With a nod to Douglas Adams, I take this moment to sign off with the final installment of the blog for the "Random Thoughts of a New Mainer." I've had a lot of fun with this writing, but have come to realize I have lately become too busy with a demanding job and other projects, (from publishing free books on-line to gardening, to new, and longer writing pieces,) to meet the demands of a two- to three-times a week blog. Adams has the best description of deadlines and it sums me up to a tee: "I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by."

A Patch of Old Snow

There's a patch of old snow in a corner,
     That I should have guessed
Was a blown-away paper the rain
     Had brought to rest.

It is speckled with grime as if
     Small print overspread it,
The news of a day I've forgotten --
     If I ever read it.
     -- Robert Frost, Mountain Interval, 1916

Finally, after a long winter (and it's not over yet) we had a decent weekend. Temps in the high 40's, bright and sunny, no storms on the horizon. A perfect chance to get out of the house (remember -- I work at home, so winters feel twice as long.)

Well, it's been a couple of days since the "big storm" and digging out is still happening around the Chesterville area. Around 28 inches of new snow fell here, and snow banks are dangerously high all around the roads. More than ever, signs of life around the old farmhouse seems to be waiting for a far off spring to come.

It's been too cold this winter to really enjoy the great outdoors, here in Chesterville -- for me, anyway. Not that I'm a warm-blooded southerner, used to swaying palm trees and soft ocean breezes (by the way, doesn't that sound great right now?)

As many of you know who read this blog, from time to time I write about growing up on a dairy farm in the Adirondacks in the 1960s and '70s. As a kid you don't always know the struggles your parents go through when times are tough on a farm, but you know enough. You know life on a farm is a struggle and there are good times and bad. Mostly bad, lately for the small farmers. Living here in Maine now, I see there's bad time ahead for farmers again. This time, it may have a huge impact on all of us

The catalogs are arriving in a flurry each day. The trek from the old farmhouse down to the corner mailbox is an adventure, bundled against the cold that bites cheeks and nose. Heavy boots, heavier coat, muffler, gloves and hat cover all against the biting cold and wind. Stirring out of the house on days when the temperature hovers around zero can be a challenge. But, oh the rewards of the gardening catalogs!

Well, it's been a while since I lived through this kind of a cold snap for so long of a period, certainly not since I moved to Boston with my wife in the mid-1990s. So far this winter, we've dealt with frozen pipes to the kitchen at least four times. Personally, I'd rather be battling snow.

  All heaven and earth
Flowered white obliterate…
  Snow…Unceasing snow
           --HASHIN

Ah the power of a simple, 19th century Japanese haiku. What could better describe Maine in the last 24 hours?

A Time to Talk

When a friend calls to me from the road
And slows his horse to a meaning walk,
I don't stand still and look around
On the hills I haven't hoed,
And shout from where I am, "What is it?"
No, not as there is time to talk.
Blade-end up and five feet tall.
And plod: I go up to the stone wall
For a friendly visit.
-- Robert Frost, 1916

Thwack!

The ax bites a little deeper into the trunk of the waste tree cut down near the old barn this past September. It grew in an area where my wife and I will put in a shade garden this spring. The trunk of this small tree lays across the old chopping block we found here in the wood shed.

The first real coating of snow that lasted a few days fell in Chesterville over this Thanksgiving weekend. The old farmhouse, even with its K1 heaters, fireplaces and cast-iron stoves, can feel a little drafty in the middle of a windy storm. With a new delivery of kerosene and a full tank of propane for the stove, we're as ready as we can be for another Maine winter.

Thanksgiving is upon us. Another year has gone by and the holiday season is here. Catalogs and fliers stuff the mailbox and immediately fill the recycling bin. This year Christmas sales seem to have begun before Halloween. The recent cold and wind and stormy weather around here just reminds you real winter is coming.

NOW CLOSE THE WINDOWS

Now close the windows and hush all the fields:
     If the trees must, let them silently toss;
No bird is singing now, and if there is,
     Be it my loss.

Continue reading "Apples from the Library Window"

Posted by Jeff Kelley at 10:24 PM
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