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Sunday, August 06, 2006
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Snapshots from Away The night sky outside this house in the New York woods is spectacular. A bright moon leaves the brim of the mountains visible, and also the blue clouds on top of them. The house stands alone on a hill. There are no neighbors, and few lights. The large canopy above it glimmers with airliners and satellites and perseids. Below, when the sun is out, there are high forested hills and a green valley, mainly trees, with some fields. Behind the hills is a Catskill range. After Washington's months of heat, the cold air here feels like a freak of nature, an instance of forgetting what August is supposed to be. For the first time, we've sculpted the curved field that fronts the house, creating a maze of paths among its tall wildflowers. So you can walk the field (which I just did -- it's late morning now) and see the birds and snakes and spiderwebs in the stands of flowers. Butterflies settle on the rim of your hat. The noise is incessant. Birdsong, crickets, the wind in the pines. Farm machinery. When you walk the dirt road at the bottom of the field, you can hear frogs squawk along the ponds. But the traditional walk is on the twisty path that leads from the house to our pond, and to the neglected little cabin overlooking the pond. I always walk with a pair of scissors in my hands, because there's always overgrowth to clear. I like the business of leisurely business here, the way you're always vaguely doing something useful as you wander about -- pulling reeds out of the pond, collecting twigs, resettling stones. Of course the house sits uninhabited most of the time -- we weren't able to be here at all last year, and this year we only got a week free --so we do little to alter the life of the property, outside or in. A new chaise for the deck, a white chest of drawers, planting a dozen perennials - these are the small measures we take with the place. One larger measure this season is a serious pond cleaning. A local man will spend three days dragging the thing of logs and weeds. But for us the main business is being here. Watching the weather write the book of the world, as Donald Hall, who lives on a farm in New Hampshire, puts it. Watching the world leaf through its summer chapter. |