All the trees carve shards of light
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spatch's schedule blocks him from joining my birthday observed this weekend when my niece will be in town, it was important to him to take me somewhere nice on the day itself, and after some reconfiguration of plans based on parameters of pain, sleep, and sunset and some obstruction from construction and accidents on Route 2, we managed somewhere very nice indeed.
I happen to think that in this photograph I look like a person who almost died in hospital three weeks ago, but I still like it. We were just setting out.
Last year withrushthatspeaks for Cider Days, we had discovered the orchard charms of Red Apple Farm. I had once again left my camera at home, but had my phone on me and could not let at least one sculptural tree pass without comment.
In the cider-colored last of the sunlight, Rob pictured me among the tangled alleys of apples and windfalls smelling of wine.
I hadn't had perry since before the onset of the pandemic. I had never had it served hot, as is autumnally usual for cider in these parts. I have no idea if it's even traditionally supposed to be, but it was astringent and gorgeous and kept my hands warm as the temperature drifted downward from the fifties Fahrenheit and I had no idea their cidery had branched into pears. We had a half-dozen cider donuts fresh out of the fryer and exactly one survived to come home.
We consumed our respective fruit-derived drinks sitting behind the cidery, under the pine trees and in front of a small brush-fringed pond. After a while I got up to investigate the dry stone wall which ran off so enticingly under its mottling of lichen and mica.
It turned out to be patrolled by the same cat we had seen on our arrival at the farm, the one Rob dubbed the Orange Chicken-Chaser. That plumy tail had lashed from behind the covert of a granite boulder as he prepared for gleeful, non-fatal sorties at the flustered birds. He had the swagger of ownership and did not solicit affection, but rubbed his head against several of the stones before me in order to indicate his mark on the wall, which I complimented, before pouring himself off to stalk some other of his lawful prey.
It took us a mysterious time to reach it, more than once crossing the Connecticut River and passing the Erving Paper Mills which filled the road with a smell I had not missed since my childhood when my grandmother would burn sandalwood incense against the wind blowing the wrong way from the S. D. Warren Paper Mill in Westbrook, but we had feared that Bub's Barbecue would close their kitchen before we could get there and instead they not only served us a phenomenal faucet of meat, we weren't even the last diners to leave, forty-five minutes after their listed closing time. I had remembered the quality and quantity of their half-rack of baby back ribs and forgotten that their butternut squash is so rich with cinnamon and other autumnal spices, it's functionally a pie filling with which you can just load up a plate.
We did not make it to the originally proposed bookstore: it was fine. We drove home down looping roads close-lined first with trees and then with malls as we made our way back from the Pioneer Valley into MetroWest. Fog drifted once across the highway from the marshes we were driving over. I looked for further meteors out the window through the least light-polluted hills and meadows, but saw mostly that I could still have read by the eighty-five-percent moon. It was a lot of time in the car and all worth it, an inland gift. It was, for everything going on in my life and outside of it, a good birthday.
spatch's schedule blocks him from joining my birthday observed this weekend when my niece will be in town, it was important to him to take me somewhere nice on the day itself, and after some reconfiguration of plans based on parameters of pain, sleep, and sunset and some obstruction from construction and accidents on Route 2, we managed somewhere very nice indeed.
I happen to think that in this photograph I look like a person who almost died in hospital three weeks ago, but I still like it. We were just setting out.
Last year with
rushthatspeaks for Cider Days, we had discovered the orchard charms of Red Apple Farm. I had once again left my camera at home, but had my phone on me and could not let at least one sculptural tree pass without comment.
In the cider-colored last of the sunlight, Rob pictured me among the tangled alleys of apples and windfalls smelling of wine.
I hadn't had perry since before the onset of the pandemic. I had never had it served hot, as is autumnally usual for cider in these parts. I have no idea if it's even traditionally supposed to be, but it was astringent and gorgeous and kept my hands warm as the temperature drifted downward from the fifties Fahrenheit and I had no idea their cidery had branched into pears. We had a half-dozen cider donuts fresh out of the fryer and exactly one survived to come home.
We consumed our respective fruit-derived drinks sitting behind the cidery, under the pine trees and in front of a small brush-fringed pond. After a while I got up to investigate the dry stone wall which ran off so enticingly under its mottling of lichen and mica.
It turned out to be patrolled by the same cat we had seen on our arrival at the farm, the one Rob dubbed the Orange Chicken-Chaser. That plumy tail had lashed from behind the covert of a granite boulder as he prepared for gleeful, non-fatal sorties at the flustered birds. He had the swagger of ownership and did not solicit affection, but rubbed his head against several of the stones before me in order to indicate his mark on the wall, which I complimented, before pouring himself off to stalk some other of his lawful prey.
It took us a mysterious time to reach it, more than once crossing the Connecticut River and passing the Erving Paper Mills which filled the road with a smell I had not missed since my childhood when my grandmother would burn sandalwood incense against the wind blowing the wrong way from the S. D. Warren Paper Mill in Westbrook, but we had feared that Bub's Barbecue would close their kitchen before we could get there and instead they not only served us a phenomenal faucet of meat, we weren't even the last diners to leave, forty-five minutes after their listed closing time. I had remembered the quality and quantity of their half-rack of baby back ribs and forgotten that their butternut squash is so rich with cinnamon and other autumnal spices, it's functionally a pie filling with which you can just load up a plate.
We did not make it to the originally proposed bookstore: it was fine. We drove home down looping roads close-lined first with trees and then with malls as we made our way back from the Pioneer Valley into MetroWest. Fog drifted once across the highway from the marshes we were driving over. I looked for further meteors out the window through the least light-polluted hills and meadows, but saw mostly that I could still have read by the eighty-five-percent moon. It was a lot of time in the car and all worth it, an inland gift. It was, for everything going on in my life and outside of it, a good birthday.
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Hah! Thank you! It was an excellent time.
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I wish you totally achieving them.
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Thank you! We have not actually picked apples at Red Apple Farm, but I bet they would be great.
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Speaking of a scent of fermentation, I cooked up some feral quinces, left the quince flavored syrup for a couple of days with the intention of cooking more quinces in it, and when I got to it... it had that scent and that taste! It had fermented on the stovetop!
(I forget what perry is? I feel like I learned about it in your pages, but I forget...)
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If the Orionids work out, we could all try to go! Alternately I can just enthusiastically recommend that you and
Speaking of a scent of fermentation, I cooked up some feral quinces, left the quince flavored syrup for a couple of days with the intention of cooking more quinces in it, and when I got to it... it had that scent and that taste! It had fermented on the stovetop!
Whoa. Was it still edible? I feel as though fermented quince syrup should be a viable ingredient, but maybe not if it does it on its own?
(I forget what perry is? I feel like I learned about it in your pages, but I forget...)
(Cider from pears! I'd read about it for years before I encountered any in the wild, i.e. New York in 2012. I still don't think it's as popular or as well-known in the U.S. as even the concept of hard cider, but I feel I should start looking out for it more now that it's just turning up in traditionally apple orchards.)
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Our favorite is New Salem Orchard/New Salem Cider. It has a gorgeous view over the Quabbin, and they have a Cider Garden these days with cider, hard cider, and warm pretzels. Plus, the 98-year-old proprietor (Carol Hillman) is still there, out helping in the barn with apples and cider.
That sounds wonderful and I have made a note!
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Thank you!
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And that is some hunk of meat. Anywhere that put that on my plate would win immediate approval.
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It was lovely!
And that is some hunk of meat. Anywhere that put that on my plate would win immediate approval.
There was so much. I ate so much. I took so much home. I regret nothing.
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*hugs*
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*hugs*
It's just as well none of your neighbors keep suburban chickens.
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Thank you! I'm looking forward. (She will of course be spending the majority of her own time with the twins.)
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Thank you! It works wonderfully when hot. A sort of dry pear toddy.
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P.
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Thank you! The cat was a beautifully clawed grace note.
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A harvest of happiness.
Nine
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*hugs*
They have Roxbury Russets and Northern Spies.
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Thank you! That was the 10/10 dismount after the possessive headbutt.
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*hugs*
Thank you! It remains weird to think of myself as at home in this place, but I do love its landscapes.