Foothills Folly

It wasn’t planned to coincide with the beginning of spring,  it just happened. Old things in the backyard got up-rooted and carted away. First the old truck, kind of sad to see it go:

Next was the manure spreader, race car shell, and old snow-mobile cases. All in a big moosh:

And last was Bean’s vw, which had been acting like a rain-holding cistern for the last four-five years. It’s a toss-up which was the most quaint, the vw or the old truck. Here’s a picture (of his) from last summer, and then today:

Meanwhile the fellow moved a limb, removed some old broken garden machines, a truck cap, a heavy sink, an even heavier old bath-tub, an ancient rusted off-set press, a heavy equally-ancient air conditioner, an old wood stove, and best of all….

…when he left, he put money in my hand!

Sunday seems to be the day to post; today I drove up to Hillsdale to the Book Barn, a wonderful used book store, spent my alloted $20, and went on northward to visit the grave site of Millay. The walk into the woods is open to the public; the house and ‘artist colony’ are not (yet). The walk is marked with bits of her poetry; the woods were cold and quiet, but I really wasn’t expecting this much snow:

There were a few old footprints in the snow and some deer tracks, but the woods had a somber hush befitting the destination; there were NO signs of spring, but the young beeches were gracefully decked in last year’s leaves.

A wonderful rustic bench would be a nice place to read some of her poetry… on a warmer, dryer day.

The headstone for Millay and her husband is literally a large stone, mossy-covered and quite lovely in the snow. Fern fronds (really fern fruiting stalks) had been placed on the stone (I know they are not called fronds, but ‘fern fronds’ has a more poetic sound to it)

Nearby is Edna’s mother’s grave, marked with mountain laurel and an old truly rusting away fence. Very quaint, very restful.

Many of the poems along the half-mile walk were aptly about death, but these stanzas from ‘Portrait by a Neighbor’, 1922, could be my neighbors talking about me:

“Her lawn looks like a meadow,

And if she mows the place

She leaves the clover standing

And the Queen Anne’s Lace!”

The sky was stormy gray, so I stopped on the way home to take yet another picture of the view:

Bits of sun, rain, snow, and what-not today, but still a more spring-like day than a winter-y one. Yeah!