Sunday, October 24, 2010

Pennsylvania



The biggest surprise, on waking up in the Pennsylvanian countryside (after the difference in temperature - 55'F/12.7'C when we left NYC, 39'F/3.8'C when we arrived, two hours later) was the leaves. We had arrived in the dark, so I was unprepared for the season that greeted me through the windows when I drew the curtains the next morning. The surrounding woods - layers and layers of trees,  were stripped to branches and trunks, and many still held on to dripping colour. Yellow, mostly, with splashes of crimson where maple appeared.

I felt like a town mouse transported to another world.



I had not expected to be washed clean of the city whose familiar season I take for granted.



While setting up pictures on the mossy lawn I was distracted again and again by fallen leaves like jewels in the grass.



Even the undergrowth of ferns was beautiful in a brown and pale yellow way. Then Ellen showed me muddy bear paw prints on the side of the house and I looked a little more carefully at the woods.


My reason for visiting: wine, in this case Linden flower. Think Noble Late harvest, but with an essence of something entirely different. But that's all I'll write about it now - more in February (she says, cryptically). We carried this in chilled hands to the lake nearby (Update: Read the story I wrote about Ellen's wine for Edible Manhattan here).


The walk, on leaf-covered roads, showed witch hazels in bloom everywhere


One of my favourite trees, and this one only familiar to me after last year's trip to the Catskills. The native Hamamelis virginiana, which blooms now, rather than the more famous pre-spring flowers of its Oriental cousins and cultivars.


Woodpiles. This wood is used to heat the house in winter, via the woodstove in the basement. Michael's weekend job was to move it all into the garage and out of the coming, winter-long snow. 


In nearby Milford:


White pickets fences...



...and maple leaves.


And sculptural gingko.
 

And near the highway Ellen stopped to show me silver berries - Eleagnus umbellata - heavy with fruit. Tannic, tart, and juicy.


Probably Virginia creeper berries. Not edible.


Soon I was on the bus, headed back to Brooklyn, snapping road pictures and watching as the season contracted again and met half way the one I had left, where leaves are still green.





Port Authority, the Frenchie meeting me in its charmless bowels, the A to Brooklyn, packed with New Yorkers, teenage mothers, a crying, unhappy child, Hipsters, workers, tourists. Back in the hood in the dusk, warm bread and fragrant coffee from Sahadi's, more mushrooms from Mr Lee to supplement the succulent oyster mushrooms from the woods, delicious Chilean Pedro Jimenez wine from the Wine Exchange, which was hopping on a Saturday night, and home to a handsome black cat and a terrace that drank its fill as I watered it in the cool air under stars that had just come out.

10 comments:

  1. You found such beauty in the simplest things, thank you. And FYI, Michael got all the wood inside and we also put away all the lawn furniture. Bring on the snow!

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  2. Lovely.

    You did something new in this post. Ahem, if I may...

    Normally you post your words first, then pictures (I do the opposite). In this post, you went about half way through where the pictures led to words.

    It may seem like a small matter, but I see the 'words first' as a preference for writing, with pictures to illustrate. Anyhow, the twist this time around, led me to feel the post as an excitement of your visual experience of PA.

    Ok, done now.

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  3. Pennsylvania never looked so good.

    I'm loving the bigger pictures, they're like paintings.

    And I love the thought of you on the bus, traveling alone, taking pictures out the windows.

    xo Jane

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  4. The colors are wonderful!! I love Fall!

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  5. Frank, you are one of those people who like to read the book before watching the movie.. am I right? :-)

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  6. What a day! So many visuals, all packed in one day. No wonder you were overflowing. I felt the same on sunday, after a day up the west coast, coming back through wheatfields and rain.

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  7. Sorry Marie, now hijacking your comments for other conversation...

    Kari,

    Well, I would say that I've seen more movies without knowing they were first books, than have read books that then became movies. I'm a slow reader, and read mostly non-fiction. Hmm. But when I have read the book, I am often disappointed unless the filmmaker is very good.

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  8. love this post marie. love. secret wine mission eh? hmmmmmmmmmm....

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  9. Lovely photos. I believe the one you thought might be Virginia creeper is not that. Virginia creeper is a vine having usually five leaflets on each stem, radiating from the tip of the petiole. For more info, check here: http://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=PAQU2. Pennsylvania has quite a few native shrubs that produce red berries, and I'm not sure which one this is. The leaves look a bit short, or I'd guess autumn olive, a prolific Asian invasive.

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    Replies
    1. See the photo below that sentence. The autumn olive is the one above :-)

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