Hope and Feathers/Walks
The opening for the Hope and Feathers exhibit was lovely. Quite a few American Demographics folks made the trip to Amherst, and it was a grand reunion. Special thanks to founder Peter Francese for coming down from New Hampshire, to Brad Edmondson who wrote a very flattering piece about me, and to Mike Rider who designed a lovely flyer for the show. Seeing everyone made me happy.
The folks at Hope and Feathers were great, and thanks to Bronwen for all her hard work, and to Simone for hanging the photos. And thanks to Michelle for agreeing to this somewhat out of left field project.
It is great to have our Peter back home for a while. One of the benefits of having him around is that we often take walks in and around Amherst, and it is fun to grab a camera and take some pictures.
I love the Autumn and how plants adapt to the changing seasons.
Concrete too. But it doesn’t change much.
Thanks for following.
Happy New Year…
…Well sort of. I grew up in an academic family; my father taught at Allegheny College, and when I was in the 7th grade my mother began teaching at Meadville High School. So for me, the Autumn is my favorite time of the year and a return to a routine in which I am most comfortable. I have always viewed the 1st of September as my New Year’s Day. (The difference being that I am rarely hung over. I’ll leave that for the 1st of January.)
I was driving back from Boston on Sunday and saw these trees just off Route 202 in Pelham. I went back last night to take this photograph. For you lovers of Summer, I know this isn’t such welcome news, but for me it was nice to see some early color. “For every season”, etc, etc.
I have always liked this XTC song. Pretty much sums it up.
Farmers’ Market
This is white ginger. It usually shows up at this time of the year at the Amherst farmers’ market and is quite lovely. We usually buy some to put in the freezer.
I was taken by the produce at Old Friends Farm stand this morning. Everything looked great in the soft morning light.
Autumn farmers’ markets are the best.
I’ve no idea what these little white pods are, but they look nice next to the tomatoes.
And a question for all you grammarians out there. When I was writing the title of this post I assumed that the apostrophe in farmers would go after the “r”, but when I did an internet search, many sites had it after the “s”. Any clarification on which is correct?
Japanese Maple
Last year our neighbor Ken decided to open up the front garden of his house and asked us if we would like to have his Japanese Maple. We were interested but since I know nothing about transplanting trees I was a bit leery. For quite some time Ken has had a lovely young man from Russia who is studying nursing at UMASS do yard work, and Andrei was willing to move the tree for us. So last autumn the job was done and I spent the winter worrying that it would die. When spring came it budded out nicely and has been a lovely addition to the front of the house. The leaves started out red and then by July turned green. This is how they look today.
I took Cris to the airport on Saturday, and yesterday she safely arrived at her hotel in Ramallah. She will be in the West Bank until Saturday and then into Gaza. I will be posting a bit more regularly to keep her up to date on what’s happening here.
Tiny Tree / Big Leaves
I had a nice walk with the Pearl just now. Our usual spot with the scummy pond (no ducks today). The leaves are starting to change and even though it is a foggy, muggy, warm day it is beginning to feel like the autumn.
There is still quite a bit of green in the trees, but the light at the end of the day is way more toward yellow than it was just last week.
Jon Crispin's Notebook 
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