First snow
I have written so little since my posts on our trip out to California in July, and I have missed writing. It’s been a busy few months, visiting in California, packing the Palo Alto house, driving back across the country, and unpacking here on Sunnyhill. We came back to see the beginning of the leaves changing in late September and now, nearly a month later, many of the trees are bare. Last night we had hail, and the first little snow of the season. There wasn’t much snow, but enough for Charlie to leave footprints on the back porch when he went out for a very quick pee in the cold morning.
The unpacking is still a work in progress. There are still boxes in our bedroom and the small guest room looks like a storage closet, but the kitchen/dining/living room looks like home, and the big guest room is ready for Tamar and Ryder’s visit this weekend. Most of the artwork is hung, including our moving wood sculpture. We’ve kept some of the furniture that was here, mostly in the living room, and we’ve given away the duplicates that we can’t use to furnish apartments. Our caretaker, Dan, has moved on, and we’ll be renting out the place over the garage that he lived in, in addition to the three units in the building we bought in Laurens. One of those is empty now, and we’re getting it painted and will rent it furnished. There’s a big need for furnished places for traveling nurses, and we’re told they are great tenants.
Jay bought a tractor (with a heated/air conditioned cab) and will use it for snow blowing, road mending, preparing the land for hay, and a variety of other jobs. He’ll be busy! Between Laurens and Hartwick, there is always something that needs to be done. One of our tenants will do the much smaller job of snow blowing down there.
I was instantly glad to be back here, but the chaos of unpacking and trying to remember where I’ve put things has made it a little hard for me to just relax and enjoy being here. But these last two mornings, watching the day start in the east, I’ve begun to feel the Hartwick peace creeping back in. The days are so much shorter than they were when we left in July. I’m aware of the house as clock and calendar again – where Orion sits in the bedroom window, where and when the first direct sunlight comes. It’s a daily wonder to live in a house where I see sunrise and sunset along a big horizon. I’ve missed writing about autumn, but there’s next year. Now, the goldenrod that covers most of our hill is past its bloom. The dead flowers are a pale brown, waving in the lightest breeze. Our trees along Gulf Road have lost most of their leaves, and the branches of the trees at the top of the ridge to the west are mostly bare against the sky.
It has not been a spectacular fall. The cold nights came too late for really bright colors. We saw some brighter colors on our trip to Vermont this weekend. It was a beautiful drive, even in grey, rainy weather. We went to Burlington on the stunningly beautiful Lake Champlain. This summer Peter and Aviva went up there for the birthday celebration for our cousin Barbara’s husband, Lee. Barbara and Aviva talked about scheduling a cousins’ reunion up there this fall, and Tamar and I were both excited about the prospect. I had seen Barbara very rarely in adulthood, as we had lived on opposite coasts, but she was always a favorite of mine, outspoken and always ready to laugh. Barbara was the oldest of the girl cousins, ten years older than Shayne, and had a big impact on us all growing up. She died, so unexpectedly, of an infection, less than a month after Aviva last saw her. And instead of a cousins’ reunion, we went for her memorial service. It was a lovely service in the synagogue in Burlington. Barbara touched so many lives. She was, in Carrie’s phrase, a fun starter. It was clear from things her neighbors said, that she changed the neighborhood, bringing people together to share food and laughs. It was no surprise to me to hear how well Barbara had lived, and how much joy she brought everywhere she went. I was only sad that we had shared so little of our adult lives.
Well, I’ve delayed finishing this for too long, and now we expect Tamar and Ryder any minute. Stay tuned for news next week about the amazing poetry reading we went to in Sharon Springs last night.