Remnants of past lives

Remnants of past lives
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

A fallen cedar fence post; a small stone pile. Tha sandy soil and short growing season made for little chance of agricultural success here. To me, the agricultural landscape of the people who came before is is very poignant. As the fences decay leaving only a row of scraggy bushes and trees--as the barns fall, more and more of them each year, we get farther and farther from evidence of those difficult lives which nourished so much of American competence and inventiveness.
Little circles of pale green lichen make lace upon these stones. What is my accomplishment?

Three Stones

Three Stones
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

I remember reading somewhere that a stack of three stones is not an accident. Someone placed them there; it carries some meaning. But I cannot find this in my notes or anyplace else. This particular stack has been here quite some time and has attracted some handsome lichen ornamentation. When I was in high school, I would have said "Lih-chen" because no one had ever said the word around me; I had only read it. No one taught me much natural history. My folks had both grown up in southern Arizona, and didn't know the local plants. I never had any course in any kind of natural history, with the possible of a few things in the crowded "Biology" course in the tenth grade. Which also covered (sort of) reproduction and single-celled animals. I had no idea that people watched birds, or studied wildlife or plants of any kind. I think it was the major flaw in my education. In college, I filled my "science" requirement with a year of chemistry, which was very interesting, but sort of inanimate, compared to wildlife study.
Good night, little idol of standing stones. It reminds me of a cartoon badger--standing upright and looking at you.

Young trees on the old fence row

Young trees on the olf fence row
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

The fallen fence post is at the lower right. We have taken up a lot of the barbed wire, but not all of it. The larger tree in the photo reminds me of a nurse, or governess, for the smaller one, which looks like it might be frail, yet determined, and perhaps a little scatterbrained. It is easy to personify trees and it does take my mind briefly away from politics or world economics.
I can make these short fictions, but the focus required to write a novel is almost unimaginable to me. Today I got two more of William Maxwell's books from online bookstores. Now I am trying to decide which one to read first. Guess I'll go get started! Good night.

Mist: autumn morning

Mist: autumn morning
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

I have named these young maples the Three Sisters. They have grown so much since we came here. After some large Quaking Aspens blew over, they are claiming the space and the sunlight outside the back door.
Many mornings now, we have a heavy mist which hangs on until well after sunrise. It gives everything a special glow.

At the turning

At the turning
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

Meaning, pattern, form and authenticity

At this time of year, the layered arrangement of the limbs of the untrammeled maple becomes ever more clear. I have been reading William Maxwell and would like to quote him. William Maxwell is a favorite writer of mine. He is the author of many novels, the earliest of which was published in 1938. He was also the fiction editor at the New Yorker for forty years. This is what Howard Moss says about him on the back cover of The Outermost Dream, a collection of his work from which the excerpt below is taken, “As for life in general, one need merely read him. The least flashy of writers, a writer’s writer, he is controlled and reserved, and yet magical at the same time. He has been a master of fiction for almost fifty years.”

“I was never asked to deal with a work of fiction [to review it for the New Yorker] and if I had been I would have said no. Too much of a busman’s holiday. Also, after you have said whether it does or does not have the breath of life, what standards are you going to invoke when confronted with a thing that, like a caterpillar, consumes whatever is at hand? A long narrative requires impersonation, hallucinating when you don’t know the answer, turning water into wine, making a silk purse out of a string of colored scarves and extracting a white rabbit from a sow’s ear, knowing how and when to hold the carrot in front of the donkey’s nose, and sublime confidence. “The house was full of that poetic atmosphere of dullness and silence which always accompanies the presence of an engaged couple.” That sort of thing will keep any reader from escaping out the side door. But diaries, memoirs, published correspondence, biography and autobiography—which are what I was asked to consider—do not spring from prestidigitation or require a long apprenticeship. They tell what happened—what people said and did and wore and ate and hoped for and were afraid of, and in detail after often unimaginable detail they refresh our idea of existence and hold oblivion at arm’s length. Looked at broadly, what happened always has meaning, pattern, form, and authenticity. One can classify, analyze, arrange in the order of importance, and judge any or all of these things, or one can simply stand back and view the whole with wonder."
from the introductory note to The Outermost Dream; essays and reviews.

The Brave Little Seedling

The Brave Little Seedling
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

If you look closely, you can see the conifer seeding that has sprouted in the sawn-off-close-to-the-ground stump at the edge of the trail. The Waldron Fen is a nature preserve. Many years ago, the former owner planned a Christmas tree farm and planted a variety of native and non-native conifers. I don't think a single Christmas tree was ever sold. Left to themselves, the pines and firs are becoming a forest cathedral. On a recent Saturday, we walked through the tall slender (overplanted) trees on a soft carpet of fallen needles. This was something I saw; it's not terribly pretty, but it is encouraging.

Beginning of autumn

Beginning of autumn
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

Both these maples grow along the old fence line. This same hedgerow also has two beautiful Serviceberry or Juneberry trees that bear beautiful white blooms in early spring. It makes me smile about birds sitting on the fence and digesting juneberries. It makes me think about hedgerows, what springs up there, and the wildlife they support, particularly on land like this that was marginal for farming. (Too cold here, too sandy.)
One afternoon last summer I noticed that the Juneberry tree in the east meadow seemed to be flipping its limbs or thrashing about. But it was a perfectly still day. I got my binoculars. A pair of Rose-breasted grosbeaks were feeding on the berries, and so was a squirrel. He worked his way out to the end of a branch and sort of swung on it, like a too-heavy Christmas ornament. When he reached the end of the branch, he swung down and transitioned to another branch. The grosbeaks moved around him and worked where he was not. The next day, when I walked out to the tree, I couldn't see a single red berry, although I had spotte quite a bit of red with my binoculars. I've read that early farm women made jelly from the berries, but I don't know how they got them in time. And I haven't tasted a single one.