Handel in the Hilltowns: "Messiah" as an Exercise in Community Music-making

On the last Sunday of December we traveled to my hometown of Cummington, Massachusetts, to participate in the 54th annual sing-through of George Frideric Handel's popular oratorio, Messiah. The sing is always held on the first Sunday after Christmas in the Village Church on Main Street in town. The deal here, for those unfamiliar with the concept of a Messiah sing, is that it is not a performance, but rather an exercise in participatory, informal music-making. Professional, or quasi-professional, vocal soloists are engaged to sing the recitatives and arias, and a pro conductor leads the proceedings. But all the singers in the chorus and all the instrumentalists are folks who just show up and sight-read through the score. They don't tackle the entirety of Handel's work, but do all of Part One (that deals with the Nativity) and selected arias and choruses from Parts Two and Three. Hey, ya gotta do "The Trumpet Shall Sound" (from Part Three), and end the proceedings with the "Hallelujah" chorus (from Part Two)! In spite of it not really being a performance, there is always a small audience of appreciative folks who come just to listen and enjoy.

This was our fourth straight year of traveling from our home in southern Maine in order to take part. Cummington is in the western part of Massachusetts, roughly equidistant from the borders of Vermont, New York, and Connecticut. It is one of the towns that comprise the somewhat loosely-defined area known as the Hilltowns, that includes communities in parts of Hampshire, Berkshire, Hampden, and Franklin counties. All the Hilltowns are small, with populations in the range of 1,000-2,500 people. Historically, the demographic make-up of the Hilltowns has consisted primarily of folks of old Yankee stock -- farmers, tradesmen, loggers, practitioners of other blue-collar jobs -- but it is an area that also has nurtured a fair share of folks engaged in more creative and intellectual pursuits.

Bryant's birthplace in Cummington

Cummington in particular has produced or attracted a good many artists, poets, musicians, and writers over the years. The town's most famous native son was William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878), poet and long-time editor of the New York Post. More recently, Richard Wilbur (1921-2017), one of the most esteemed American poets of the 20th century, made his home there. Many young musicians have spent productive summers honing their skills at Greenwood Music Camp, established in Cummington in 1940. During my youth, the now-defunct Cummington School of the Arts (later: ...Community...) provided a congenial environment for mature artists and musicians to immerse themselves in their craft for a month or so.

Though the arts are by no means the defining cultural strain in town, the strong, long-standing presence and acceptance of art and music in the community has permitted an event like the annual Messiah sing to exist as a tradition for over half a century. But I get ahead of myself...

It is about a four-hour drive from our home in southern Maine to Cummington. When we go there for the Messiah sing we always work in some visits with family members in the area, and celebrate our January 1st wedding anniversary with a nice dinner in Northampton or Amherst (where we spend a night) in order to make the trek worthwhile. This year we enjoyed nice weather and hassle-free traveling in both directions.

We got to Cummington far enough in advance of the 4:00 p.m. start time of the sing to spend a couple of hours catching up with cousins at the family farm before heading to the church. There's always a strong turnout for the sing and parking around the church can get tight, so an early arrival is warranted. We were delighted to snag a spot right behind the building. The back door leads directly to the church kitchen and on into the vestry, where preparations for the post-sing reception were already in full swing.

We threaded our way through the group of busy workers, stopped briefly to exchange some pleasantries with old friends, then staked out good spots in the singers' areas in the sanctuary--Sally with the altos, me with the basses. We visited a bit with our section neighbors while the place began to fill up. Most of those around me were long-time veterans of Cummington Messiah sings. I was pleased to make the acquaintance of a man several years my senior from the neighboring town of Plainfield who had known my late mother, not only from previous Messiahs but also from the Hilltown Choral Society (HCS), a long-standing community choir. The Messiah sing in many ways is an outgrowth of the HCS, a subject to which I shall return in a bit.

 The Cummington Village Church is a lovely old building, dedicated in 1839. It is typical, in many ways, of other New England village churches, but not without its distinctive features. Foremost among these is the beautiful trompe-l'œil painting on the back wall of the sanctuary. This was added in 1951, in memory of Eugene W. Lyman (1872-1948), a Cummington native and noted theologian; he taught at Union Theological Seminary in New York for many years. The painting is the work of New York artist and interior decorator Lyman Martin (1928-1992).

Another noteworthy feature of the church is the lovely tracker action organ. It was built c. 1880 by Pomplitz and Company of Baltimore, Maryland; it is their Opus 214. Cummington is not its first home; it was installed initially in the Trinity Protestant Episcopal Church in Staunton, Virginia in 1881 and moved to Cummington in 1903. It was a gift to the town from Worcester Reed Warner (1846-1929), another native son, who was a successful mechanical engineer and businessman. It is a beautiful, small gem of an instrument.

The organ survived an effort in 1961, at a time when it needed repairs, to have it junked and replaced with a fully-electronic instrument (!!!!). Fortunately, saner heads prevailed and money for repairs was found. In the late 1970s a major fund-raising campaign was mounted in order to pay for a complete renovation of the instrument. Messrs. Czelusniak et Dugal, Inc. were engaged for the task and did a wonderful job. It was re-dedicated at the time of the town's bicentennial celebration in 1979. Regrettably, the organ was not played at this year's Messiah. Scuttlebutt had it that no organist was available to play that day. Conductor Gregory Hayes (who has taught at Greenwood Music Camp for many years) provided the continuo parts for the recitatives and arias on a portative organ. Nice, but not quite the same.

In earlier times the church would be packed to the doors with singers on Messiah day, and there were plenty of good string players on hand. For the past couple of years, however, I've been more than a little dismayed to note a drop-off in the number of participants. I don't know that anyone keeps a precise tabulation but the ranks had definitely thinned out from what I remember them to have been in the mid-1980s. A shortage of strong string players was particularly evident. Things were better this year. We had a nearly full sanctuary of singers as well as more, and more skilled, string players--though there were still a few cringe-inducing moments when the intonation was, shall we say, somewhat less than ideal.

This year's vocal soloists were consistently strong: Kristi Spencer, soprano; Cynthia Sanner, mezzo; Dario Coletta, tenor; and Steve Curylo, bass. All have good resumes as performers and/or teachers. Special mention must be made of tenor Dario Coletta who has sung the role each of the years that we've attended. He has considerable experience singing opera and musical theater, and is simply outstanding. He works now as a stone mason in Plainfield. A wry note in the program for this year's Messiah informs us that he "also serves as the tenor section of the Plainfield Congregational Church choir." Sheldon Ross was the featured trumpet soloist on "The Trumpet Shall Sound."

As usual, a good time was had by all. Conductor Hayes kept things on track with skill, artistry, and good humor. I'm still chuckling over his admonition to the singers, before we launched into "For unto Us a Child is Born," to remember that the word "us" is, in fact, a separate word; he did not want to hear anyone singing "For unto wuss..."  As noted, this was not, nor was it intended to be, a polished performance. Speaking for myself, I missed a couple of entrances in the more difficult choruses--as did most of the guys around me! But the key feature of an event such as this is that folks come out and do it. People of all skill levels come together and make music as a body, simply for the sheer joy of doing so. Sally and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves; we look forward to taking part again next year.

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I have dim memories of the inception of the Cummington sing. The first one was held in 1964, the year that I graduated from the local elementary school. Credit for its creation lies with the late Roberta Cowell, a local woman who was the driving force behind many musical activities in the area--as well as being a very fine soprano herself. A few years earlier (1957) she had founded the aforementioned Hilltown Choral Society and served as its director well into the 1980s. She was also my first music teacher in elementary school.

According to an article by Lawrence Raab in the Berkshire Eagle (Pittsfield, Mass.) of December 23, 1967, Mrs. Cowell had originally thought to have the HCS perform Handel's work but felt that the group was too small to do so. "Instead," Raab noted, "the conception was expanded to encompass the whole community of Cummington. Anyone who knew and enjoyed "The Messiah" [sic] was asked to the church to 'perform' it."

For many years I was under the impression that the Cummington sing was unique. Of course this is not the case, as there are countless participatory Messiah sing-throughs in the world; there is even a Wikipedia entry about such things. In fact I'm not 100% sure that the idea of an informal sing-through in Cummington was something that Mrs. Cowell invented out of whole cloth. I seem to recall reading that she was inspired by a similar event somewhere else in the country (Chicago?) but am not certain of this. In any case, starting the one in Cummington was a fairly natural extension of her work with the HCS, as another way to engage the local folks with music.

L to R: Kathy Wells, Margaret Allen

My late mother, Helen Wells, who was a long-time member of the Hilltown Choral Society, was also an early and enthusiastic supporter of the Messiah sings. She sang in them every year until late in her life. My older sister, Kathy, joined her on many occasions while she was still at home. Throughout my high school and college years my mother tried in vain to interest me in taking part. It was not until the early 1980s, when I again lived in Cummington for a couple of years that I finally decided to give it a go -- at which point I immediately regretted that I had not done so earlier! We learn too late to listen to our mothers, don't we?  

Alto section, 1967: Helen and Kathy Wells, front, far right.

A move to Tennessee in 1985 made it impractical for me to attend for many years but after relocating to southern Maine, and extolling the pleasures of the annual sing to Sally for a few Christmases, we finally got our act together and attended our first sing in 2015. We now factor a trip to Cummington on the Sunday after Christmas into our annual planning for the holiday season.

It was after taking part in my second Messiah sing (which, if I've calculated correctly, was on December 30, 1984) that I had a bit of a revelation about the importance of an event such as this. At the time I was serving as chair of the church's Music Committee. This meant that when it came time to get ready for the Messiah sing it was up to me to engage the vocal soloists, secure the conductor, line up an organist, try to get the word out to instrumentalists, arrange for the loan of vocal scores from Forbes Library in Northampton, and ensure that there would be ample staff and goodies on hand for the post-sing reception.

It also meant that I was the person who got the call the following Monday from a reporter at the Daily Hampshire Gazette in Northampton, looking for material for a post-event story. I recall talking with him about the concept of the sing being a non-performance, and that although it had a few rough edges, its real value lay in the fact that it was "democratic, community music-making." I'll admit to being kinda pleased when the paper ended up using that as the pull quote that ran with a photo of folks singing that appeared on the front page the next day.

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The business of community music-making, just for the fun of it, is something about which I feel strongly. Of course, there is nothing remarkable about people playing music together primarily for their own enjoyment; it happens all the time in Irish pub sessions, at bluegrass and old-time music festivals, during after-hours sessions of jazz musicians in nightclubs, when friends gather for house parties, or when teenagers take over their parents' garages to act out their rock star fantasies. Amateur music-making, in both private and public situations, is a big part of our musical culture.

But this is Handel we're dealing with here, for Pete's sake! And a piece of music that is held in high esteem throughout much of the western world. It is typically performed in major concert halls and churches by top-caliber musicians and singers. It is by no means simple music--we're not talking 16-bar reels and jigs, or three-chord rock songs. There are high-minded critics who sniff at the whole idea of participatory sing-throughs of Messiah, and dismiss them as amateurish affronts to Handel's genius. Many classical musicians regard Messiah as a tired, over-done work that they must endure every Christmas season for the sake of a gig or two.

Nevertheless, it is unquestionably loved by, and meaningful to, lots of folks, and many (like us) derive great joy from having the opportunity to sing it. And it is not so very complex that amateurs cannot enjoy taking a stab at it. Its widespread popularity has helped make it accessible to people who otherwise would never engage with "classical" music. I see this as a Good Thing. A Very Good Thing.

In the 1967 Berkshire Eagle article mentioned earlier, writer Lawrence Raab noted that Handel tailored Messiah to the rather modest performing resources he had available for the 1741 Dublin premiere. For this reason, Raab says, the composer kept things simpler than he might have under other circumstances. He goes on to argue: "Thus, 'The Messiah' [sic] in all its greatness is particularly attractive to groups in small communities. So it may become a kind of 'folk' music, a music which people can learn and take to heart."

Well, um, no. Not quite. Speaking as a trained folklorist and traditional musician, I wouldn't go that far, or even close to that far. While there famously is no hard and fast definition of "folk music," there are a few characteristics that are more or less generally agreed on:

1. traditional tunes and songs exist in differing versions with no single, authoritative "correct" version; 
2. it is music that typically is learned and performed via oral/aural means; 
3. it is performer-based music rather than composer-based; i.e., everyone who performs traditional material re-shapes it in accordance with their own taste and abilities.

Handel's score for Messiah defines what the work is (yeah, I know, he made umpteen revisions...). People invariably sing and play it from printed music. There is no appreciable room for improvisation, except perhaps at the hands of skilled musicians who are conversant with Baroque performance practice. It is not, by any stretch of the imagination, or definition, a piece of folk music.

Where Raab is on-target--and the point I want to make with this post--is that the value of an event such as the Cummington Messiah sing lies not in whatever artistic merit it may have, but in its importance to the community in which it takes place; in its role in defining the cultural life of that community. Those of us who study folk music--folklorists and ethnomusicologists--put great value on looking at music as an aspect of the culture in which it exists; indeed, ethnomusicology is often defined as the study of music in its social and cultural context. This is in contrast to the approach taken by historical musicologists, i.e. the scholars who study "classical" music. Their approach has typically been to focus on the music for its own sake; the "text" of the music, as it were, rather than the context.

Happily, this has changed within the last generation or so. Musicologists of all stripes are taking a broader view of things. Still, it is unusual for academics to include activities in "classical" music in studies of music in communities, or to take a truly inclusive approach to the study of music in place. I know of only one book that is relevant: The Hidden Musicians: Music-Making in an English Town, by Ruth Finnegan, first published in 1989, and brought out in a revised edition in 2007.

A publisher's blurb for the book notes that it  "...focuses on the practices rather than the texts or theory of music, rejecting the idea that only selected musical traditions, 'great names,' or professional musicians are worth studying." Another description goes into more detail, noting that Finnegan's book "...presents in vivid detail the contrasting yet overlapping worlds of classical orchestras, church choirs, brass bands, amateur operatic societies, and amateur bands playing jazz, rock, folk, and country."

Or, as Finnegan herself puts it early on in the book (p. 6) , it is: “about what people actually do--about ‘is’ not ‘ought.’” Hear, hear!

What might I say about the broader context of music in Cummington, into which the annual Messiah sing fits? Not a great deal, I'm afraid, since I have not lived there for many years. But I have already mentioned the Hilltown Choral Society, and Greenwood Music Camp. Greenwood students and faculty (including Greg Hayes) perform in the Village Church when camp is in session in the summer. The church functions as a locus for other musical activity as well, including a popular "Friday Night Cafe" series of acoustic music concerts. A second church in town, the West Cummington Congregational Church, hosts occasional musical events as well.

There are no doubt many things musical that go on in the town of which I am not aware. The importance of much of the music-making in Cummington and in other small towns like it stems not from the fact that it does or does not represent some sort of musical excellence, but from the simple fact that people do it, that it is a vibrant and vital part of the local culture. 

In much of our writing and thinking about music we define music by place. We talk of Cape Breton fiddling, or New Orleans R&B, or Kentucky bluegrass. Perhaps we should think more about defining place in terms of the music that is made there.

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Notes on sources

I am indebted to both my mother, Helen Wells, and her mother, Ada Howes, for their tendency to hang onto things that others might have thrown away. They retained many newspaper articles and clippings about Cummington in file folders, notebooks, and boxes that have now come to me. Gram Howes in particular had a strong sense of the importance of local history. She was a long-time member of the Cummington Historical Commission and co-authored the chapter on Cummington in The Hampshire History: Celebrating 300 Years of Hampshire County Massachusetts (Northampton, Mass: Hampshire County Commissioners, 1964). I credit her with instilling in me my own strong love of local history. She would probably be pleased to know that one of her grandsons was the director of an archive for much of his professional life.

Among the newspaper pieces Gram saved are two that I found especially useful in providing background information on the church, the organ, and the local Messiah sings:
     Martha Beaver, "A Joyous Occasion for the Cummington Village Church," Daily Hampshire Gazette (Northampton, MA), Saturday, December 31, 1966. Feature about the history of the trompe l'oeil painting in the church, and about a time when Lyman Martin had been called in to refurbish it after some necessary repair work had been done in the sanctuary. My grandmother paper clipped a hand-written note to this article that had a few other bits of useful information.
    Lawrence Raab, "Instant 'Messiah'," Berkshire Eagle (Pittsfield, MA), Saturday, December 23, 1967. Feature about the history of the Cummington Messiah sing, accompanied by several photos taken by Joel Librizzi and Michael Miller. I have shamelessly used two of their photos (of my mother and sister) here. At this time the sing was apparently held prior to Christmas; in the article Raab notes that it was held "Late last Sunday afternoon..." viz. December 17, 1967.

Two years after the 1979 overhaul of the Pomplitz organ was completed, organist Thomas Murray of Newbury, Massachusetts, performed a solo recital on the instrument. As an adjunct to the recital, the firm of Messrs. Czelusniak et Dugal, who had carried out the restoration work, prepared a marvelous 12-page program booklet that contains an extensive history of the instrument. This was enormously valuable in my research for this post.

Two histories of Cummington were also useful resources:   
     Olive Thayer, Cummington, 1779-1979. (Cummington: Souvenir Committee of the Cummington Bicentennial, [1979]). Modest history of the town. Copiously illustrated with historic postcards and other photos.
     Helen H. Foster and William W. Streeter, Only One Cummington. (Cummington, Mass: Cummington Historical Commission, 1974.) Substantial, meticulously-researched history.
   

"You can observe a lot by just watching" -- Laurence Peter Berra

This past Sunday Sally and I decided to have church outside. Our weather has been so quirky this winter and early spring that we have not been able to indulge in much outdoor recreation; we were hungry for the sort of spiritual renewal that only a good dose of contact with the natural world can provide. Although the previous week had been chilly and generally nasty, with biting winds and even a surprise (and surprisingly heavy) snowfall at the end of the week, the day promised to be much more pleasant. So, with hiking boots on our feet and binoculars in hand, we ventured out.

After a stop at the Maine Diner in Wells for some pre-hike sustenance, we headed for the Wells Reserve. The site of an old farm, the Reserve is a favorite destination for  many area birders, walkers, and general nature lovers. It encompasses a marvelous range of habitats: mixed woodlands, open meadows, overgrown orchard & pasture, marshland, and oceanfront; there's an extensive trail system through the property that allows visitors to sample them all.

The annual spring migration is just in the early stages, so our expectations for seeing a lot of birds were rather low. We hoped perhaps to pick up a few FOYs (birderspeak for "first of year") and since our primary objective was simply to get outside, we figured that any sightings would be gravy; we'd be happy with whatever birds we happened to see.

Things were, indeed, quite slow on the birding front, but we managed to conjure up a few interesting species: a pair of American Kestrels; a half-dozen or more Turkey Vultures;  a gorgeous Great Blue Heron; a couple of Eastern Phoebes; several White-breasted Nuthatches; a few Song Sparrows; numerous American Robins; and the odd Canada Goose or so.

The relative dearth of birdlife notwithstanding, this is an interesting time of year to be out and about in the woods and fields. The snow is almost all gone--the new that fell on Friday disappeared almost as quickly as it came--so, apart from a bit of mud, the trails are all clear. It will be another few weeks before the foliage opens up, so many things are visible now that won't be once the trees and bushes leaf out. Signs of seasonal change are plentiful. One aspect of this re-awakening that we quite enjoyed seeing was the emergent Skunk Cabbage which was abundant in the wet areas near the edge of the marsh. Whatever unpleasant associations its name might invoke, it is really quite beautiful in its early phases of maturation. The flower looks something like a sea urchin without its spines. It is usually concealed by the leaves, but lies exposed in the plant in the photo above right, on which the leaves have been either broken off or eaten. (Click on this--and any other photo--to enlarge it.)

 

Our route had taken us first down the Knight Trail (see map) through the old orchard, then to the beach and back via the Barrier Beach Trail. From there we strolled the boardwalk of the Laird-Norton Trail, which connects with the Farley Trail. There is a (welcome) bench on the Farley Trail, in the vicinity of the marker for the trail on the map. This is a favorite spot to stop for a bit, not only to rest our old legs but also because it offers a fine opportunity to sit quietly and observe whatever the local avifauna might be up to.

The photo at the top of this post shows our view from the bench. Note the small island of brush across the open field from the sitters' vantage point; this provides excellent cover for birds and other critters. The area around the bench is similarly bird-friendly. There are several old apple trees and, again, a good deal of brush; see the photo to the right.

For the first few minutes that we sat there we saw no birds moving around but, soon enough, the wisdom of Yogi Berra, and his words that serve as the title for this post, was revealed. Sally spotted a raptor flying high overhead, high enough so we could not discern much in the way of marking. But the long, pointed wings, slim tail, somewhat-smaller-than-a-crow size, general coloration, and the occasional glimpse of patterning on its face made the ID fairly easy: Peregrine Falcon. His or her presence may have accounted for the lack of activity on the part of any smaller birds closer to our level, though it was high enough to perhaps have been undetectable by any songbirds. And the Peregrine gave no indication of being on the lookout for Sunday brunch.

There may or may not have been any cause-and-effect at work here, but soon after the falcon passed over, the action around us began to pick up. We spotted another Kestrel perched atop a tree in the far corner of the field. A Blue Jay soon chased him from his perch. Numerous Robins began searching the field for food. A couple of Song Sparrows started to announce their presence with authority. A male Northern Cardinal flew out of the bushes to our left, traversed the field, and did his best to disappear in the brush in the mid-field brush island. His mate soon followed; she was more successful in concealing herself.

The real treat, though, came as were beginning to think about resuming our walk. When I got up from the bench to take the photo above I was astonished to look up and see a beautiful female Northern Harrier headed in our direction! Neither of us saw where she came from; all of a sudden she was just there. She tilted her way across the field, then came down less than fifty yards from where we were  positioned. She did not stay on the ground long, and did not seem to have caught anything. She soon lifted off again and went on her merry way. We were left with huge smiles on our faces over having had such a close encounter--the closest I've ever had--with such a magnificent bird.

In the 20-30 minutes we spent sitting on the bench our patience had been rewarded many times over. Another sports cliche came to mind as we reminded ourselves that, when birding, it is oftentimes best to "let the game come to you."

We continued our walk along the Farley Trail. Before it went back into the woods we spotted this old nest in the tall grass along the edge of the field. I suspect that it was last year's work of Red-winged Blackbirds. Red-wings are among the species that are just now beginning to arrive in Maine for the summer.

  The woods in this section of the reserve property are dominated by pines. We encountered abundant evidence of the importance of pines as a source of food for denizens of the woods; squirrels had used fallen trees and old stumps for lunch counters as they feasted on pine nuts.



We also ran across reminders, such as this venerable stump girdled by old fencing, that this property had, indeed, once been a working farm.  

At the point where the trail re-emerges from the woods a pair of White-breasted Nuthatches was bopping around the trunk of a large old pine. After watching them for a bit we realized that they were going in and out of a small hole about 10-12 feet up the trunk. A telltale white smear around the bottom arc of the hole was a pretty clear indication that this was their nesting hole! A male Downy Woodpecker was also working the branches of the big pine, finding whatever it is that Downy Woodpeckers find to eat. A bit further on we were delighted to see a Brown Creeper circling his way up a medium-sized Red Maple tree, and making occasional forays to the smaller trees around it.

We finally made our way back to the parking lot, again heeding Yogi's advice by taking every fork in the trail that we came to. Our bodies were a bit tired but our spirits refreshed. I had started the morning in a bad mood but, happily, my grumpiness dissipated somewhere between spotting the first Kestrel and the close encounter with the Harrier. As expected, we had not seen great numbers of birds, but were quite pleased with the variety of species we had found. We took some pleasure in having re-learned, for the umpteenth time, that you can, indeed, observe a lot by just watching.

Coda:
We were rewarded with one final avian treat on our way out of the reserve -- a female Pileated Woodpecker was whanging away at a tree right beside the road, very near the entrance gate. I stopped the car, and since nobody was behind me we sat and watched her for as long as we cared to. She did not seem in the least bit bothered by, or even aware of, our presence. Sweet.

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The Wells Reserve is a local treasure. We feel very fortunate to have such a resource so close at hand and have long been members/supporters. Perhaps some who read this would consider supporting it as well.

"You cannot walk too early in new-fallen snow” ~ Thoreau

Virgin snow lies before me.

Our weather this winter has been, well, quirky. Snowfalls have been sporadic, and have been followed by periods of weather just warm enough, and brief enough, to partially melt the new accumulation. But only partially. The inevitable return to cold weather then left us with ice-covered walkways and driveways when the snow melt re-froze. A white Christmas was followed by a couple weeks of brutally cold weather around the New Year. We take in stride the occasional dip into negative digits for a day or so, but this time the frigid air stayed and stayed. It was downright nasty. Not a good time for any outdoor activities. By mid-January I was firmly in the grip of an intense case of cabin fever.

A heavy snowfall on January 17 proved to be a blessing in disguise. It forced the cancellation of our plans to enjoy a night of good fiddle music in Portland by the Don Roy Trio, but adorned the landscape with a fresh coat of light, powdery snow. The sun came out the next day, giving us our first truly beautiful winter day. I threw my snowshoes in the truck and headed for the Kennebunk Plains.

It had been a couple of years since the stars and planets had all been aligned properly so I could get out for a little snowshoeing. It was always too cold, or too windy, or we had too much snow, or we had too little snow, or I had other things to do, or...well, you get the idea.
 
When I got to the small parking area on Maguire Road I was a tad dismayed  to see that someone had preceded me; I had hoped to be the first one on the trail. No other vehicle was present, however, just the tracks of one, and no other human being was in sight. Whatever. I'll take it. I strapped on my shoes, crossed the road, and headed north across the open country.

When I got about halfway to the woods on the far side of the field I was delighted to see that whomever it was who had beaten me to the punch had turned around. From then on I had the pleasure of walking on virgin snow.

There really is something special about being the first to walk a trail after a snowfall. There's a sense of elation that comes with being the first person on the ground in fresh territory. You feel as though the woods, the fields, the trail are your exclusive domain, at least for the moment. A selfish feeling, for sure, but so be it.

I recently ran across this gem from the journal of the estimable Henry David Thoreau in which he expressed, much better than I, his sense of joy about being out in similar conditions:

 You cannot walk too early in new fallen snow--to get 

the sense of purity, novelty & unexploredness.

It is always a real treat to encounter a passage from a great writer in which he or she puts their verbal finger on the exact concept I've been trying to get my head around. It makes it seem as though we've all been looking at something with the same set of eyes and with the same brain.* One thing I particularly love about this Thoreau quote is his word "unexploredness." I doubt you'll find it in any dictionary, but it conveys his meaning quite effectively.

I was out and about early enough that although the sun was shining brightly, and warming the air rapidly, the trees and bushes still wore the mantles of fresh snow they had acquired the night before. In addition to adding an extra dimension of beauty to the scene, the layer of snow also muffled much of the sound. State Route 99, a fairly busy road, runs parallel to where I was walking, but traffic that morning was sparse enough that for much of the time I enjoyed walking in relative silence--a state that is mighty difficult to experience these days. The distinctive WHUMP of snow falling on snow as the sun warmed the pines was the sound I heard most frequently.

 

By the time I got about three-quarters of the way around the three mile perimeter of the area my legs and lungs began to remind me how little exercise I'd had recently. I contemplated taking a bit of a shortcut and going cross-lots back to my truck, but talked myself into pressing on...although I will admit that I took more than a couple of rest stops in the final few hundred yards. I worked up a healthy sweat, but it felt good. Although later in the day my body protested a bit, the outing did wonders to refresh my spirits.

 

And I never did see another person. In fact, I saw no other living creatures. The one disappointing aspect of this outing was the total absence of bird life. I did not see Bird One. Not so much as a Crow or a Blue Jay or a Chickadee. Zip. None. Nada. Zilch. Nary a bird.

++++++++++

Just over a month later, on February 18, we had another smallish snowfall. It dropped 9" at our house, but later that same afternoon the weather turned warmer again and we lost a lot of the new accumulation. Unseasonably high temperatures were forecast for the middle of the following week so I again figured that I needed to grab the opportunity to get out for a bit of an expotition (as Pooh would say). This time I headed for the "For All Forever" Preserve, a newish property managed by the Kennebunk Land Trust.
 
The snow conditions were not as favorable for this jaunt, and this time I followed the tracks of a couple of other people for the entire walk. But I never did see them. Whereas the trek at the Plains involved making a circuit around a large, nominally circular open area (which is bisected by a road), the course at "For All Forever" is a balloon, or lollipop, trail. That is, the trail begins with a longish (half-mile?) straight section through woods, and then goes around the perimeter of a sizable (approx. 5-6 acres) field. The Mousam River defines the northeastern edge of the field (on the left in the photo below).

East Point Sanctuary, Biddeford Pool, ME, May 2016

In the spring this is a marvelous birding spot! On a couple of visits last May we were delighted with both the variety of species and number of individual birds we saw: Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, Cardinals, Scarlet Tanagers, Yellow Warblers, numerous other species of warbler, Bobolinks, Indigo Buntings, and more. The brushy border that separates field from river provides particularly good habitat for songbirds; on one of our visits it was alive with Common Yellowthroats. It is always a treat to get a decent look at one of these gorgeous, but often secretive, little buggers. Their "witchety-witchety-witchet" song can often be heard even when the birds do not reveal themselves to human eyes. They are endearing little guys; they're among our very favorite birds.

Unfortunately, the preserve is also badly infested with ticks! This keeps a lot of birders from going there, and keeps me from returning in warm weather.

In February, of course, not many songbirds were in evidence, and ticks were not a factor. Happily, the place was by no means devoid of bird life. Shortly after I began my walk around the perimeter of the field, a beautiful Red-tailed Hawk took off from the trees along the river. He flew across the clearing in front of me, moving to my right as he flapped his way towards the woods on the opposite side. I reveled in the opportunity to admire his beauty, if only for a matter of a minute or so. He soon disappeared over the trees, heading in the general direction of the parking lot where I'd left my truck.

Once he was out of view I turned my head to the left, towards the river, and was rewarded with an even better sight: a fully-mature Bald Eagle, flying just over the treetops. He was tracking the course of the river eastward, heading downstream; if he maintained the same flight path he may well have eventually cruised right over our house.

I had even less time to admire his beauty than I'd had with the Red-tail. I have long since learned that one must take these things as they come; any and all chances to view such marvelous creatures, no matter how brief, must be cherished for what they are. Even though I was again only a few hundred yards from Route 99, the area has a feeling of remoteness about it. Somehow this made the sightings even sweeter. I felt as if I had been granted privileged access to the raptors' world. It was exhilarating in the way that only close encounters with the natural world can be.


It had been mid-afternoon when I began this walk, and by the time I completed my circuit of the field the sun was lowering and the shadows lengthening. All good things must come to an end; with some reluctance I made one final check of the open field in the vain hope of seeing another raptor, then turned and headed back up the string of the balloon toward my truck.

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Since taking these walks our quirky weather has continued. Two days after my trek at "For All Forever" the predictions of unseasonable warmth held true. Most of the new snow retreated in the face of temperatures in the high 60s. But March is not yet upon us. No doubt we will be graced with a few more snowfalls before spring truly arrives. I hope I might have another opportunity or two to heed Henry's good advice before starting to think about mowing the lawn or planting the garden.

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*I explored this phenomenon quite a bit in an earlier post about the writing of Edward Howe Forbush.

The Thoreau quote comes from his journal of 21 February 1854. I found it in: Daily Observations: Thoreau on the Days of the Year, edited by Steve Grant, with engravings by Barry Moser. Published by University of Massachusetts Press, in cooperation with the Thoreau Society. 2005.

"Peter! Peter! Peter!"

After easing in like the meekest of lambs, March assumed a decidedly leonine nature a few days into the month. The almost freakishly warm weather we had for the closing days of February that took away much of the snow that hit around Valentine's Day, was replaced by days that started out with temps in the single digits and did not warm beyond the mid-teens. As I walked out to the end of the drive to retrieve our newspaper on the coldest of these mornings I was cheered, but not really surprised, to hear the sounds of "Peter! Peter! Peter!"¹ coming from the tangles of honeysuckle and bittersweet that fill the area between our driveway and the private road that parallels it. It was the song of a Tufted Titmouse, a somewhat larger cousin of the Black-capped Chickadee, our Maine state bird.

Titmice are always among the first birds to begin singing in the run-up to Spring. This was not even the first time I'd heard one this year. That had happened nearly a month earlier--on February 10, to be precise. On that occasion I was out shoveling newly-fallen snow from the network of paths that connect our several bird feeders in the yard on the side of the house. There was still some snow drifting down. I soon worked up a bit of a sweat--this had been a wet, heavy snowfall--and stopped to rest for a couple of minutes. As I leaned on my shovel, trying to catch my breath, I was delighted to be serenaded by the sweet sounds of a Titmouse, Petering away in the woods. That time I was surprised, as this was the earliest I'd ever heard one. My previous first-of-year (FOY) record of a song had been February 16, 2011, the date on which I recorded the sound file in the above link.

Titmice are ubiquitous, year-round denizens of our yard and the woods that surround our house here in southern Maine. Along with Chickadees, Mourning Doves, Blue Jays, Downy & Hairy Woodpeckers, White-breasted Nuthatches, and Goldfinches, they're one of the species of birds we can almost always count on seeing whenever we look outside, regardless of the time of year.² They're handsome, endearing little critters. With their round, black eyes, short beaks, rusty-orange flanks, and prominent crests, they can only be described as "perky." They are frequent patrons of our feeders. Like Chickadees, they customarily select a single seed with each visit to the feeder, and fly off with it to a nearby branch where they crack it open and eat the nutmeat. They then make a return trip and begin the process all over again. Rinse, repeat. They are perhaps a bit more suspicious of human presence than are Chickadees, but in general they seem quite comfortable sharing habitat with us large, invasive bipeds. And we are certainly happy to have them do so!

As common as Titmice are here now it's sometimes hard to remember that things were not always this way; they are a relatively recent addition to the avian biota in Maine. And in the rest of New England, for that matter. They were seen only rarely, if at all, in western Massachusetts when I was growing up in the 1950s and '60s. It was not until I moved to Tennessee in 1985 that I became acquainted with them.

They are absent from early 20th century books on birds in Maine. Olive Thorne Miller makes no mention of them in With the Birds in Maine (1904), nor does Bates College student Carrie Ella Miller in her Birds of Lewiston-Auburn and Vicinity (1918).³

If we turn to the work of other early ornithologists we can track the northward creep of the Tufted Titmouse. Edward Howe Forbush somewhat hesitantly gives them an entry in the third volume of Birds of Massachusetts and other New England States (1929). He characterizes them as a "very rare or casual visitor," and a "mere straggler in New England." In those bad old days when ornithologists insisted on having a "taken" specimen in hand, rather than a mere "sight record" to establish a bird's residency in a given area, Forbush explains that he has "not listed it as a Massachusetts bird because although several sight records have been given me we have no record of a specimen taken in the state."

He confesses that he'd never had a good opportunity to observe Titmice himself, so we are not treated to any of the lovely descriptive prose that enriches so many of his first-hand species accounts. Rather, he relies on the words of others, from other states, to supply notes about nesting and feeding habits. But Forbush goes on to indulge in a bit of prognostication: "I predict that it will be taken and listed eventually in every New England state, as these states are not very far from its normal range and individuals are prone to wander more or less." (vol. 3, pp. 365-366)  He notes only one confirmed specimen from Maine, taken possibly in 1890, near Orono.

"Crested Titmouse," John James Audubon

Similarly, Mabel Osgood Wright, in the 1936 edition of Birdcraft, comments that "The Tufted Titmouse is quite rare here [i.e. southern Connecticut, where she lived], but is a summer, and perhaps, winter resident in southern New York." In the 1947 edition of Field Guide to the Birds, Roger Tory Peterson gives northern New Jersey as the northernmost limit of the Titmouse's range. By the time of his 1980 revision, he included a range map (Map #249) that indicated Titmice had moved northward to occupy territory through all of Massachusetts, as well as southern Vermont and New Hampshire, and had even crept into southern York County in Maine. In a note on the map Peterson says that the bird is "Expanding range north (helped by feeders)."

In a study published in 1999, Colby College ornithologist W. Herbert Wilson found that Titmice had begun to establish nesting and breeding populations in Maine as far north as Waterville. By now they are common in many parts of the state, though perhaps not yet in the far northern reaches. They are beginning to move across the Canadian border into the Maritimes, but are still considered rare in New Brunswick. A birding friend in Halifax rues the fact that they have not yet gotten across the Bay of Fundy to Nova Scotia.

Titmice are just one of several bird species that are now common around us but whose residence this far north is a relatively recent development. Seeing a Northern Cardinal at our farm in western Massachusetts was an exceedingly rare treat when I was growing up, much to my father's dismay; they were one of his favorite birds. Now a pair frequently visits our place in Maine, though they are not as omnipresent as some of the other species I mentioned.

I'd never even heard of, much less seen, a Red-bellied Woodpecker until I moved to Tennessee. They are another species that was regarded as an "accidental" in Forbush's day and was termed "casual" in New England by Arthur Cleveland Bent in his Life Histories of North American Woodpeckers (1939). They are also another species that Peterson, in his 1980 edition, noted was expanding its range north. Now we have a pair around much of the time. In the summer of 2015 I located a nesting site in our woods. Later on that year we were tickled to have a couple of young ones show up at the house in company with their parents. Maine Audubon naturalist Doug Hitchcox has written about the expansion of their range into Maine and presents data from eBird to show where they are now occurring in our state.

So what is behind this gradual, but persistent, northward movement of our friend the Tufted Titmouse, the Red-bellied Woodpecker, and other species? We have seen that this trend has been going on for quite some time--recall Forbush's prediction in 1929 that Titmice would eventually take up residence throughout New England, and Peterson's 1980 comments about backyard feeding contributing to range expansion. Most current commentators, however, point to global climate change as a major factor. Whether or not this has been at work since the early 20th century and is only now being recognized as a force is not something I'm qualified to comment on.

If this is the case, we should perhaps look at the presence of new species in our neck of the world as something of a silver lining in the cloud of man-made climate change. As I write, the thermometer reads 12° F and there's a nasty wind gusting. Numerous Tufted Titmice are busy at the feeder outside my office window, competing for food with a larger group of Chickadees. Whatever factors brought them here, I am delighted with their presence! I must go now and refill the feeders.

¹ Sound file recorded February 16, 2011. This is actually a conversation between at least three individuals. 
² Titmice are such a commonplace around the house that apparently I've never exerted myself to get any photos of them! In the absence of any original images I use as the lead illustration for this post the Titmouse card from the Seventh Series of  "Useful Birds of America," issued in 1918 by the Church & Dwight company, makers of Arm & Hammer and Church brand baking sodas. This was one of ten series of trade/trading cards issued by the firm over the course of many years. Numerous other companies issued similar series of cards as part of a movement to educate people about the importance of birds. The Church & Dwight cards carry the slogan "For the good of all, do not destroy the birds." These cards will be the subject of a future post, or perhaps multiple posts. The painting of the Titmouse was done by Mary Emily Eaton, a British artist who lived in the U.S. from 1911-1932, and who was better known for her botanical illustrations. She did all the paintings for the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh series for Church & Dwight..
³ I am unaware of any familial relationship between the two women.

Fair Time!

The end of summer and early autumn means fair time in communities throughout New England, and in pretty much all other places where farming is--or was--a major part of the local culture and economy. When I was a kid growing up in Western Massachusetts, the annual Cummington Fair was second only to Christmas as something we looked forward to with bounce-off-the-walls anticipation. Rides! Midway games! Livestock exhibits! Fireworks! Horse and ox draws! Cheesy variety shows! Aimless ramming around the fairgrounds with your buddies! Square dancing! Junk food! Visits from cousins! It was something for which you saved all the money you earned helping your father with the haying throughout the summer--and perhaps cadged a wee bit extra because, hey, it's The Fair!--so you could blow it on the aforementioned rides, games, and junk food.

The demands of life and career made it impossible for me to attend the fair for many years, but since I retired and moved to Maine we've made trips to Cummington at fair time a more-or-less regular part of our August schedule. Sally had had little or no experience with rural agricultural fairs until she and I got together, but she now looks forward to fair time at least as much as I do. She had certainly never seen horse and ox pulling competitions before, and now she's hooked on them! When we go to the fair we spend much of our time with our butts plunked down in the exquisitely uncomfortable seats of the grandstand at the pulling ring. 

So, at the end of August we duly made the 4-hour trek from southern Maine to western Massachusetts to take in this year's fair. Or some of it. In years past things began on Friday night, went all day Saturday, and wrapped up with a somewhat shorter day on Sunday. Now the fair begins on Thursday night and runs through the weekend. When I was a kid there was always a fireworks display on Friday night, which was a big favorite. That has now been displaced in favor of truck pulling on Thursday and demolition derbies on Friday and Saturday, neither of which holds the slightest bit of interest for me. Friday night also used to be the time when there would be a show by a semi-big name entertainer, usually a third- or fourth-tier country performer. I have very fond memories of some of those shows, but those are stories for another time. At any rate, we attended this year's fair only on Saturday and Sunday, August 27 & 28.

Today I want to write about the fair in times past. Not my own past, mind you, but the past of earlier generations of my family. A year or more ago I scored a copy (via eBay) of the 1912 Annual Report and Transactions of the Hillside Agricultural Society. (The Hillside Agricultural Society being the organization that runs the Cummington Fair.) Both of my parents came from farm families that have long tenure in Cummington, and that have been active in the fair for generations. My paternal great-grandfather, Alexius Wells (1828-1909), the ancestor who, in 1864, bought the farm where I grew up, was one of the founding members of the Hillside Agricultural Society.

With this in mind, I thought it worth the few bucks I had to spend on this report to see if perhaps it contained any trace of my family's fair-related doings. I was not disappointed! There is not a huge amount of information, but there are enough tidbits to give some insight into the agricultural activities of family members who were long gone before ever I arrived on this earth.

Alexius passed away a few years before this report was published but he appears in it in the list of deceased Life Members of the Society. (His name is spelled there "Alexis," as happened frequently, no doubt reflecting colloquial pronunciation practice.) Not surprisingly, the ancestor about whom I learned the most was my grandfather, Darwin R. Wells (1869-1948). At the time of the 1912 fair Darwin was 42 years old (his birthday was in December); a farmer in the prime of life. My own father, who was the third of the five children who would eventually be born to Darwin and his wife, Zola Morgan, was about 10 months old at fair time that year. In that era the fair was held at the end of September, and was only a two-day event. In 1912 it ran on September 24th and 25th -- a Tuesday and Wednesday, rather than a weekend. A situation about which I will have a bit more to say anon.

L to R: Mr & Mrs. Barnard; Zola & Darwin Wells

Darwin followed in Alexius' footsteps in maintaining involvement in the workings of the Cummington Fair. Like his father before him, he was a Life Member of the Hillside Agricultural Society. He also was an active exhibitor. The 1912 report includes lists of the prize-winners at the year's fair, at which Darwin (invariably identified as "D.R. Wells") took home prizes in fifteen different categories of produce: corn, apple collection, pears, Concord grapes (!), quinces (!!), peaches, vegetable collection, onions, and six different types of grain--plus maple syrup. All these prizes earned him a grand total of $9.10. While it may seem that he came out better in terms of bragging rights than in acquiring extra cash, his winnings that year equate to approximately $222.00 in 2016 dollars. Hardly a fortune, but perhaps enough to buy some seed for the following year, or a few sap buckets for his sugaring operation.

This list of the crops that D.R. grew that he was sufficiently proud of to enter in the fair gives a fascinating window into the world of the family farm of a century ago. That he entered corn, maple syrup, and a collection of vegetables is not surprising. Making maple syrup was part of the yearly flow of farm work in my own lifetime; my father reluctantly gave it up in the 1990s when he was in his ninth decade. Likewise, a stand of sweet corn, and a large vegetable garden, were staples of summers on the farm. Younger members of the family might puzzle over the apples but there was once a sizable orchard on the property. Somewhere among the family papers that I have, but have yet to fully sort and process, is a chart showing all the different varieties of apple trees that once stood on the farm. My father had the orchard cleared in the early 1960s, but there are still numerous venerable old trees standing along the stone walls that define the borders of fields and pastures. In a good year most still produce fruit.*

As for the various other entries...I remember one large old pear tree that stood in the field below the farm house, and I suppose that it could have yielded enough exhibit-worthy fruit for D.R. to select some samples to enter. If there was ever anything resembling a pear orchard on the farm, though, I have no knowledge of it.* But quinces?? Well, again, I guess that one need have had only a single bush to produce enough fruit to exhibit one or a few. I've searched my memory in vain for any hint of where a quince bush, or bushes, might have been located.

The prize-winning Concord grapes are another matter altogether! I have fond memories of eating my fill of luscious, juicy Concords on many a crisp, autumn day, and of a cheesecloth bag full of cooked grapes hanging in the kitchen, the juice seeping through into a large kettle, as my mother made a year's supply of grape jelly. The annual yield from the vines that grow along the wall below the farmhouse has varied greatly over the years. My father carried out a somewhat cyclical, if desultory, pattern of tending them or neglecting them, of shoring up the arbor that supported them, or letting it succumb to the weight of winter snows. I have long wondered just how old these vines were. I always suspected that they pre-dated my father's time but had no information to support that hunch. The fact that Darwin exhibited grapes at the 1912 Cummington Fair strongly suggests (though does not prove) that the vines are, indeed, over a century old. I take some comfort in thinking that the same venerable vines have provided fruit that has been enjoyed by multiple generations of the family. 

I am pleased to report that not only are the vines at the farm presently in fine shape, and flourishing on a wonderful new arbor constructed by my cousins who now own the place, but that a scion of them has taken root in my own yard in Maine. Our fingers are crossed that it will prosper in its new home and one day provide us with our own supply of delicious fruit--and help keep alive my memories of the grapes that I enjoyed when I was a kid.*


I learned other tidbits of family history from the 1912 fair report beyond the nature of my grandfather's produce exhibits. My uncle Bob, my father's oldest sibling, won $1.50 for his rabbits--breed not specified. Apart from exhibiting vegetables, D.R. was paid $6.60 for "vegetables for the hall"--presumably veggies that would have been on the menu for the dinner that was--and still is--always served in the main hall. My father carried on this tradition, often supplying many bushels of sweet corn to help feed the multitudes who gather for the fair dinner.

View of fairgrounds, prob. early 20th century

It was not just my father's side of the family that was involved in the fair. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that my maternal great-grandfather, Milton S. Howes, was president of the Hillside Agricultural Society at this time--a fact that if I had ever known, I had long since forgotten. He also exhibited. He won prizes for his corn, as did D.R. Wells, and for his Angora Goats. The goats are listed as having been exhibited by "M.S. Howes & Son," though which of his three sons this might have been is not indicated; perhaps it was my grandfather, Almon.

Apart from family history, the acquisition of this old annual report piqued my interest in the broader history of the Cummington Fair. This year when we were there I spent a good bit of time studying, and photographing, the several antique posters from fairs held in the late 19th century that hang both in the main exhibit hall (the large building with the flagpole on top, in the photo above), and in the small museum dedicated to fair history that stands on the grounds. None of the photos are suitable for inclusion here due to the large size of the posters, and the fact that they are all framed under glass, resulting in considerable glare. But I was able to glean a good bit of information from them.

Postcard, prob. stock photo, not actually of Cummington fairgrounds.

As I noted earlier, the fair in those days was held in late September, rather than late August as it currently is, and ran for only two days. While this was not a surprise to me, the fact that the two days were in the middle of the week--generally Tuesday and Wednesday--rather than the weekend--was. I have yet to undertake any research to try to determine why this was the case. Perhaps at the time weekends were not as important to the working public, particularly in what was largely an agricultural community. Still, kids would have needed to get out of school on weekdays in order to attend the fair. Or did the school year perhaps start later in those days, so the young people would be free to help with late-summer farm work? Questions for another time. Nineteen forty-six was the last year that the Cummington Fair was held in September, and by this time it had been moved to Friday and Saturday--September 20 and 21, to be precise--though the shift to the weekend may have occurred in an earlier year. When, in the next year it was moved to August, it also expanded to become a three-day event; the 1947 fair ran from Friday, August 22, through Sunday, August 24.

Postcard mailed Oct. 6, 1910

Postcard dated Sept., 1908

Regardless of when it is held, the Cummington Fair has been a vital part of life in the Hilltowns of western Massachusetts for nearly 150 years; it was first held in 1868. I well remember the celebration of the centennial in 1968, and look forward to whatever events are planned to mark the sesquicentennial in 2018.

Much has changed in the world during those 150 years. Cummington is by no means any longer a community defined by agriculture. When I grew up in the 1950s and '60s there were, by my reckoning, at least twelve active dairy farms in town, a large apple & peach orchard, and many acres given over to growing potatoes. Today there are, at best, three full-time dairy farms, and the orchard and potato operation are long gone. These changes are reflected in the fair. There are fewer sheep and cattle being shown, and the produce exhibits in the main hall are much smaller than they were when I was growing up. One barn formerly used for housing show cattle is now devoted to craft sales. The number of teams in the horse and ox drawing contests is down from what it used to be. Some weight classes this year had only three entrants. The fair continues to draw large crowds, and it remains an event to which we look forward every year. But one can only wonder if it will survive to mark its 200th year.

I'm pleased to acknowledge the assistance of Stephen Howes, my 2nd cousin and another great-grandson of M.S. Howes, for help establishing the dates of some of the changes to the fair calendar. Stephen was serving as docent in the small fair museum this summer, and I enjoyed some very pleasant, informative conversation with him.

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*Update: In later posts I write more about the grapevine on the farm, and about a couple of pear trees in what was principally an apple orchard.