UNION RAGS WON!
Surely no community can claim ties to a greater horse than Phyllis Wyeth’s Union Rags, horse extraordinaire that won the Belmont Stakes last weekend. Roseledge Books, your community bookstore and never one to miss out on a good thing, has ordered one copy of its first significant book of the summer, Enid Bagnold’s National Velvet. There are too few new, paperback copies of the classic out there, so I hope a RBR decides to buy, then use this one to write an equally long-lived charmer about Union Rags. Remember Elizabeth Taylor in the movie? It’s time to cast anew. (I am not the only person to so consider.) “How about Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand?” a RB visitor suggested. Of course, I said, and ordered it, too.
I have no picture of a horse, of course, so maybe a crab instead? (Can you find the crab attached to a rock somewhere on Barter's Point Road?)
THE WEBCAM IS ON, which is good, but it won’t show the rock, which is okay, too. The dreadful truth is that the very dreary webcam tells it like it is in front of Roseledge and it is and has been cloudy. In the glass half-full spirit of a knitter, may I note how nifty would a sweater be if its yarn(s) were the many shades of gray through green with a splash of yellow which, if subtracted from the green, is the rare blue sighting. The dyeing of the yarn to allow such a spectrum would be daunting, but I am not a dyer. This minute the sun is out and, after a showery day tomorrow, the sun should be among us through the weekend. A diminution of the very cool sea breeze would be welcome, too. (Remember: click on webcam, last listed page on the right.) No book suggestion here; just check out the scene, then come, be one with the harbor, and build the webcam frames into an action-packed — or not — story.
THE NATIVE STRAWBERRIES ARE IN!
Yes, the Produce Lady has native strawberries. And just in time, I say, especially as I try to will the last of last year’s Cheerio’s to have just a little bit of taste. The strawberries are about ten days early, witness to the warmth of this year’s Spring. I don’t know what this means for the short raspberry season, the shorter blackberry time, and the much anticipated blueberry extravaganza. Cookbook alert; Marjorie Standish’s two oldies are most reasonable, but berry-filled soup or chowder recipes may be iffy.
Low summer or late summer, sea and sky abound for those still around.
So low summer is here and I have placed first book orders. Be ready to decide what to read and what I missed. Most exciting may be this season’s first “signature books.”
#1 is Enid Bagnold’s classic horse story, National Velvet, as already noted. And Laura Hillenbrand’s Seabisuit, too.
# 2 is Jenn McKinlay’s Due or Die, a librarian’s take on murder, mayhem, library services, and romance in a small, coastal New England town, salutes Tenants Harbor’s new library which is 1.6 million dollars close to being a reality. Nothing brings a group of library users to blows more quickly than deciding what a library should be, have, and do. (Think of the NYPL renovation fracas currently unfolding.) What fun to be part of the fights that growth — or change — usually provoke.
#3 is Jamie Wyeth’s Farm Work, a handsome, PAPERBACK, catalog of his mostly animal drawings with an engaging faux-memoir (adapted from interview responses) interspersed, celebrates the community life he lives and records for all of us. If his current show, Jamie Wyeth, Rockwell Kent and Monhegan, issues a catalog in paperback for $25.00 or less, I will have that, too, because Monhegan is nearerby, and it would be great fun to roam the island looking at today and yesterday and thinking about how things change and how they stay the same.
Here come the strawberries. I would share. Where are you?