spring vaca­tion at Red Gate Farm!

What a mad­cap ten days we’ve had here!

It’s what hap­pens when we’ve been absent for sev­en months from our beloved home here in the Con­necti­cut val­leys.  The birds have missed us, as have the chip­munks and the elu­sive wood­chuck Gary.  Agatha, our bril­liant clean­ing lady, had been and gone, leav­ing her mag­i­cal per­fec­tion and a pot of bloom­ing daf­fodils behind her.  Our neigh­bors had been involved in an intense rival­ry as to who could leave the most wel­com­ing pot of jam, loaf of bread, sweet East­er note.

It’s been eight years since we were here for the East­er hol­i­day, and in those long years in Lon­don I had for­got­ten about the var­i­ous mir­a­cles that take place in the coun­try in April.  Snow­drops abound in Anne’s gar­dens across our qui­et road.

In the shad­ow of our farm­house, over­look­ing the Big Mead­ow, the bed of ferns, dor­mant and brown through­out the win­ter months, begins to come alive again, with­out our hav­ing to do any­thing about it.  Perfect.

“Our gen­er­a­tor’s been stolen!” John says sad­ly, walk­ing in from his inven­to­ry of the Big Red Barn.  “Oh, no, how dis­ap­point­ing to have some­thing bad hap­pen at Red Gate Farm,” I mourn, hat­ing to think our shangri-la had been invad­ed.  I mes­saged my dear farmer friend up the road to ask if there had been oth­er such thefts and she replied imme­di­ate­ly, “OMG, did­n’t any­body tell you?  We came over and took it down to your base­ment for safe-keep­ing after the big snowstorm!”

So, far from a theft on our beloved farm, we have been vis­it­ed by yet more kindness.

How thrilling to see the new/old wall, repaired labo­ri­ous­ly by our dear stone­ma­son Tony.  It will last forever.

We went to bed the first night puz­zled to hear a strange singsong, almost buzzing sound out­side the win­dows.  “Is it cica­da sea­son?” John won­dered, and we fell asleep wondering.

In the morn­ing we fol­lowed the sound through the cold spring air across the road far into Anne’s prop­er­ty, into a stand of shiv­ery bare trees, to the swamp that the near­by main road is named after.  And there we found hun­dreds and hun­dreds of very vocal lit­tle new­born frogs, just below the sur­face, “peep­ers,” as it turned out, and liv­ing up to every inch of their names.  You can’t see them here, sad­ly, as they’re hid­ing, but trust me, they’re there and chirp­ing away.

We crossed the road and admired the tiny shoots com­ing up in the tiger lily bed in front of the house.  We’ll miss near­ly all of them, but there is usu­al­ly one hold­out at the begin­ning of July to wel­come us.

How heav­en­ly to set­tle in, watch­ing “Days of Our Lives,” “Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal” and “Young and the Rest­less.”  What on earth is Jason doing on Y&R, and Ash­ley on Days?  I pre­pare lunch­es of red cab­bage slaw, left­over chick­en burg­ers, soups from the din­ner before, hap­pi­ly look­ing out my kitchen win­dow at the — admit­ted­ly brown — sweep of lawn down to the barns.

Then it’s time to make our sea­son­al pil­grim­age to the Gap for sale t‑shirts and under­wear.  “Nice to see you!  But what are you doing here at East­er?” the salesla­dy asks.  Have I been spend­ing too much time at Gap?  We vis­it our beloved Amer­i­can gro­cery stores for the Amer­i­can foods we long for all year long: tru­ly gar­licky dill pick­les from the deli counter, yel­low Amer­i­can cheese, Dori­tos and Chee­tos, bison for burgers.

It was absolute­ly freez­ing, lit­er­al­ly, the first days of our vaca­tion, but did that stop us from play­ing ten­nis?  Of course not!  Our hiber­nat­ing bod­ies were shocked to be asked to run, jump and hit balls.  We per­se­vered, secure in the knowl­edge that John’s mom’s approval would make it all worth­while.  And it did, when we retrieved her from the cozy near­by air­port and brought her home, stop­ping for the ulti­mate eggy brunch — a sand­wich with fried eggs, sausage, bacon AND cheese! — at the per­fect Lau­rel Din­er, the best din­er on the face of the earth.

Every­thing tastes bet­ter there, and it was such fun to greet our friends Peter and Stephanie who run that won­der­ful spot.

And from Non­na’s arrival, the pace of life ratched up.  We were off to my sis­ter’s for a deli­cious pork rib din­ner, fresh from my broth­er in law’s grill.  “We had a lit­tle din­ner guest here awhile ago, and she said how great the ‘meat sticks’ were,” Joel laughed.  I have a feel­ing ribs will always be “meat sticks,” now.  How won­der­ful as always to be cooked for, in their beau­ti­ful, serene house, full of my nieces’ shout­ing laugh­ter.  I can’t believe we for­got a camera!

But Avery was there to pho­to­graph one of our favorite Red Gate Farm dish­es: scal­lop and pars­ley pas­ta.

We’re hard at work on our cook­book and much of our diet late­ly has come under the head­ing of “Do we need a pho­to of that?”

One morn­ing, for some rea­son John was vis­it­ed by an intense desire to redo Avery’s child­hood room.  “Why should you be all crowd­ed in there with two beds?  Let’s take one down and get you a chair and some book­shelves.”  So we took down one twin bed and poor Avery had to go through all her books, papers, girly stick­ers and toys.  It looks gor­geous and peace­ful in there now.

One more bit of child­hood gone, in a vis­it that began with the dis­cov­ery of No More Rope Swing.  How sad.

I sup­pose it should­n’t have sur­prised us, as the swing’s been up since 2004 and the branch has drooped vis­i­bly in the last few years.  But I will miss it, scene of many love­ly sum­mer after­noon swing­ing ses­sions with Avery, her vis­it­ing friends, the neigh­bor chil­dren, Jane and Molly.

And then my beau­ti­ful moth­er and broth­er arrived!  How won­der­ful to have every­one togeth­er, final­ly.  Here are all the ladies of my beloved fam­i­ly.  What fun to sit and gos­sip with and just plain enjoy my mom.

Just look at Miss Mol­ly at school, rev­el­ling in her own spe­cial park­ing spot, thanks to the school auction!

We had a fab­u­lous time with the “dip me again, Aunt Kris­ten!” ploy.

Lots of time in the back­yard on the swingset.  Too bad Mol­ly isn’t a ham, at all.

Jane got some valu­able lessons in pho­tog­ra­phy from the queen there­of, Rosemary.

I think she learned a lot.  What a com­plete­ly beau­ti­ful girl she is.

And Sat­ur­day brought us a belat­ed East­er Egg Hunt!  No need to both­er with expla­na­tions of the Bun­ny’s vis­it­ing twice in one year, this hunt was pure­ly a gift to our nieces from us.

And they had fun in the cold, cold morn­ing air.

We had a deli­cious, if total­ly unex­pect­ed East­er lunch.  I had decid­ed that the best way to feed every­one would be a roast­ed ham, but I def­i­nite­ly did not want the already-cooked, and heav­en for­bid already-sliced things that seemed to dom­i­nate the butch­er sec­tion at the gro­cery.  “Do you have an uncooked, fresh ham?” I asked the “butch­er” uncer­tain­ly, as most peo­ple stand­ing behind Amer­i­can meat coun­ters have no real rela­tion to the pro­fes­sion of butch­ery.  But this fel­low did, with the bloody apron to prove it.  And he sold us a fresh ham.

Which turns out to be… pork roast.  I should have real­ized that fresh ham here is a whole sep­a­rate cat­e­go­ry to what we’d think of as fresh ham in Eng­land, which is called a gam­mon joint and has been cured.  “Fresh ham” in the States is real­ly not at all, except that it’s the cut that would even­tu­al­ly become a ham, if cured.  Ours was a sim­ple, giant pork roast on the bone.  Deli­cious, once we got used to it.  Here is our spring­time, East­er table.

Of course, I’ve been bell­ring­ing, amidst all this activ­i­ty!  I made the trip down to Brew­ster glad­ly, since the now-defunct Mel­rose School and its beau­ti­ful tow­er is one of my favorite places in the world.

How heart­warm­ing and nev­er-chang­ing, to be reunit­ed with my Mel­rose band and take up the rope with them.  Easy cama­raderie, spe­cial bell in-jokes and spar­ring.  And then…

The num­ber five bel­l’s rope sim­ply sev­ered in Bil­l’s hands, thank good­ness not mine!  The prac­tice devolved into an impromp­tu rope replace­ment sem­i­nar, high up in the bell­tow­er, with the dra­ma of which rope to choose tak­ing place in the ring­ing chamber.

We had a glo­ri­ous cou­ple of hours, ring­ing some­thing mad­den­ing called “Lit­tle Bob,” which involves ring­ing on six bells but pre­tend­ing there are only four, only you DO have to count the extra two, but not real­ly?  You can imag­ine my lev­el of skill at this endeav­or!  “One, two, three, four, Lit­tle Bob is such a bore.  What did I choose the tre­ble for?”  Nev­er mind, it was tremen­dous fun.  Good­bye to Mel­rose until July!  I got to greet the res­i­dent baby cow (don’t ask, no idea what he’s doing here) on my way to the car.

A won­der­ful vis­it with my dear chum Shel­ley on my way back upstate, and I was safe­ly back at home, my ears lit­er­al­ly ring­ing with my after­noon’s adventure.

It’s so dif­fi­cult for me to believe, when I’m here, that our Lon­don life exists.  Life here is all about baby Rol­lie’s birth­day par­ty, com­plete with a vis­it to his new chicks and ducks, and his love of the Wellies we brought him from London.

It’s about his moth­er Tri­cia bring­ing me a dozen of her hen’s eggs, and it’s about the school bus trundling by on its dai­ly rounds, past the Big Red Barn.

It’s about the peace of this old, old house, and the most serene bed­room in the world.

It’s about Amer­i­can friends, and dear, dear fam­i­ly with whom we nev­er get to spend enough time.  Two weeks of bliss, and then back to our oth­er life, with its joys and sor­rows.  How lucky we are to have both lives, and every­one who peo­ples them.

Well, it’s back to the ten­nis courts for us.  The sun is shin­ing, the warm air wel­comes us, and it’s spring vaca­tion at Red Gate Farm.  Hap­py days.