It's maple weekend in New York State this first day of spring, and the best way to celebrate it is to find a pancake breakfast. Arnot Forest's maple weekend celebration was today, so I set my alarm, puttered around the house, and then headed out to Schuyler/Tompkins county Rt 13.
It takes a little skill to find a good place to sit where you'll have someone to talk to. The woman taking the money noticed Americancat.net on my coat and then proceeded to tell a great story about how she and her husband were building a new home with heated floors, and how they were nursing their 16 year-old cat along because they had planned those floors for her and they wanted her to survive to enjoy them. The woman in front of me had volunteered with the Chemung SPCA and was familiar with TNR. The table she and her husband sat at was also occupied by three gentleman my age and older who were out together...so that seemed like a good choice for conversation. And it was. The three men were all landowners so natural gas and woodlot management kept breakfast going through a couple of cups of coffee. Then I wandered down to the sugarhouse to pick up a jar of maple butter.
On my way to Ithaca to feed the cats, I swung down Chaffee Creek Road, which always has some bittersweet memories. This was my very first "non-apartment home"--a 14x70' mobile home that two colleagues at Ithaca College had set up in the side yard of the family farmhouse, with the idea that one day his mother would move into it. I rented it for a song until Mark and I bought our first house. The mother decided upon a more active city life in Ithaca, and the mobile home was sold. The entire farm was sold as well, I believe, and different people own it now.
There is now a horse living in what was once my front yard. I'm content with that.
At South Hill, I sang out loud for Gillian. I don't think I mentioned on this blog that Gillian lives! Almost six weeks after we decided she had been hit by a car, Mark noticed her in the bushes, waiting for dinner.
After filling her bowl today, I found her patiently waiting in the parking lot for me to leave.
I stepped quietly around the trash truck as she skirted me and managed to get a closer photo of her.
Someone put a sweatshirt in her feeding station. It was nice that someone cared that she should keep her feet warm and dry.
Then it was home again to salvage some of the afternoon to clean up the mess that winter left behind.
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