Friends of the Solvay Public Library

Quite the active week here.  Elections, of course, were all of the buzz and are now completed.   I saw Mario today collecting lawn signs over on Orchard and I'm hoping by Saturday it won't look as if one of every five houses in the village is for sale. 

Today was my first meeting in the Friends of The Solvay Public Library.  It was very interesting and most surprising that such a low profile group is active in so many ways in the village: the focus, of course, being support of and to the library.  I thought it was going to be rather pedantic, but pleasantly everyone was at ease and welcoming.   It'll take a while I know for the group dynamics to fully allow me "in" but I'm looking forward to accelerating that process by heightened participation.  Good stuff.

One of the curiosities I was going to explore this week has to remain uncharted due to events and visits.  The windmill up on the hill between Russet and Milton behind the firehouse and the Youth Center has been a must know topic.   The electric offices were closed on election day (something about the "elect" in both of them, I guess) so I couldn't get in to talk with anyone about the generator.   I'm hoping that will resolve itself early next week. 

It was simply gorgeous the past couple of days and walks with Scully were more ambles than scrambles.  This evening, though, a cold front is settling in and our pace was commensurately brisk.  He likes it - prefers it actually.  I need it to make continual if minor progress toward warming.   

Brush (away the cobwebs)

Taking Scully on one of our "long walks" yesterday morning brought us along to traverse Third Street on our way to a midpoint at Woods Rd. We happened there upon this packet of bound brush and I was stopped abruptly by a memory I couldn't quite place. I began raking through the clutter in my brain; sorting through those things that weren't quite right, bracketing this and that and coming up short and empty. Scully began to get impatient (as he does frequently bear the boredom of my unexpected pauses - particularly because I tend to stand there like a mannequin). He was probably more embarassed at being seen with me in such state than actually wanting to get moving - but let's not anthropomorphize here). I finally broke my seemingly blank stare and looked around.

There! There it was - a pergola fashioned of plumbing pipe and fittings, woven up and above with grape vines. The curbside stack was the waste come from pruning.

The unknown now placed, it was a comfortable ease into the memory of early springs on my grandfather's farm when teams of family, friends, and a few hired hands, would wend through rows and rows of vines with well worn and well oiled snips and fingerless gloves. We would throw the cut into the center of the rows. Later, with a tractor and a long pointed pole behind, we'd collect it all into small piles then throw it all into two or three very large (a good twenty feet high) piles to be burned. What a time that was! When I was ten or eleven, grandpa taught me to drive the old Ford tractor (though not to crank the engine to start it). Second gear was enough for that slow chore as he would walk behind and man the pole to gather the brush.

I could have gone on reminiscing but through that distance and fog I heard an out-of-time-and-place and whispered "rufff". Now that he'd found me, Scully and I moved on. I'll need to go by again and thank that viticulturist for the memory though I'm certain it'll take a while to explain it all. I'm going to leave Scully home for that one.

You Turkey

Saw this rafter of turkeys up behind the athletic fields at the old Hazard Street School site.   Several toms in the gang and hens galore.  Didn't want to upset them too much by getting real close, but they're a high-strung bunch, and any step I took to approach their red zone, heads would pop straight up and away they'd move as one.  

Even so, they were pretty nonchalant as they rather ambled down the side of the baseball field along Hatherleigh, then brought a few cars to a halt as they crossed  Century. 

 

One poor hen had earlier on flown over the fence but was walking on pace with the gang with only a fence between them.  When they got to the intersection and she to the high backstop behind homeplate, she just started pacing two or three steps to her right then the same to her left ever more quickly as the gang moved across the road.  She kept accelerating the to-and-fro until I could see the panic.  

I figured I had better do something, being the only one around (other than those in the cars).   Walking toward her increased her apparent anxiety until my posing threat tipped the scale against keeping visual contact with the rest of the rafter.  

She moved toward the third base line and discovered the lower fence; a few running steps and a roll of wings and she was up and across the street successfully reunited.  

It's all happening in Solvay, folks!

Listen to the Solvay High School Band - Jazz Combo play "BIRDLAND"

Winter / Spring

  Solvay is full of little surprising gifts.  For instance, we often see deer about while on a drive, or eating our gardens in the late evening. Their nuisance value can surely seem to  outweigh that of their contributions to the whole of beauty - but that's a fleeting feeling.   Other times the setting and the spirit and the timing simply come together and "click" such as happened to me in January.  Can you spot the other one?

  Today is so remarkably dull, gray, and streaked with rain and mud that I (almost) wish for that kind of snow.   It would be a visual feast at best, however, and I'm satisfied with discovering 

 

 the tease of bulbs popping through the mulch and late autumn leaves still on the ground.  Of course, all of this promise gets the juices flowing fast as maple sap and evenings are happily frittered perusing seed catalogs and exchanging  ideas for the warmer seasons.  More time is spent in the gardening section of the various H.I. stores and I guess in a weekend or two, we'll be heading out to the various nurseries to browse their perennials.  

I realize, of course, the prematurity of all of this.  We've been too many years here to believe the last snow has fallen and we can get on with easy living.  Still, it's a small joy to come to a stop sign and actually be able to stop somewhere this side of the middle of the intersection!   Any severe weather from now on, at least, should be the punctuation and not the content.   I'm ready! 

A Fresh Start

  Here we are spring upon us, the dinginess of any remaining snow bound to be gone in two days time.  And it's about time!  Folks I've talked with are pretty much resonant with my feeling come March - it's enough.  The last good snow we took a couple weeks ago was absolutely beautiful.  By November standards  at least.  It now begins to wear on people's spines as heavily as upon birches and bushes.  

It's a new beginning.  Fresh start opportunities abound and are likely favored.

  That brings me here.  I hope to begin to scribe some of my observations (and interpretations of feelings I get from those), from being in Solvay and - to a lesser extent - the immediate surrounding area.   There's quite a bit going on in the village and it's not all politics ~ though that's certainly the theme this month, isn't it?.  

  I hope you'll drop by occasionally and browse, enjoy, think, and feed back your reactions and thoughts.