The strangeness of nature

 

"The turning of the year brings a change in the valley, as the first leaves begin to turn to gold and scarlet," wrote Gladys Taber from her seventeenth-century New England farmhouse and its lovely surroundings. "It is no longer the green, green world of summer. Suddenly one morning I look out and see the swamp maple ablaze. I feel the strangeness of nature all over again."

I awake early and drag my feet.

Today is the day that we officially close the summer house.

We drive along coastal roads under cobalt blue skies and overarching tunnels of leaves, vibrant in reds, yellows, greens and, unfortunately, crinkled browns.

I trace the coastline, attempting to memorize the picture before me of whirring white foam slamming the rocky shore.

When we arrive at the summer house, I turn on the switch for the water and climb the well-worn painted stairs. Mom removes the screen from the front door, and I head to the bedroom to lift and carry the heavy glass window.

Struggling to align the glass to fit in the slots, we finally give up and save that chore for my husband another day.

Next, we attempt to defrost the old refrigerator, but it seems to be frozen in place. We tug the freezer door to no avail, and I think I hear it chuckle. 

Mom starts filling pans with water to boil and place inside the fridge. A half hour later with both of us pulling the handle as hard as we can, it opens. 

We try to scrape off the ice in the freezer, but it is an unmovable mass.

No worries, we can fill more pans with boiling water. Mom turns on the faucet, and nothing drips from the tap.

After a harried call to my husband, who makes a harried call to the plumber, we give up.

I remove soft drinks and half-empty condiments from  the fridge, as well as the leftover groceries still in the cabinets; and I carry them all to the car. 

Exhausted, I lament the day's turn of events. 

We bounce down the rutted, bumpy road, and I hear the sea gulls laughing. 

Walk with me by the sea

Colorful wildflowers lead the way to the seashore.

 

Gray clouds collide with blue skies in the Heavens.

Boulders point the way to Europe.

Follow the unbeaten path until the tide changes.

Get ready to jump. The waves are rolling in.

A wildflower thrives in a bed of rounded rocks.

Only the sea remains

Sea gulls gather along the icy Sakonnet River.

"The prospect of spending future summers by the sea ... is very delightful," wrote Jane Austen.

But alas, it is springtime; and the temperature in New England keeps plummeting.

Brrrr....

Leaving home, we drive to the summer house. The world around us is frozen in place. Steam rises from the Sakonnet, where the warmth is trapped beneath the waves. We climb High Hill Road, and the wind whips the windshield with airborne sand.

Taking the scenic route high above the massive stones by the water's edge, we slowly meander through the three tiny streets. Our yard is cluttered with discarded maple branches hiding under the waving boughs. Windswept grasses are an unappealing brown, clutching onto the soil.

Our boat, a Sea Pro Center Console, waits behind the house for its first outing. Plastic chairs tumble in the wind.

Suddenly, my husband hits the brakes, flings open the door and runs toward the stairs. The window in the small bedroom is missing, and the curtains billow. Finding the window on the floor unbroken, he replaces the glass in the track.

I hurry inside and immediately feel the intense cold. The oil burner refuses to roar into life, and the radiators no longer hiss and sputter.

The oil in the tank was used up, as the warm air rushed out the open window.

I call Quik Oil, LLC and order a hundred gallons of liquid gold.

Then I settle into my favorite chair, wrap myself in a blanket and grab a book off the shelf, while my husband grabs a beer, mutters under his breath and storms out the door.

 

Julie Klassen writes in "The Sisters of Seaview": "When evening falls, ... the beach empties, the fishermen return to their cottages, the tourists to their hotels, and refreshment sellers to their shops, like birds to their nesting places. Then only the sea remains, tides rising and falling but always there, as constant as their Creator."

At home in the Colonies

A Saturday in New England at the summer house, my husband is mowing the lawn; and I am thinking about life across the pond. The passing of the beloved Queen Elizabeth II at 96 brings to mind a delightful 93-year-old lady whom I had the pleasure to interview at the beginning of my career, working as a food correspondent for a daily newspaper. Born in Lancashire, England, Nancy spoke with an inimitable British accent and was the oldest resident in the city's high rise apartment building, where she had lived for 16 years. At home in her cozy living room, she reminisced about her childhood in England, the many years she spent working in a cotton mill as a weaver, and of her work as a housekeeper. "I haven't had an easy life," she said. "I went to work at 11 and worked until I was 85. But I've had a happy life." Like many young English girls of her time, Nancy was besotted with the bachelor playboy Prince Charles. "I wouldn't have minded his slippers being underneath my bed," said the nonagenarian widow with a twinkle in her eye. Her childhood memories were filled with delicious foods she enjoyed in England. "I can still remember the smell of dabs frying," she said. Dabs are parboiled potatoes that are dipped in batter and fried in deep fat until crisp and golden brown. "You could buy them on almost every street corner," she said wistfully. Nancy attributed her love for cooking to her mum. "My mother was a marvelous cook," she said. "She always made the traditional meat puddings, potato pies and rice puddings. I still make them, I still live the English way." Nancy said she had a friend who always called the day before she planned to visit. "She wanted to make sure that I had plenty of time to make her favorite potato pie," Nancy said mischievously. Every evening Nancy had a cup of English Breakfast tea with either toast, some of her homemade cookies or crumpets. Her recipe for oatmeal cookies came from one of her mum's old recipe books, "The Modern Priscilla Cook Book." Its cover reads: "One thousand recipes tested and proved at the Priscilla Proving Plant for Great Britain and the Colonies. DABS 2 or 3 medium potatoes, flour, water, 1 teaspoon vinegar, deep fat for frying: Boil potatoes for 5 minutes. Peel and slice. To make batter: combine flour and enough water to make a thin paste. Add vinegar. Dip potatoes in batter. Fry in deep fat until golden brown. OATMEAL COOKIES 1 cup brown sugar, 1 cup shortening, 2 eggs, 1/2 cup sweet milk, 3/4 teaspoon baking soda, 2 cups flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 2 cups of rolled oats, 1 teaspoon vanilla: Cream sugar and shortening together. Add alternately beaten eggs and milk, and dry ingredients sifted together. Add vanilla. Drop by teaspoonfuls on greased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 degrees for 10 minutes.

Escape

Stuck between a rock and a hard place?  

Turn your back on these troubling times and escape.

"It is solved by walking," wrote 5th-century saint, Augustine of Hippo.

Come with me.

Let's walk along the seashore together.

Breathe in the salt air. Embrace the stillness. 

Plod on... even though we may stumble.

When the wind shifts the sea grasses, choose a new path.  

Amid the seaweed, await the crashing waves.

Look around and see how everything fits together seamlessly.

Observe the Creator's art. There is nothing better than this.

Frozen in time

We wait... 

In the dead of winter, we are frozen in place.

Temperatures dip, and Arctic winds blow.

Snow falls sporadically, clinging to every tree branch and blade of grass.

We hibernate and pray for an early spring.

The woods beckon, a magical forest draped in winter white.

Behind a stone wall, dormant farmland stretches to the sea.

Freed from the barn, horses clad in blankets brave the cold.

The snowy path to the barn is all uphill.

Under the snow by the stone wall, daffodils bide their time.

Weathering the turn of the year

2020 has been one long dark night.

We yearn to congregate again.

We're still stuck but oh so close.

See the forest through the trees?

We're rounding the bend.

God help us trudge on.

 

The summer like no other

It is a summer like no other.

Nature is at its peak.

Day after day the sun shines with short bouts of cooling rain. 

Birds of every hue sing in the trees. 

Hydrangea blossoms burst out of cottage gardens. 

Sea and sky mirror each other, painted by the Artist's hand in brilliant shades of blue.

   

Yet a hush has fallen over this seaside village.

In summer's past, the sounds of summer by the sea reverberated throughout this jetty of three tiny streets.

Today, the sound of surf rushing over rocks is deafening because the inhabitants of this place are mute.

Tucked inside their cottages, they mostly seek sanctuary from the pestilence that has gripped even this obscure part of our world.

Down the hill at the town beach, bathers are social distancing six feet apart on this sweltering summer's day.

It is the summer of living separately.

Seaside walkabout

Come to the seashore and walk with me.

Hide from the world awhile among the beach roses.

Stand atop these standing stones and watch the surf slide in.

Sit in sand by the water's edge and listen.

Explore the ocean floor laid bare.

Walk into the waves and wade.

Feel the caress of God's great blue Heaven above.

All the comforts of home

J.R.R. Tolkien described the comforts of home: "whether you like food or sleep, or story-telling or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, or a pleasant mixture of them all, merely to be there was a cure for weariness, fear, and sadness."

Fifty days housebound, we remain in the security of four walls as the pandemic rages on.

In New England, frost covers the ground this morning, laying thick on the green grasses of mid-May. It was 70 degrees two days ago. Last week it snowed.

The weather is as changeable as our moods.

Working remotely, I spend my days doing much of the same tasks I did at the office; but I feel an undercurrent of uneasiness -- something is terribly wrong.

"There is nothing like staying home for real comfort," wrote Jane Austen.

Yes, Jane, but despite the comfortable confines of home, we grapple with weariness, fear and sadness.

God, help us!

View from picture window: purple azaleas dusted in snow.

The steep pitch of the barn clings to snowy pine needles.

Flag waves with each frigid blast.

Evergreens decorated with late April snow.

Shelter in place by the sea

Escape to this snowy, seaside New England town.

Sit on this bench and watch waters ebb and flow.

Take shelter with the ones you love.

Discover daffodils poking through snow, the Creator's promise of new life.

"Snow what? I'm bored in the barn."

A gaggle of geese gathering reminds us to keep in touch.

Seek and ye shall find: A sheep grazes, obscured in a world of white.

September stillness

Perhaps September is the most beautiful month by the sea.

Everything slows down.

There are few swimmers braving cooler waters.

Sailboats amble by, and hardy fishermen trawl, yearning for that one big tug.

Sauntering to the estuary, I find time stands still.

"Be still and know that I am God."

Surrounded by nature, soothed by the rhythm of waves, warmed by brilliant sunshine and fanned by gentle winds, one enters a portal to the Divine.

Rock solid

We are so busy. Consequently, we do the same things every day, seemingly cut off from the world around us.

As New Englanders, we live in a winter climate that is constantly in flux -- snow, sleet, ice, repeat. But most times, we travel from house to car to workplace, then from workplace to car to house, oblivious to anything but the cold.

On Saturday mornings, I seek to take the blinders off and really see. Sometimes I notice the things I omit.

Take rocks, for example. Here at the summer place they are everywhere. Stones are furniture to people who live by the seashore. I can honestly say that some of the best times in my life have been spent sitting on a stone by the sea with my mom.

Yet if I really focus, I realize that they are the vantage point to view the Creator's art.

Standing stones lead the way to the beach.

Don't fence me in. Millions of stones make up this paddock.

Rocks encircle the beach. Sit a spell or cast a line.

Someone walking the beach stacked stones on a picnic table.

This stone wall marks the boundary of our back yard.