A Mighty Canopy Spanner

 

It was cold today.  It’s the middle of May.  It’s not that cold but I needed a turtleneck and a hoodie as I biked off down the road and counted back in that mental game one does where you think, “if December equals February, and November equals March and October equals April, and then May equals September . . .”  Is that really true?   Is it ever this cold in September?

 

Huge tree down.  I pedaled along past Old Huguenot Road, and there by the vernal pools that chirp with the Althing of ten thousand frogs, a bit earlier in the year, a mighty canopy spanner had given up its place at the top of the sky.  What a sound it must have made when it crashed to the ground, taking three or four fifty-year-old trees with it when it fell.  A sugar maple, I’d say.  And unlike some of the trees around here, the core wasn’t hollow.  But the roots, here in this swampland just were not deep enough when the wind and the rain lashed last weekend.  Looking at the aftermath I’d bet anything this tree made noise made plenty noise when it fell, regardless of whether anyone was around.

Off-putting, to see twenty people in a group, up on the trail ahead by the rail bridge over the Wallkill.  All of them were on bikes.  Most of them were young people and they all politely made way when I passed through.  The adults seemed a bit sheepish, nodding, shuffling aside, apologizing or the crowd.  I certainly didn’t care.  But that’s what we do these days: we apologize if we’re a crowd.  Crowds are stigmatic  

Chinese food for dinner, my style.  The cauliflower wasn’t bad.  My older one had complimented me on the disanxian I’d made last time and I gave it another try today with eggplant instead of peppers.  I think they just like the oyster sauce.  We hadn’t had meat in a while, and it was good to slice up some pork yuxiang style and cook it spicy with mushrooms.  The frozen, store-bought vegie dumplings in the freezer might just as well have been left there.  A few were frozen fused, and they crumbled and dirtied the others.  I only had about eight minutes left at the end to slop these dishes on my rice and eat with the family before darting off to the other room, to take a seven o’clock call, with a prospect which, for the second time, didn’t show and then wanted to reschedule.

 

 

 

Monday, 05/10/21