Snow

Finally, it is snowing. Not a lot. Not blusterly. But gently and confidently and happily snowing. While the meteorologists tell us there will be no accumulation, I will take what I can get. Snow is, after all, welcome on two accounts: for the moments it is falling and for the ground cover it brings. One out of two is better than none at all, and at least for the moment we can enjoy this fleeting aerial ballet

I have turned off my radio, my dryer has stopped, as, blessedly, has the motor that runs my refrigerator, which seems to get louder and louder as the years pass. So I am sitting in almost-silence watching this parade of flakes rushing groundward as if they are all eager lyheaded to a high school reunion.

Our lack of snow became even more disheartening when I recalled that rain begins as snow. Up in the atmospheric range where the clouds form, it is below freezing. So when vapor rises, it eventually freezes, forming snowflakes. When it returns to earth, it will either melt or stay frozen depending on the temperature of the air in between the clouds and the ground. So we are so close, never more than a few miles, from snow.

When I was young, it seemed to me that we had several good, wet snowstorms every year. I remember my red plastic galoshes would fill with snow and my socks would be encrusted with refrozen snow when I finally had my fill and, fully sated with winter's wonders, went inside to towels, dry clothes and a hot cup of cocoa. Today, my children, who grew up in New York, are wondering if they will have to move back to New England to relive the snow memories of their childhood.

We can still hope. February is supposed to be the snowiest month of the year around here. Which is doubly good because it is also the shortest, so that means either one big snowstorm or several smaller ones. Either way, given how late it is in the month of January, I am looking forward to February with even greater expectation, and not a little bit of worry. For my children's sake.

Celebration of the Seasons

It is that time of year when the beech and poplar and dogwood trees in my front yard turn a golden hue. The sun's reflection off their leaves floods the evening with thick, honeyed air. It seems as if just down the road, the air gets thicker still, and you can taste the sweetness of honey suspended on colored droplets.

I witness one my favorite joys of fall from my office window. All summer long, the leaves have grown, turned deepening shades of green, and spied the ground from many stories up. Secure in their slendor but stalwart attachment to their branches, they witnessed the warmth and storms of summer safe from their arboreal perch.

But after all those months, the time for their great migratory adventure has come: the fall cascade of the leaves from tree limb to ground cover is here. Throughout the day, they fall, one by one. But on occasion, there is a grand rustling, like a murmur moving through a crowd.

And then it begins: the rain of leaves. The air is filled with floating, golden flotsam, turning and waving in an earth-toned ticker-tape parade, the leaves rustling their hurrahs for the passing glories of summer. Then, when the air is spent and all tuckered out, ground and leaf finally meet for the first time since eyeing each other way back last spring. All then becomes quiet. The leaves settling in, cozying down in communion with the ground.

In the midst of a weary world, torn apart by human blunders, it is comforting, indeed healing, to see this annual celebration of the seasons, by the seasons. Kudos and bravo. And many heartfelt thanks.

Rehoboth Bay

There is a spit of land in Delaware that is two blocks wide. In the morning, you can roll eastward out of bed and catch the day’s sunrise over the placid Atlantic. In the evening, you can stroll westward to the eastern banks of the Rehoboth Bay and catch the sunset over the distant trees.

I have been coming to this place for 25 years and never really knew that before. Evidently, many other people don’t know it either. With literally tens of thousands of people vacationing here, my family and I were one of only three groups who gathered on a public pier to watch the evening show at pocket-sized Monigle Park,

Compared to the beaches on the ocean side of the spit, this park is small, roughly the size of a modern Great Room. It is bounded by rocks that serve as breakers, dune grass to hold the sand in place and a handful of beach houses of modest and grand proportions.

While the surf at the ocean lunges and sweeps, this water at the bay gently laps its shore. Today is a most glorious day at the park. Nine in the morning, and no one to be seen. Just the distant voices of families at ease. Cool, dry air and a cloudless sky. Seagulls gracing the wind. About as close to peace as you can get in a robust resort area like Rehoboth.

If I had the leisure, and the talent, I would create a Year of Sunrises and Sunsets. Imagine what it would be like to capture the daily show of the beauty and power that brings all things to life on earth. Through rain and storm and clarity and haze, to catch the changing moods of our planet in the face of the sun, across the reach of a year.

What astonishes me is that this show happens every day, and truth be told, most days I don’t even notice. Of course, I can tell if it is light or dark outside, whether I need to turn on the lights or draw down the shades. I pay attention to the progression of weekly sunsets that tell me when Shabbat is to begin. But noting the mundane majesty of this solar perambulation? I only wish. Witnessing the brightening of the sky each morning does not cause me to gasp at the sheer splendor and blessing of this most life affirming act. Although it should. Even with the nudge of the daily blessings I most often fail in this constant call of awareness. It often takes illness, or loss, or more kindly the unbroken vastness of a maritime horizon to remind me of the awe and necessity of nature. How much we depend on it and how much we still do not know.

A few years ago, a man full of hubris declared the end of scientific inquiry. He argued that we had essentially conquered all the major frontiers and the rest is just tinkering. The truth is, we still don’t know what gravity is and what makes it work. We don’t know what fired the Big Bang, where all that energy came from or exactly where it is going. We don’t know what determines consciousness or conscience. One day, I hope we do. How awesome it would be to know these things.

For now, everyday, we whirl and twirl around our life source on our corner of the Milky Way in our neck of the Universe. It is good, now and then, to remember this, look up, and have it, for a moment, take our breath away.

approach of fall

The sounds at dusk and the cool of early morning announce the slow and distant approach of fall. As if on cue, we turned the corner into August and the evening orchestra picked up a whole string section. In addition to the cicadas, and that rattling noise of some unknown (to me) insect, the crickets have added their song.

I love the crickets. They carpet the evening air with their melodies. But I find them sad, too. For they are the harbingers of summer's end. Oh, there will still be hot days when the tar on the road bubbles and the sun is too hot to handle. There is still time for swimming and vacation and lazy nights. But at the edges of daylight, in between the breathing of evening's warmth, the cool touch of fall reaches out and strokes you.

If fall weren't such a vibrant, crisp season, if it didn't feel more like release than loss, the harbinger of summer's end would be downright melancholy. Instead, I choose to sit outside til the sky and the leaves merge in their nighttime garb, and offer blessings for the peace around me.

staying at home

For a host of reasons that you know all too well, many of us are staying closer to home. Job insecurity, stock market decline, rising energy costs, unstable food prices. Spending money on a discretionary trip right now feels expensive, if not downright extravagant.

So we forgo it, make do without and plan for next year.

But staying at home need not be the disappointing, second-best, self-sacrifice it sometimes is made out to be.

As a student of homes and how we live in them, I feel like it is time for me to come out of the closet. I like staying home. I like the way the house changes its pace and patterns when I am on vacation. And I like the way it teaches and changes me in turn.

Vacation schedules differ from work schedules, and our lighting patterns broadcast that. Lights in a house are like semaphores on a ship. The pattern with which they go on and off reflect the nature and purpose of the life we inhabit. We see this more in others than ourselves. An episodic change in the lighting habits of a neighbor often signals a celebration, a meeting, trouble, even death. A habitual change often signals a new neighbor. Changing our lighting pattern reflects a change in our habit.

So too in the use of rooms. The kitchen often enjoys more company on vacation as I learn to make new dishes, using both familiar and exotic foods (even locally grown foods can be exotic to natives depending on our food habits). Or the kitchen is abandoned as I seek to avoid all forms of domesticity and housekeeping.

My husband's paternal grandmother, a diminutive powerhouse of a homemaker, used to say it didn't matter where they went for vacation - as long as she didn't have to cook. (That was a difficult wish to fulfill for a kosher family in America in the early to mid-20th century.) For her, vacation was more a release from responsibilities, a liberated time allowing for a reconnection with and elevation of primacy of self than a discovery of others. I imagine that if her husband had hired a cook and cleaning crew to take over those chores every day for two weeks, despite her initial protestations (they would mess things up, they would break things, they would lose things, they would get in the way...), she would have been in heaven. (Though he might have heard some requisite fault-finding in their performance afterward.)

There is great spiritual power in the discovery of others: other places, other cultures, other foods, other habits, other ways of time, other kinds of flora and fauna, other use of natural resources. And travel is a prime way to experience that discovery.

But we often overlook the spiritual power of re-discovery of self, of home, of us in our place. There is so much we take for granted, overlook, never even knew.

Perhaps the unspoken gift of this time of increased at-home-ness will be this rediscovery of self and place. And with this rediscovery, a re-enchantment of self in place.

I am hoping over the summer months to publish several entries that speak to the discoveries and blessings we can encounter at home as we save fuel and energy and money by Staying at Home.

I hope to write about closets and neighborhood trees and home-spun entertainment and walking and all the sundry discoveries of the mysteries and hidden joys that we miss during the busyness of our lives.

porch on a summer's night

One of summer's exquisite delights finds us slipping slowly into eveningtime from a favorite chair on a cozy porch. The coming of evening is not so much a show that we watch as a mood that comes over us. Neither the sun nor the air nor our friendly companion seems in any hurry for the light to go. In wintertime, at the end of our daily bath of sun, the light quickly slurps down the western drain. But in summer, the light languorously drips away. Each shade on the spectrum from bright to dark presents itself for our review, pausing so we may show it our appreciation.

We don't always. We are often making dinner, or eating dinner, or watching television or otherwise occupied with life inside. Often, too, we don't even notice the moment we flip on the lights and tune out the outside.

Yet, on those blessedly quiet days, when we take the time to be present with this still-awesome and miraculous world of ours, it is comforting, no, beyond that, Shabbat-like peaceful, to be swept up in this silent, arcing drama of the heavens that has repeated itself, incessantly, for over four billion years. And each evening it does it again, for us, taking its time in the warm air of summer to mine the moment for all it's worth.

csa time

The local CSAs are beginning in Baltimore. With the combination of the brilliant spring sun, the abundant spring rains and the glorious cool weather we should have a bumper crop of produce this year.

After so many years of lamenting the absence of spring, of feeling like we went from late winter to the midst of summer, from jacket weather at the beginning of the week to shvitzing by the end, we have finally been blessed with a spring whose glory merits praise. Something to tell the grandchildren about, just like the stunning blizzard of a few years ago.

Days that are cool at night and beckoningly lovely throughout the afternoon. Easy enough to work up a sweat, but only if you earned it. Not the humid, blistering warmth that melts you simply on contact.

Breakfast on the patio or porch mornings. Fresh and clean and renewing air.

I am on my back porch as I type this, looking out over our heavily wooded backyard. Various pieces of heavy equipment and previous heavy use tore up the ground around the trees seven years ago. For six years, the backyard stayed barren of ground-cover. The earth lay there, bare and forlorn, exposed to the elements. Only the relative flatness of the land, and a deep cover of leaves in the fall, prevented us from losing so much topsoil.

Then, sometime last summer, poof, the further section of our lawn began to sprout little patches of green. Not grass or high stalks that needed to be tended. Just curled, tender short ground-cover that modestly covered the naked earth. A little skirt of green, inching out here and there.

Somehow over the winter, through the magic that is the earth's regenerative powers, that gentle, rolling, curling ground-cover migrated almost all the way to the house. Our backyard, while native, is not wild or overgrown but softly blanketed with sprouts reaching from side to side and all the way back to the pachysandra in the woods.

Why can't we grow lawns like this - lawns which need no tending, no mowing, no use of fossil fuels for fertilizers or trimming or edging? Lawns that are sturdy to walk on and resilient and verdant and nature friendly? I would be someone who markets the seed or seedlings of this ground-cover, and others that do as well, would make a nice living.

Of a wooded evening

The porch on this log cabin faces east, thus so do we on this glorious spring evening, sitting on our silently gliding chairs, gazing at the gentle back-side of the sun’s rays. Shielded by the shade of the house and the chubby canopy above, we take in the sounds and senses of the close of day.

From the north, a neighbor and his guitar pick out chords, tunes and words to serenade the bustling animal life, and one or two friends, in the last flurry of outdoor activity before darkness settles comfortably on these woods. Actually, “settles” doesn’t quite describe it. Once the sun sets behind the ridge, the light seems to be slowly absorbed by the trees, gently and slowly sucked in, tucked away, and sipped on all night til the light of next day’s sun brings them a new batch of liquid light to drink.

A woodpecker astonishes with his jack-hammering the hollow trunk of a nearby tree whose fallen limbs will provide us with a week’s worth of fire wood next winter. The hollowness of the tree, the power of the woodpecker and the proximity to the house create the loudest noise we hear in these woods, louder even than the rifleshots of not-so-distant hunters.

This woodpecker is enormous – or so he seems to us. It appears to be a pileated woodpecker (a local taught us that a while back): brilliant red crown, black body with white stripes toward the tips of its black wings that we could only see when it sailed toward its target in the last moments of flight. It hops on the ground and around the tree trunk as much as it flies. All these things a city girl never learned. Thankfully, it is never too late.

And before we abandon the porch and retire to our books and lamps and cozy chairs for the night, we get again (it happened last night too!) a whiff of coolness whooshed up from the ravine beside us. With it comes a hint of sweetness, a bouquet of some plant or unseen blossom that perfumes the air just as long as the coolness lingers. It is reminiscent of a peace from childhood, when your mother, dressed for the evening in her favorite perfume, comes to your bedroom to tuck you in. And as she bends to kiss you goodnight, her scent embraces you too. When she leaves, a piece of her stays, or so you imagine. This then is the scent of day in the evening, preparing to leave for some fancy engagement. But at least it leaves us with a kiss, a memento, and a promise to come back before long.

Restoration

I write in a house darkened by the diurnal turn of time, the room illumined only by the glow of my computer screen, serenaded by the on-again off-again hum of the refrigerator. (It is on the on-cycle now.) "House" this technically is, but to give you a better sense of the ambiance and peace in which I write, I should mention that this "house" is a log-cabin. The ceiling, walls and floor are raw, aged wood, with their knots and stress and nature showing. No dry wall or sheet rock conceal the majesty that nature made that holds a roof above my head and insulates me - better than most fillers - from the hot and cold of the weather outside.

No pictures or weavings or paintings hang on these walls. The woods provide the decoration and aesthetics of the room. To place a work of art on these walls feels like putting make-up on a child.

The cabin sits at the crest of five hilly acres, bounded on one side by a swiftly flowing stream, if the season has been a wet one. It is engulfed by trees, and some countless wooded acres owned by distant neighbors.

I came here to be restored by nature and solitude. The cabin doesn't fail me. I spend my time reading Founding Brothers by Joseph J. Ellis, about the major currents driving one of the most remarkable band of men in history; and The Sound of Mountain Water by Wallace Stegner, one of America's most gifted nature essayists. The pairing is not so odd as it may seem. Each book is inspiring: with explorations of blithe nature and self-conscious actors, the enduring affect things and people can have on those around them and after them, and the majesty in both being moved by and moving events of the world.

What a rich life indeed - moment to moment - to tend so carefully to the legacy of one's deeds, to see so much in the rush of rain down a mountainside. How much less would we spend on pedicures and ribbons if we lived our lives at that edge of awareness, how much fuller our days and how much better this world?

a close encounter

Returning from my early morning walk today, I cut through the woods behind my home. This is by-pass, thoroughfare and otherwise recreation area for our local herd of deer. So human and woodland creatures often encounter each other here. We eye one another for a few seconds, each determining the other means no harm, and continue on our respective ways.

This morning, however, something new occurred. As I emerged from the wooded area onto my recovering back yard (it has a fuzz of ground cover on it this year - recovering from the abuse of construction and heavy equipment and then mounds of leaf litter burying it for a few years), I found myself being greeted by the two smallest, most adorable, undoubtedly relatively new-born fawns I have ever seen. These two tiny creatures came no higher than my knees. Their legs were still wobbly, their spots large and prominent. While that was a delightful discovery, I somewhat quickly was horrified to realize that I could not see any adult deer around. I imagined they had to be there - these little things couldn't survive long without them. But I couldn't see them (hurray for camouflage and the cover of scrub). Clearly, while I was there, they were going to pretend they weren't. Except for these innocent playful babies.

I determined to hurry home, to let the adults come out of hiding and reclaim their endangered children. Alas, since I was the only big animal they could see, and the babies were so very young and inexperienced, they began to follow me home! One seemed to catch on after just a few steps, and amidst my imploring, turned to go back into the woods. The other, sadly, continued to imagine that I was family and the leader of the herd. Gently, without wanting to scare the little one, I argued, pointed, explained, that I was not its mother. To no avail. This little one clearly would not understand me! (Who was being more obtuse in this scenario I leave for you to decide!)

This soon became all too much for the little guy. It was quite exhausted at being rebuffed and apparently was becoming anxious at not having a loving mom to cuddle it and nurse it. Its legs began to wobble and give way. So right at the edge of my garage, it decided to make its last stand, or last lie, and plopped down. It was so very petite, bones and breathing quite evident.

Alarmed that still no parent showed up, and that this little one was in distress, I ran inside and with the help of my son, brought out two tins, one of milk and one of water. We didn't know which would be better; and we didn't even know if this baby could even drink from anything that a mother's breast. (Any advice about what to do if this happens again is most welcome!)

Sadly, it appeared even too weak to lift its head.

At this point, I had to take my son to school. And as we were getting into the car, we saw the whole herd bounding away across the street, away from the little baby we too were now leaving behind. It wasn't clear to us that this deer would even survive till I returned, it looked so distressed and weak and alone. We drove away with a sense of loss and doom.

I am happy to report however, that upon my return, not 20 minutes later, the baby deer was no longer prostrate alongside the corner of my garage. In fact, it was no longer in sight. My hope is that its mother retraced her steps, followed the scent and rescued this pitiful, lost but beautiful and trusting animal. Although we do have foxes in our neighborhood too.

my bird feeder

It no doubt seems odd to set up a birdfeeder in early spring, just as the trees begin to flower, just after the birds successfully scraped and foraged their way through long winter's barrenness. But even as the earth was rousing itself from a chilly slumber, so was I.

My son and daughter-in-law were house shopping and invited me to come along. (I am always eager to see how other folks live.) One house they looked at had a village of birdfeeders out on the deck beyond the breakfast room. The flittering and flattering of feathers and beaks was incessant. And irresistible. I wanted such a menagerie outside my window too.

So in the better-late-than-never mode, I bought a stand, a gracious feeder, lots of seed and settled down to enjoy the show.

And indeed I do. True, without a birder to tell me exactly who is coming to dinner, I cannot be certain about identifying my feathered friends. But so far it seems that we host a constant cacophony of cardinals (of these I am sure); chipping sparrows; brown-headed cowbirds; titmouses (titmice?) and sometimes woodpeckers. (I welcome and invite corrections on these observations.)

The choreography and pecking order of those who visit our hanging restaurant are endlessly fascinating. The sparrows and the cardinals seem to get along just fine. And cardinal couples seem to share the feed nicely. But rarely do two male cardinals alight at the same time. Although as many as 6 or more sparrows share a common table. But everyone leaves when the cowbird comes.

What no one told me was how hard it is to fill this feeder. Like most, it is top-loading, made of metal mesh that holds the seed like a silo. The seed slowly empties into a dish on the bottom as the birds empty it out. The problem is, that as I pour the seed in from the top it bounces out through the sides of the mesh and spills all over the ground below. I was unhappy about this, but it seemed to be nothing more than a nuisance, and a waste.

But today, it proved to be deadly. Working at my desk this morning, I noticed a cinnamon-colored animal stealthily creeping to my pachysandra, near where the feeder resides. At first I thought it was my cat, who is remarkably the same color. But he was snoozing on my sofa. Peering out the window again I saw that it was indeed not the cat, but our fox, whom we have taken to calling Charlie. Odd, I thought for him to be out this time of day. And so evidently in the open.

And what, I began to tense up, was he doing? It didn't take a naturalist to realize he was stalking - eyes and ears trained on prey that was hidden from me by the cover of the undergrowth. But now, following his gaze, even I could see the leaves of the pachysandra under the birdfeeder shaking by the movements of an animal exquisitely oblivious to all but gorging on the unnatural bounty created by my sloppy pouring. In a moment, the fox pounced and after but one or two attempts, emerged with a female cardinal in his mouth.

I felt that I had clenched the bird in mine - felt the pulsing, dry feathers on my tongue. It was my fault the bird was caught. For a moment I tried to console myself by taking the fox's side: he too needs to eat and no one puts carrion feeders out for him. This is nature tooth and claw, the way it is meant to be.

But in truth it felt more like a fixed hand, a rigged game, like shooting fish in a barrel.

My next effort at consolation was that perhaps the cardinal was ill already - else why would it not have perched on the feeder, safely out of harm's way, as the other birds do? But then, I cannot really see if other birds feed below the post, feasting on the flotsam that sails from the feeder.

So now I simply wonder, without consolation: Is it too early for the cardinal to have laid her eggs? Are there fledglings somewhere now without a mother?

The chattering at the feeder continues - no mourning is evident there. But I wonder who, besides me, is missing the cardinal.

on the tail of an owl

So there I was, in a huff and a snit and an altogether foul mood (yes, even I get that way sometimes) when my husband called from the driveway (he was on his way out to pick up our son, not to get a safe distance away from me) telling me that the owl that occasionally serenaded us with its nocturnal chantings was perched ever-so-clearly in the tree not 40 feet from him. It was six o'clock, Eastern Daylight Time. Sunset was still an hour away so despite the overcast, drizzly day, I had a date with a diffident neighbor.

I put on my shoes, my coat (it was cold), and slowly went outside, careful not to shut the door and thus scare away the bird. As I gingerly began my walk down the driveway, I saw a large, chubby bird take flight, darting from the bare poplar to the stately evergreen. It wasn't more than 20 feet off the ground and 100 feet from me, but it was hard to pick out amidst the tangle of branches.

Gently, I kept walking. These birds are keen witnesses, though. I hadn't gone 10 more steps when it swooped away, skimming along the base of the cherry trees that line the front of my yard. I kept after it as it turned north, still flying low, and disappeared in a heap of forest debris. I approached, peering into dips and burrows and gaps, seeing nothing with these novice, untrained eyes. No doubt, birders, trackers, naturalists of all sorts would have seen a library-full of information. I just saw a heap of debris.

It was time to give the bird its space, and go back inside. And just as you might imagine, I returned to my space feeling a whole lot better. You can't stay knotty trailing a thing of beauty, even if it gives you the slip.

sleepless nights

If you have to have a sleepless night, try to make it when the sky is crisp and clear and the moon is round and bright. I know you can't order insomnia delivered to your door, like Netflix, to be saved and played at a convenient time, or have it stored in your night-table like a favorite book to reach for as you wish. But, I offer this as a heads-up anyway. During your next unbidden mid-night excursion, take a peak outside. If you are lucky, you will see a radiant full moon casting shadows on your lawn, or street, or windowsill. It is an eternal monthly re-run that never seems to grow old.

There are several good things about a full (or even near full, ie, gibbous) moon. It is luminous. Moonglow has its own charm. It is a soft, white light, without the intensity of glare or heat. You can gaze directly at the moon and be swept away by a close encounter with a celestial object no less stunning than those millions of light year away. Yet we tend to degrade our heavenly neighbor, and take it for granted, overlook its awesomeness because it is always there, like a piece of furniture we learn to step around, seeing but not always attending to it.

It is pock-marked with a faded, jagged pattern of dark, not quite always discernible, not quite identifiable, and therefore endlessly entertaining. Is it an old man, as we westerners imagine? Or a rabbit, as easterners imagine? A dragon, moose, woman as other traditions suggest?

It stays up in the sky all night, rising close to sunset and setting close to sun rise. So no matter what time you take your mid-night perambulations, the moon is there to keep you company.

It is amazing to see how fast it travels across the sky. It reminds us of the constant movement of the earth, and our otherwise invisible, unfelt, hurtling and twirling through space that we are mostly oblivious to; the majesty of the Milky Way and the awesomeness of creation far beyond our precious planet.

It coaxes contemplation, pulls us beyond the woes and worries and drama of our lives and reconnects us to the grand drama of Life itself. For we are forever a part of that. It is humbling, and to my mind warming, to remember that this same cool light of the moon is the one our ancestors saw, wrote about, sang about, took comfort in, thousands of years ago. In the dim, reflected light of the moon, we can often see much further than in the blazing light of the sun.


For more information on the phases of the moon, check out:

http://home.hiwaay.net/~krcool/Astro/moon/moonphase/

http://www.calculatorcat.com/moon_phases/moon_phases.phtml

My apple trees

I have always wanted to live by an apple orchard. There, spring, summer and especially fall offer up luscious smells of flowers and fruit. The October orchard air is thick as cider and the ground treacherous for walking, what with all the rounded, rotting fruit on the ground. But it is intoxicating, irresistible and a bit spooky at night amid the gnarled, crooked branches.

So last summer, after realizing I was never in fact going to buy an apple orchard, I decided to grow my own. I found an on-line seller of fruit trees and ordered 8 trees - lodi, winesap and one other whose name I cannot now recall - because they all supposedly work to fertilize the other.

Tree-planting season had long past by last summer so I was told the trees would be shipped late fall, after three frosts had assured that the trees (the tiniest of twigs really) were hibernating. By the time the trees came in late November, the ground here was too hard to plant them, so they stayed all winter in a box in my entryway, waiting. Their roots were wrapped in dampened paper and they seemed perfectly happy (and mostly forgotten) perched against the wall until such time as sun and warmth and lack of other commitments enabled me to free them from their constraints and place them in the ground.

Today was that magical day. A sunny, crisp 40+ degrees, with the ground soft and giving beneath the shovel. I dug holes deep enough to accommodate the tiny roots, cleared three feet of grass around the sprig, mulched all around and watered well. The mulch came from the wood chips of a tree on our property that fell down during a storm two years ago. When the tree men came to take it away we asked if they could chip it for us instead. They obliged - it saved them a trip - and a fee - to some nursery dump. After sitting so many months, stewing on the ground, the mulch was rich and moist and perfect for the job.

The "trees" (less than an inch in circumference and most less than three feet in height) swathed in their blanket of bark and soil, will stay dormant for another few weeks, needing time to awaken to the soil and sun and water. I imagine they will take another five years or so to be big enough to sprout fruit. I hope to be here for their first harvest. Meanwhile, I will watch them grow. And maybe practice making preserves and apple pies.

blessing of constancy

I am in West Virginia, on a sudden but modest hill surrounded by two mountain ranges. To get to this cabin you drive west on Route 70, meander a ways, turn off the paved road by the large house forever in the process of construction, rising from the growing graveyard of contrivances that once carried people but now rely on people to carry them, drive a while on dirt and stones until you arrive at the “driveway.” If any regulatory agency set standards for driveways here, this would not be a driveway. But in the wilds of WV, almost anything goes. Still, as citified folk approach, our first thoughts are: Please Gd, let that not be the “driveway.” Then we think: Shouldn’t this thing have a chain-belt to pull me up, kind of like a roller-coaster? The trick is to get a running start so you have enough momentum when the traction gets a little light.

To the east of the house is mountain; to the west of the house is mountain. Sunlight comes here later and leaves earlier than it does for our neighbors on the heights. The view is not much. The house is surrounded by trees, a bit thin in the winter but just the right density in the summer. Still and all, if you want a view, this is not the place to go. It reminds me of the Midwestern quip: An easterner was visiting a stark prairie town, with not a tree in sight. Engaged in conversation with a native plainsman, the easterner, clearly unsettled by the unbroken vastness of the prairie, finally asked: “Don’t you miss trees?” The plainsman snorted: “Trees? Who wants trees? They block the view.”

You either like this cabin or you don’t, depending on whether you think the trees are the view or are blocking the view.

But the real reason I am writing this is to share a quote I read here. I recently bumped into the nature writings of Susan Fenimore Cooper, the daughter of novelist James Fenimore Cooper. She was gentle, easy writer with a love of the out of doors. Her book, Rural Hours, is an accessible naturalist’s diary of the seasons of the year in Cooperstown, NY. She occasionally culls lessons from physical nature to human nature, and sometimes the other way around. The following is an observation that works well in both worlds:

“How pleasant it is to meet the same flowers year after year! If the blossoms were liable to change – if they were to become capricious and irregular – they might excite more surprise, more curiosity, but we should love them less… Whatever your roving fancies may say, there is a virtue in constancy which has a reward above all that fickle change can bestow…” (p. 29)

We love the extraordinary in nature. We travel to see the majesty of Niagara Falls and the Grand Canyon, the stunning beauty of the orchid. But it is the irises that bloom in our garden every spring; the snowfall that cheers us in the midst of winter; the luscious smell of warm summer rains; the knowledge that the seasons will once again come around so that we can plant vegetables and harvest them in due time; watch the flowers bloom and be greeted by the bees and butterflies lured by their fragrance, that calm our restless spirits.

And it is with people as it is with nature. We love the exotic, the glamorous, the new, the extraordinary. But we thrive on the constancy of a mother’s hug, the familiar repertoire of family recipes, the recognition of who sits where, and the anticipation of family traditions. Even as we need change, we need reliability, both in the seasons of nature and the seasons of our lives. But what was once a given is now in jeopardy. There is displacement and disruption in both these realms. The hope is that our work and awareness and skills in one arena will spill over to our work and awareness and skills in the other. Not too far-fetched a hope. And not beyond our the tasks of our daily lives.

spring peepers

The thermometer hit 70 degrees yesterday; a gentle wind from somewhere far away carried aloft the first hints of a fragrant spring. In the early evening hours, just after sunset, with a soft rain falling and the air filled with the promise of renewal, the northeast’s guardians of early spring began their serenade: the peepers were back. Tiny tree frogs (about 1 inch long) which seem to cluster near my neighbor’s generous pond, they come out at night and sing their lusty mating songs for hours. Neither desperate nor timid, they sing - just a clear statement of presence: here I am, waiting for you. These nightly serenades continue through early summer, meet up with the season of the lightning bugs (if we are lucky - we had almost none last year), and give way to the late summer cricket crescendo. I am not sure I have ever seen a spring peeper. But I hear them, every year, through the open windows of my home. They soothe and comfort, and seem to remind us that if we don’t muck things up, the world will continue on with its seasonal miracles. It is cold tonight, compared to last night. Appropriate weather for March. Forty degrees. I didn’t hear them tonight. Did the odd warm spell confuse them? I hope they are okay.

the aesthetics of composting

I compost. Not because I garden and not because I want to use the fertile soil I will be creating to make my Eden bloom.
I compost so that I can return to the soil that which came from it. And having no meat in the house makes composting a breeze.

(Warning: if you are an avid composter, do not read on. What follows may be disturbing.)

This is how I compost: I gather the remnants of foodstuffs in a plastic container on my kitchen counter. Pre-cooked food; post-cooked food. Peels, scrapes, leftovers that are otherwise inedible. I then, when the container is sufficiently filled or otherwise looking, uh, ripe for the heap, I take it outdoors and dump it on my compost pile. (I told you this would look coarse and disturbing to trained and committed composters.) Sometimes I cover it with the leaf debris that is lying around; sometimes I don't.

This was working rather well, I thought. But my son and husband thought differently. They were unhappy, shall we say, viewing the compost bowl heap up right in front of their eyes.

Okay. To shield their delicate spirits and sense of cleanliness (dirt is more a cultural definition than a natural one), I tried closed, non-transparent containers. Tin ones with lids seemed promising but rusted. Casseroles seemed too ornate for my needs; and a mis-use of kitchen artifcacts. Other containers didn't have lids.

Then, I had an idea. I was going to Annapolis to participate in the annual Environmental Action Day, where we learn about that year's major legislative agendas, as set by the alliance of Maryland environmental organizations, and meet with our legislators. The good thing about going to Annapolis, besides doing this good work, is that right across from the entrance to the Governor's mansion is the best little pottery shop.

What if I found a great pot with a snug fitting lid that was not too heavy or too expensive or too big that could hold 2-3 days worth of compost, all the while sitting beautifully and stealthily on the counter, hiding the detritus within?

Well, pottery is, as you may imagine, expensive. So none of the wares on display worked for me. But I approached one of the workers, who is part of the coop and thus also a potter, and asked if perchance there were any seconds, rejects, in the back that I could buy for this less-than-presentable purpose. Indeed, she said, there were. So into the back we went. I found a 10 inch high, five inch diameter cylindrical post, resembling a utensil holder that would sit comfortably on any kitchen counter. For the life of me, I could not find the flaw. Except, it didn't have a lid.

No problem. My friendly potter disappeared in the far back from whence pottery rummaging noises came. She emerged, beaming. She had found a lid (they had a whole box back there of orphaned lids, that is, lids whose bases had broken) which she thought might just fit perfectly onto the top of this beautiful but cheap pot. We both held our breath as she gently slide the lid across the mouth of this pot. Voila! A magical, if a bit over-hung, lid nestled smoothly onto the pot.

So I got a cheap but lovely compost container which duplicitously sits beside my flour cannister with a slightly over-sized lip on its lid and a swirl of a handle to ease access to the earthly dankness going on inside.

No one fusses anymore about my composting. And I get double pleasure in its storage and on the trek to return it to its rightly home.

why I like my house

In "The Symbolism of Habitat," a book that is both slendor and fascinating (the best of all worlds!), Jay Appleton teaches me why I like my house. Landscapes, he explains, whether natural or built, shape our emotions as well as our space. They entice us or repel us; draw us in or keep us out; enchant us, lure us and scare us, often all at the same time.

Specifically, he speaks of views and symbols that evoke feelings of prospect (the future - with its promises and hopes, and titillation of adventure) and refuge (safety, comfort and the reassurance of home).

As you might imagine, distant horizons, mountain ranges and valleys, even rivers or trails rounding a bend, offer us a sense of prospect. The open space between us and them, the remove from our daily burdens that they suggest, a new world beyond our wildest imagination, invite us, sometimes even taunt us, with their beckoning.

On the other hand, we are drawn to castles. Towers on lofty heights, citadels, peaks, high roofs that stand defiant above the surrounding landscape. They promise physical superiority, strong walls around us, security against an onslaught of attacks from the outside.

Cozy houses capture this sense of safety wrapped up in a nested space. With their well-fitting roofs slung comfortably low on solid foundations, a wreath or knocker on their well-worn doors, they symbolize the place we want to be. (An enchanting treatment of such buildings, and the disappearing community they create, can be found in the charming, little-known book: Passing the Time in Ballymenone, by Henry H. Glassie.)

My house, Appleton led me to understand, has both prospect and refuge built into its silhouette. The entryway, the most vulnerable place in any house, rises 15 feet from floor to roof. I never understood why we needed this height - it certainly makes changing the lightbulbs in the foyer a nuisance. But in view of Appleton's book, I see that it is reminiscent of European castles, citadels on the hill, projecting their impenetrability and might, and protecting those within from unwelcome incursions from without.

And as the entryway swaggers, our rooms embrace. They offer comfort and healing from within. So - we have rooms with low ceilings, echoed in the roof-lines above. Our rooms offer hearthy feelings in earthy tones, with overstuffed chairs that are large enough to curl up in, yet small enough to feel swaddled and cuddled, coddled and protected.

Learning to read the symbolism of the landscape is like learning a second language. Or better, a language we have been speaking all along, without knowing it. Reading landscapes helps us better understand our reactions to the spaces around us, be they streetscapes, malls or the rooms of our own home. And it helps us to better inform our city planners how to build places that nourish our spirits, and strengthen community, in a world where sharing well is becoming increasingly important.

a world aglaze

Although the ice is making travel and even walking dangerous, and public schools are closed for the day, from inside a warm house the outside looks alluring. It is as if the whole world had been gently dipped in a soft white sugar glaze, coating the ground, the grass, the roads, the trees, the twigs. It is as if people were dolls placed provocatively, engagingly on the top of a decorated cake, evoking fantasies of enchanted places and lives and meetings - licit and not. Beauty and danger - what an irresistable mix.

morning snow

coming into my kitchen this morning, where the lone LED that we own floats over the sink, playing sentry all night, I noticed that the light of the morning snow and the light of the LED match, blending indoors and outdoors in a soft, seamless realm. We are, it reminds us, always, equally, out there, even as we sometimes imagine that when we sit, we are only in here.

wood burning stoves

I spent New Year's eve tucked away in a little log cabin in the eastern bulge of West Virginia. It was cold and windy outside, but, with the help of our wood burning stove, warm and toasty, inside.

There are so many things to love about wood burning stoves. This one is cast-iron black, bobbed with bright brass knobs on its sundry doors and openings. Best of all, it has a tempered glass window that allows you to peer into the magic happenings in the otherwise hidden inside. Watching the white-hot logs, the fire soar, and the embers glow is mesmerizing. Better even than an aquarium. Best of all, perhaps, is when the flames dance on the air, unattached to the wood below. This happens when the temperature in the stove (really an oven) kicks up to 500 degrees and we close the flew. This turbo-boosting causes the heat in the oven to rise precipitously, from 500 to 700 degrees or so in the matter of one or two minutes. On a good run, we can get the temperature up to 1200 degrees. Which to us city slickers seems pretty good, but only 3/4 the way on the dial. Our stove, and thermometer, are built to go up to 1700 degrees, standard.

No doubt you wood burning stove aficionadoes are laughing at my novice experiences and limited success in getting the most out of this amazing machine. That's okay. I am sure I will learn. And I do welcome all advice and encouragement, and grand stories about your adventures with your stoves.

But what is most amazing of all, is how it grounds you in the relationship we have with this earth. I felt, literally, the immediacy between the trees in my forest, and the comfort of my home. I collected the wood that fell outside the cabin and brought it in for tinder and warmth. Throughout the cold New Year's, the only source of heat we had was this 30" x 18" or so metal box, and the wood it consumed.

Put in a log, shut the door, be enveloped by the gift of light and warmth and comfort. Two days and 20 some logs later (I am sure that as novices we were a bit profligate and wasteful in our use of the logs. I am eager to learn how to use less for the same amount of comfort and heat.), we emptied the ashbin. All the grandeur of that wood that once grew in the forest around me was reduced to a gallon of powdered vapors, so light it flew into the air as we poured it on the frozen ground.

And in the transformation from log to ash, we were warmed, and tended to, entertained, and delighted. We could see what we consumed, and what it cost, and how we benefited. And we could not help but be grateful, and humbled.

We need to consume the earth's resources if we are to live in this world. The question is: how much need we consume? How do we return it to the earth, for eventually everything we use is returned, for better or for worse. And how evident, even to us, is our appreciation of these gifts?

Everything we possess and hold and use is a gift from the earth, just like the warmth from that wood burning stove. The challenge for us is: how can we remember?

LEDs

While exploring the Terrapass carbon offset site, I discovered that they had LEDs to sell. Not inexpensive: $30 for a light with the equivalent of a 40 watt bulb. But it is supposed to use about 1000th of the energy of incandescents and will most likely outlast me.

Curious, I bought two - one to put over my kitchen sink, which is our most-used indoor light. I figured I would feel less unhappy if that light that stayed on every night til the wee hours of the morning due to some late-owl meanderings if it was energy efficient. The second one is still in its box. Not sure where to put it.

One thing I noticed right away when I screwed in the LED - it does not play nicely with the incandescents in the other kitchen fixtures. (we are a hybrid house - the kitchen now has an LED, 9 CFLS, and three incandescents. don't ask.) It goes better with the CFLs, but it is a different breed of light.

It is strong, but not diffuse. It is white but not harsh. Soft - like a shower of bright fullmoon light. To stand in its orb is to feel oneself outdoors, mid-month, on a cloudless night - and to wash dishes in its light is to imagine that the water is a tangible rush of its light cool on your skin.

Still and all, not all members of my family like it. And it does not give off enough light for aging eyes to feel sated in brightness. There are times I would like to slide up the dimmer switch - but there is none to be had. The bulb is as high as it can go. It was the highest strength I could find.

So the industry must continue to work both on the quality and power of the light, and on the price.

But to know that not only is my house powered by 100% wind energy; but that our consumption of even that energy is low (the lower our per household consumption, the further wind energy will go and the more quickly we can be weaned from fossil fuels) feels good.

And to glance into the kitchen with all the other lights off and see this glow of cool, calming moonlight transforms the space into the place of fairytales.

the re-enchantment of nature

"We will not fight to save what we do not love." Stephen Jay Gould

In our efforts to educate and motivate people, we dare not overlook the power of aesthetics. We know that love is a greater motivator than fear. So even as we need to face and teach the truth about the degraded state of the earth today, we need to speak of the beauty and irresistable power of nature. Great nature writers are out there: in addition to the well-known, among them John Muir and Aldo Leopold, there are also lesser known ones (at least, those I am just discovering): Annie Dillard, "Teaching a Stone to Talk", and Richard Nelson, "The Island Within."

So along with knowing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and creating the top ten list of things we all can do to reduce our carbon footprint, we need to discover our favorite nature writers, and share them with others.

And more: we need - as a people - to re-discover and re-create Jewish nature narratives that move us today.

Surely we can find powerful proclamations about nature at the end of the book of Job; and in Psalm 104. We should mine those, for they have the ability to move us to awe. But we also need contemporary narratives, stories, of nature - both in Israel and around the world, from a Jewish pen and a Jewish perspective. And how wonderful if we could find hidden treasures of such narratives in the vast still-undiscovered writings from somewhere in our tradition.

Perhaps we can begin with what we have: the blessings we say about early blossoming trees and upon hearing thunder and seeing lightning, upon seeing unusual creations of all kinds, should be as familiar to Jewish children as is kiddush and ha-motzi. Maybe even more so.

We need to re-enchant nature - so that it will be loved, and people will fight for it.