Many readers of this blog voted daily for a Pepsi Refresh grant to fund CAC Woodside. Ramble heard so much about it, and that it was near his next host, that he went on a side-trip to see what all the excitement was about.
Photo, and temporary hosting, credit to: Will Gill
I love this time of year. And I hate this time of year, too. It’s odd, this dichotomy of feeling. But it’s what makes the end of May/beginning of June such a great time of the year for me.
Let’s start with why I don’t like it, so that this post ends on a high note.
It’s the end of the school year. That means a couple things. A trip to Boston to bring the boy-child home from college being the first. This is both a bad thing and a good thing. Good that he’s coming home for the summer, bad in that even though he knows when I’m getting there, he’s never ready. This year’s room cleanout took longer than last, despite his being halfway packed when I got there. (Which was better than last year, when NOTHING was packed upon our arrival.) No matter - we got it done and he’s likely getting 100% of his deposit back (if, that is, he remembers to mail back the key he forgot to return in our haste to depart).
It’s finals time for the girl-child. That means loads of projects and final review packets for homework. It always seems that the end of the school year is fraught with last minute “I need a …sheet of posterboard/set of report covers/shoebox for a diorama…” statements. We never seem to have what she needs, and Staples becomes our new favorite store for a couple weeks. It’s home to pick her up, honk the horn, she jumps in, we go to the store for the latest supply run. It happens every year.
So we have the boy home and not necessarily working, which stresses me more than it stresses him. Although this year, he REALLY shocked us all!! He got home Saturday, and on Tuesday, he was working for a man tabulating his accounts and listing antique books on eBay. Within a day after starting there, his email to the printer at which he worked over Christmas was answered, and he accepted a second job working there. So not only is he working, he’s holding down 2 part-time jobs. Here’s hoping that he saves a lot of the money he’ll be making this summer.
The bills go up at this time of year. We use more water and more electricity. We have to buy more groceries. It’s not huge, but it’s an increase. It makes things a little tight for a bit, but we adjust. At least until what happens next.
What happens next is the real reason I don’t like this time of year. Preparation for the girl-child’s annual summer trip to her dad’s in Colorado. We spend the last 2 weeks of the school year picking up some extra clothes, socks, swimsuits, toiletries, etc. so she’s as comfortable there as she is at home. Every year, her plane leaves the day after school lets out, so she really doesn’t get a chance to enjoy her friends outside of school even a little before she goes. I don’t pay for it, and I do complain, but in 10 years of her going out there, it hasn’t changed. I guess it never will, so it’s something we grin at and bear. The good news is that she likes spending the summers with her dad and her little brother, so she looks forward to it. But I miss her desperately the whole 2 months she’s gone.
Doubly tough for her this year, since she has a boyfriend here, but I think they’re going to be just fine. This one’s different from the last one, and I don’t see him straying over the summer. And for that, I’m happy.
So, why do I love this time of year? It smells good…freshly cut grass, early roses, and in early June, honeysuckle. There’s a whole hedge of it 3 doors down from my house. The evening breeze brings the scent of it through the windows, and it’s heaven. There’s nothing like it, and I revel in it. It’s my favorite part of the early summer. There are crickets now. And singing toads. Their evening song travels on the breeze with the honeysuckle. There are fireflies on the more humid nights. Not lots of them yet, they’re these random flashes, like candles quickly extinguished in the dark. In a couple weeks, they’ll light up the whole field. My own personal twinkle light show. LOVE them!
Songbirds!!! There are birds singing again! Even though there are birds all winter long, the winter birds don’t sing like the summer birds do. I miss it in the winter, and I love the sound in the spring. They’re beautiful to see and pleasant to hear. There’s also the whole baby bird thing – and when we’re really lucky, a nest on the porch so we can watch them grow.
It stays light out longer. That means that after dinner, I can sit on the deck with my unsweetened tea or a beer and a good book to unwind after the day. I don’t have to worry about it getting dark before I want to go in, or getting too cold to sit. The temperature and the light are perfect for as long as I need them to be.
Then there’s the garden. The strawberries are fruiting, and we get a big handful almost every night. I’ve planted more, hoping in time to get more than just a handful, but the dog likes the garden WAY too much, and I think they’re doomed. Again. Yes, I put fencing up (netting around fence posts), but the dog sneaks under and, well, does what dogs do in the outdoors. I’m still working on how to get THAT to stop. Eventually, I will succeed. I AM smarter than a rat terrier mix. Honest.
Anyhow, so there are strawberries, and the annual planting of the tomatoes. But only one plant this year. My daughter claims I “caved”, since I said I wouldn’t plant ANY tomatoes this year. I used to plant grape tomatoes, big tomatoes, cucumbers, hot peppers, bell peppers and string beans, but ended up with either early blight (cucumbers), not enough harvest to make a meal out of (beans) or too many to use (everything else). This year, I bought one tomato plant, a beautiful basil plant (which will be potted), a catnip plant (also to be potted – that crap takes over the WHOLE garden if you put it in the ground!), and that’s it. We also have a lovely potted spearmint plant for mint iced tea. So with a little olive oil, mozzarella and balsamic vinegar, plus some pound cake and whipped cream, I have the makings of a caprese salad and strawberry shortcakes. Perfect summer dinner!
So, all that to say that it’s late spring. Children are home, flowers are blooming, birds are nesting and the garden is in. All is as it should be at this time of year, love it or hate it.
"A book is like a key that fits into the tumbler of the soul. The two parts have to match in order for each to unlock. Then - click - a world opens." Brad Kessler Goat Song
To say that I devoured this book is not exactly correct. I read it avidly over a period of the 22 hours since I got it from the library, with breaks for gardening and meals and sleep. And, happily, it is still available for me to read again. so I didn't consume it so much as it consumed me.
But I did devour the goat cheese from Vermont, made in the same valley and manner described in this book, that I bought at the Tomkins Square Farmer's Market in NYC in April. It wasn't until the last chapter that I realized that I had actually tasted the cheese he describes making, step by careful step. So now I have another sense memory to a book that goes up there with my all time favorites.
I have for the last few years been fascinated with sheep and goats and yarn (and knitting and weaving and dyeing). This has led to an interest in the behavior of these animals, who often act very differently but are nonetheless herd animals. Which has led to long ruminations (forgive me) on the nature of prey animals and predator animals. Herd animals gather together so that if a predator attacks, only the weakest on the edges will be picked off leaving the central core to survive. Kind of like 8th graders if I remember right.
Kessler takes my minimal knowledge and musings to an amazing level. Did you know that Swedish women used to sing to their herds in the mountains - secret songs that they would not share with men? Have you ever considered the connection between spiritual awakening and shepherding? (Moses, Muhammad, Krishna.) That shepherds and goat herds have traditionally been bards, creating poetry and songs that became the foundation of world literature?
And the writing. Oh, Brad, you can write. Each sentence is beautiful. Descriptions so natural but powerful that you are there on the mountain with the goats as the Carthusian Monastery in the next valley rings the bells for prayer.
I do not expect everyone to go pick up a copy of Goat Song just because I loved it so much. It is rare that this kind of connection between book and reader is made. I always want to love my books, to disappear into them the way I did when I was a kid, sitting on the kitchen stool over the hot air register, reading amidst the chaos of the family so intently that I often had to be called three or four times to bring me up out of my book trance.
Nowadays finding a book that does that for me is unexpected. You wander into the library and look at the books with those yellow "New" stickers and wonder what might catch your fancy. Sometimes you find a book that opens the door to your soul. And you never know when it will happen. I read Geraldine Brooks' March almost halfway through before I became entranced by it. Every time I pick up The Hemingses of Monticello by Annette Gordon-Reed I am carried away by her writing and I learn some new insight about slavery times. I am barely more than halfway through. It is too rich to eat/read in large amounts.
I don't read only literature or high quality nonfiction. Sometimes I read junk, a stupid mystery or a romance novel (always with an interesting setting or historical era) or a airport bookstore thriller. That's because if Kessler is right, sometimes I don't want to go into my soul and deliberately avoid books that might take me there. Or maybe I can't find the key that day, so compromise with passing the time.
"Reading good books ruins you for reading bad books" says Julia Ashton in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. (I listened to this one as an audio book and thoroughly enjoyed it.) Sadly, this is true. I have been known to throw a book across the room in rage at the bad writing. Where are the editors? Do they just publish whatever a writer sends them? I'm working myself up here, and will now calm down.
I'm sad to finish Goat Song this morning, but surely there is another gem in the pile of books that are my planned summer reading. But it has to be the right book for the right moment. The key has to fit before I can disappear into the book. This, my friends, is my excuse for keeping too many books around. You never know when one might be just right for this moment.
"A book is like a key that fits into the tumbler of the soul. The two parts have to match in order for each to unlock. Then - click - a world opens." Brad Kessler Goat Song
To say that I devoured this book is not exactly correct. I read it avidly over a period of the 22 hours since I got it from the library, with breaks for gardening and meals and sleep. And, happily, it is still available for me to read again. so I didn't consume it so much as it consumed me.
But I did devour the goat cheese from Vermont, made in the same valley and manner described in this book, that I bought at the Tomkins Square Farmer's Market in NYC in April. It wasn't until the last chapter that I realized that I had actually tasted the cheese he describes making, step by careful step. So now I have another sense memory to a book that goes up there with my all time favorites.
I have for the last few years been fascinated with sheep and goats and yarn (and knitting and weaving and dyeing). This has led to an interest in the behavior of these animals, who often act very differently but are nonetheless herd animals. Which has led to long ruminations (forgive me) on the nature of prey animals and predator animals. Herd animals gather together so that if a predator attacks, only the weakest on the edges will be picked off leaving the central core to survive. Kind of like 8th graders if I remember right.
Kessler takes my minimal knowledge and musings to an amazing level. Did you know that Swedish women used to sing to their herds in the mountains - secret songs that they would not share with men? Have you ever considered the connection between spiritual awakening and shepherding? (Moses, Muhammad, Krishna.) That shepherds and goat herds have traditionally been bards, creating poetry and songs that became the foundation of world literature?
And the writing. Oh, Brad, you can write. Each sentence is beautiful. Descriptions so natural but powerful that you are there on the mountain with the goats as the Carthusian Monastery in the next valley rings the bells for prayer.
I do not expect everyone to go pick up a copy of Goat Song just because I loved it so much. It is rare that this kind of connection between book and reader is made. I always want to love my books, to disappear into them the way I did when I was a kid, sitting on the kitchen stool over the hot air register, reading amidst the chaos of the family so intently that I often had to be called three or four times to bring me up out of my book trance.
Nowadays finding a book that does that for me is unexpected. You wander into the library and look at the books with those yellow "New" stickers and wonder what might catch your fancy. Sometimes you find a book that opens the door to your soul. And you never know when it will happen. I read Geraldine Brooks' March almost halfway through before I became entranced by it. Every time I pick up The Hemingses of Monticello by Annette Gordon-Reed I am carried away by her writing and I learn some new insight about slavery times. I am barely more than halfway through. It is too rich to eat/read in large amounts.
I don't read only literature or high quality nonfiction. Sometimes I read junk, a stupid mystery or a romance novel (always with an interesting setting or historical era) or a airport bookstore thriller. That's because if Kessler is right, sometimes I don't want to go into my soul and deliberately avoid books that might take me there. Or maybe I can't find the key that day, so compromise with passing the time.
"Reading good books ruins you for reading bad books" says Julia Ashton in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. (I listened to this one as an audio book and thoroughly enjoyed it.) Sadly, this is true. I have been known to throw a book across the room in rage at the bad writing. Where are the editors? Do they just publish whatever a writer sends them? I'm working myself up here, and will now calm down.
I'm sad to finish Goat Song this morning, but surely there is another gem in the pile of books that are my planned summer reading. But it has to be the right book for the right moment. The key has to fit before I can disappear into the book. This, my friends, is my excuse for keeping too many books around. You never know when one might be just right for this moment.
