Moonflowers!

After waiting all summer, we finally have moonflowers! These delicate, nocturnal beauties emit a lovely fragrance all night long and last until the morning sun burns them to a shriveled stump.

Last evening five flowers were open, but there are plenty of buds waiting for their moment to burst. These were worth the effort of fighting off drought, aphids, and other unknown pests we had this summmer.
  

Daisy, Daisy

The tenacity of wildflowers! This little daisy, a variety that grows in the dry fields and culverts along the road, took root in a crack of our old stone sidewalk while blue chicory peeks through the dry grass.

I appreciate Mother Nature's eye for garden design. This year she clumped feverfew, anise hyssop, and black-eyed Susans into a lovely summer bouquet border along the side walk, with the thyme and parsley providing ground cover.

Being such a dry summer, I'm surprised we had any flowers at all. My rule of (green) thumb: If it's got a flower on it, it stays right where it is. Any color is a bonus.

Derby Girl

What pollutes the air and the ground, exceeds the safe decibel limit and wastes gasoline but is fun, exciting, and REALLY BIG here in the Finger Lakes? The Demolition Derby, that's what!  

Drawing crowds of people and contestants from all around the area, the Trumansburg Fair's Demolition Derby is the qualifier for the NYState championships.  As I walked through the fairgrounds, I notice few people playing games, or riding rides and the carnival people all looked bored and tired. The ticket takers at the Grandstand are working up a sweat, though, because The Derby is by far the biggest draw.

When we were little, my dad took my sister and I to the Allegheny County Fair for the Demolition Derby. I can't remember if it was every year or just once, but the memory of it is burned into my brain. Seeing the cars line up, and hearing revving of the engines and the "10 to go" count, I am a little girl again, cheering, clapping, laughing, and making a fool of myself.

This year's Derby is special: I know some of the drivers. They are our neighbors from up the street, a dad and his sons. And one of them, Shawn, was driving our '93 Mercury Sable Wagon. "Be sure to tell us if you drive it in the derby next year" we said when we watched him drive it away, the transmission slipping and the back end sinking low over the wheel.  All winter, the car sat in the field with others awaiting its final fate until last week, when it appeared in front of his garage. Passing it every day I watched it become less of itself, stripped of glass, eviscerated, wire entrails leading from headlight sockets, hatch and seats removed and doors chained shut. 

A few days ago, Shawn flagged me down and pointed into the garage where it sat, reborn in a glory of blue and white zebra stripes and ready for the Derby. I got the giggles.

Back at the fair, and sitting in the third row, I watched as the old wagon fared well in competition and Shawn took a second place trophy.  The car was driven off the track (not towed as most others were) and maybe still has some life left in it. 

As I cheered for Shawn, conflicting thoughts were jostling around in my head: Who knew that car was such a tank?...OMG--this sport is so wrong on so many levels....We should never have sold that car....oh, yeah--I'm coming back next year!

Team Pride

Kevin took this picture of our neighbor's draft horses. A clear, blue Finger Lakes sky; a proud team at the end of their work day. Perfection. 

Leading the Team

For months now, I have been telling my neighbor Elam that I wanted to help him bale hay, thinking the experience of back-breaking, sweaty work would do my soul some good. While he is always more than happy to laugh at me, he obviously gave the request some serious thought.  As I watched his youngest brother Levi drive a team of 4 draft horses past the house with the baler and two wagons trailing behind (one of which was carrying his young son), Elam knocked on the kitchen door.

We're baling straw tonight, he says. Just a few times around the field, that's all. Want to help? This is your chance to drive the horses, feel the power of the team as they make their way around the field. Kevin can take pictures, and you can show all your friends at work! 

DRIVE THE HORSES? I've never even been on a horse. You would really let me to that? Oh, no. Not tonight, I hear myself say. We have guests. I've got dishes to do. I need a few days notice to prepare for this. 

After a few minutes of cajoling, he leaves to continue his work without me, not wanting to force me into it. Kevin looks at me. He's disappointed too. I tell him the truth: I'm too scared. But he assures me it will all be fine. It will be fun! What an opportunity! This is your chance, Michele! Go for it! 

So I do. Donning my blue overalls (I mean, what DID I buy those for anyway?) and a long sleeve shirt, I trek out to the back field just as he's getting ready to start. After about two seconds of instructions and a snappy "giddup" we're off, with little Elam Junior on my lap, and Kevin documenting every second of it. A friend of ours remarked that Elam must really trust me. I've been thinking about that trust and his self-reliance, confidence, and spirit of community. How can any society survive without those things?

The ride was bumpy, but what a rush! I did it.  Elam helped with the turns. Little Elam Junior sat quitely. Levi stacked the bales. Kevin ran along by my side and took pictures. I was leading the team and no one got hurt.

Pots of Gold

Last weekend a quick and violent summer thunderstorm blew through the Interlaken plateau. Thunder cracked, trees bent, and one electrifying snap of lightning fried our modem with a loud "pop!" The rain lasted about 5 minutes. What followed this outburst was one of nature's most impressive phenomena. Through the green haze and puffy clouds came the rays of the sun and a rainbow, brilliant and majestic. One end of it illuminating a corn field to our south, and the other a field of grazing cows. Would our good fortune double--what does the folklore tell us?-- if we found both pots of gold?

After taking advantage of my first full year of AARP benefits (I turned 50 last summer), I am accepting the thought of retirement. Not retirement from life, but retirement from a full-time, work-for-somebody-else job. Our bed and breakfast is doing great and we love it. I'll need something else, however, to help keep it all going. Learning a new skill which can take me into my retirement (where ever that place may be) feels like the right choice.  So, beginning in January, I will be starting a new journey. It begins at the Finger Lakes School of Massage. 

I'm going back to school to become a Massage Therapist.

All the papers are in place, and now I am about to write what may be the most important prose of my adult life: A tuition scholarship essay. Writing this blog has been good practice. I've learned to collect my thoughts, create a story and put it on paper (well, e-paper), and find my voice. But I've never in my life asked for financial assistance, or had to affirm myself, my existence, my contribution to society, or ask for recognition. It is unnatural for a practical, efficiency-minded, do-bee like me to talk about what makes me special, or what sets me apart from everyone else.

I keep thinking about that rainbow and the two pots of gold. A shimmery, fading glimpse of the past and spark of the future. A reflective and colorful bridge between two careers and two phases of my life. The highs and lows, the graceful arc of a happy, productive, and fruitful life. Hmmm...maybe I just found a theme (somewhat hokey I know) for my essay. Or, perhaps I'll just point the scholarship committee here to read my blog because this, after all, is me.

Hay Fever!

The smell of hay is the scent of summer. For the past couple of weeks, we've seen an epidemic of hay fever.  Anyone who keeps livestock (or grows alfalfa for people who keep livestock) is baling hay, loading hay, and transporting hay. Alfalfa is agricultural perfection. It is raised and baled on the farm, fed on the farm, and spread as manure on the farm.

Watching the weather (make hay while the sun shines!) becomes an obsession because one good rainfall, at the wrong time in the process, can destroy the crop. Rain is a blessing and a curse. Timing is everything. There's so many acres to cut and only so much time to cut it before the first rain drop falls. The sky darkens. The clouds threaten, and still they cut. They windrow. They bale. They sweat. They plow in the dark, headlights (if they have them) illuminating the clouds of chaff, methodically and deliberately until the last bale is loaded onto the wagons. The filled wagons dot the landscape in every direction. 

A conventional baler throws the tied bales into slat-sided wagon with a powerful thrust machine called a kicker (or maybe that's a thrower?) and are piled up every which way. The bales in the Amish steel-wheeled wagons (which are flat and open-sided) are stacked neatly then pulled to the barn by a team of draft horses, creating a rumble that you first feel, then hear. As our neighbor's team quickly turns the sharp corner into his driveway, I've never seen him lose one bale. One of these days I'm going to help make hay, and Elam's offered to let me lead the horses--they know what to do, he says. Can you imagine me out there in the blazing sun driving the team? I've never even been ON a horse!

During this month's hay-making season, we have cows grazing in the field next to us. At night, by starlight, you can't always see them but you can hear them crunching on the grass, the young bull wailing in the night for no one's apparent pleasure but his own.  Perhaps he has hay fever too.

You Just Never Know

Pure joy for a mother of three is having a whole bowl of fresh strawberries to herself:  Not the unwanted, mushy leftovers she usually gets, but the juicy, sweet ones served just for her with a dollop of whipped cream and with fresh flowers on the table. 

Words can't describe the taste of late spring, and the lines at the farm stands attest to our green-starved appetite. In our breakfasts this month, we'll incorporate asparagus, Swiss chard, rhubarb, and strawberries in savory custards or stuffed herb crepes, and the strawberries on their own or baked into a sweet little cake or tart.  But even though we pay extra special attention to our breakfasts, we never know what detail or event will make a traveler's visit memorable. Often it has nothing to do with us or the food.

One morning, our neighbor Mary had the opportunity to meet a guest from Maryland and they were surprised to discover they had a connection through milk.  As it turns out, the company Mary contracts to buy her organic milk is the same company the guest buys at her local market. Both recalled the story to me later, smiling. Saying, but not saying, how small the world is. How satisfying it was to put a face with a product, a family with a bottle of milk. 

We hear stories about waking to the sound of a horse-drawn plow plodding along outside the bedroom window; curious heifers running to the fence, pushing each other and vying for the front spot for a photo op; exhausted parents on a weekday getaway eating breakfast in their pajamas; sitting down at breakfast to find the other guests are your best friends from your post-college years; planning a whole day of wine tours only to plop down on the porch and go nowhere for hours; seeing a barn swallow nestling leave the nest; catching the purple light just before sunset. 

All the planning in the world couldn't make these things happen. As innkeepers, we savor these experiences and aspects of our life. Our house is a comfortable respite for those who are willing to treat themselves to it, and serendipity takes care of the rest. You just never know.