Adult male. © J Young
I thought they’d all left for the season, but as I was cutting some basil in the vegetable garden at sunset I heard the unmistakable sound of a hummingbird — a soft but insistent vroom! noise not unlike that of a toddler playing with a toy car. I turned around, hoping to find it — in the zinnias? among the nasturiums? — but it was already gone. It was almost as if it had come to say goodbye. Continue reading
The Bridge of Flowers, Shelburne Falls, MA
In 1908, a 400-foot, five-arch concrete trolley bridge was built to span the Deerfield River between the Massachusetts’ towns of Shelburne Falls and Buckland. Abandoned in 1928 as it became more economical to haul goods by truck, the span was transformed a year later by the Shelburne Falls Woman’s Club into “The Bridge of Flowers.” Continue reading
One of the largest and most beautiful water ways in the Berkshires, the Stockbridge Bowl was originally known as Lake Makeenac which means “home of the Mahekanus,” a tribe of Mohicans whose council fires once burned along its shores. Though the lake is now rimmed with over 450 cottages, Kripalu (the world famous yoga and wellness center), and Tanglewood (summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra), it’s still possible to slip away from it all — preferably by kayak — and float back into what feels like an ancient Indian hunting ground. Continue reading
There comes a moment every summer when I realize that it’s time to let the garden go. Though the phlox is finally coming into its own, and the Japanese anemone and turtleheads have yet to fully flower, I have to face the fact that there’s nothing more I can do to change the course of this particular growing season. The dahlias are never going to reach the height I’d planned on, so their brilliant crimson faces will remain lost in the back row of the border garden. The Prairie Princess roses are still trying to find their footing after the long, brutal winter. The canna lilies didn’t (yet again!) bloom. Continue reading
I prefer growing cherry tomatoes, as opposed to the larger varieties, because they tend to ripen faster and demand a lot less nurturing and support. Surround them with aluminum cages. Throw on a little fertilizer. Pinch back the suckers. And they’re generally good to go. My eight plants this season— four sweet 100s, three sungolds, and a black cherry — all got off to a great start. They shot up during those early warm weeks of June. By the Fourth of July, green marble-size fruit was hanging in clusters from the leafy, four-foot stalks. I remember bemoaning the loss of my lettuces to the woodchuck invasion, but declaring with confidence: “At least we’ll have a bumper crop of tomatoes this summer.” Continue reading
I thought of Deborah Digges this week and her hauntingly beautiful poem ‘Telling the Bees.’ I’ve loved this poem for many years without — as is often the case with poetry — really understanding what it is about. At first read, it seems that the father of a middle daughter has died and that for some reason it’s her job to let the bees know about his passing. But the circumstances mattered far less to me than the music of the language itself: “the honey darkening in the bitter years/the combs like funeral lace or wedding veils/ steeped in oak gall and rainwater/ sequined of rent wings.” Continue reading
Last weekend we drove over to Monterey, Mass. where, years ago, we had spent many happy summers. The old brown-shingled Cape we rented there was a mile or so down the road from Rawson Brook Farm which makes and sells Monterey Chèvre cheese. We used to walk from our place to the farm at least once a week along one of the prettiest stretches in the Berkshires. Nothing much has changed. New Marlborough Road still meanders past fields of corn flowers and goldenrod, over a brook, up a hill lined with ancient maples, and down into a long valley. Follow the road over the brook again and there off to the left, you’ll see a herd of American Alpine goats, sunning themselves in a paddock. Continue reading
Eastern Black Swallowtail
Some time ago I noticed that my fennel bush was crawling with caterpillars. They had distinctive green, yellow, and black stripes in a dot and dash formation somewhat like Morse code. Despite the fact that they were devouring my fennel fronds with glutonous ferocity, I found them quite pretty. When I took one down to Ward’s Nursery in Great Barrington and mentioned that I’d found it on the fennel, it was identified as the caterpillar of the Eastern Black Swallowtail butterfly which feeds off anything in the carrot family — parsley, dill, Queen Anne’s Lace, fennel, and anise. In fact, its western counterpart is called the Anise Swallowtail because — well — I think I’ve established its eating preferences. Continue reading
The new Clark Center designed by Tadeo Ando
We drove up to see the enlarged and renovated Clark Art Institute in Williamstown recently. It had just reopened after ten years of planning and construction, and we were eager to explore the new Clark Center designed by the Japanese architect Tadao Ando. We were just as excited by the prospect of visiting the many wonderful works in the permanent Clark collection — paintings which had become old friends over the years — that had been out of view during the renovation. The Museum Building which houses the collection had been totally refurbished by the New York architect Annabelle Selldorf. Along with all this, we’d read that the entire 140-acre Clark property had been reconfigured — 1,000 trees planted, woodlands protected, new footpaths installed. Continue reading
Rodgers Book Barn in Hillsdale, New York
One of my most prized possessions is a map that the poet John Ashbery drew for me many years ago on the back of an old business card. This was at the end of a long celebratory dinner — the purpose of which I’ve now forgotten — and a great deal of wine had been consumed. Though almost illegible, the map provides directions to Rodgers Book Barn in the Columbia County town of Hillsdale. “It’s a wonderful place,” Ashbery assured me when he learned I had a home not far away. “You must go there.” Continue reading
There’s nothing like a daylily to remind us that life is both fleeting and beautiful. The flowers of the Hemerocallis — which literally means “day” and “beautiful” in Greek — last only 24 hours. The bright orange flutes of yesterday are withered like spent party balloons today, often drooping from the same flower stalk as the new day’s fresh-faced offering. The center of the flower is called its “throat” and is a different, contrasting color than the rest of the plant. Shaped like a trumpet, the daylily embodies the ancient imperative: carpe diem! Continue reading
I was raised in the unenlightened days when lettuce came in one variety: iceberg (and this was well before its recent haute cuisine revival). So my first taste of arugula was something of a culinary awakening. It was the summer of 1980, and my future husband and I had been invited to lunch at the home of friends of his in the Berkshires. I have no memory of what else was served, but between the main course and dessert, a plate of bright, leafy greens, dressed in a lemon and olive oil vinaigrette, was placed in front of me. With the first crunchy, peppery bite I was forced to ask myself, as Gershwin so memorably put it: “How Long Has This Been Going On?” Continue reading
This is the time of year when Queen Anne’s Lace flowers in drifts of white across the open fields and along the roadsides of the Berkshires. An immigrant from Europe, this biennial was supposedly named for Queen Anne of Great Britain. The pinpoint of purply red at the center of each white flower is said to represent the droplet of blood left by Queen Anne when she pricked herself making lace. It’s a pretty name, in any case, and a nice story, and I hope nothing is taken away from the romance of it to report that the “droplet of blood” is actually a pigment called anthocyanin which acts as an insect magnet. Continue reading
I thought I’d made my peace with them. It hadn’t been easy. Six years ago, a woodchuck family set up a compound on our property. They burrowed tunnels in the mowing field, behind a rotting log near the compost heap, and (appropriately enough) under the woodpile beside my writing studio. From time to time while I was working, I’d be overcome with the eerie sensation that I was being watched. I’d turn in my chair, and there, staring at me through the screen door with an unblinking and quizzical expression would be a woodchuck. They looked cute, I’ve got to give them that, waddling around in their little fur coats, galumphing across the lawn, sitting up on their chubby hind legs as they nibbled this or that piece of the landscape. Continue reading
