Okay. Three four-foot-long garter snake skins in the south yard, and one slowly slinking four-inch-long tiger slug, Limax maximus, in the north yard, all within the past few weeks. I am ready to pull on my tall leather boots when I go out to turn on the hose to water the garden. Or better yet, fob that task off on somebody else.
Slug Patterns
Filed under Home, Jean Zimmerman, Nature
Spicy chocolate ice cream wasn’t my only reward for visiting with the folks at Ventfort Hall in Lenox, Massachusetts (50 people attended, and they seemed enthusiastic about my picture-talk on Love, Fiercely: A Gilded Age Romance).
Today I visited The Mount, Edith Wharton’s gem of a home nearby. I’ve been there before but it has been seriously spruced up in the meantime and most of her library has been reclaimed at auction (at grave financial risk to the organization that owned the house, but it all turned out okay), so the experience wowed me all the more. Gil and Maud fell under the place’s spell as well. The house is all clean lines and airiness and balance, designed by Wharton in conjunction with two different architects, and there is nary a Victorian wallpaper in the joint. It is as if all that 19th century fustiness simply blew away when the dial hit 1900 (The Mount went up in 1902).
Fans of The House of Mirth (like me) will foam at the mouth when they see the early pages of the novel spread out over the bed in Wharton’s sunlit bedroom.
House of Mirth Draft
Yes, Wharton wrote propped up in bed every morning, casually casting aside her finished pages as she went. She actually had photos posed with her sitting at a desk with inkwell and paper, thinking it more dignified, but the truth is she stayed prone, warmed by the little dogs she loved.
The Wharton Dogs
To enter her room and be able to get that close to genius! People were looking so I couldn’t lie down on the bed.
Ghosts have been glimpsed in the house. The only sign I saw of one was in the bathroom adjoining the bedroom where Wharton’s single houseguests found accommodation. Henry James, who occupies the apex of literary achievement, for me, visited frequently when he came over from Europe. Here is the bathtub into which the Master would have lowered his robust, aristocratic frame. I think I saw a wisp of something ghostly, but maybe it was some stray moisture from the faucet…
The Henry James Honorary Bathtub
The veranda offers an exquisite view of the grounds (as well as iced tea and salad), and might well have been the location for James’ comment as remembered by Wharton: “Summer afternoon — summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.”
And while that is one of the most beautiful statements ever made, James was so full of wordly wisdom I might as well offer another:
“We work in the dark — we do what we can — we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.”
Filed under History, Jean Zimmerman, Love, Fiercely, Writers, Writing
Yesterday I described the tiny Mahkeenac Boat Club in the Berkshires — Lenox or Stockbridge? if you know, clue me in. Here are the little boats, courtesy of Maud. It really was a timeless scene.
Filed under Jean Zimmerman
I go away for a few days and come back to this lovely review of The Orphanmaster on cd, as performed by George Guidall. George is a total pro and deserving of every accolade. I listened to the whole set through and it sounded so fresh it was as if I hadn’t even written the thing!
Filed under Jean Zimmerman, Publishing, The Orphanmaster, Writing
A link to a radio interview I did recently on a Vermont show called “Write the Book.” I liked Shelagh Shapiro, she was a perceptive host.
Filed under Jean Zimmerman, Publishing, The Orphanmaster, Writing
Lake Mahkeenac, aka Stockbridge Bowl, lies down a long slope of woods from the Kripalu Institute, aka the site of the fabled Shadowbrook, the 100 room Stokes mansion completed here in Lenox in 1893. On the Lake, the Mahkeenac Boat Club is basically unchanged since that earlier era and reached only via a discreet driveway and a walk through pine-fragranced woods. The little sailboats have names like Moth, Hermes and Sprite.
Another relic of the Gilded Age offered me a podium and a slide projector this afternoon for what they call a talk and tea. Ventfort Hall, ever more shored up and scrubbed, held a crowd with a very serious interest in the Stokes clan and whatever local associations with the Minturn family could be dug up. There were even some Stokes descendants who could proudly say Well, when great grandfather built that house…
There were cucumber sandwiches out on the sweeping veranda. I was glad we had decided not to invite Oliver on this jaunt. He detests cucumber.
I ended the evening at the ice cream parlor with an experience that would have caused the Victorians to keel over. Chocolate ice cream with a kick of cayenne, causing my tongue to melt just a bit as I gobbled it down. Hot and icy, sweet and savory at once, that’s a prescription for poetry.
Tomorrow, toes in the Stockbridge Bowl– then another bowl of some surprising ice cream. Lavendar and honey? Parfumiers would approve.
Filed under Fiction, History, Jean Zimmerman, Love, Fiercely, Publishing, Writing
Minestrone a la Marcella Hazan for dinner with some Cabinworld adjustments:
onions, farmer’s market carrots, no celery in the house at the moment, farmer’s market potatoes, half a home grown zucchini, farmer’s market green beans, no cabbage at the moment so instead home grown collard greens, pre-enjoyed by garden bugs, homemade chicken broth and all the tomatoes that we can find ripe in the garden (no canned tomatoes at the moment)
for the pesto: home grown basil, tall and healthy but used as a climbing stalk by morning glory vines, combined in the blender with slivered almonds (no pine nuts at the moment), Noreen’s home grown garlic, olive oil and good cheese
While we work down in the basement kitchen it is glorious end of summer above outside, the temperature perfect, a whispering breeze. We’ll have to eat outside. Again. How long can this perfection go on? Like the minestrone, perfect encompasses imperfect as the beautiful end of summer includes the bare fact of the end of summer.
Filed under Cooking, Home, Jean Zimmerman
The ankle doctor told me that my right big toe knuckle — the metatarsal — lacks any shred of cartilage. Bone spur upon bone spur and bone on bone. No wonder the pain hits me when I put on a pair of boots. Why is the ankle doctor going on about my toe? I guess the toe bone is in fact connected to the aching ankle tendons, especially when you’ve got a big flat foot in between. I don’t exactly understand it all but I do recall the doctor recommending that I wear shoes like his — long, flat black leather loafers — rather than the flip flops I had on. Lucky I spend a lot of time on my butt, writing and reading, not on my feet. But still, a person wants to walk in a glade or climb a mountain once in a while.
Filed under Jean Zimmerman
Four feet long from snout to tuckus, that’s the length of the snakeskin we found by the water spout today. That’s an impressive creature. Did it live under the wooden shingles of the house, as Gil proposes? The shedding itself must be beautiful, if terrifying. A snake causes a rip by rubbing against a rock or log (or shingle), something rough, then wriggles out, splitting the tissue along the way. The patterns on the new skin exactly match the patterns of the old, but the new skin is luminous, almost transparent.
Filed under Home, Jean Zimmerman, Nature
Funny, as I was standing in a Wisconsin farm kitchen prepping tiger-striped tomatoes for salsa two days ago…
Ripe Heirloom Greens
The Orphanmaster was making the top of the bestseller list for Boswell Book Company in Milwaukee.
It happens to be a great bookstore, with about the most energetic proprietor — Daniel Goldin — I’ve met along the way this summer.
Tonight I cooked with tomatoes out of my own garden, and ate outside to the tune of late-summer cicadas. The creeping in of early Fall. I’m going to update this site with coming events, and I’m looking forward to talking more on The Orphanmaster, having grown attached to my picture presentation (maps, red heels, fur hand muffs, etc.) and peoples’ enjoyment at seeing first-hand evidence of the character of 17th century New Amsterdam.
But I’m also ready to go back to Savage Girl, my new book, make it better and send it along its way to publication.
Filed under Cooking, Home, Jean Zimmerman
Driving east on I-90, a change after yesterday’s guinea chicks toddling along the pasture edge after their mother. But return home to Cabinworld we must. Gil craves his writing desk, I want my own bed and down time after the last, Midwestern leg of the book tour, Maud to trade her tractor and farm boots for anthro texts and NYC stilettos, Oliver to return to his secret places In the cedar grove above the marsh. It’s been a busy-sweet season, now, as always in Fall, renewal comes with the crisp air.
Filed under Dogs, Home, Jean Zimmerman
Stick your hand underneath a brood hen, reaching through the foot-long window of the chicken coop, if you want to experience pure fluffy warm fertility. Above you the sun is a hot yolk on a Delft blue platter. The bird you confront as she nests in her small space is soft, her almond-brown feathers almost more yielding than fur. Beneath her the eggs, a half dozen of them, laid and left there by the other birds for the brood hen to nurture with her heat. The sun is an egg in the nest of the sky. The tomatoes in the garden by the way blaze red as the sun. The world turns on this one moment, your eye confronting the speckled eye of the egg.
Filed under Home, Jean Zimmerman, Nature
Another azure arc over chickens, piglets, tomatoes, kale, squash, corn and fields of hay. And beets and radishes and pigweed. The horses gum bunches of clover, leaving your fingers somewhat battered. Oliver believes he is within his rights to maul Willow and Farquar, two innocent canine bystanders, Farkie an English Mastiff four times his size. My feet covered with farm dirt.Tomorrow, a radio interview with a Vermont station, an Orphanmaster talk special for a group of seniors and other friends, and then — canning.
Filed under Home, Jean Zimmerman, Nature
High white clouds float like balloons on strings, Winnie the Pooh clouds, flat and grey on the bottom-they’re still expanding, says Maud.
Cleaned garlic at the farmers market, where some people have never heard of an heirloom. The green ones are great, their loss.
I call this place The Great Washed.
Filed under Jean Zimmerman
I don’t know how many pecks 200 tomatoes make, but we picked a bunch today out at the farm, heirloom beauties, bruised green/red in color, tiger striped chartreuse and yellow, just big fat misshapen crimson ones.
I don’t know how many pecks 200 tomatoes make, but we picked a bunch today out at the farm, heirloom beauties, bruised green/red in color, tiger striped chartreuse and yellow, just big fat misshapen crimson ones.
We saw the pigs, eight week old piglets bound for their starring moment soon enough, the young chickens running crazily around their hutch, the dysfunctional trio of horses and the bantam rooster prancing across the yard. Larry was putting in a new flower border for Noreen, and Davey was getting his carrots and radishes ready to go to market tomorrow along with those luscious tomatoes. The sun split the sky above and coins rained out on the garden beds, making us so fortunate to be there to catch them.
We saw the pigs, eight week old piglets bound for their starring moment soon enough, the young chickens running crazily around their hutch, the dysfunctional trio of horses and the bantam rooster prancing across the yard. Larry was putting in a new flower border and Davey was getting his carrots and radishes ready to go to market tomorrow along with those luscious tomatoes. The sun split the sky above and coins rained out on the garden beds, making us so fortunate to be there to catch them.
Filed under Home, Jean Zimmerman, Nature
Jean Zimmerman 