Circles in the crops and sky-high geometry
For the second of Cider Days, ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spatch drove me and rushthatspeaks out to the Pioneer Valley where we visited an orchard, a used book store, and a purveyor of delicious barbecue. We had originally planned to visit his father as well, but illness in the family intervened. I had barely slept thanks to unmanaged pain thanks to the delinquent state of American healthcare and left my camera at home, but had nonetheless a wonderful time.
The orchard belonged to Red Apple Farm, off Route 2 in Phillipston. Pre-pandemic, Rob and I had been accustomed to order cider donuts from their outpost in the Boston Public Market, but we had never had them in situ, nor had we realized that in addition to acres of apple trees, the farm also had chickens, rabbits, goats, pigs, and a pair of donkeys who looked folksily lackadaisical until a small child approached with a cup of feed, at which point they became laser-guided. A lean roan goat hung out on the other side of the fence from me and occasionally cast reproachful glances at my hands which were only holding a cup of hot cider. The rabbits watched everyone come and go.
The first thing we did on arrival was order cider donuts, followed in short order by hot cider. Both were autumnally delicious and welcome in the scudding afternoon light. The Cidery offered seasonal flights of hard cider, the accordion should not have been miked for the dimensions of the Brew Barn, and I wandered off among the small, tangled apple trees before we left, which smelled like woodsmoke from the pizza concession with its open, snapping fire beside which patrons were playing cornhole.
I had promised to yell at the first dry stone wall I saw in the Pioneer Valley for Wendell Corey and the dry stone wall at Red Apple Farm was the first one I saw. The apple was in position when I got there.
I was informed that the drowned towns of the Quabbin cannot be dived for, but we caught one glimpse of the reservoir between mountains on Route 202, faster than I could have snapped without warning, tranquilly glinting, the lowland hundred of western Mass. I must acknowledge for posterity that the sign for Athol occasioned all the normal jokes, including John Forster.
Because we were no longer meeting in-laws, we had the time for Rob to give us the driving tour of his childhood in Shutesbury, with a college-aged addendum in Amherst. He built up a neighborhood forty years gone from pointing out houses: his own, nestled far enough off the road that we couldn't tell whether the barn was still there; the one that had belonged to a richer family, who ran the Scout troop and had an Intellivision. For no good reason except the sheep his family had farmed for five or six years—Southdowns and Rambouillets—I had imagined his side of the mountain windier, more like moorland. It was packed full of trees and thin twisting roads and, at least along the routes we took, a majority of signs for Harris–Walz.
An unending source of delight during this trip were the DJs of WMUA, specifically of the Goth and dark wave show Xenocyx, spelled out for the listener, and its successor triplebackflip.fm, whose hosts described their remit as "chill."
I have been in used book stores as dreamlike and addictive as the Montague Bookmill, but not for five years and none of them was a former grist mill whose slanted ceilings and planked floors were crammed with beautifully conditioned, often first editions of arts and academia while the sound of the Sawmill River still raced underneath its windows. A steep niche of the stairs was decorated with manual typewriters. We were close to its closing time, so could not settle in for the afternoon its bare-beamed airiness and density of stock invited, but I pounced on the first American edition of Terence Rattigan's Ross (1960) because it felt like a consolation prize for lacking the teleporter to see this double bill and Simon Armitage and Glyn Maxwell's Moon Country: Further Reports from Iceland (1996) because it had an appealing cover of black sand and blue ice and I liked one of the authors and knew nothing about the other and had read Auden and MacNeice's Letters from Iceland (1937) in whose footsteps they were consciously following and Ellen Klages' The Green Glass Sea (2006) because I had wanted it for some time as a present for my niece. I reluctantly left J. B. Priestley's The Prince of Pleasure and his Regency (1969) on grounds of, ironically, expense and it was just as well because I had just enough cash in all of my pockets to pay for my actual haul, including the fourteen dollars I counted out in singles about ten seconds before the owner called time. My husbands met me outside and we headed for dinner.
Once the light went, my phone was effectively useless as a camera, but we saw a superb, scratchily black-and-gold sunset over Sugarloaf, the individual trees like matchsticks against the flame.
The destination for dinner had always been Bub's Barbecue, which presented an unreassuring appearance on arrival, its parking lot so deserted and its enclosed porch so dark that while Rob and Rush-That-Speaks researched fallback options I went around to the side to see if its neon sign had been left on by mistake and was greeted by the counterperson, who asked me what I wanted. Not only did she turn on the lights so that we could eat on the porch, which felt closer to the unavailable-after-dark outdoor seating than the restaurant itself, eventually she ripped down the Halloween decorations of caution tape which had blocked out the windows and returned from a later foray carrying a pumpkin. None of us ordered the fried gator listed under seafood on the chalkboard of the menu, but we had a feast of brisket and baby back ribs and collards and fried green tomatoes and whipped sweet potatoes and mac and cheese and Rush-That-Speaks shared illuminating to ridiculous highlights of rock history from the podcast to which he is currently listening after the overhead music turned to the Beach Boys. We drove home listening to college radio until it ran out in the crackle of distance as opposed to the staticky reception of the mountains, a free-floating four-way two a.m. discussion at half past eight at night that intermittently remembered to play tracks like El Michels Affair's "Shimmy Shimmy Ya" (2009). The nightmare described by the one DJ in which everything had become triangles was genuinely Junji Ito. I watched the constellations thin out as we were resorbed into the light-haze of Boston.
So I had sunlight and cider and stone walls and new books and both of my husbands and a long day, but a good one despite the body I had to have it in. The clocks change tonight. I have a theory of sleep.
spatch drove me and rushthatspeaks out to the Pioneer Valley where we visited an orchard, a used book store, and a purveyor of delicious barbecue. We had originally planned to visit his father as well, but illness in the family intervened. I had barely slept thanks to unmanaged pain thanks to the delinquent state of American healthcare and left my camera at home, but had nonetheless a wonderful time.
The orchard belonged to Red Apple Farm, off Route 2 in Phillipston. Pre-pandemic, Rob and I had been accustomed to order cider donuts from their outpost in the Boston Public Market, but we had never had them in situ, nor had we realized that in addition to acres of apple trees, the farm also had chickens, rabbits, goats, pigs, and a pair of donkeys who looked folksily lackadaisical until a small child approached with a cup of feed, at which point they became laser-guided. A lean roan goat hung out on the other side of the fence from me and occasionally cast reproachful glances at my hands which were only holding a cup of hot cider. The rabbits watched everyone come and go.
The first thing we did on arrival was order cider donuts, followed in short order by hot cider. Both were autumnally delicious and welcome in the scudding afternoon light. The Cidery offered seasonal flights of hard cider, the accordion should not have been miked for the dimensions of the Brew Barn, and I wandered off among the small, tangled apple trees before we left, which smelled like woodsmoke from the pizza concession with its open, snapping fire beside which patrons were playing cornhole.
I had promised to yell at the first dry stone wall I saw in the Pioneer Valley for Wendell Corey and the dry stone wall at Red Apple Farm was the first one I saw. The apple was in position when I got there.
I was informed that the drowned towns of the Quabbin cannot be dived for, but we caught one glimpse of the reservoir between mountains on Route 202, faster than I could have snapped without warning, tranquilly glinting, the lowland hundred of western Mass. I must acknowledge for posterity that the sign for Athol occasioned all the normal jokes, including John Forster.
Because we were no longer meeting in-laws, we had the time for Rob to give us the driving tour of his childhood in Shutesbury, with a college-aged addendum in Amherst. He built up a neighborhood forty years gone from pointing out houses: his own, nestled far enough off the road that we couldn't tell whether the barn was still there; the one that had belonged to a richer family, who ran the Scout troop and had an Intellivision. For no good reason except the sheep his family had farmed for five or six years—Southdowns and Rambouillets—I had imagined his side of the mountain windier, more like moorland. It was packed full of trees and thin twisting roads and, at least along the routes we took, a majority of signs for Harris–Walz.
An unending source of delight during this trip were the DJs of WMUA, specifically of the Goth and dark wave show Xenocyx, spelled out for the listener, and its successor triplebackflip.fm, whose hosts described their remit as "chill."
I have been in used book stores as dreamlike and addictive as the Montague Bookmill, but not for five years and none of them was a former grist mill whose slanted ceilings and planked floors were crammed with beautifully conditioned, often first editions of arts and academia while the sound of the Sawmill River still raced underneath its windows. A steep niche of the stairs was decorated with manual typewriters. We were close to its closing time, so could not settle in for the afternoon its bare-beamed airiness and density of stock invited, but I pounced on the first American edition of Terence Rattigan's Ross (1960) because it felt like a consolation prize for lacking the teleporter to see this double bill and Simon Armitage and Glyn Maxwell's Moon Country: Further Reports from Iceland (1996) because it had an appealing cover of black sand and blue ice and I liked one of the authors and knew nothing about the other and had read Auden and MacNeice's Letters from Iceland (1937) in whose footsteps they were consciously following and Ellen Klages' The Green Glass Sea (2006) because I had wanted it for some time as a present for my niece. I reluctantly left J. B. Priestley's The Prince of Pleasure and his Regency (1969) on grounds of, ironically, expense and it was just as well because I had just enough cash in all of my pockets to pay for my actual haul, including the fourteen dollars I counted out in singles about ten seconds before the owner called time. My husbands met me outside and we headed for dinner.
Once the light went, my phone was effectively useless as a camera, but we saw a superb, scratchily black-and-gold sunset over Sugarloaf, the individual trees like matchsticks against the flame.
The destination for dinner had always been Bub's Barbecue, which presented an unreassuring appearance on arrival, its parking lot so deserted and its enclosed porch so dark that while Rob and Rush-That-Speaks researched fallback options I went around to the side to see if its neon sign had been left on by mistake and was greeted by the counterperson, who asked me what I wanted. Not only did she turn on the lights so that we could eat on the porch, which felt closer to the unavailable-after-dark outdoor seating than the restaurant itself, eventually she ripped down the Halloween decorations of caution tape which had blocked out the windows and returned from a later foray carrying a pumpkin. None of us ordered the fried gator listed under seafood on the chalkboard of the menu, but we had a feast of brisket and baby back ribs and collards and fried green tomatoes and whipped sweet potatoes and mac and cheese and Rush-That-Speaks shared illuminating to ridiculous highlights of rock history from the podcast to which he is currently listening after the overhead music turned to the Beach Boys. We drove home listening to college radio until it ran out in the crackle of distance as opposed to the staticky reception of the mountains, a free-floating four-way two a.m. discussion at half past eight at night that intermittently remembered to play tracks like El Michels Affair's "Shimmy Shimmy Ya" (2009). The nightmare described by the one DJ in which everything had become triangles was genuinely Junji Ito. I watched the constellations thin out as we were resorbed into the light-haze of Boston.
So I had sunlight and cider and stone walls and new books and both of my husbands and a long day, but a good one despite the body I had to have it in. The clocks change tonight. I have a theory of sleep.
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WMUA is a treasure, I agree.
Did you approach Amherst from the blinking-light turnoff on rt 202? Probably not, if you went through Shutesbury first. But one day you should do that. There is an old meeting house there with eighteenth-century graffiti inscribed in the pews that at least 20 years ago was still being used by the Town of Pelham. Someone said to me that Daniel Shays was buried in the cemetery there, but Wikipedia says only that the last encampment of his forces was on the meeting house's grounds.
Tell Rob (a) that his photos are all ghostly and evocative (except for the rabbit one, which is cute... and also evocative) and (b) that when we drive up or down rt 202 past the road that leads to Lake Wyola in Shutesbury, we always cry out "Lake Wyola," in honor of the tall one's first girlfriend, who started the tradition.
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We actually did take Amherst Road in off Route 202 because it made a better touring route thru Shutesbury (North Valley to Buffam / West Pelham Road, then Leverett Road and over and up to Montague) than Prescott Road, plus we got to go by the Quabbin overlook. I had not driven in the Valley in over twenty years and very much wanted to take the routes I missed. I mean, I steered through the Shutesbury Shuffle curves once more and I never thought I'd be doing that again.
I pointed out the church/historical society and the town hall buildings, plus the church further down the street where my stepfather got married.
Next time we'll drive around Lake Wyola for sure.
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We've done New Year's sunrises at the Quabbin overlook. Beautiful spot.
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I really like the first photo from the car, the coloring and the frame from the car window make it very Polaroid-like.
(also hello and nice to meet you! I am unsure of online etiquette, but I follow this diary of your life with interest.)
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You're right! Atlas' ears twitched.
I really like the first photo from the car, the coloring and the frame from the car window make it very Polaroid-like.
Thank you! The light was incredible all day. Next time we go out to the Pioneer Valley, I will definitely remember my actual camera.
(also hello and nice to meet you! I am unsure of online etiquette, but I follow this diary of your life with interest.)
Pleased to meet you! I am not sure of the etiquette, either, but I'm glad you have introduced yourself.
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Funnily, the book I happen to be reading right now has this as its final paragraph (I am an incurable reader of last pages first):
(It is The Bookseller's Tale by Martin Latham, which was a birthday present this year from one of my irl friends.)
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Thank you! I did actually sleep last night. I just want to be able to do it reliably enough to stop feeling like everything I feel like.
It was very much a day worth going out for.
(It is The Bookseller's Tale by Martin Latham, which was a birthday present this year from one of my irl friends.)
That's delightful! I hope he has since gotten to visit. I'm not sure if you can still drink hot chocolate in the stacks, but there is definitely a café as part of the same mill complex.
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Thank you!
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That Ellen Klages book will be a perfect gift for your niece.
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Thank you! I wish I could teleport you.
That Ellen Klages book will be a perfect gift for your niece.
It's a barely read hardcover, too, so it has the atmospheric original cover design and nobody else's name in it.
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Nine
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Thank you for sharing in them!
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Was the hot cider alcoholic? Either way, I'd like to try that. (I've seen recipes for lambswool where you can use cider instead of ale; I mean to drink that before spring.)
I wonder who left that apple. Is it a New England tradition to shout at dry stone walls?
*So I had sunlight and cider and stone walls and new books and both of my husbands and a long day, but a good one despite the body I had to have it in.* Huzzah for all of this. I hope the changing clocks were kind to you.
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Thank you!
Was the hot cider alcoholic? Either way, I'd like to try that. (I've seen recipes for lambswool where you can use cider instead of ale; I mean to drink that before spring.)
The hot cider was the non-alcoholic kind normal to New England—unsweetened, unfiltered, if you leave it alone in your refrigerator it will begin to ferment on its own and it used to be you could leave it over the winter and periodically scrape off the ice and have applejack in the spring—but there was an entire bar of the other kind of cider, which is much of the occasion of Cider Days. There was a whole string of participating orchards, we just visited the one. I would love to be able to introduce you to the apple trees of New England.
I wonder who left that apple. Is it a New England tradition to shout at dry stone walls?
Not as far as I know! It evolved idiosyncratically in my case over the last year of Wendell Corey's yarhzeit and birthday. It wouldn't have been the dry stone wall he built as a teen in the Springfield area if that 1950 interview can be believed, but it was the first one I saw, which fulfilled the conditions.
Huzzah for all of this. I hope the changing clocks were kind to you.
*hugs*
They were. I slept.
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Thank you!