ODE TO SPRING: intimations on immortality, power lines and mud

INTROSUCTION: SCREW THE ROBIN

The girls collecting sap at White Gate Farm

That’s right: screw the robin. There are new signs of spring in New England.  Robins overwinter in our area now, courtesy of climate change.  To hell with the groundhog.  He is a lying sonofabitch, and we all know it.  Peepers?  Fugeddaboudit.  They are relegated to the last seven or eight vernal pools left in our area, all of which are slated for development in the immediate future.  Which reminds me: on the homefront, we Malletts have been informed recently that, due to the laws of imminent domain, our 10-acre property is most likely going to be bisected by a 100-foot-wide swath of clear-cutting for a new power line.  This is deeply regrettable, not to mention powerful foreshadowing.  The only way to stop the power line powers that be, we are told, is to prove that some endangered species might have a sacred vernal haven in our midst.  To that end, if anyone knows where I can find some rare salamanders on the black market, please contact me immediately (using untraceable media, please). 

Cormac getting kisses from Nutmeg

So I propose that the new symbol of spring be not a visual image but the sucking sound boots make when they get stuck in the deep mud. Like when the kids and Denise and I went to White Gate Farm in Epping to help with the sugaring of the maple trees.  Black Trumpet bartender and wine buyer RJ works on that farm with his mom, Susan, who is also a schoolteacher.  Farmer and schoolteacher--gives work ethic a whole new depth of meaning.  The hard-working farmer in Susan was busy boiling sap into the large syrup-making device in her sugar shack when we arrived.  The schoolteacher in Susan patiently explained the process of refining luscious golden syrup from tree juice while also cautioning the children about the enormous quicksand-esque mud puddle that, in drier climates, is actually the driveway to the shack. Naturally, after the warning, my intrepid and obdurate son proceeded to get a boot stuck in the mud.  The ensuing burst of sound that emanated from that boot when we pulled it from the murky quagmire was ungraphable, but let’s say it was something like, “Thwuck!”

Making Maple Syrup at the farm

Having now purged the last of my lingering Winter darkness, I’d like to begin this seasonal blog—which I’ll post in a series of installments--with a statement of the obvious: the best way to ring in the mud season is to get out of Dodge. 

Three of the last five Sundays, I was nowhere to be seen at Black Trumpet.  My three excursions—to Providence, Mexico and North Carolina—all took me out of Dodge during some especially nasty spring weather.  Sous Chef Carrie went above and beyond to ensure smooth sailing while we were gone, and she even joined me on one junket, for which I salute her here in immortal cybertext.  Thank you, Carrie, for your supreme dedication.  The following blog posts are centered around those three events that took me away like a series of Calgon commercials, although in each post you will find plenty of contextual leaps and mindless meandering, as you have come to expect, I’m sure.

Evan and the kids in Mexico...finally

Enjoy.  Or be bored.  Either way.  Thanks for reading.  Oh, and for those of you who say I don’t post often enough, I say to you now, “p-l-l-l-l-l-l,” or whatever the raspberry sound looks like in print.