27 September 2010

Today was a day of firsts, even as it was my last full day of work.

This morning, as I walked up to the top of the drive to put out the Apple and Cider signs, I smelled wood smoke for the first time since I’ve been here. It was chilly here today, overcast and windy. I stood at the edge of the long, deserted road for several minutes, reveling in the burgundy maples, the flaxen birches, the still virescent oaks. The smell of wood burning in a distant fireplace drifted towards me on the wind. Autumn has come to New England.

On the way back from picking apples this afternoon, we stopped on the narrow, twisting causeway that stretches between the isles and collected seaweed as the tide went out. I raked it up into heaps and piled it into the bushel baskets. As I shook the rocks, sand, shells, seagull feathers, and crab carcasses from the seaweed before dumping it in the bushels, I asked dubiously, Tim, you don’t…eat this, do you? You never know with these staunch organics. He thought my question was hilarious and assured me that they didn’t. Not this seaweed, anyways, he said.

It’s taken me two months, but I finally managed to impress Tim today. After lunch we drove the thirty minutes out to Stonington on Deer Isle to pick apples from a certain tree he’d heard about. The tree was beautiful, growing through the crevice between two massive rocks. It was located on a hill, so one rock you could easily walk onto and have access to one side of the tree. That’s the side of the tree Tim chose to work on. The rock on the other side of the tree was massive with a ten-foot, sheer vertical face. I was left to that side to collect the fallen apples from the ground and as many as I could reach with the ladder. No matter which way I position the ladder on the hillside, as soon as I started to ascend, it started to tip. I stood at the base of the rock, hands on my hips, head tilted to study it. I tried a couple of times to get a hand- and toe-hold, but my rubber boots couldn’t find purchase on the rock face. So I pulled off my boots, set them neatly aside, and scaled the rock.

When Tim came around to get another ladder from the truck, he stopped at the base of the rock and stared up at me. How did you get up there? he asked, bewildered.

I climbed, I informed him, stating what I thought was the obvious.

He glanced around and noticed my boots. Are you just in your socks?

Yep, I said calmly from ten feet up in the air.

Why?

Well, could you make it up this in Wellies?

I couldn’t climb that thing at all. What are you, a mountain goat? I think his mouth even hung a bit agape.

In a past life, I answered blithely and continued to gather apples.