Dreaming of Summer

In 2013 Charlie and I went to the National Song and Dance Festival in Riga, Latvia.

The festival, which is held every five years, has a rich history starting in the early 19th Century and continuing through many decades of occupation and political upheaval including the Soviet Occupation of 1944 to 1991.  The movie The Singing Revolution memorializes the effect of a similar festival in strengthening and consolidating national fervor and accelerating the end of the Soviet Occupation in neighboring Estonia.

Our 2013 experience at the festival did not just enrich our lives but has affected our conversation and relationship since then.  I doubt that a week has gone by since then when we have not discussed the event and anticipated the return trip in 2018.  I often fall asleep listening to Dod, Dievini.  My CD player often has Auli in it which can be quite startling to people who innocently climb into my passenger seat and hear bagpipes at full volume coming from the speakers.  As Charlie writes or does research his sound track is often Laplesis.  A rock opera so moving, that even though we could not understand a word, we had tears rolling down our cheeks.

Yesterday tickets went on sale for the 2018 festival.  The sale began at 11 a.m. Eastern European Time and, judging by Twitter and Facebook, we were not the only Americans up in the wee hours of the morning trying to buy tickets.

It took close to 8 hours in an on-line queue but we managed to get tickets to two events.  We were hoping for more, but there was definitely more competition for tickets in 2018 than there was in 2013.  That year, Charlie just woke up early, easily logged in, and purchased tickets for all the events.  No matter how many ticketed events we can attend, the music and the dance are in the air and in the street and we will have a wonderful time in this little country that looks like a fairy tale, but is and, always has been, in such peril.

Shagg Crag - the first hike of Spring

One of my projects for 2016 is a weather blanket.  I started crocheting on New Years Day and stitch a row every day based on the temperature.  Every 10 degree increment has a different shade.  Anything over 60 degrees, takes me out of the blues of winter and into shades of green.  On Sunday, my stitches took on the second shade of green.  Under sunny skies Charlie and I decided it was time to try out our hiking legs on a relatively easy nearby mountain. 

This mountain is a real favorite of ours, not only is there a beautiful view from the top but 1 mile to the summit and 560 foot elevation gain makes it easy to tackle when there isn't much time or when the hiking muscles have disappeared after a winter binge-watching British mysteries on Netflix. 

The official name of the mountain is Bald Mountain but there are dozens of mountains named Bald in Maine.  This one is Bald Mountain in Woodstock but the local name, Shagg Crag, comes from the vertical cliffs that rise above the north side of Shagg Pond. 

When my kids were teenagers and were climbing every rock they could find, they spent lots of time
with ropes and carabiners on the cliffs.  Our trail, though, follows along the gentle slope on the side of the mountain and passes Little Concord Pond which we found with ice still around the shore and with a lone loon in the center.

Falcons nest in the cliffs and I have been buzzed by an angry one at least once while hiking in the Spring.  In the Summer, the hike leads to a bonanza of wild blueberries and the first time that we discovered this, we emptied our water bottles and filled them with blueberries. 

In the last few years, a windfarm was built on the next ridge but on this still day, not much electricity was being generated. 

We lingered on the top--Charlie took pictures and I sketched.  Mara mostly scared us to death by
getting too close to the cliffs.

On the way down we stopped at the pond and
Mara swam while the loon dove for fish and put on a show.  It's hard not to feel gratitude for every breath and every moment at times like this.

Since we last met

The last post was in June of 2013 but really I have not tended to this space since 2009--life got busy and Facebook made quick updates on my friends' lives quicker and easier.  As wonderful as Facebook is for staying in touch, though, it does not provide the challenge and the opportunity to develop ideas and turn them into words.

So, here I go with words again.

There have been lots of changes in my world since last I blogged.  The one that will be most evident here is that I now live on 120 acres in Sumner, Maine.  My mom and dad were at the age where we needed to think about them living with me or me living with them and since I lived on .4 acre in a small town and they lived on 120 acres in a smaller town, it was a no-brainer. My husband and I had an apartment built in their home so that we have our own space but are still right there with them.

My mother is a flower gardener and the yard is full of beautiful cultivated flowers from May to September.  I am a lover of the wild and natural, so the woods are my playground.  We have about 5 miles of trails throughout the property which is bordered by a river and full of erratic boulders, many different species of trees, moss, lichen, wildflowers, ferns and wildlife.  Most weekends I park my car on Friday night and never leave our little piece of heaven.

Thanks for sharing words, thoughts and lives with me and for listening to mine.

A Day in June

I see skies of blue...clouds of white
Bright blessed days....dark sacred nights
And I think to myself....what a wonderful world.

June in northern New England. 

Maine Maple Sunday 2012

Today is Maine Maple Sunday which means that many of the sugar houses in Maine are open to visitors.  We crossed the Androscoggin River to the Thurston Family Farm in Peru.  One of Charlie's colleagues married into the amazing family whose farm supplies our CSA vegetables, eggs, and maple syrup.   It makes me smile all over to be a consumer of food from my neighborhood--and it makes me smile all over to eat anything with maple butter...............

In the '60's when I was kid, we lived in Western Massachusetts.  As maple syrup season got into full swing, my family would load up our blue dodge station wagon and drive into southern Vermont where the plump, sweet faced wives of maple farmers would ladle hot syrup over cold snow to serve to us--I loved the way the syrup thickened when it hit the cold snow--so yummy.

Yesterday I had a conversation with a young woman knowledgeable with the marketing of American-made snack foods internationally and she said that different flavors are used to reflect the preferences of consumers in different countries.  That led me to wonder what are uniquely American tastes?  I wonder if maple is one we keep to ourselves?  

Well, whether or not it is popular elsewhere, it is popular here in Northern New England and the air was heavy with it as the steam rose into the rafters of the sugar house and flew out to scent the chill afternoon.

Days Like This Come My Way

With 60 degree temperatures predicted for the upcoming week proving that Puxatawney Phil was correct in February and there were only six weeks left of winter, Charlie and I decided to head to Rangeley for one last ski for him and a snowshoe romp for me.

We went into the trailhead yurt, bought our trail passes and looked at the map. The guy behind the desk  suggested that I go on a loop that went along the side of Saddleback Lake but cautioned me to stay off the lake ice. Charlie headed off to the groomed nordic ski trails while I headed off on my snowshoe trail.

For a while, it all was perfect--the sun was warm and deep breaths of cool, fresh air settled my heart and mind.   I took a picture of my pretty purple snowshoes and thought about how much fun I have had with them over the last seven years.  So many mountains climbed and trails broken as they kept me on top of the snow while still stylishly turned out.

Perhaps overcome by memories and not paying attention to the trail, I found myself on the lake or at least very close to it--it's very hard to tell where lake ends and shore begins when it is all covered in snow.

For a while, I kept along what I thought was the shore until I decided that I had indeed missed the trail.  I pulled the map out of my pocket and figured out if I headed away from the shore I should come upon it.  So I headed through the puckerbrush.  If I may be honest, a little bit of "I'm a superhiker" arrogance did come over me.  I thought "How hard can it be--the trail must be just through those bushes, trees and blowdowns."

It was much harder than I expected.  I climbed over trees, crouched low under branches, sank in deep snow--there was hardly room to maneuver and I didn't seem to be making any headway when suddenly I sank up to my knees, the snow collapsed around my legs and I couldn't pull my feet out.

All the reading I have done about winter hiking disasters did help me stay calm and assess the situation, although I allowed myself one plaintive cry for Charlie.  I sat down on the snow and noticed that my feet were starting to feel really wet.  I used my hands to dig the right snowshoe out because it seemed to be the one that I could move a little bit.  The left one was stuck fast.  Once I got my right foot free,  I took it out of the snowshoe and used that snowshoe to help dig.  The snow around my left foot seemed to be freezing solid and I had to hit it hard to get down to where I could see my foot.  Once I could see my foot I still couldn't lift it.  I decided that the snowshoe must be stuck under an underwater root or tree and my best hope was to get my boot out of the snowshoe.  Just as I freed my soaking wet boot, the snow that I was sitting in started to slide and I got up in a hurry and headed back the way I had come with only one of my pretty purple snowshoes tucked up under my arm.

When I got back to the lake or shore or whatever I had originally been on, I felt safe--I could walk back to the yurt in wet boots.  It would be uncomfortable but the day was warm and I am the mother of strong children and the daughter of strong parents so must be kind of strong myself.  Just as I was breathing a sigh of relief, I crashed through snow and ice and this time it wasn't a creek but the lake.  I think panic might have set in then because I don't remember much except knowing that I had to move fast and light.  Somehow--I lost the other purple snowshoe.  Once warm and safe and trying to remember what had happened I think that the purple snowshoe might have caught on the ice and kept me from going deeper into the lake--so maybe it saved me.

I made it back to the yurt and climbed up on a picnic table in the sun to get warm and wait for Charlie to return from his ski with the keys to the car and my dry clothes.  Just as I got my wet boots and socks off and was preparing to lie back on the picnic table, this woman appeared beside me.  She looked just like Megan McCain--all blonde hair, beautiful curves and designer clothes.  She said, "Hi, that looks like fun--I'd like to climb up right beside you?"  You know after all I'd been through this could have been an effect of hypothermia but I think it really did happen.  I laughed and apologized for looking like I had just fallen into a lake.  She asked me where I was from and I said "just over the mountain, where are you from?" She said "Cape Cod but I'm thinking of moving up here and I want to buy some land and build a yurt so I came to see what a yurt was like on the inside."  I said, "Would this be a vacation yurt or a full time yurt?" and yes I was definitely wondering why conversations like this so often come my way.  She said, "I'm just going to wait and see what God has in mind for me."  Then she said good bye and I laid back on the picnic table and hoped that God was in favor of it because we don't have enough crazy, rich blonde women living in yurts in Maine.  Amen.

Unexpected Delights

As Labor Day weekend approached, Charlie and I were two mountains short of our goal of hiking the 67 New England 4000 footers.

Katahdin in Baxter State Park is a monstrous massif whose summit stretches for miles and encompasses two distinct peaks that qualify as 4000 footers. We had conquered the well-known Baxter Peak on other hikes but still had the less-traveled Hamlin Peak ahead of us.  

We planned to drive to Millinockett and stay in a hotel the night before heading into Baxter State Park but the Big Bed Bug Scare of Summer 2010 caused me to fear staying in a hotel.  So on to Plan B.  We called the park and were able to get two bunks in the bunkhouse at the trailhead--I was certain that my sleeping bag was bed bug free and couldn't imagine any self-respecting bed bug living in the inhospitable environment of a plywood bunk in Baxter State Park.  So, off we went.  The change of plans meant bringing gear to cook breakfast so we brought along our little stove and some supplies.

There was another couple in the bunk house with us and we stayed up playing Scrabble with them by gas lantern--some time during the game and the getting-to-know-you, Charlie and the other man discovered that they had both been to an Eagles and Dan Fogelberg concert in 1974 in New York City.  Do you ever wonder if we are all in some big Venn diagram and everyone intersects at some point?

The next morning, we were off to the trail.  Katahdin is my nemesis--I love it and I hate it--mostly I love it when I'm finished climbing it or planning to climb it--when I'm on the trail, I think that it's really really hard and the Native Americans were probably right about it being a sacred mountain that shouldn't be climbed.  I decide that I'm too old for such nonesense and decide never to climb it again--but where would the story be in that.

Our planned route was long and the wind above the trees was crazy.  But the views were incredible. When I wasn't shaking my first at the mountain for being so difficult, I was  full of the belief that at that moment I was the most fortunate person on earth.

We made it to the top with a great deal of effort.  It was impossible to remain completely vertical in the strong wind and without a tie for my hair my vision was severely compromised. I was afraid of descending the rocky trail with hair flying into my eyes and we made a decision to struggle through the wind for a mile along the summit ridge in order to descend by the sheltered Saddle Trail to Chimney Pond. Chimney Pond is only 3.3 miles from the Roaring Brook campground and our car.  It was a gradual grade and all downhill for us at that point but exhaustion was setting in.

About 1/2 mile from the end of the trail, Charlie remembered something wonderful!  "We have instant coffee and milk and sugar left over from breakfast!  I will go ahead and make it for you!"  A more sincere and timely expression of love has never been spoken.

So, I limped to the car and changed into jeans and a flannel shirt--cotton is deadly while hiking but so comforting afterward.  I slid down to the ground against a tree because it was the only way. Charlie handed me a cup of the most delicious coffee and we toasted our astounding day.  And you know, I really do love Katahdin.

Climbing Cannon with the Frat Boys

In January of 2007, Ethan and a bunch of his fraternity brothers rented a condominium in Franconia Notch so that they could ski at Cannon Mountain.  This was their senior year and they were ready for a skiing vacation before heading back for their last semester.  Unfortunately, the weather gods did not cooperate and the snow conditions were abysmal for skiing so Ethan suggested calling his mom who could bring some winter hiking gear over and then we could all climb Cannon.  Yes, I think that I might be the only mother ever invited on a fraternity outing.

I brought along thermoses of hot tea and hot jello, crampons and snow shoes and microspikes and everything else that I could come up with and headed over to meet them at the trail head.

The weather most of the way up was misty and the ground conditions were snow and ice.  I climbed fearlessly knowing that there were a dozen strong young men to carry me down if I broke my leg.

I have thick hair and lots of it and hats just aren't that comfortable for me.  So, in the winter I usually hike with as little on my head as possible. That day, my hair was getting pretty damp from the mist but I didn't think too much about it on the way up while my body was warm from exertion.  I should add that I was much more of a novice winter hiker than I am now and in no way endorse my winter hiking methods of 2007--do not try this at home, kids.

So, we climbed through the mist and slipped and slid our way up the mountain.  Some of the boys hiked in jeans, some in sneakers, some in ski boots--we were a motley crew but having the best time.  As we reached the summit suddenly it wasn't warm any more and there was a frigid wind and things started to freeze fast--including my hair.

The way I remember it, someone snapped a picture in a hurry and we all ran as fast as we could into the trees and drank tea and hot jello and put on whatever clothes were still dry in our backpacks and laughed and slid our way down the mountain and into the part of my brain labeled favorite memories.

Thanks Ross, from whose facebook photo album I stole these pictures.  I'll treasure this forever.

I've been meaning to tell you this for over a year.......

There is actually a hostel at the airport in Stockholm that is built into a 747 Jumbo Jet.  I kid you not.

In 2009, after spending time together in northern Sweden, Sara was flying back to Macedonia and Charlie and I were heading back to Maine so we were looking for someplace to stay the night before our flights.  Stockholm hotels were out of our price range which is why we had been spending our time up north reindeer country.  But, Sara, being young and wise in the way of youth hostels, found us the Jumbo Hostel at the Arlanda Airport.

After returning our rental car, we walked across the street to what looked like a gigantic plane parked in a field.  It was, actually, a gigantic plane parked in a field.  A series of metal airport-like steps led up to the entrance where we were immediately told to take off our shoes.  I'm not sure why, but I am a rule-follower so the shoes came off.

The rooms were off a narrow corridor and were small but we fit.  There was a double size bunk on the bottom in our room and a little crow's nest upper bunk that little Sara could squeeze into.  Our suitcases went under the bottom bunk and there was room for one of us to stand up at a time--just not room enough for that one person to actually turn around.

It was great fun and cheap and very convenient to the airport.  A bus stopped right across the street to take us to the terminal.

The Jumbo Hostel is even listed as #1 on a website devoted to the World's Weirdest Hotels.

The Jumbo Jet was different and weird, but according to this website there is a hotel in Idaho inside a giant wooden dog.  I think that might be my next trip.

So, where did we leave off.................

Oh, I have missed this little blog.  It's time to dust it off, spruce things up a bit and continue sharing what is in my heart.

Facebook is good for a quickie but doesn't allow the insight into the soul that is a blog post--so let's try this again, shall we?

Since we last visited, some things have happened but the essentials are the same....I live in obscurity in a forgotten corner of Maine surrounded by great natural beauty and possessed with an imagination, five cats, a loving husband, eccentric parents and globe-trotting children.  

Over the summer, I closed my little law practice in the carriage house and took a job with the State of Maine, Judicial Branch working with two grant programs devoted to assisting families in the child protection system.   While my efforts are devoted to the same topic as before, there are no more front-line skirmishes.  After eleven years of being in the trenches, it was time to let my battle scars heal and use the hard-won wisdom to try and improve things.

What else happened in the last seven months--oh yes, we went to Chile in April to see how Vila Alhue had survived the earthquake and found that the charming little town had lost all of its 200 year old adobe structures but the spirit of the people was intact.  The trapped Chilean miners are giving us all some insight into what that culture is made of--they have some strong internal stuff going on, for sure.  

In May, son Ethan busted his legs six ways from Sunday.  Rugby----what more can I say.  Sara will finish up with the Peace Corps in five weeks--it doesn't seem like it could be more than two years but it is.  

I've missed you all, my dear blogging friends, thank you for your patience and the facebook chats during my hiatus.

Loveyou

Beth