Notes from Maine - 2023/05/28

Mom leaves today. The last three weeks have passed very quickly. We worked together on a few projects, but mostly she followed her own interests. Mom enjoys working in the garden and painting, so she found plenty of that stuff to do. The horses now expect carrots whenever they see someone approach the fence. They’ll forget about that in a couple of weeks.

While she was here, a newspaper down in Virginia published an article about her. She has adopted a section of road near her house and has taken up the landscaping that the state neglected. That’s how desperate for projects she was back home—she was doing free work for the Virginia Department of Transportation. 

I don’t know why, but I seem to be confused about the seasons this year. We skipped over our normal, slow spring and jumped right into nice temperatures at the beginning of May. There’s usually a stray frost to contend with this time of year, but instead we had temperatures in the upper 70s and even low 80s this weekend (25~28°C). There’s no frost in sight. When I do my morning chores, I look up at the sky and wonder when the leaves will change and the snow will start. The crisp mornings remind more of autumn than spring. 

It’s weird out. I’m having difficulty believing that summer is still on its way instead of retreating. 

I’ve done a lot of spring cleaning already. I got rid of a bunch of things that were cluttering up my garage and cellar. I’m excited to shed even more junk. I have new hobbies and interests—I don’t need to keep the trappings of my old pastimes. Shedding those old projects is cathartic. I have room to move around, both physically and mentally. 

I don’t have any problem working on something day after day, even when it doesn’t feel like I’m making any progress. I’m good at toil. But I’m bad at starting and stopping projects. There’s a leap at the beginning when you have to stop considering and planning and actually do the first step. Once I get going, I’ll be fine plugging away, but I find it difficult to start if I haven’t thought through everything first. Then, in order to stop, you have to be able to recognize that you’re at the end. I have trouble with that too. I will run right past the finish line and keep going just because I’m comfortable with the grind.

This weekend is the ”Unofficial Start of Summer.” Everybody says so. I’m trying to think of what activities I should do to launch into the season. I could put the ladder in the water up at the dock and go swimming. The water is probably around 50° (10° C) and the bugs would descend and devour me as soon as I toweled off. That doesn’t sound particularly fun. Maybe I’ll grill lunch on the deck. I got some really good corn from the grocery store the other day. I don’t have any idea where it came from, but it’s good.

When I was growing up, my grandmother used to get a lot of produce at Farnham’s Market. This was a little shed on the side of Route 27 in Belgrade. During the summer, Farnham’s would sell you a bag of string beans for 25¢ (or whatever). I don’t actually remember the prices, but I remember that you didn’t have to hand over much folding money when you went to Farnham’s—mostly just coins. Grandpa didn’t grow much corn that I remember. His garden mostly existed to feed the woodchucks, I think. When Grandpa grew string beans, my father would say, “All string. No bean.” Grandpa used to harvest tons of zucchini, but, “So doesn’t everybody,” as we say up here. People put summer locks on their mailboxes so they don’t get unexpected zucchini deliveries from their neighbors.

My summer plans will not include a garden. I don’t mind garden maintenance (weeding and such), but I hate dealing with bugs. If I try to grow squash, I get beetles. Tomatoes bring horn worms. Everything I plant has a specific pest and I get inundated. I hate that. In the past few years, a bunch of farm stands have opened around me. They remind me of Farnham’s Market.