When the release of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince was delayed from last Thanksgiving until July, the Potter nerds in my house (myself and my 10 year old daughter) were crushed.
But the wait is over: tonight we saw the film, together with our good friends Michelle and Erica, who co-organized the Book 7 release party in Millerton a few years back. The house was filled with Potter fans -the kind that laugh when a scene begins because they know what's coming, the kind that can recite lines along with their favorite characters. Crying babies and inappropriately talking oldsters were at a minimum, too, thankfully. My own daughter was just about the only one who couldn't stop chattering!
I'll be writing my review in next week's Lakeville Journal, but suffice to say, it was worth the wait.
I confess the Moviehouse isn't my favorite place to see a film - the screen is small, the audio was too quiet, it's always too hot or too cold - but it's our hometown theater and so was the right place to go. We'd thought about going to the city but it was too complicated. I hear Poughkeepsie's got a great theater too, but when I see it again - and I will - I think I'll go for the Imax 3-D experience!
This lineup was for the next show after the one we'd seen- I imagine the crowds will keep coming all week and into the weekend.
The Sharon Center School gym was overflowing today - people standing in the aisle, the hallways and the stairwells to celebrate the life of Kaelan Paton. There were prayers from the bible and from Buddhism, reminiscences, folk songs from the many friends of the Paton clan, tears, laughter, and this glorious performance of "I'll Fly Away" by the incomparable Wanda Houston, accompanied by just about everyone in the audience.
But the most wonderful part was when one of Kaelan's teachers read an essay he had written last year as he was graduating from eighth grade. He reflected, with wisdom and wit, on his realization that school wasn't a waste of time - that learning the multiplications tables had a purpose. His purpose on this earth was manifold: to bring people together, to promote love and social justice, and finally, to save the life of another. As one of the many singers said to Kaelan's siblings, 'your relationship with him doesn't end, it's just different." That's the thought I will hold on to for the day.
Just an extra photo to go with Darren's shop - I hadn't originally planned to post this but when I looked at it again I thought it was kind of cool - each pane is so different, and one could even interpret them as each representing something different and wonderful about the shop: Darren himself, old documents (in frames); books, and the Sharon Green - the loveliness of the town itself.
They're not open yet but any day now...real southern barbecue in our little New England town. The late lamented Little Brick House became Cafe Tazza last year - briefly. Now it's been empty for several months. But work began a few weeks ago, and the sign, designed and made by my friend Todd Tufts - call him if you need a sign! -- went up last week. The storefront is tiny, but he's doing the cooking outside in a huge smoker, which makes more room inside to eat.
There is another bbq in the area - West Cornwall has a wonderful one. But it feels so far away - I've only been there once. I'm sure I'll be at this one at least weekly!
Sharon has two new businesses to brag about. Darren Winston has opened a rare book shop in the space that until recently was occupied by Byzance (which in turn has moved to Salisbury.) I peeped in the window yesterday and hope to stop in soon. The other one is not open yet but I'll show it to you tomorrow.
For the first time in years we went INTO Lime Rock Park to see the fireworks. I got yelled at last year by someone from the Salisbury Rotary for watching from outside the park, and I understand that they raise money for scholarships from the admission fees. But when my kids were little it was just way too loud to watch them up close. This year my 10 year old and her cousin braved it, and we had a blast. They were beautiful - much more varied and interesting than when I was a kid. Multiple colors, curly twisty shapes - all around spectacular.
Lots is going on in Sharon these days -- stay tuned!
Lakeville Lake, the night of the Grove Festival. I wish I could have just climbed into that boat, rowed out into the middle of the lake and floated there all evening...
A Capoeira troupe was one of the highlights of the 20th annual Grove Festival. A Mexican dance band, a collegiate acapella troupe, and of course the wonderful Joint Chiefs, filled out the evening. We filled up on pasta pesto and cherries, wine and beer, and visits with good friends and friendly acquaintances. And the weather was just perfect, all night long.
And have we ever needed it - a day of sunshine (mostly) after 20 straight days of rain, a day of fun and festivities after week of sadness. Today was the First Annual Sharon Triathlon (I'll post photos and a race report at my other blog, Jennys Tri-Di
I'll also post some photos of the annual Grove Festival put on by Project Troubador - our favorite event of the summer. Find those here tomorrow.
So many in Sharon and the northwest corner are grieving today. We have lost a child - all of us have. We all raise each other's children, don't we? When they come over to our houses, when we feed them a snack or give them a ride to ballet or soccer, when the older ones babysit the younger ones and we chat with them before we drive them home. We impart our values, we look out for their wellbeing, we listen, we show them we care. And when one of them dies, as happened yesterday, we grieve as if it was our own flesh and blood.
In the eyes of a friendly neighbor and family friend, Kaelan was a remarkably kind and thoughtful boy - talented, creative, very smart like all his sisters. His last act was right in character: leaping into a raging river to save a friend in danger.
I admire his mom, Catherine, for her public comments today on Facebook and in the Lakeville Journal: she is showing gratitude and positivity - looking for was to bring the community together, as she always has. I hope I would do the same.
From what I can gather, and as happens time and again in our community, people have worked hard - beyond hard - to help, carrying on the search long after the officials had given up. I know others will come forward to help the family in the days to come - with casseroles and kind words, and by being a calm and caring friend, a good listener, at the saddest time. We will bear this together, remember Kaelan together, help each other together.
At first glance it looks like Mrs. Goose is hosting a party at the table. Only if you look closely to you see the upside-down boots and other items that don't fit the theme.
And of course, Mrs. Goose is probably destined to be the main course at someone else's party, sooner or later. But she'll have lived a life of dignity, with fresh air and freedom, until that day comes.
I visited Dom Palumbo's organic farm in Sheffield last week. He raises sheep, pigs and cows, and a wide variety of the most beautiful vegetables - purple potatoes, hard-neck garlic - everything perfect and precious - and delicious. I'll post pictures of the farm in the next few days.
There is a dairy farm on Route 22, a couple of miles south of Millerton. Mid-afternoon, the cows cross the road, and everyone stops and waits. Here's the cow parade.
The cute kids are not the point of the parade - the veterans are. But this picture was so cute and so representative of our wonderful local parade that I couldn't resist making it the main photo of the day. There were veterans, firemen and fire trucks, local teams and scouting troops, and lots of vintage cars and other cool vehicles. I don't know why, exactly, (are we supposed to remember the cars of days gone by? If so, I remember you, '76 Chevy Impala that died on the Lodge Freeway when I forgot to check the oil!) but it makes for a longer and more festive parade!
Whenever I go up to Twin Oaks Field I make sure to look in all directions - it's beautiful no matter where you stand. A cloud was moving across the sun as I watched, leaving half the field in shadow and half illuminated.
I think I've completed the series now - winter, spring, summer and fall (enter "Twin Oaks" in the 'search blog' field to find them all and more.). The new leaves were still bright and pale yesterday morning, but the grass in the field is already tall. I forgot to check myself for ticks afterwards - bad idea!
I don't usually use this blog to express opinions on controversies, and I know I might be getting myself into hot water by this post. I know I am in the minority on this subject, and I welcome any who disagree with me or have other points of view to post them here. Keep it collegial, no personal attacks - I've tried hard to be respectful of other points of view here while still being true to my own.
Something under 10% of the voting public showed up at Town Hall last night to vote on the town and school budget. That's my off the cuff estimate - it looked like about 150 people, standing room only. I have never gone to one before, but I'll never miss one again: it's where all the action is.
I had received anxious emails from various acquaintances for the last few weeks, urging me to go vote no on the budget. Some contained statements such as this one, and I paraphrase: "if the school budget passes, taxes will go up so much that several people I know personally will have to leave town." As I understood it, the opposite was true: the school budget had no impact on taxes at all, and quite the contrary: if it didn't pass, several school teachers or staff, residents of Sharon, would likely lose their jobs.
Not that the school did a particularly good job of making their case, either. No letters home to parents, no email bulletins laying out the rationale for the budget, no letter to the editor explaining why it was appropriate to give staff 4% raises when town staff were only getting 2% - which seemed to be the crux of the issue for many. Or, to be fair, maybe all those things happened and I wasn't paying attention. But I don't think so. In the Webutuck district just over the New York state border, the superintendent writes the parents and community very regularly, explaining his thinking and planning process - it all seems open and transparent. But in Sharon, though I very much respect the administration and think they're doing an excellent job, the communication is not as broad. I guess I better start showing up at Board of Ed meetings!
So my vote was as knee-jerk as the antis: I vote pro-school as a matter of course. Others voted anti-school out of what appeared last night, based on comments I heard, to be anger, fear, resentment or (not to jump to conclusions about people's motivations) their own reasons which I don't (yet) know and understand.
Here's the weird part of last night's vote. The vote was originally supposed to be for the whole budget: town and school together. A motion was made to separate the vote: first town, then school. The town attorney explained, very clearly, that we could indeed decide to do that. However, if one half of the budget was voted down, both would go down. Vote yes to school, no to town: both town and school are defeated. In other words, splitting the vote would have absolutely no purpose. But the motion still passed, overwhelmingly. And as it turned out, while there was no practical purpose to splitting the vote in two, there was a huge symbolic one: the town budget passed by roughly 70/30, and the school budget went down by almost the same margin. So a protest was clearly registered - people were unhappy with the school.
While waiting for the vote to be tallied, we got to consider and vote on such items as cemetery maintenance, a new dog pound, and a waste oil recycling thingy at the town garage. Passions ran high on all the issues, though the reasons for those passions weren't always clear. One fellow (known to all in the room) argued that we don't need a dog pound, a 12-gauge shotgun will do just as well, and wondered why a town should bother maintaining its cemeteries. Another had a huge issue with the way the cemetery funds were being handled, though exactly what his issue was became no clearer after quite a few minutes of speaking.
I appreciated some aspects of the way it was all run. The moderator kept his sense of humor. The attorney was calm and clear. The first selectman explained his budget items well. And everyone got to say their piece, but unlike in informal arguments, they only got to say it once and then had to sit down and be quiet.
There's another interesting aspect to all of this, and it gets back to the "Democracy in Action" theme. My instinct is to respect the hard work of the board of finance, selectmen, and board of ed and support the research, hard work and decisionmaking process that went on behind the scenes. But I know that kind of blind trust can lead down the road to ruin - I should dig deeper and question authority. Even if some of the people objecting were coming from perspectives with which I disagree, or had their facts wrong, or argued ridiculous positions like 'shoot all the stray dogs' - it's still critical that everyone shows up, asks all the questions, makes all their arguments, and demands facts and accountability.
We'll have another chance to vote on the budget in due course, and meanwhile we are all still neighbors - we all still say a friendly hi to each other in the grocery store post office.
So here's what I'm wondering. Should I run for first selectman?
I'm not having much luck in the seed-starting department. I started a bunch in March in the basement under shop lights, as I have every year for at least a dozen years. Nothing has changed about my setup, the temperature or anything else - but nothing grew. I suspected mice, so when the weather got a little warmer, I started over, on the screen porch (it's got storm windows so I figured even tender plants like zinnias would be fine as long as the temp didn't drop into the 20's. Kind of like a cold frame.)
I'd mostly given up on things that needed to be started very early, and bought tomatoes and peppers from Paley's. (I'm sure I'll buy more from Sol Flower at the Millerton Farmer's Market, too!)
But yesterday I went to look at this tray and saw that bunches of the sprouts had been decapitated. No mouse droppings, so I'm not sure who's the culprit. The cat? (But she didn't eat the seedling, just slice it off and leave the leaves sitting on the dirt.) Very frustrating!
The kids' run in the Sharon Classic yesterday. My daughter ran for the first time and (permit me a mommy brag here) finished fifth, in 6:33 - for a MILE. That's about twice as fast as my pace in the 5 mile race. She's not a runner - or at least hasn't been one before but maybe she's got talent!
Once again the race was a great Sharon event - cloudy and cool at first, then sunny and gorgeous, it seemed sparsely attended at first but I think in the end it had its usual complement of about 100 or so runners, plus quite a few walkers and the usual tots' fun run and kids 1-mile-ish run. Bake sale, silent auction, bouncy house, all to benefit Sharon Day Care. The same cast of characters always shows up and runs, and everyone supports everyone else, fast, slow (hello) or in between.
And a shout-out to the event organizers: I have run in a LOT of races in the last few years - this one has the BEST support and organization!
This time of year, it's all about the soft grays and greens, punctuated by the bright blooms of the spring-flowering bulbs. I'm interested in exploring some new aesthetics in my photography - less about sharpness and contrast and more about mood and subtlety.
Driving up Route 41 yesterday to Canaan (to get my fingerprints taken at the police barracks!) I passed a sign on the Salisbury Garden Center saying "Pansies are In!" I wait eagerly every year for the pansies so stopped in on my way back south to pick up a flat.
I tried to start some myself this year but neither they, nor anything else I have going in my basement, have sprouted. This has never happened to me before! Fresh seed, fresh potting mix, new flats (so no bacteria) regular watering...no heat, and maybe my lights are getting old...can't think of any other reason why they haven't sprouted.
Yesterday the forecast said, high 50's and sunny. Instead, it was mid-40's, cloudy and rainy. Heartbreaking! Yet the crocuses in our garden are glowing, a few daffodils have popped open, and these pansies...heartbreakingly beautiful, aren't they?
There are so many reasons to restart this blog - spring is here, and everything's starting to look less grey and brown and dreary. There's always a lot going on - I missed Maplefest last weekend, but there's always something else to do! On the other hand, there are so many people writing and blogging online about this area now - when I started three years ago I was just about the only one. Now the Lakeville Journal is on Facebook, (along with a dozen or more active groups just in the corner) Terry has his blog, Rick has his, and Gretchen just started a wonderful one. There's Rural Intelligence, A Way to Garden, and on and on! Not sure if mine is needed now...maybe I'll evolve this into something else.
Meanwhile, I took a bunch of pictures at Sharon Center School's spirited production of Once Upon A Mattress. Bravo to all!
My daughters and I took a hike up Bash Bish yesterday but didn't get far - the trail was iced over and we didn't have good grippy boots. They didn't mind, but my tailbone is still sore from a fall last weekend so I didn't want to take the risk. I took a few photos and called it a day. As we were heading down, a young fellow heading up with a tripod and big SLR was going up. I wonder if he made it to the top - I bet it was gorgeous.
If we leave the porch door open, sometimes we return to find the porch filled birds flapping around trying to get out through the closed window. This Junco (and a tree sparrow, I think) were caught this morning. It's pretty easy to corner them and gently grab them - and I can never resist trying to snap a quick portrait. They wait patiently til I'm done, and then fly away, unharmed. I could feel its tiny heart racing against my fingertips. Bad exposure, so grainy - but I didn't want to fiddle with the camera too long!
It's been way too cold to go outside and take pictures - below zero, most mornings for the last week. Today it's a balmy 18 degrees! We've had snow upon snow, everything is just lovely!
Not Sharon - no, I took a day trip to the city and walked from train station to meeting to library to theater, including through Madison Square park, which always has something interesting going on. This month, there are a bunch of treehouses, by Japanese artist Tadashi Kawamata. According to the park's website the tree houses are "a crystallization of Kawamata’s interest in the architecture of shelter and of the insertion of private objects into public spaces as a method of renegotiating the meaning of both."
Last night, my amazing daughter and husband went skiing in what seemed like the dead of night - it was 6 when they left and nearly 10 when they got home, glowing and delighted. It was the first outing of the season - at last, after illness, rain, scheduling problems and every other obstacle had kept them away from the slopes. My husband had bought his first ever pair of skis, and said they rode like a dream, but he still couldn't keep up with my nearly-10-year-old daughter, who, on her rented pair, just flies down the mountain.
My neighbor, Paul, has another winter sport - snowshoeing, which he was doing as I happened to be walking by.
Kate M. sent me a perfect poem to go with yesterday's picture (and the whole year, I think!) - Thanks, Kate!
"Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost
Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay
