dry, but still lending a mellow yellow to the general space. A few milkweed are scattered through them, their satisfying pods split open and silken with seeds ready to take off. Passing over the hill, there is a sudden expansion of a lower field and a satisfying invasion of St. John's Wort, a plant that has some proven ability to reduce depression -- but perhaps because it's entire growing cycle provides pleasure -- from it's puffy yellow flowering in the summer to the phalanx of small, hard brown seeds that march up its stems in the fall.
The path forks into two directions: west and north. We turn right along the back edge of the field until we reach our neighbor's road, which borders the north side of our property. We follow it west beside a grove of pine trees and stop at the line between Olana and our property.
From there we retrace our route back up the road and across the field to the original fork in the path; there we turn right and head south to end of the path, where we break through the brush, grass, and bushes to check our little pond, which was originally dug to catch run-off from the apple orchards. When we first bought the land, Michael could mow all around it, but the pipe that drained off the water from the surrounding hills had collapsed and the area has become too swampy. For a couple of years, I had cleared out some of the brush around the pond and planted iris and day lilies, but it was too tough to maintain. Now the pond is basically inaccessible but still a great landing spot for heron and a breeding ground for frogs.
As we push back through the grass, I ask Mike and Dan if they get bitten by deer ticks. Mike says he's just recovering from Lyme disease and Dan had it earlier. We all stop and check ourselves and Mike shakes off two ticks.
Back on the path, we head up to the highest spot, my favorite place, which opens to the Catskills on the West and the Berkshires to the East. I can sit up there and meditate, do yoga, or just veg out. In the summer, the neighboring house is blocked by trees and I figure I could go naked if I wanted.
We head back and across the upper field toward the site on the south side of the property, where we will be allowed to build, if that's what we decide to do. There's too much brush (and probably too many ticks) to fight our way through to get any sense of the site itself, so we head back to the barn, where I'm able to unload my last two pumpkins on the boys before they head off. They approve of our ideas for a house and say they enjoyed walking our land. This is the first step.
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