The First Night of Autumn, 2020

Leaves fell last night, a sampling, not too many, spackled against the still green grass, the start of it all, flurries day by day until a big wind takes every last one, and the leaves are deep enough for a toddler to stomp through. Remember? Throwing yourself into a huge, thick mess of leaves raked by your dad? The smell of the neighbor's burning pile? Air as crisp as the leaves?

Back in the days of newspaper comics - the funny pages - I followed a strip called, "Our Miss Peach", about a kindergarten teacher and her students. One of her students, Arthur, kept a garden, a weed garden. All the kids made fun of him; he didn't care. He just went on tending his weed garden. It was amusing to me then, and I get it now. I have a weed garden, not because I intended, not at first, anyway, but because it's the end of growing season. Didn't plant much this summer, so most of the garden was left fallow. Weeds grew, and I let them, as long as they didn't threaten what I did plant. And then I let them grow because I was curious about these things that we're always so anxious to kill. Now, as we move into Fall, there are no more vegetables to pick but a jungle of weeds so thick and varied it's like walking into another world, a Garden of Eden from an alien planet. I stand in the midst of them, so they're all I can see. Some are ground plants. Many come up to my chest. Some grow over my head, I mean really over, like wild lettuce! Huh? That soccer ball sized clutch of smooth leaves started off as wide, jagged leaves on a thin stalk ten feet high.There are gold and purple flowers, purple thyme, deep rose pink echinacia, purple loosestrife, white caterpillar shaped flowers with stripes of blue like a spine on its dorsal side, vines everywhere, stuff I recognize, stuff I don't, but all of it fascinating for me and Arthur. I wonder why more of them aren't cultivated? Probably, because nobody's thought of a way to use them. I wonder which of them have been cultivated, lettuce aside? Of course, I love a lush, flush, tended vegetable garden. It's wonderful, and it pleases me aesthetically as well as materially. I love to stand in the middle of it and watch it grow. Nothing like eating an acorn squash that you've planted yourself, or a radish, or an eggplant, but they're not exotic. That's my point. Salads are wonderful,  but they are commonplace; no matter how fancy, no matter how much smoked duck is on the plate, they're still salads. The beauty of a garden is that it gives us a harvest that we've expected and looked forward to time and time again. The familiarity is the magic. Here comes an old friend. Let's have lunch.

But, it's not exotic, it's expected, it's what we know, we're safe! Weeds aren't safe. They've entrenched exactly where you don't want them. Wild, untamed; they strangle their rivals, suck their essence. However, it's not helpful or pleasant to think of weeds as "weeds", enemies to be demolished by any means, but as exotic creations with properties as yet to be discovered.You're surprised by what comes up and where. You're walking along and spot wild strawberry which looks a lot like a weed. Dark green leaves. Nearly flat to the ground. Tiny, tiny berries. Then there's thyme on the hillside and golden rod in the meadow. Recognize these weeds do have purpose: they support other creatures. Milkweed, for example, prime rib for Monarch butterflies. RoseHips, M & M's for grouse and deer. Wild berries hoovered by bears. Dandelions for bees and swallowtails. Actually, I like dandelions a lot, a whole yard full, gold buttons, pixie caps, little smiles. They make me happy, and then they become puffballs absolutely perfect for a mouthful of air blown by a curious little boy of two. There was a time when dandelions all over the lawn were valued and preferred, even cultivated. Their leaves are good in a mescalune salad. Once upon a time, every plant on earth was a weed. The Garden of Eden must've been flush with weeds except for that sinful apple tree, the Tree of Knowledge. Adam and Eve were not allowed to know anything. Keep 'em ignorant, right? No words. Just grunts. Accept your happy lot. Nothing to worry about. Anxiety disorders millions of years in the future. Barefoot and naked. Don''t ask questions. They did. Their punishment was eternal. Does any of this sound familiar? A lot of people accept the answer without ever asking the question. That's where we break with tradition. Two Jews, three opinions, right? You can actually argue with God and win. My sentiment is that if I can argue with God I can argue with you. Ready?

Labor Day Week-end , 2020

Spring came on so slowly this year it seemed the planet stopped moving. Up here Spring teases you. One day bright, clear, temperate; the next, two feet of snow. More snow. A little sleet. Bone breaking ice. Temperatures that freeze the hairs in your nose. Not as bad as Alaska where your piss freezes before it hits the ground. Winter has its place. It's part of the package. The other parts wouldn't be as bright without it. Even so, it stays too long and comes too soon. Right now, Winter is out there slinking slowly towards us like a predator in high grass.

When Jamie and I first moved here thirty-seven years ago, we were the new timers, the young new timers. Lloyd and Floyd, twin brothers in their nineties, were still alive. Every day, twice a day, they'd drive at maybe 5 + miles/hour, up and down the seven mile length of our valley. They could tell you where the first TV antenna once stood, where the wells were, who died where and how, just about every piece of local minutiae one could imagine. Except this one. The one I'm going to tell you next.

Lloyd and Floyd (Jamie called them Lloyd and Freud) were interviewed by a local reporter who asked them to talk about the biggest change they'd seen around these parts in their life times? Both of them thought for a bit, nodded to each other, then Floyd said, "They's less cows". 

The twins were also famous for driving their truck into a ditch during a snowstorm.This happened once, twice  a year regular. They told folks not to call a tow. It was too late at night, cold as hell, and why bother anybody? Come back in the morning. We got this covered. It happened before and will again. Lloyd brandished a bottle of apple jack from under the front seat and handed it to Floyd who took a drink and passed it back. Come back in the morning, boys. Case closed. 

J and I are the old timers now, and there aren't any cows anywhere to be seen. Used to be we'd have to stop at the cattle crossing at Jenkins Flats for the herd  to cross. Used to be there was a party line and an operator who knew our voices. Who even knows what that is any more? Party line? Primo coke, perhaps? Used to be if three cars passed our house in an hour we declared gridlock. Usually, we could tell who it was by the sound of the engine or rattle of the chassis. Now, given the fact that our valley has been "discovered", traffic has increased in both sound and volume. West Kill Brewery, the result of many generations on the same land, and Spruceton Inn, both destination businesses run by terrific people; still, the traffic can be a nuisance, but walk behind the house and it no longer exists, just the mountain in our backyard and Herdman Creek a few yards East.

The biggest change, however, is the demographic.  We've enjoyed our isolation. My concept of a good neighbor is someone who's there when needed but doesn't need to hang in your living room. I didn't want to set myself up as an outsider, but as someone there to live in peace and pay his taxes. Call me if you need me.

9/11 began the great migration. Covid-19 has accelerated it. Lots of new people in the nabe. City people. Bright, informed, appreciative, fun...All of a sudden we're eating "cuisine" and drinking wine from goblets. Land Rovers and Lincoln Navigators crowd out pick-ups and Ford Fairlanes, and the occasional  re-claimed ex-police car. NYC. Jersey. Suddenly, there is a community at this end of the valley, and we are surprised to find ourselves a part of it. I'm not sure when it happened, or how, but it did. We slid into place, albeit our own place. For example, I'm well known around here to never stay at any event more than two hours max. This has nothing to do with principle. My ass starts to hurt! "OK, J, ready?" Great time. Thanks, everybody. See you guys soon. The door closes behind us. Our Subaru Forester takes us home. Ah. Yes.

We came here as "new timers". We'd weather the winter and wonder who or if anyone had died? Because that's what happened over the winter. Old timers died, not all of them, of course, but enough to whittle down the species. Seems like now it's been whittled down to us.  Except us and the folks back then have startling differences. An extraordinarily beautiful and talented young twenty-three year old woman with a delightful smile and the kind of body that could make a grown man weep were he so inclined...to weep, anyway...this young woman exclaimed just yesterday that I didn't look older than fifty! I'll live off of that one for at least two weeks. Beer, grueling work, bake sales, far flung medical care, and mashed potatoes have taken their toll, not on us, thank goodness, but on the "old" old timers. At one time, suicides of elderly farmers were quite common. When the man considered himself worthless, unable to do what he had always done, he shot himself in the head. We knew one of them, the man who butchered our sheep. He did a great job, and since then there's been no local who does what he did. I think because Jamie and I live in our heads to a great extent, certainly, I do, so far, we have survived intact, still standing.  I don't think there's any secret to share except my kids wonder how I've survived in this condition on a daily diet of pretzels, ice cream, and beer. Maybe that's the secret? Why fiddle with what works?

The garden has pretty much been harvested. Some tomatoes left and lots of pumpkins on the vine waiting for my grandson on Halloween. Our trees are lush with apples and pears. They might not look pretty, but they sure do taste pretty. Another month and his Dad will carve his first pumpkin. I'll carve the second. When Sevi, my son, was just a bit over two, I took him to a community Halloween party at which Jamie, at some predetermined point, burst through the door costumed and cackling like a witch, "terrified" the children, gave them candy then "flew"back out the door. A little later, when Sevi and I got home, he ran to Jamie crying, "Mommy, Mommy, there was a witch!" Worth the price of admission, right? And now, with a dollop of good fortune, I get to do it again.