All Outdoors
Weather watchers wonder and wait, when will we see our first snow?
English novelist and playwright J.B. Priestley thoroughly enjoyed its coming: “The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?”
For a moment, he forgot the feathers. Even the renowned bird guy couldn’t resist the gorgeousness of these magnificent mammals. Although it was likely just a moment, John James Audubon put down his binoculars to watch and wonder at the dolphins.
My holidays are all about food. In truth, my life is about food.
Forget the gifts and give me the delicious fare and heavenly aromas that accompany this special time of year. The scents of the season arouse the senses — ginger, cinnamon, spruce and fir trees, cloves, mace, bayberry, frankincense and myrrh are just a few.
Perhaps the finest smell and flavor of the season is redolent rosemary. It is more than just perfect for your holiday cooking.
This was no vegetarian’s delight. Unpacking my bag of farm produce last week, I found that it contained more than this vegetable lover bargained for. The cornucopia of Island-grown goods had more than just plant matter, the produce was packing protein! Hidden among the veggies were petite podlike green gremlins in the form of aphids.
American author and critic Pamela Hansford Johnson could have been inspired by a Vineyard sunset when she enthused, “The sky broke like an egg into full sunset and the water caught fire.”
Mahatma Gandhi was also clearly convinced of the divine nature of sunsets, observing that “When I admire the wonder of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the Creator.”
It is easy to make rash judgments when the subject is poison sumac.