Wednesday, May 12, 2010

forget camels, it's the garden, stupid!

So I've had it with the constuction. A rock came and bombarded me while I was in the garden the other day - they're still blasting on my corner. It hit the trees near me, but not me myself, for which I am grateful. But still. It needs to be over.

So while I've been obsessing about the constuction and the blasting, I've really been working on the garden, or gardens. I am starting an asparagus bed on the upper terrace of my property, and I'm quite excited. I've never thought I really had a chance for one until now, and it is quite thrilling in an odd sort of way, to have it come to fruition at my age. I had a neighbor come and plow up some old dairy land, near the old wells, then another man came and added loam mixed with manure, and now I've been shovelling manure on the 100 asparagus crowns that I planted two days ago. It rained in between, so some of the crowns have sprouted and it is quite gratifying to see the tiny sprouts coming up already!

The pile of manure is smelly and wonderfully steaming, so I'm sure it will produce great asparagus! But since there is so much of it - two full yards of it, I have also been spreading it around the corn patch and the tomato patch and the squash, beans and cucumber patches, so there should be a whole lot of produce this summer! - which is good because there seems to be a whole lot of guests, too. The boat is already in the water but it is not ready yet for sailing, and until the gardens are done, I'm afraid my head will not be into the boat. So it is...

Saturday, May 8, 2010

more camels, crossing

last night, a local photographer, Bob Mitchell, held a powerpoint photo show called "So you think you know Boothbay?" at the local Opera House. He got up and told some wonderful stories and then showed some of his photos of both people and places, and asked the audience to identify the people and places and then we all got to telling stories. It was quite marvelous, especially when he showed the photo of "Camel Crossing" on my yard. (see prior blogs. )But the best moment came when he showed what looked like a wood sculpture of a penny with Benjamin Franklin on it. Some people knew where it was, but when he asked for us to identify who it was, a very deep voice with a very thick Maine drawl, answered, " I think that's my pool boy." - which brought the house down. So much for BF coming from Boston...we really know him! But perhaps you had to be there. It was a good time however you measure it.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

more construction updates

Whorff and company are still blasting (whuffff is the sound!) around the village today. Yet more rock has been discovered to be in the way of the water main. But the weather has been decent, so the dust is not intolerable, and it is not uncomfortable to be only 15 feet from the road, as I am.

The signs to Kandahar, East Beirut, and the Oasis are still up, as is "Camel Crossing" - my own personal sign. But there are signs that the project is beginning to wear on everyone. While most of us have a somewhat passive fatigue over the disruption and we wave, and occasionally feed, the workers who are going as fast as they can, there has been a rumor of "an old lady in a red sports car" who gives the finger to the guys as she drives past every day. Even the guys in the Harbor hardware store had heard the rumor. And then, driving home from the hardware store, whom should I see, but the very same "old lady" in a red MG with the top down, giving the finger to the guys blasting. So she's real and feeling testy as she drives around East Beirut with her top down. I hope she has a garage to put the car in at night.

It has been a beautiful spring except for the construction. The forsythia has been in bloom for at least a month, as have the daffodils, and quince. Driving up river to Damariscotta, yellow clouds of forsythia are like Christmas lights in the gray green gloom of early spring forests. And now finally, it is May and gardens are getting planted, and weeded, and plants are getting swapped for others. Rhubarb is getting stewed, and canned, and there are fiddleheads in Hannaford's. I have been stewing about my barn.

My barn is a "carriage" barn, tall with a big tall door for a dairy wagon, and a hay mow. It was probably built out of scrap from another old barn as there is no post and beam integrity to the structure. But it still smells like hay and old barn. And the whole Northwest corner, really almost half of the barn, has a non-existent or rotten sill. So all the guys are telling me that it should come down and I should build a nice new one, that will do what I want it to do. I have just about decided to do that, but I am writing this down now, to see how it looks in writing, and to see how bad, or good, I feel about it. I have spent a good part of my life helping people save old buildings, or art work, and tearing something down just gives me the willies. But I think that in this community of exquisite ship builders and carpenters, that I can let them do their thing, and give me something that will be truly mine.

Then I will have a place to put my car, when, and ever if, I should be so testy that I need to give construction workers the finger as I drive by. As they say in California, NOT!