Every few years I seem to crave the time and patience required to put together a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle. The one pictured above is my current project, a collage of various scenes from Jane Austen’s novels. Many characters people the scene and a guide to each is supplied in case there is any difficulty identifying anyone.

For the first time I am using a puzzle board covered with felt that can be propped at an angle making bending over less tiring. It also keeps the puzzle out of reach of the puppy who would be only too happy to devour one or more parts. Since she has become very stealthy I might not notice until the very end of the construction when I discovered a hole in the array.

I tend to work in little parts as you can see, and sometimes those need to be connected to other finished segments. I have found a serious drawback to the felt; it is impossible to easily slide sections together. However the tilt is easier on my back, so on balance the board is an improvement.

Putting together a jigsaw puzzle can’t be rushed. Careful attention to each piece means focus and calm. Periodically being drawn to assemble one lets me know that at any given time I must need both.

High summer has arrived with lots of alternating rain and sun. This combination has allowed the backyard to flourish. Here the upper right corner fills with Charlie’s blueberry farm. The grape arbor peeks out of the top left corner. The raspberries emerge on the middle left. Perennials abound all around the yard. Charlie salvaged the bricks forming the walkways from various derelict factory buildings. The hand made picket fence separates the dog back yard from the people back yard. Needless to say, the dog back yard doesn’t merit a photo.

The window on the south side of our upstairs hallway, complete with a cushioned window seat, provides this view every day. A real balm for my spirits each morning.

Since we emerged from Covid and resumed a normal driving pattern we are constantly dealing with all manner of reckless drivers. From people running red lights to drivers acting as if the highway was a life size model of a car racing video game, something seems to be changing on the roads here. So much anger has erupted that the new phrase “road rage” was coined to explain (excuse?) fights over driving.

I was reflecting on this yesterday and realized that the highways are one of the few places where we are amidst many other people and are expected to share the road with them. It is possible to avoid stores by having packages delivered, to never enter a religious gathering, to watch one’s own media device, to have one’s own bedroom and to use one’s own phone.

Sharing doesn’t seem innate as anyone who has had more than one child can attest. Still, over the years in constant encounters we do learn that we can’t always have our own way. Most of us shared rooms, phones, televisions and trips to the store. We unconsciously honed our sharing and patience skills. Both serve us well on crowded highways.

Unfortunately this awareness on my part won’t change others’ daredevil driving. That person behind me at a stop that says “No turn on red” will continue to honk at my compliance as I wait for the green. The video game racers will keep on startling me as they zoom around my car. All I can do is remain alert. My defensive driving skills are definitely being honed!

As I have written before, in late spring we buy a share from our local farm as participants in CSA(consumer supported agriculture.) Beginning in late June and continuing through October we receive a bag full of the bounty. But we are well aware that in the contract it states:

“We are committed to provide you with the highest quality products but there are risks in agriculture (Mother Nature’s whims, disease, pests, etc) that need to be shared by the whole community.”

Last summer’s drought reduced some vegetable yields but produced an overwhelming number of hot peppers. This year’s flooding, seen above, will impact the farm in ways they can’t yet predict. Having a stake in the farm has made me more aware of the challenges facing the farmers each year. Additionally the seasonal workers are affected. The farms here have regular workers, treasured for their skill and work habits, that come each year to work the land. Being unable to provide for them deeply affects the farm owners. They know that the money earned supports families in Mexico and Central America. They are not faceless “migrants” but valued employees.

The Connecticut River valley has long supported farms, but flooding in July is a disaster for the record books. While the River floods each spring after the thaw it is before planting time. In this challenging time perhaps some fields can be replanted. Others are so contaminated by the flood water’s chemicals and sewage they will sit idle. We will continue to share our portion of the loss.

The Connecticut River, a few blocks from our home, drains a large section of New England on its way to the Long Island Sound. While our towns didn’t get the flooding of Vermont, our river is overflowing it banks. Here it fills our local park.

Nestled among the fall blooming asters I spied a 6 inch tall volunteer sunflower. Eventually I discovered that it was actually blooming at the end of a sturdy stalk lying woven between the asters. But first I was delighted at the idea that somehow a very short sunflower decided to show up before the later mammoth ones now sprouting.

Height challenged appears to be the new way to say “short.” While I reached the average American female height of 5’4″, it took me a long time–until I was seventeen–to get there. For many years I was distinctly short. It proved to my benefit in elementary school since we were assigned seats according to height and I always ended up in the front rows. This obscured my need for glasses which wasn’t discovered until eighth grade. I was astonished to learn at that point that the stars hadn’t disappeared from the night sky, I just hadn’t been able to spot them!

I was particularly challenged by needing clothing for teenagers but still fitting girls’ outfits. Fortunately I was not alone among the baby boomers, and manufacturers came out with “junior petite” sizing. Petite seemed to be a polite way to say “short.”

Before I end up going on a rant about the ways I am now supposed to describe heretofore normal observations such as fat, short, pudgy, scrawny, and skinny I best quit while I am somewhat ahead. Still I wonder what was gained by dictating a change in our vocabularies. I was still short (and a little skinny!)

Our store of frozen blueberries finally gone, Charlie strung even tougher mesh around his large blueberry patch hoping to keep the hungry birds out. Somehow we have never managed to steer them away from the garden to the luscious bird feeders hung just for them. The outer barrier has held so far, and only one robin and one starling have found their way into the crop.

However when he went out to pick berries he found several bushes looking poorly, including one that looked as if it had been sucked dry. Looking more closely, he found hundreds of the above pictured critters. Thanks to his camera phone and Google, he quickly identified the culprit as a box elder bug.

We avoid all pesticides in our yard to keep our dogs and birds safe, so we were quite concerned to be confronted with our first infestation by a new predator.(I have been wanting to use “infestation” for a long time in a post. Not sure what that says about me!) To Charlie’s delight, a simple mixture of water and dish soap sprayed on the bugs kills them quickly. Off he went, a warrior on the advance. He returned triumphant having begun to decimate the hoard. (Another great heretofore unused verb!)

Now we just need to remember to rinse the soap off before we freeze the new bounty.

I somehow missed the memo that grandchildren grow up even faster than children! Life is teaching me anyway. My grandchildren are now teenagers, and only my stored photos and clear memories remind me of their births and early childhood. Fortunate to live very near these kids, I nonetheless am startled by how tall they have become. How did that happen? I can understand the response of my own grandparents to our changes since we only saw them every few years. (And of course there was no Facetime!) Somehow, though, I thought proximity would allow fewer jolts.

A New York filmmaker, Jay Rosenblatt, assigned himself a task of video interviewing his daughter each birthday from two to eighteen. He chose to wait until the series was done to view and edit the material. He has released it in a 28 minute film How Do You Measure A Year? I don’t know if it is distributed worldwide. I viewed it on HBO a paid platform. Trailers are available on line for free if you want a glimpse of the project.

Watching his lovely daughter grow, abandon her curls and her ebullience for long hair and a contemplative mien illustrated my own experiences in parenting and grandparenting. I don’t have nostalgia for the early years; the challenges are too clear in my mind. But there is a bittersweet sense watching the film and reflecting on my own life. For a brief time being a grandparent allows us to enjoy infancy and early childhood without being parents. But it too speeds by, just as the first time seemed to.

This poignant film captures the progression with care and love mirroring my own experiences.

I just finished listening to Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese. His previous novel, Cutting for Stone is one of my favorites, and I had looked forward to this new one. Set in southwest India, it, like The Great Reclamation, spans many years as it traces one extended family. At 31 hours, the book took many evenings to complete. This audiobook was read by the author, which made me cherish the language and the sounds of the places. I just bought the book itself to reread, now knowing how to pronounce all the words.

My blog title quote from e.e. cummings reads “somewhere I have never traveled, gladly beyond any experience.” I chose the phrase since it accurately describes the broadening of my reading since I began blogging. Knowing people around the world has made me curious about those places. Even though I have never been to Singapore or India, my readers either have been or live there. That makes the locations feel more personal to me, and I want to immerse myself in them through fiction.

The experience parallels my relationship with U.S. history. Throughout school I struggled to remember dates. Once I began doing family genealogy the dates became easy to connect to actual relatives. I even began to understand the meaning of other historic events as when I learned of my forebear fighting for Cromwell and being “awarded” an Irish estate. “Anglo-Irish,” a phrase I had learned when studying Yeats, now had a specific meaning for me.

I would love to know of other novels that will take me “gladly beyond my experience.” Please share.

While I am unclear where I first heard of the novel The Great Reclamation, I am glad to have read it this past week. Set in a small fishing village outside Singapore, the novel moves from the early twentieth century when it was occupied by Britain, through the Japanese occupation, to the fights over its future, to its final iteration as a self-ruled republic. Focusing on two characters the novel deftly contrasts various responses to “progress.”

Sometimes I am grateful for learning about a part of the world about which I knew next to nothing. Sadly my only knowledge of Singapore was that it outlawed chewing gum. Others may have a more solid underpinning when they approach the novel. While the writing itself is adequate, I didn’t find it as lyrical or well phrased as much fiction I read. But the book made up for that by introducing me to the “great reclamation.”

At a time when land all along our coastlines is disappearing into the ocean, in stark contrast the project undertaken in Singapore during the last century was to create land. Immense amounts of sand was used to fill in wetlands and create “solid” land for factories, housing, airports and businesses. I was and remain intrigued by the determination to create what wasn’t there to fulfill dreams of how it “should” be.

Of course the same focus has dominated much of the history of the United States. From damming of rivers, filling in wetlands, strip mining mountains, and building houses on beach cliffs, humans seem determined to try to transform nature into man made ideals. The novel helpfully allows us to consider the cost on both the environment and the people. Here we seem to keep calling floods and landslides “acts of God.” I think God is getting scapegoated!