A Grand Old Fourth with the Grandkids

This year we were lucky to have daughter Eleni and her two kids, Amalia, 5, and Nicolas, 2, come to stay with us in Grafton, MA from June 27 to July 5.    Although they live on the 14^th floor of a New York high-rise and have Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum of Art  a few blocks away, the simple pleasures of life in the country delighted them and Nick and I loved sharing an old-fashioned Fourth of July weekend.  Along with Eleni and kids on this visit came Emilio’s niece from Nicaragua, Maria Agustina, who is staying with them while she looks at colleges in the northeast.  Eleni’s husband, Emilio, couldn’t make it to Grafton because he was so busy launching his new coffee company Eleva, back in New York. 

It was very hot, and as soon as they arrived, everyone headed for the pool while Eleni Nikolaides (“Yiayia Nenny”) and Mommy inflated pool toys like Hank the Octopus. Papou Nick looked after grandson Nico on his kickboard.

 Every morning Amalia and Nico would set out carrots and other treats for the bunnies that seem to be reproducing like, um, rabbits all over our property.  The baby bunnies became so tame that Nico could almost pick them up, which had him screaming with excitement.

 The pair had several tea parties on the porch, and Nico was happy for hours playing with his Nemo water table on the lawn.

Friday night, June 30, the Worcester fireworks display in Christoforo Colombo Park on Shrewsbury Street was threatened by rain, but it stopped just long enough for the pyrotechnic display, which we watched from afar in the Beechwood Hotel’s parking lot.   Amalia counted with glee how many of the explosions included the three colors of our flag.

 The next day, Saturday, we went to a “Crab Festival” in the parking lot of the Sole Proprietor restaurant.  It was celebrating the 25^th year that Buster the Crab will be enthroned atop the restaurant throughout the month of July to advertise the special crab menu.  

 The kids got free face-painting, balloon figures, and the chance to enter a Buster coloring contest (which would score them a free meal if they came in July with their parents.)   

From there we went to the nearby Worcester Art Museum, one of the best small museums in the country.  The kids admired the medieval chapel and colored in an exhibit of sacred art. (The museum has become very child-friendly.) 

 They loved lying on pillows to look up at the hanging art, with flashing lights and waving plastic cones that are inflated by fans.  That exhibit is called  “Reusable Universe” by Shih Chieh Huang.

 The little ones were captivated by the pink plastic flamingos gathered in the museum’s courtyard, where we ate lunch from the Museum Café.  (Did you know that the plastic flamingo –1957, as well as Tupperware –1946, both originated in Leominster, MA the “plastics capital of the world”?)

Sunday started with a tour of Westboro and Grafton, including a horse farm.  We stopped for an ice cream at Grafton’s Country Store on the picturesque Grafton Common.

After lunch we went to Worcester’s Ecotarium, a science and nature museum that currently offers an exhibit called “Did Dinosaurs Poop?”, combining two topics of riveting interest to Amalia and Nico.  They even got to dig for fossilized dinosaur poop in this sort of sandbox.  The stegosaurus you see outside is Siegfried, who lives at the Ecotarium but no, he doesn’t poop.

One highlight of the Ecotarium was the 12-minute ride on the miniature Explorer Express train around the park, but the biggest hit of all for Amalia and Nico was standing inside the hurricane simulator to feel the force of the winds.

On Monday, July 3, Amalia worked all afternoon making a patriotic farewell cake for her Papou Nick, who was about to leave for Greece where he will spend the rest of the summer.  When she stuck a candle in it, it  became an early cake for his late July birthday.

As soon as Papou left for the airport, the rest of us headed to the Grafton Common for the annual Fourth of July concert.  All of Grafton, young and old, gathered around the bandstand, most dressed in patriotic colors. 

 Amalia investigated the cannons, which are shot at the beginning and end of the concert, and the men dressed as Civil war soldiers.  Nico checked out the flavors of the Cones on the Common.

On Tuesday, July 4, we all headed to a celebration in Millbury’s Dean Park, where hundreds of people were strolling about in the heat, enjoying the music, barbecue and games.

 There were lots of different kind of inflatable challenges and bouncy houses, and Nico and  Amalia were determined to try every one, despite the long lines.  One inflatable was a long obstacle course, but Nico plunged in fearlessly, moving as fast as the big kids, climbing up walls and eventually coming out the other end at the same time as his sister.

 We were planning to go to another, more distant fireworks display that night, but after the heat and activity of the day, we were all too tired. We elected to stay home and just watch the Macy’s fireworks from New York on TV.

The next day we drove back to Manhattan.  It took five hours instead of the usual three, and Nico threw up in the car just as we reached the New York border, but nevertheless, we all agreed, it had been the best Fourth of July ever.

The Voice of the Turtle Is Heard in the Land

Four years ago on May 23, 2013, I published the blog post below, which is basically a love song to my New England village of Grafton.  It started with a photo of the mean giant snapping turtle who comes every year across the road from the lakeside to lay her eggs in our front yard.  

I didn't see her last year and yesterday I was saying, "I wonder if that turtle's still alive?" but just now I looked out of the second floor bedroom window and there she was in the driveway.  So I went outside to say hello and she glared back as always.  I know she'll be several hours out there digging a hole and then laying her eggs (very slowly!) and then we'll try to help her get back across the street safely.

Right now, exactly as I wrote four years ago, the irises and the clematis are in flower and the peonies are about to pop open and I've been photographing it all.  And just as I said then, I'm dreaming about being able to afford a tiny apartment in New York, so I can spend my declining years there. But every spring I start watching for this turtle and I realize there's no place I'd rather be than here in our 300-year-old house in Grafton.   

 
Song of Solomon 2:11-12 (KJV)
¹¹ For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;
¹² The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;

She came today, just as she does every year, crossing the road from the lake, digging a nest in our front yard and laying her eggs--the biggest,  meanest old snapping turtle you ever saw, but we always watch from a distance and make sure she makes it back across the road without becoming road kill.

And today the clematis started to pop open and so did the best of the irises.

Last week I was back in New York City. We dined at Swifty's and I walked through Central Park every day at the height of its blossoming and I tried to figure out how I could sell our country house in the Massachusetts village of Grafton and buy a tiny apartment in New York to spend our declining years, but then I got back home for last weekend and realized that Manhattan can't hold a candle to our New England village.

At the Common they were celebrating Grafton History Day--the 150th anniversary of a time when both the Town House and the Unitarian Church were burned down on Sept 11, 1862 as the Civil War was raging, and rebuilt in 1863.

Linda Casey, president of the Grafton Historical Society, greeted me in her daytime dress.  She had another gown for the ball that night.

There was a  Civil War muster and the Mass. 13th Volunteer Infantry Regiment was recreating an authentic Civil War encampment.

Ladies were buying plants on the common, no matter what the shape and size of their petticoats.

Next I went to the Plantapalooza at the Community Barn and Harvest Project where kids and adults were planting about a gazillion tomato plants as part of the community's volunteer farming for hunger relief (they give away everything they've grown) .  And everyone who came got free tomato plants. 

You could meet alpacas and go on the cookie walk & buy handmade crafts and local honey and jams.

And of course there were the yards sales on the weekend--I bought somebody's grandmother's collectible dolls for $2.00 each.  And the all the doll clothes for another $2.00.

Manhattan may be my favorite big city, but as Dorothy said, there's no place like home.

Our Secret Garden--Looking Back

On Sunday June 5, 2011 I posted this brief history of our house and the development of our "secret garden".  So I thought it was the perfect time to post it again.  Sadly, one of the two giant weeping willows is no longer with us.  As you read here earlier this month, when it was cut down, the willow held its own secret--a nest of raccoons, but they all got out alive.

 Ever since the tornados several days ago and the arrival of house guests, I've been neglecting this blog. (Our electricity was out this morning, but now it's back.  Luckily the worst of the destruction stopped 20 miles away.)

Next Sunday (June 12) in our town of Grafton, MA, the Historical Society and the  Garden Club are sponsoring a tour of nine "Historic Homes and Gardens" and ours is one of them.  So I thought I'd post the brief house history/garden write-up that I prepared for the booklet and show you some photos of the "Secret Garden" (plus grape arbor, pool, fish pond and waterfall) that we've put into the stone foundation of the  Colonial Barn on our property that burned down in 1965 .  When  we bought the place in 1974,  the area  where the barn burned was filled with weeds and rubble, but it was my husband's idea to fill it with a pond, swimming pool and "secret garden."

The Daniel Rand House -- Grafton MA. The rear wing of this building was the original house, built in 1723 by Daniel Rand, one of the original proprietors of Shrewsbury.   On Dec. 15, 1723, his son Solomon was the first child baptized in the town when it was incorporated. Solomon lived 80 years and is buried on the property.  His gravestone is on display in the lower garden.  Two of Solomon’s sons served in the Revolutionary War.  In 1822, the property was sold at public auction  to Tarrant Merriam of Grafton,  a wealthy landholder who built the Greek Revival farmhouse which now faces Nelson Street.  Because he didn’t like to go all the way to Shrewsbury Center to church, Merriam had the boundary of Grafton moved slightly to the north, so that the house is now in Grafton.

The Rands built an enclosed walkway from their house to the barn so they could feed the animals without plowing through snow.  This very large Colonial barn, measuring 120 feet by 45, burned down in 1965, taking with it four horses and a cradle believed to have come over on the Mayflower.  All that remained was the stone foundation, which now serves as the walls surrounding the enclosed garden and pool area.

From Nelson Street the “Secret Garden” inside the barn foundation walls is invisible, but plantings of perennials can be seen on the left side of the house and running along the fence that leads to a second (modern) structure built  twenty years ago to serve as guest house, office and (on the lower level) a garage, rec room and bathroom, opening onto the pool.

 In the pool area there is a rock garden, small waterfall and fishpond on the far (south) end, plantings of impatiens, foxglove, irises and shade-loving perennials.  Antique cast-iron garden furniture and small garden sculptures can be seen throughout the area. On the  near (north) end of the enclosure is a grape arbor , supported by a pergola with ionic columns.  Hydrangeas, hibiscus, roses  and many perennials bloom throughout the season.

 When the house and three acres of property were bought from from  Richard and Marie-Louise Bishop in 1974, it came with the two large weeping willows, three different colors of lilac bushes, an apple tree, blackberry patches , lilies of the valley and a wide variety of irises. 

A Tree Falls in Grafton

We had a lot of excitement around here lately (for a sleepy rural village.) During a windstorm a few weeks ago, one of the two huge, ancient weeping willow trees at the back of our house split, and half of it fell on the driveway.  The tree clearly was hollow and rotting inside and we called a tree man who said we'd have to take the rest of it down.  The other willow could be saved for now, but it needed to have dead branches removed and the rest of it pruned so it would be fuller and healthier next year. (That's the main house on the left.  The building on the right has guest rooms and Nick's office on the top floor and the garage and rec room leading to the pool on the lower floor.)

This was really bad news to the Gage family, because the giant trees, planted at least 150 years ago, had been sort of the symbol of our house, the back of which dates back to 1722.  I even painted one of the trees on our mailbox (along with our late cat) and the kids had named our "estate" "Twin Willows".

On Wednesday morning, three young men working for the tree service came with two trucks.  One was a bucket truck lifting a man high enough to cut off limbs and the other two men fed the limbs into a wood chopper in the other truck.  First they cut all the branches off the sick tree.

Clearly it was rotten at the core.

When nothing was left but a lonely trunk, the man in the bucket started removing dead branches from the other tree.

While I was taking pictures I noticed that the lilies of the valley outside the kitchen window were in bloom, so I picked lots.

By afternoon it was time to take down the lonely stump of the victim tree.

One guy took out a really big chain saw and another held on to a rope attached to the top of it.

He cut out a big wedge so the tree would fall in the right direction

Then he cut from the other direction straight through.  It starts to fall...

And it's down.

But as the three tree men crowded around, they saw eyes peeking out of a hole in the tree at the far right in this photo.  It was a baby racoon that quickly pulled back inside.  They decided to cut off  a piece like a lid to the log to see what was inside.  Immediately one baby raccoon raced out and climbed high into the cleft of a nearby tree.

A big momma raccoon also burst out and disappeared into the distance.  And two more babies remained inside the hollow, alive but not going anywhere.

The three tree men put the lid back on the trunk and pondered what to do.  They called the log truck man who was supposed to take away the logs and told him not to come till tomorrow.  One guy called his girlfriend and she told him to bring one of the babies home as a pet, but I nixed that.  I called Tufts Veterinary School nearby and they said just leave the babies alone unless they're wounded or become deserted by the mother.  The tree guys left.  Later at dusk, somebody said they saw the mother raccoon across the road.

Thursday I woke up worried about what would happen to the babies when the log truck guy came.  He didn't come until the afternoon.

But first we took the lid off the hollow trunk...It was empty.  The mother raccoon had gathered the three babies in the night and moved them to another home.

So the log man picked up the remains of the tree...

And we said farewell to the weeping willow that had stood sentinel at our house for more than a century.