New England Spring, 1996

Apr. 8, 1996
This morning looks like a winter wonderland in Connecticut - storm #13 for us.  The trees are loaded down with confectioner's sugar.  The bird feeder is piled high with marshmallow fluff - white everywhere and the sun is trying to break through, so it puts a sheen on everything.  I planted 32 pansy plants and now they are hiding under a blanket of white.

We had a good time at Beth's 16th party and it sure was nice to talk to you.  One of my fondest pictures (in my memory) is of the little girl with sparkling eyes, at my front door, saying, "You missed me, didn't you?", as though you had come to take care of me, instead of my taking care of you.

How is my tree?  Let's put a swing on that long branch and swing up to the sky!

Apr. 21, 1996
The rain came, the wind blew, and the pans on the porch filled with water.  It was a game to see if I could make it into the house without spilling the water.  Good old New England weather - one week 17" of snow and next week 7"of rain in a few hours.  But the trees are budding and the flowers are blooming, and the grass is growing...  Today was a beautiful day - smelled like Spring, the sky was so beautiful, changing much of the time, with the trees budded, reaching up to the heavens.  Grampa mentioned sleeping out tonight and I think it is a good idea - if it doesn't rain.

I love the poetic phrases Grammie uses in these cards.  Her writing style was always this way, with a bit of poetry, humor, and conversation - as though she was just talking to you on the phone.  The tree she mentions is a grand old London Plane tree on the library lawn at Vassar College.  It once had the longest unsuspended branch in the world.  What a swing that would have made!

Trees and Rodents! March, 1996

Mar. 24, 1996
And just guess what we saw out eating with the squirrels and coming out from under the oversized gazebo - 2 rats - one a real big fat one - the other smaller.  Don't know what we are going to do about them - get Beth to increase her rat population.  [My sister, Beth, had a pet rat - smart, sweet animal, actually!]


Today is nice, but we are going to a memorial service in Unionville.  We'll probably see lots of older people that I won't recognize.

Enjoyed your letter.  Did you send me this poem, or did I find it someplace else?  Wish I could remember!

"There is something mysteriously

beautiful about a dead tree

As it stands no longer resisting

the winds that strip its bark

and twist its trunk.

In sunshine, rain, or snow,

it seems to suggest a power

long after life has gone."

Grammie loved old, majestic trees, and even dead ones.  Every time I see a dead tree standing still among its younger peers, or alone in an open meadow, I think of her.  She could see the beauty in a thing many people find ugly or beneath their notice.  "A dead tree has character," she would say, pointing out its gnarled limbs and ravaged bark.  It, too, has a story to share.

With the power of the internet, I think I have found the origin of this "poem."  It is not a poem at all, but part of a presentation entitled "Trees Are Our Roots" by Ron Taven of the University of Missouri's Department of Horticulture for the annual conference of the International Society of Arboriculture in San Diego, California in August 1979.  The line "In sunshine, rain, or snow" has been added.  I sure wonder how Grammie came across those particular lines!  She was always cutting snippets out of newspapers and magazines - perhaps it found its way into an issue of Reader's Digest...

Mar. 31, 1996
I'm sucking on a butterscotch - mmm good!

This afternoon we were sitting out in our oversized gazebo in our lounge chairs, and I noticed 3 big holes in the blanket we leave out there.  So we pulled back the top mattress on Grampa's chair - it was fine.  We pulled back the top mattress on my chair and - lo and behold - there was a mouse nest and the pieces of the blanket - that's not all - there was the mouse.  I had been sitting in the chair for about an hour - it's a wonder I didn't squash him.  Well, we gave that mouse a talking to - told him he was invading people territory and it was time to leave.  Then, Grampa showed him the door.  

He must have squeezed in under the door - no wonder there were no nests in the birdhouses this winter...

We have 8 birdhouses up and today a sparrow couple have decided to move into one.  The birds are starting with their mating songs and the air is full of music.  We got a bit of yard work done, but we spend a lot of time sitting and watching the birds.

Grammie loved seeing wildlife of ALL varieties, but she did not enjoy them in "people territory!"  The mice loved finding cozy places to live around Gram's house.  One spring, my sister Beth and I were helping Grammie clean out her birdhouses for the new birds to move in.  As we lifted the top of one birdhouse and peered in, two beady little eyes stared back at us.  We were so surprised to see the mouse in the house that we hopped back.  The mouse, upset by our disturbance, jumped out of that house onto Beth's shoulder, scampered down her arm and leg and bounded off under the stone wall in the back!  Gram, Beth, and I stared at each other with wide eyes for a moment longer before bursting into laughter - that mouse was more surprised than we were, we thought!