For someone who loves the countryside and nature as much as I do, staying in the city this summer has been a real stretch. Usually we would go to the U.S. to visit my father and spend time at the lake, but the border is closed to non-essential travel, and even if we did it, such a trip would mean a month of strict quarantine - two weeks on either side. Staying in hotels or B&Bs seems risky, so overnights away haven't really been considered. I've never been so grateful to live near a large city park, or to have a fairly private terrace that I could fill with plants.
For several weeks, we've been working very hard to clean our studio of everything we're not going to need. This has meant sorting through possessions, tools, supplies, equipment, and the work of our whole professional and creative lifetimes. It's a huge, heavy, and sometimes emotional task that felt almost overwhelming at the beginning, but after steadily putting in several hours a day, day after day, we're getting there. We've sold or given away a lot, recycled or thrown out the rest, and are gradually getting down to the core of what we want and need to keep for the next period of our lives. As you can perhaps imagine, doing this in the middle of a pandemic, very hot weather, and the current worldwide political and social crises has contributed to a roller-coaster of moods, from frustration to encouragement, that we've managed with as much equanimity as we could. However, we've really needed some breaks, and those are coming now in the form of day trips out of the city.
One beautiful day this past week, we decided to drive south toward Vermont and visit a favorite farm that used to be a perennial stop when we were making that trip every fortnight. Earlier in August, we had driven to our favorite fromagerie, Fritz Kaiser, where we bought cheese made from the milk of his herd of Brown Swiss, goats, and something new: water buffalo, which was delicious. Then we swung back to this same farm to buy the first sweet corn of the season.
We love seeing the flat fields of southern Quebec, filled with hay and corn and soybeans; the blowsy summer clouds; the blue skies.
At the farm this time we bought corn, strawberries, and field tomatoes, and then sat at a picnic table beside the barn, eating local ice cream from little paper cups that came with a wooden stick -- when was the last time I'd had one of those?
Then we went into the barn to find the source of the deafening crowing that had punctuated our snack. It was this magnificent Plymouth Rock rooster, who continued to crow while we visited the ducks and geese and chickens...
the rabbits...
...and the sheep and the goats. Watch the video and at the end, you'll hear him too!
I went through a similar experience this weekend. I was not in the best of moods this week but, motivated by a lovely and inexpensive Italian typewriter to acquire, we took a day trip to the Eastern Townships yesterday. We took our bikes with us and started with a long morning ride along the canal Chambly. We then got back in the car and drove to Bedford to get the typewriter. It was so nice to be on the road and in nature that we ended up extending our trip for a couple of hours, stopping to get ice coffees and then bottles of wine at the Orpailleur. I realized on the way back home that I had forgotten that I was in a bad mood. Now if only we had a good friend with a chalet on a lake! I miss being by the water. That's all that's really missing to my summers. ;) (I have no desire to acquire such a property. One house is enough to take care of!)
Posted by: Martine Page | August 16, 2020 at 02:54 PM
How wonderful. It looks idyllic.
Posted by: Kim Randall | August 16, 2020 at 08:17 PM
Martine, I hope you'll show us pictures of your new typewriter! And I'm glad this travel-cure worked for you too. That rooster really captivated Jonathan and he took much better pictures of it than I did. It was just fun to see the animals as well as the landscape...and the corn and tomatoes were fabulous!
Kim, thanks for commenting. It felt pretty idyllic, you're right -- but I also know what those fields look and feel like in January!
Posted by: Beth | August 17, 2020 at 11:31 AM
That rooster has an operatic voice!
Lovely post, Beth, I can almost smell the country air.
Posted by: Natalie | August 27, 2020 at 05:15 PM