The Turmoil

The Turmoil

            “The house is huge.  You know that.”

;            “Yes but...”

            “The ROOMS are huge.  And too many of them.  What do you do with all of them?

            The ceilings are HIGH; really high.  Someone could live up there; in that space.  You ever go up there?  On a ladder or something?  What’s that about:  You made them that way?  What are you thinking?”

            “Well... when the architects actually showed me their drawings I admit I didn’t understand their scale.”

            “Scale?”

            “Size.  It is all bigger than I thought.”

            “Watch your head.”

            “I always do”.

            “Your suppose to hit your head you know; it warns you your going inside.  Or coming out.  That’s why they made them (New England Colonial ‘cape’ doorways, especially the ‘back’ [north] doors) that way, low and small; to wake you up.  Make you tend to business.”

            “Tend to business?”

            “Yeah like remembering to close the door once your through.  No one ever leaves our doors open.”

            “Those are sliding glass doors.  They always leave them open.”

            “When you’re here.  Right now they are closed.  ‘CLOSED UP’ you call it.  Sliding glass closed up.”

            “Well we could open them.”

            “But your not going in there now.”

            “No, no... not this trip.  I just want to get the mast figures.  Take them down to the shop.  They wanted as much of the original paper drafts as I can find.  There’s a big bag of it.”

            “It’s heated in there isn’t?”

            “That shop’s always heated.  HOT in there actually.”

            “No.  Not the shop.  Your house.  It’s heated.  Right now.  The heats on.  Right?”

            “Of course it’s on.  But not much.”

            “What’s much?”

            “They keep it a fifty.”
            “Who’s they?”

            “The men who check the house.”

            “In this weather I figure I’m doing well if my house is fifty.  Touches forty overnight.”

           “Yeah but your house is a whole different thing.  You live in a log cabin compared to me.

            “Maybe you should get her an apple ladder to put in the ceiling space.”

            “Apple ladder?”

            “A ladder for picking apples.  An ‘old Maine tool’ in the classic sense.  All farms had one.  Maybe even three.  To put in an apple tree to pick the apples.  They’re an old Maine orchard tool.  I find ‘em in barns.  Or used to.  Most have been scalped off these days.  Already on display in someone’s high ceiling.  You know:  LOFT.”

            “They’re just a ladder?  What makes ‘em an apple ladder?”

            “Taper at the top.  Wishbone.  START normal ladder at the bottom then tapers down to nothing at the top.  To fit around the branches.  Really very nice.”

            “Nice?”

            “To look at.  With the taper.  Old wood.  Old surface.  Some can be really handsome.  An old set of three.  Good old ones.  That’s what you need.  Everyone will say something.  Cost you a little.  Actually... cost a nothing to you.  Wife like’s em.”

            “My wife likes them?”

            “She will.  My wife likes ‘em.  Can’t fit ‘em in our house.  Put ‘em out in the barn a few days and then sell ‘em.  Good ones sell good.  No problem.”

            “No problem?”

            “Yeah there’s always someone like you around with space for ‘em; the high ceiling set.”

            “High ceiling set?”

            “Same as the sliding glass door set.”

            “Same set?”

            “Keep the house at fifty set.”

            “I don’t understand you”

            “I don’t expect you would.”

            If the people ‘like that’; ‘from away’, buy an old Maine house on an old Maine lot that was once part of an old Maine property... and... tear it down in total or just ‘fully renovate it’... do I need them?

            Yes.  I do.  As an antiques dealer.  There is always a chance they will ‘get serious’ about furnishing their home-of-their-doing (“summer place”) with antiques

            They buy from me.

            After that and otherwise... most things do not draw us together.

            I cut my own firewood, haul my own firewood, store my own firewood and burn my own firewood.  I never ‘get enough’ and ‘always run out’.  That is the way it is.  The big house folk buy their firewood; hardwoods in split professional uniformity, and ‘have it stacked’

            In the garage.

            Never stack firewood in a garage... and who has a garage anyway.

            I burn all my firewood up all the time.  That’s what it’s for.  The big house has the same stack of firewood in their garage

            For years.  Sometime they use some sometimes for a fire sometime... on, like, a cool day of July rain.  “The fire feels nice”.  They say.

            I have one snow shovel... and a backup in case the wife suddenly wishes to ‘join in’.  That never happens.  Big house folk have their house ‘plowed’, ‘shoveled’ and ‘sanded’.  They are ‘not there’ and the house is ‘heated to fifty’.  I have a plow on a truck that I hope will start when I need it ‘to plow’ ...us out.  I hope, each winter, I don’t have to do that... much.  I also don’t like it to get really cold.  The truck won’t start and I have to turn the furnace on; burn some oil to ‘keep the pipes from freezing.  If I don’t do that I run the risk of the faraway cold spots in our little house... ‘freezing up’.  I don’t like plumbing problems in the winter.  “No one does”.  In my little world.

            I park the truck at a certain angle in front of the barn doors where, there, the winter sun blasts its radiance... right on the hood of the truck so that... maybe... it will start... “around one-thirty in the afternoon”.

            “WHY DO YOU PARK THE TRUCK UP THERE?” the big house man asked me

            Before the storm

            When he came to “SEE” an apple ladder:  “THAT’S WHAT THAT IS.”  He, looking it over, said he “WILL TELL HER ABOUT IT”.  No sale.

            I’m used to that.

            He kept his dog in his car.  One of his (their) dogs.  We don’t have any dogs.  They are expensive.  A luxury.  A vanity.  Big House would like to let his dog ‘run’ here at my place but he knows it will go directly to the compost and eat its fill.  That’s why I have compost piles?  Yeah.  Sure.  That’s why.  His dog loves bacon grease.  Big House looked around in our (farm) yard.  I saw him look at the compost.  I could see his wheels turn.  Or maybe I saw his dog’s bowels churn.  Right?  Anyway; he’s got that figured out.

            Before he came over I ate a bowl of chicken soup for lunch.  We save the bones we generate; put ‘em in a bag in the freezer.  Every two weeks or so she make a broth (“soup”) of them and then I use that as a base for my lunch.  She puts in onions, celery and carrots.  I add some pulled chicken, a chicken leg if I’m lucky and some broccoli.  Piping hot... lunch.  Just before Big House cell calls to say

            He’s on his way.

            I need something in me to stand my ground.  Big House COULD actually buy something... but he has no idea WHAT that could be and neither do I.  So I have to ‘get ready’.  To ‘deal with that’.  You know what I’m talking about.

            We don’t have chickens.  Did once... for sixteen years.  Too expensive now:  A luxury.  A vanity.  Now.  There are so many ‘egg men’ around now I can get as many farm fresh eggs as I want all the time every time AND they still got “MORE”.  How many eggs do I eat anyway?  Not that many.  

Anyway:

            They say it’s farm fresh eggs.  They ain’t.  What that damn food they feed ‘em; that “layer mash” in the big feed store bags.  Yeah; that stuff.  They all feed ‘em that.  Got the feeder boxes.  Yeah:  What is that stuff.  Just think about it.  Use that and egg cost goes UP and ...what is that stuff... from the local feed store?  Really.  The whole little guy egg thing needs to be ‘looked into’ (think about it with a pencil and paper; you ARE loosing money):  And... if they eat ‘that’ do I want to eat ‘that’ too?

            “I don’t think so”.

            Big House is always talking about “EGGS” he “BOUGHT”.  You know; ‘bought local’.  Farmer’s market.  He gets himself a couple of “DANISH” too.  He likes those with the goo-gob of “raspberry jam”.  Awful lot of raspberries go to ‘jam’.  I like my raspberries fresh picked and mashed up in a bowl with just a... goo-gob of vanilla ice cream.  Not too much ice cream.  Pick the berries your self.  YOU AIN’T GONNA GET A TICK on you JESUS”.

            Okay tick:  Stay inside the big house.  Leave the Maine wilderness to Professional Mainers.

            At the boat yard, down by the shop, Big House’s boat is under the cover at the left; beside the shop.  “It’s being worked on”.  What’s being worked on?  Nothing.  What’s it need worked on?  Nothing.  Been ‘sailed’ in the water almost seven hours since he bought it six years ago.  So it always needs to be ‘worked on’.  Get it.  Too bad I can’t sell him some antiques to put on that boat.  His wife DOES entertain on it.  The boat HAS been used to ‘entertain’ they call it.  At the start of summer (Memorial Day) they ‘put it in’.  Then nothing happens.  THEN...:  All get in the dingy and go out and ‘entertain’ “ON IT” ‘in the harbor’ until it ‘gets dark’.  Then they go back to the big house.  It all makes sense.  Right?  I just want to get some money out of it.

            Big House always has to come in our house when he is the ‘come over’.  He agitates until he gets ‘taken in’.  Yep:  Agitates.  You know it when you see it with these folk:  NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE IT (us living like that).  “YOU REALLY DO LIVE LIKE THAT.” he told us.  Told all the from away folk too.  Back there; from away.  He’s in Connecticut.  The part of Connecticut that is part of Manhattan.  You know; everyday... back and forth.  “FARM FRESH EGGS” to that I say.  Anyway.  He ducks his head pretty good now and noses around.  Sniff’en the air.  Bread baking.  Two loaves.  Don’t go given HIM one.  Still to hot anyway.  “OH YEAH WE EAT THAT HOMEMADE BREAD all winter long TOO JESUS”.  He’s a courteous gent.  Knows good behavior when he’s in the enemy’s camp.  I told him:  “Living here.  FOR YOU:  This is just one long camping trip we’ve been on.  Over sixty years we’ve be ...just camping out.”  He sort of got it.  Brushing my teeth outside in the yard is a stretch.  He’s used to hovering over the sink with the hot water going ‘full’.  That’s the real truth here:  It’s a real lot of very small things that

            Creates the turmoil.

            Of course he could still buy something.

Fall Harvest; The Vanishing Corn Bundle

Each fall, in the middle of the fall season, I catch a glimpse of a classic northern New England decorative antique, the corn bundle in the corn field. The corn bundle is the vertical stack of dry corn stalks …with the drying corn ears still attached… that have been cut, gathered in approximately ten stalk clumps, raised upon each other to form the bundle and tied two-thirds of the way up with corn stalks that synch the bundle in and give it classic form. A field of cut corn is bundled and becomes, as the photographs show, a classic icon of the New England fall harvest.
So classic be these bundles in the corn field that… to even the romantic New England eye… they are hardly noticed. One's car goes by them at sixty-five. This chance notice is difficult too for, these days, a field of bundled corn is quite scarce to encounter, even at sixty-five. Furthering this viewing scarcity is that the bundle progression is done only as a brief step in the process of the corn harvest. 

The corn is cut the first day, stacked and bundled the next and then… these whole bundles are intended to be moved to the barn the third day ("before they get wet"). Weather permitting. This is the quick plan and process is often delayed by weather BUT STILL is done quickly. The bundle stage, the most picturesque, is designed to shed any water AND keep the inner corn fresh dried; a light green. We were lucky to find and photograph a bundle torn open by the wind that shows the dried green corn stalks inside. The whole point of this harvest style is to process the corn to be a winter feed; a sort of original form of silage, for cows. For the romantic New England eye, the moment of bundles of corn in the field is very short.


There is very scant reference to corn bundles in the field. One may find abundant pictorial usage, nearly formulaic, but discussion is very scant. Even Eric Sloane, who includes a superior color print of his painted view of the corn bundle harvest as the frontis for his "Autumn" chapter in his THE SEASONS OF AMERICA PAST (Funk, New York, 1958, after page 82) (see our photographs) gives no written commentary on the bundle or bundle process.
Once one understands that one is looking at a… classic… fleeting moment of a …classic… New England harvest, slowing down and gazing fondly becomes one's norm. Then one may chance to see the bundles being made and tied, usually by several men accompanied by small children and dogs (just as Sloan portrayed). Savor this view. The whole process will be gone in a few days; the field will be bare stubble ready for the winter snows… flocks of geese… and crows. As the corn bundle harvest practice continues to wane, I personally view each field as if it's my last contact with this classic northern New England antique.

Maine Critters. After the Fourth of July

Maine Critters

After the Fourth of July

            Maine Critters:

            You don’t know what I mean by that and you don’t have any contact with them.  You could have seen one.  See one.  Think you see one.  Wonder if ‘that’s one’

            “There”

            “That Fella.”  You wouldn’t even say that.  Out loud.

            “You’ve been BY ‘em; been CLOSE to one?  You say?

            I don’t think so.  Mister.

            They don’t like July.  “Too hot”.  So they are ornery.  And circulate amongst themselves.  They don’t “do anything like that” (“put the boat in”) (“crap”).  They “GO UP TO CAMP.”  Mostly... if they have one.  A camp.  But MOST of the Maine Critters... do not have a ‘camp’ to ‘go to’ and

            LIVE IN a ‘camp like’.... NO IT AIN’T ‘camp like’:  Those are OTHER camps other people “OWN” that are... ‘camp like...’ sort of ...like a Maine Critter’s

            HOUSE (HOME).

            There we go:  NOW we are starting off the trail and into ‘the brush beside that trail.  NOT that you’d KNOW THAT (you going off the trail) even when

            YOU SMELL IT.

            So we’ll go back and walk through again.

            Maine Critters do not like July.  It is too hot.  They stay home at what fancy folk try to emulate and title their “camp”.  But Critter Camps are THEIR HOME.  What does that mean?  Well we start with “no power” (electricity) “except”.  That last word, when linked to “power” is a whole ‘on-going’ subject.  That I don’t have to touch.  Because it is JULY so

            A Maine Critter “doesn’t need it” (power) “Now”.

            Then there is “water” (at a Critter’s home).  Explanation words include “well”, “spring”, “carry in” and “don’t have it” (“running water”)

            No bathroom (in the B, B and Beyond) sense.  Or in your mind’s eye “camp” sense.

            Nope:  There is a ‘shit house’ (outhouse) that... in July... is not seeing the same usage it sees in January.  “IN JULY... I GOT THE WHOLE DAMN MAINE WOODS to SHIT IN so what do I want to USE (mess up) THAT (the outhouse) FOR?”.

            Food:  Crackers.  Peanut butter.  Cheese.  And:  “There IS a LOT of food around” for Critters... in Maine... in July.  They probably are not as “interested” in a salad dressing  you “I MADE” and would probably eat ALL the radishes on a “BUNCH” without your notice or comment until “AFTER” “THEY WERE GONE”.  YES they (Maine Critters) stew Dandelion greens but that was

            BACK IN THE SPRING.

            This is JULY.  “TOO HOT” to stew anything.  Or is it?

            When I know ‘critters’ are ‘about’ during the heat of July mornings I know because I am told.  They say to me, for an example...; a come forth from the mouth of a retired barber from ‘around Boston’ (a ‘Masshole’):  “YOUR MAKING ME HOT JUST LOOKING AT YOU”.  He means the wool cap I am wearing.  The cotton bandana (old Boy Scout neckerchief) I am wearing.  The wool “FILSON” shirt I am wearing.  The long leg ‘old chino’ (Bean’s) VERY LOOSE (“too big”) fit (and field use dirty) “pants” (Critters do not wear ‘blue jeans’) WITH SUSPENDERS... and a belt... (all critters wear them both) and... wear the, traditionally, tall  (full standard lace) Bean Boots... I am too... wearing.  For the record this is too... a... standard... ‘not worried about ticks’ outfit.

            HE (the barber from Masshole) is wearing... “camp moccasins” with no socks, faux Madras shorts, a shirt that suggests he plays polo and an up front belly the size of a small beer keg ‘hanging over’ “his balls”.  No hat.  That ‘this’, then, is the separation of church and state of...

            Maine Critters.

            I ain’t taking my shirt off to please that guy.  NO I am not taking my BOOTS off.  I don’t care if you ‘get bit’ from not wearing a bandana.  YOU can get the damn tick at your hair line off.  I don’t want to... and never do (find one) “ON ME”.

            So at five in the morning one critter confided to me that he’d “started a fire’ when he got up.  That morning.  It is a ‘hotter than Hell’ July ‘didn’t go below seventy last night’ morning in Maine and this guy (critter) ‘started a fire’ in his woodstove to KEEP WARM.  Okay now we’re getting somewhere.  RIGHT?

            How many layers is he wearing?

            NOW we’re getting somewhere.  RIGHT?  Five layers? (shirts).  DOWN from seven layers a “MONTH AGO”.  Oh you don’t think so?  Yeah well when you get to ‘peel off’ layer FOUR your gonna know by nostril your getting into ‘old’ territory.  His bare chest has, simply, NEVER seen daylight that ‘anyone can remember’.

            In July, Maine Critters... “come out from camp” (leave their remote home) and “of course” (as always, year round “anyway”) attend the flea markets.  July offers ‘outdoor’ flea markets in addition to the year round ‘indoor’ flea markets.  Critters attend both in July.  And.

            It’s the ‘and’ I nuance.  Foremost, understand that in July (and year round for that matter) a ‘flea market’ is not only considered a safe haven to appear in public for a Maine Critter but is also a sort of dock in the ‘out and about’ world of a Maine Critter that they may, at any time of need ...paddle over to and hold on to when paddling their canoe upon the lake of ‘out and about’.  NOW that may be of little consideration especially if one views the Maine Critter’s world as being socially misfit, miss begot and ...just simply (you) missed (it).  Maine Critters are very sensitive to NOT attracting your attention.  So a “beat ass back to the flea market” is the full blown game plan ‘emergency evacuation route’.  NOT that you’d notice.

            Until we get to the “It’s the ‘and’ I nuance”.

            The Maine Critter’s world view includes a heavy view value placed on ‘food’... notably ‘bear bait’ food such as cookies, donuts, breads, breads filled with anything, breads made by farmer’s daughters neatly wrapped with little handmade labels saying ‘what it is’ including the visual support of a big gob of homemade ‘her raspberry jam’...  And...:

            Pie.

            In July

            Rhubarb pie.

            No ‘Rhubarb and’ pie.  JUST

            RHUBARB

            PIE.

But the nuance is the source... of the bear bait offerings:  “Farmer’s Markets”, so called... and often found suspiciously (conveniently) close to a ‘flea market’.  This, applied to the ‘paddle to’ dock denoted above, allows the Maine Critter an irresistible ‘drawn to’ bear bait trap that forges, as a blacksmith hammers a horseshoe on an anvil, a singular world of Maine Critter notice.  These old critters and the farmer’s market farmer’s daughters have a mutual border world they share, inclusive of the ‘known-to-critters’ denotation that the critters “ogle” a bit too.  But the nuance

            Is the Rhubarb Pie

            In July. (“Is she still making ‘em?”)

            I won’t go so far as to say “I SEE” a whole rhubarb pie ‘set out’ in a truck cab for a “MISTER WILLARD WHEN HE COMES BY YOU KNOW HE (can talk with wild ducks he says)”.  Mr. Willard has five shirts on

            In July.

            But he also brought along a little ‘witch stick’ he whittled himself and that ends up sitting on the truck seat when he leaves.  His cash payment for the “He buys one from me every week” pie is always “put in her pocket I watch her do that”.  I said ‘ogle’ above.  “I’ve always liked milk maids” Mister Willard told me once.

            It’s a special relationship, now quite common in Maine... at flea markets and farmer’s markets:  Critters and local baked goods.  “Coffee” is another ‘plus’.  Yes, Mister Willard and his fellows know a ‘good cup’ of “her coffee”.  They retreat back to the flea market to “eat” and then

            “GO BACK”.

            Yep... the whole damn morning is filled with what I just... it is NOT a ‘five minute deal’.  The critters know who, what, why, how and ‘did she MAKE’ “THIS WEEK”.  They know.  They hunt.  They track.  They sight in.  And don’t get their belly too full for then they don’t shut-up.  And that includes the ‘ogle’.  You can see it coming.  Send in the tow truck and tow the critter away before he...:  “Time for you to go back to camp Mr. Willard.”

            It is a fine line

            But it is real human interaction.  It is not on the cyber space.  It is, too, a mutual fascination.  For example:  What starts as a suggestion that including a ‘strip of bacon’ to go with a broccoli / spinach stuffed “roll” (every baked good, excepting ‘cookie’, ‘donut’ and ‘pie’ is a “roll” to a critter.) ends in a ‘I know those bugs too mine had it I got rid of them with that LAVENDER dish soap the GAL sells down at the WATERFRONT (farmer’s) market”.  You don’t need to understand what they are talking about.  It’s just a couple of Maine Critters chatting at ‘the market’.