Onward and Upward
The first words that I uttered when I awoke March 1 were “Tibbar, Tibbar, Tibbar”— “Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit” as they say in Canada, only backwards. It is a tradition now imprinted in the DNA of all Salter kin to keep something bad from happening—like the blizzard that was forecast to hit California’s Sierra Nevada Motherlode region over the first weekend of March. It’s good to be prepared, and that is what everyone has been focused on since the National Weather Service began texting warnings of impending blizzard and whiteout conditions that will most likely impact those of us who live above 3,000 feet.
Friday, I prepared Kit for a weekend without our twice daily visits together at the Lodge. I took in gingersnap cookies filled with cream cheese icing for the dedicated staff knowing I wouldn’t be coming Saturday morning—the time I normally bring them warm homemade muffins. After lunch, I arranged for Kit to have dinner and go to Bingo with Barbara and Mary—two residents at the Lodge who adore him as everyone there does. Kit will be fine and wonderfully cared for, and I will stay home during the storm. And importantly, I had remembered to say Tibbar, Tibbar, Tibbar first thing that very morning.
As I drove home up the four miles of winding mountain road between Nevada City and our house above the snowline at 3,750 feet, I knew I’d made the right decision. The second I headed up our driveway and into the garage, the rains I’d been driving through turned into pea-sized hail. My trusty Toyota Rav 4 with its four all-terrain tires was safely parked in the garage, sheltered from the snow and winds predicted for later that night. Nearby, my portable generator and a supply of gas was ready for action should a tree knock out our power anytime soon.
Back inside, I hung up my wet rain gear, turned on the gas fireplace, and dressed in cozy PJs, wool socks, and a fleecy sweater coat. When the 5:00 hour arrived, I assembled a small plate of almonds, pear slices, thin wedges of Havarti cheese and poured myself a glass of wine. Next to me on the couch, I had assembled a collection of books on gardening, just as E.B. White’s wife did every winter when annual seed catalogues began piling up around her reading chair. Katharine S. White began as an editor at the New Yorker in 1925 where her husband worked for decades. She’d grown up exploring her family’s garden in Massachusetts as a child, later living in NYC for three decades before moving to Maine with her husband during W.W. II. That was the period when E.B. wrote his beloved children’s classic “Charlotte’s Web”—published in 1945, the year I was born.
Mrs. White was a book editor at the New Yorker for 34 years, but throughout that time she was also a gardener. In the forward written for his wife’s book “Onward and Upward in the Garden,” E. B. White wrote that what Katharine loved reading most was not novels, but rather seed catalogues and the descriptions of flowers penned by seed company owners. When the first in the series of fourteen gardening essays that she wrote appeared in the New Yorker, it surprised the magazine’s readers, dozens of catalogue company seedsmen, and her husband as well. “She commented unabashedly,” her husband noted, “on W. Atlee Burpee, Joseph Harris, and the more specialized seed companies” that arrived in the dead of winter, “creating a sense of excitement in growing thing that was contagious.” While it was hard for her to write the garden essays for the New Yorker, Katharine effortlessly wrote lively letters that she exchanged with the likes of crusty Amos Pettingill—author of “White Flower Farm Notes” that appeared in the company’s gorgeous Litchfield, CT flower catalogue every January.
Reading “Onward and Upward in the Garden,” I found myself wandering amongst the flowers and bulbs that Katharine White ordered and planted after careful planning every spring. Before long I lost track of the time until at 9:53 p.m., the power flickered, returned momentarily, and finally left me in the dark save for the glow coming from our gas fireplace. And so, dear reader, I lit my LED lantern from AARP, made my way to the bedroom, tucked in under layers of wool blankets atop a goose down comforter, and slept until the following dawn.
Snow had fallen during the night, flocking the woods outside our front window. There was still no electricity, WIFI or phone and the house was cold. After turning on the gas fireplace, I made a pot of Peet’s coffee on our gas stovetop in a small Italian percolator and watched the snow fall on in the woods beyond our high living room window. At 10 a.m. I fired up the generator, turned on the oven and baked a casserole of mushrooms, shallots, garlic, leeks, cannellini beans, feta cheese and broth, topped with buttery sourdough bread croutons. While the casserole baked and the generator powered my computer, I composed this blog.
This afternoon, it began blowing and snowing again. Onward and upward as Katharine S. White would say of March and its whims.
To which I would add, “Just here. Just this. Just now.”