August, sigh of relief

In the ear­ly evening, here at Red Gate Farm in the first days of August, the peace is real­ly inde­scrib­able.  It is the sen­sa­tion of utter calm that we look for­ward to all year.  We sit on the ter­race and try to read, or work, but what we real­ly do is look up and out over the land­scape, lis­ten­ing to the squawk­ing of John’s finch­es and the squab­bling of the squir­rels and chip­munks, and feel grate­ful to be here.

I wan­der around tak­ing pho­to­graph after pho­to­graph of views that have been cap­tured before, many times, but I don’t mind.  I see them fresh every summer.

A week ago today, we were still in the hal­cy­on mood of hap­pi­ness that came from hav­ing picked up Avery at Heathrow, from her adven­tures in Rus­sia.  It was a life-chang­ing experience.

We lis­tened in admi­ra­tion to her sto­ries of the human kind­ness, gen­eros­i­ty and sheer good fun of the peo­ple she met there in the orphan­age “com­mu­ni­ty,” where she washed dish­es, made cos­tumes, woke in the mid­dle of “the night of the hor­nets” to swat at crea­tures who grew larg­er with every telling of the sto­ry.  Her col­lo­qui­al Russ­ian improved by leaps and bounds, so if any­one needs to know, quick, how to say, “please bring the scis­sors, the Scotch tape and the spray paint,” Avery’s your woman.

We awoke on the dread­ed trav­el day with that sin­gle-mind­ed pur­pose that sort of blinds us every year to the unpleas­ant­ness to come: the emp­ty­ing of the fridge (thank you, Eliz­a­beth, for giv­ing a home to my cheeses and eggs), the say­ing good­bye to the puz­zled cats, wran­gling lug­gage in the hot Lon­don sun, suf­fer­ing through secu­ri­ty, down­ing a meal, the long flight, cus­toms, the long dri­ve in the dark to the house.  And to sleep, about 16 hours after we left “home,” wak­ing sev­er­al times in the night with no idea where I was.

In the morn­ing, we awoke ear­ly to this love­ly sight.

John, tak­ing it upon him­self to try to start the car first thing in the morn­ing, made THIS supreme­ly unpleas­ant discovery!

No, it’s not shav­ing cream in a hilar­i­ous joke played on us by neigh­bors, nor is it whipped cream.  It’s MOLD.

Dead­ly or not, we decid­ed not to take any chances and sim­ply shut the door again after we each had an incred­u­lous, dis­gust­ed stare.  I think the car will have to be shredded.

For the time being, we are keep­ing our rental car while we come to terms with the final­i­ty of good­bye to a car that’s seen us through a dozen hap­py years.  I just don’t think it can be reclaimed.

We turned to hap­pi­er things, like the first brunch at the Lau­rel Din­er!  Noth­ing like it.

Oh, the good­ness of but­ter.  Per­fect corned-beef hash, hash browns, a fried egg or two with cheese, sausage AND bacon.  Avery and I shared every­thing and it was a feast.  John has his own, of course.

With meals like this, we’ll have to mea­sure Avery one more time, although I think she’s stopped growing.

We’ll also have to play plen­ty of ten­nis to work it all off.  After tak­ing the whole year away from the courts, what with my bum ankle, John’s bum knee, and our obses­sion with cycling, it’s been nice to get back to our game, as untu­tored as it is.  We always have fun.

It was time to whip up the inter­state to share a pub din­ner with Jill, Joel, Jane and Mol­ly.  Jane brought along the script to her upcom­ing musi­cal (some­thing involv­ing dairy and some French tourists; we’ll see it this week), and we had a good discussion.

Since last year’s musi­cal was a neo-Social­ist for­ay into labor con­di­tions at a but­ton fac­to­ry, any­thing could hap­pen, on Thurs­day night.  I would like to tell you all the plot details I learned from Jane, but truth be told, I was too busy just enjoy­ing the sound of her voice and hav­ing her sit­ting next to me, to pay much atten­tion to the exact details.

Oh, jet­lag.  How dif­fi­cult it is those first few nights to stay awake!  How easy it is to wake up very ear­ly.  But the sights and sounds are not to be missed.

We’ve been joined, as every sum­mer, by one of the lit­tle fel­lows who lives under the ter­race.  What must they think of our year­ly arrival, and the inex­plic­a­ble largesse that comes with it?  They make hay.

We made our usu­al inau­gur­al trip to the farmer’s mar­ket where we bought the first corn on the cob, the first toma­toes and cucum­bers, and pet­ted the res­i­dent baby goat, adver­tis­ing goat’s milk soaps.  I always feel vague­ly that I’m get­ting away with some­thing, pet­ting the goat but nev­er, ever buy­ing any soap.

After leav­ing us to our own devices for a day or two, the vis­i­tors begin.  We take farmer’s mar­ket apple cider dough­nuts to Alice-across-the-road, and per­suade her to come over to the ter­race for a peace­ful catch­ing-up of recents events, most­ly Avery’s tales of her Russ­ian adven­ture.  And then our friend Peter comes from around the cor­ner to report on hay­ing up in the mead­ow, and Tri­cia and lit­tle Rol­lie come to warn us about an alleged bear sight­ing.  “Mind your bird feed­ers,” Tri­cia says.  “This bear made a real mess of Rol­lie’s hives, up the hill.”

I feel bad about the hives, but I’d love to see the bear.

The peace is bro­ken only slight­ly by the work that’s fol­lowed us here: the cook­book and Pot­ters Fields.  John spends the ear­ly part of every day catch­ing up on what comes over the wires from Eng­land dur­ing the night.  That house WILL get built.

It was time, on Sun­day, for a lit­tle party.

Since we saw Mike, Lau­ren and the beau­ti­ful Abi­gail last, they have acquired baby Gabriel, and he was well worth the wait.

Abi­gail seemed to take him entire­ly in her stride, sim­ply plop­ping her­self down on the ground to play with Avery’s old doll­house, much as she ever has, while Lau­ren and John chat­ted, and Mike and Avery took care of brunch, which was Russ­ian bli­ni!  Avery and I con­coct­ed these from her mem­o­ries of hav­ing flipped them at the orphan­age, and a culling of sev­er­al dif­fer­ent recipes.  Some were buck­wheat, and some plain flour.  All were delicious.

Russ­ian Blini

(makes enough for 6)

1 1/2 cups plain flour

1 cup buck­wheat flour

4 eggs

large pinch salt

small pinch sugar

3 cups milk

1 tbsp veg­etable oil

but­ter for the pan

Sim­ply whisk every­thing togeth­er thor­ough­ly, then melt but­ter in a very large fry­ing pan and ladle in enough bat­ter to coat the bot­tom of the pan, no more.

Cook until eas­i­ly loos­ened from pan with a rub­ber spat­u­la or wood­en spoon, then flip or turn over, as your brave­ness indicates.

***********

We piled these with sour cream, smoked salmon, some smoked pork, and juli­enned roast­ed pick­led beets.  They were divine.

Abi­gail ate them plain.  Six of them!

 We fin­ished with a glo­ri­ous, pure­ly Amer­i­can fruit salad.

It was time, then, to pile into the car and dri­ve toward Avery’s real sum­mer: her stay with our dar­ling friends Jeanne and Cyn­thia, in the most heav­en­ly bed­room in the world, high on the third floor of their celes­tial house…

She set­tled in, grate­ful for their hos­pi­tal­i­ty in the com­ing month.

We ate by can­dle­light, savor­ing the tru­ly fab­u­lous Scotch that Cyn­thia had laid in for us, and went to sleep peace­ful­ly, as we always do under their lov­ing roof, me in the high four-poster bed I always have, and John on his sleep­ing porch.  Some things nev­er change.

In the morn­ing it was time to walk to the train sta­tion, board NJ Tran­sit bound for Hobo­ken, switch to the PATH and take the short walk crosstown to Avery’s intern­ship for the month, at AIDS Ser­vice Cen­ter New York, a non-prof­it group involved in con­fi­den­tial test­ing, advice and advo­ca­cy.  You’d nev­er guess such impor­tant things could hap­pen behind this front.

It was excit­ing to walk along the fan­tas­ti­cal­ly rich and beau­ti­ful Fifth Avenue, pass­ing gor­geous town­hous­es on the cross streets and curlicued apart­ment build­ings, only to find that this big-heart­ed advo­ca­cy group occu­pies such a stark office.

We popped into Pat­sy’s down the street for a quick piz­za, before drop­ping her off.

New York piz­za; why must you be so incal­cu­la­bly deli­cious?  The most per­fect toma­to sauce, the stretchi­est moz­zarel­la, the hugest basil leaves, the thinnest crust.  Heaven.

And Avery was gone, in the big blue front doors and off to her sum­mer adven­ture.  No mat­ter what time she is able to spend up here with us, it’s a bit of a mile­stone, wav­ing her off to live her own life.  We’ll keep you post­ed on what we hear.  And what we eat…

Vaca­tion is here.