Spring Break 2009

Spring Break (from Hofstra University) 2009 was enjoyed in Pine Hill, New York, working on various projects designed to make the property more like a homestead. Friends Morgana and Kenneth Toglia and their son Tristan came to visit from Erie for several days. Tristan, 12, is a mime. Kenny worked with us on planning the layout of plantings and beds, and we discussed future projects and plans. A big step was to create and install the signpost for our bookstore sign, the "Pine Hill Book Bunny" as we presently envision it. We excavated some areas of the terraced area on the steep slope behind the house, moving soil down to the new raised beds in the front of the house where the sun is best, and prepared to build retaining walls out of uncovered field stones to frame the new terraced beds we are creating on the hillside (ala Peru and Indonesia). We more or less decided on the location of the soon to be built chicken coop, and thought about whether we should get some goats and bees. Chelsea is enamored of Mirabelle Plums which are a specialty of the Alsace-Loraine region near Metz, France, where some of her (Merovingian??) ancestors originated. Kenny suggested that we ring the property with a hedge of black and red raspberries, and put in a whole orchard of Mirabelle plum trees. Ideas, ideas!!

After the Toglias headed back to Erie, I returned to my procrustean bed, building bookshelves for the thousands of books now occupying the living room floor.

Today, Easter, I took my tradition Easter hike in the woods. It is nice at this season of the year when it is not so cold, and the forest is open since the leaves are not yet out. I hiked up the mountain behind the house, following the ruins of an extensive network of stone fences, built at great labor sometime in the past 300 years, and now apparently not in use. We found some bear scat in our back yard, so I was acutely aware that I might run into a bear at any moment.

I just finished reading the third volume of Elizabeth Cunningham's "Maeve Trilogy" last night , so I have been thinking a lot about Easter and early Christianity in a highly emotional way today. I thought of Maeve (Mary Magdalen) living out her life in a mountain cave in southern France as an old woman as I climbed through the forest on the mountainside with the cold spring wind blowing through the trees.

When I named myself Mae 15 years ago I did not even realize that Mae is a form of Mary, which was my mother's first name.