Month: April 2020

Spring sunset


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The weather was strange today. During the night, two inches of rain had fallen. Today the sky was heavy, and the wind was still. All day, there was the sound of rushing water from the stream below the house. At sunset, a break in the clouds near the horizon meant that, though the abbey itself was in shadow, the opposite ridge could still see the sun. Green is breaking out all over, but the trees are not yet in full leaf.

Brochs again


The Mousa broch in the Shetland Islands. Wikipedia photo.

An article in Smithsonian Magazine says that archeologists are planning to build a replica of a broch. Brochs, found only in Scotland, are a kind of prehistoric castle. They are towers with very thick double walls. What a place to live!

I wrote about brochs in a post here back in 2015. I used a broch as a setting in Oratorio in Ursa Major.

In retrospect, it seems odd that I didn’t make an effort to visit a broch (or at least the ruins of a broch) in my visits to Scotland in 2018 and 2019. The best-preserved broch is the Mousa broch in the Shetland Islands — a very long haul north from the Scottish mainland, opposite Norway, but a trip that I’d like to make nevertheless. The Mousa broch, according to Wikipedia, dates to about 100 B.C.

We know pretty much nothing about the brochs other than what archeologists can tell us. To me, one of the most intriguing factoids is that the people who lived in the brochs imported wine and olives from the Mediterranean. It is fascinating to imagine what kind of lives they must have lived. They clearly were rich, or at least had something to trade. They had excellent ships and seafaring skills. They were sophisticated in that they knew, and desired, what the Mediterranean had to offer. Yet they preferred to live up against the sea on their rocky, northern islands. I think I would have liked them.

Elbow patches

I caught a virus on the Isle of Harris last summer. This virus causes an obsession with collecting tweed. It starts with one’s first Harris tweed jacket. But it doesn’t end there. Oh, no. Before you know it you’re scouring eBay for more, discovering in disappointment that there are only so many colors of Harris tweed. (If you ever see a burgundy Harris tweed jacket in men’s size 40, or a deep forest green, or a deep midnight blue, please let me know. But I don’t think you’re likely to see one.)

And though it starts with Harris tweed, soon all tweeds become interesting. There are many fine tweeds. My last acquisition — a cream colored tweed made in the U.S.A. — has elbow patches. This is my first jacket with elbow patches. Now I’m afraid I’ll start collecting jackets just for the elbow patches.

I learned from Googling that elbow patches have an interesting history. The elbows of jackets wore out first, so worn-out elbows were often patched with leather. Then the patched-elbow look became popular — even a status symbol — and new jackets came with patches. Elbow patches are sometimes called “professor patches.” Gardening, you see, or shooting, didn’t wear out the elbows. But sitting at a desk did. Hence: professor patches.

It would take some hardcore desk-sitting to wear out tweed elbows, because tweed is very hard to wear out. I feel sure, though, that J.R.R. Tolkien wore out many tweed jackets against the desks and armchairs of Oxford. But the most common type of damage to vintage tweed jackets, from what I’ve seen, are rips and tears in the lining where the sleeve attaches to the shoulder of the jacket. That’s from putting on jackets carelessly and straining the seams. That’s one reason, of course, that the linings of jackets are always smooth and silky: the jacket slips on easily over whatever else you’re wearing. The method that I like to use for putting on a jacket is to reach straight up with both arms after my arms are in the sleeves. Then the jacket falls down onto the shoulders nice and neat.

In Googling for the history of elbow patches, I saw that some guys are worried about whether elbow patches are out of style. Good grief. Who cares whether elbow patches are out of style? How could anything that is good and practical ever go out of style? This is why I collect 7-ounce cups and saucers in heavy porcelain, and that’s why guests are always befuddled when they ask me for a large mug, and I say that, oh dear, I just don’t seem to have any. After making a show of thinking for a second, I heroically reach into a top shelf and just happen to discover one large mug. They are grateful. But those guests who are here at least for a weekend soon abandon the big mug and instead start using 7-ounce cups and saucers in heavy porcelain. It doesn’t take long for them to come around.

These days, for outdoor recreation, “tech” clothing is the thing — quilted coats, and synthetic fabrics that stretch a little and dry quickly. Tweed, which is always wool, is said to smell like wet dog when it gets wet. But I don’t care.

These days, we are encouraged to buy “thrifted” clothing rather than new things, for environmental reasons. Most clothing, though, is not the sort of thing that will last for decades and that retains value. But apparently people can’t bring themselves to throw away old tweed, because after twenty years it may still look new. Much of it ends up on eBay.

One of these days I’m going to find one in burgundy, forest green, or midnight blue.

April 20


The photo is from 7:50 p.m. Supper is over, and the kitchen has been tidied up after the wreckage of a wok supper.

I am so lucky not to be cooking for one — or gardening or orcharding for one — during this quarantine. There is a certain reluctance, as suppertime approaches, for those who are not in the kitchen to wander into the kitchen and ask, “What’s for supper?” A better practice, I think, is to pretend you’re a bistro and put out a sign.

Spring continues to slowly unfold in the cool weather. And what a spring it is.


The spiderwort just started blooming.


First rosebud!

Spring mustard

 


Mustard greens, just washed through three waters

The neighbors’ garden is a couple of weeks ahead of the abbey’s garden. They’ve got a big mustard crop, and they invited us to come pick some. That meant that last night’s supper was pinto beans, mustard greens, corn bread, and deviled eggs.

This sharing from the garden is the old-fashioned way, and the old-fashioned way is making a comeback here on our little dirt road. There’s a saying, “A third for the neighbors, a third for the critters, and a third for you.” We’d be lucky here to hold the critters to their allocated third, especially in the orchard.

What a spring!


A very young pear

One of the best parts of my day is the daily walkaround in the yard, orchard, and garden. I don’t always like what I see. A few nights ago, we had a late frost. We may have more frost tonight. But mostly what I’m seeing is a beautiful spring. Because of the pandemic, what we can grow here matters more than ever. The orchard is a particular challenge, because we have to fight insects, winds, blights, squirrels, and raccoons to get any of the fruit. This year the fight will be intense, and it’s a fight I’m determined to win.

These are iPhone photos.


Young peaches


Young apples


Young fig


Frostbitten fig leaves


Snowball bush (Hydrangea, I believe)


New rose shoots, regenerating after old growth was cut back


There’s not much to see it the garden yet, but it’s only April 15

It’s not winter


A tiny peach

I don’t often think of so-called scripture. I identify as a creature of the Enlightenment, not as a “person of faith.” Nevertheless, I know an embarrassing amount of scripture, because it was beaten into me as a child and because Old and New Testament were required courses when I was a student. But lately I have been thinking of the 24th chapter of Matthew. In this chapter, Jesus is talking to his disciples about the End Times. It’s the chapter upon which much of evangelical eschatological theology is based. Verse 20 contains the words, “But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter.”

How much scarier would this pandemic be if it had descended upon us at the beginning of winter, rather than at the beginning of one of the prettiest springs I can remember? Things hit the fan right at the beginning of gardening season.

Six years ago, we had made a valiant attempt here to build an irrigation system for the garden that drew water from one of the streams below the abbey. There is plenty of water just 500 yards down the road. That didn’t work, though, partly because we couldn’t find a pump with enough power to get the water up the hill. The water tank sat unused, overgrown with honeysuckle. It was possible to use well water for irrigation, but I’ve avoided that. Well water is pure and precious, and that water pump 305 feet down in the well won’t last forever. I don’t want to rush the day when the pump has to be replaced.

Then, two years ago, a new neighbor with lots of skills and energy worked out a means of getting water up the hill for his garden and for those neighbors who need it, including a neighbor who has a field of blueberries. It’s a heavy four-wheel trailer with tanks and pumps, pulled by his elderly Jeep. We moved our water tank to the side of the road so that the neighbor’s rig can stop in the road and deliver water. Problem solved! We also replaced the old drip lines. I’d swear that the cabbage plants grew an inch overnight after their first watering.

I’m determined to fight the insects, blights, squirrels, and raccoons to get as much out of the orchard as possible this year.

So I have one good thing to say about this pandemic. Its timing was perfect.


Week-old mustard


The water tank. The stream is down the hill at the bottom of the ridge.


The hydrant for irrigation water, gravity fed from the tank


Apple blossom


Lilacs


Carolina jasmine


The day lily bank