Dear Folks, Here I sit before the same little old McIntosh computer, set upon the same pine desk that John Zimmer made me, with the same piles of unfiled papers in the background, under the serene gaze of the same imperturbable Buddha that Chirapol Sintunawa gave me (the Buddha sits on top of the computer and reminds me to Type the Truth), but everything else is different.

I’m in my new little study on the north side of the Whybrow’s house, looking out over a hill that slopes up to their barn, where Freckles, their white horse, is eating her hay.  Everything around me is more elegant than it was at Foundation Farm.  The walls are newly painted, the wide-pine-board floors are smooth, the furniture is mostly fine and antique, the sweeps of lawn outside are mowed.  This is a classic New England treasure of a big white clapboard house, built in 1777, owned only by four families in its 210 years, all of whom took good care of it.  It was built on a lovely site, with lovely lines, and no one, miraculously, has ruined it.  Living next door to it for fifteen years, I have always admired this place.  And fortunately, the people in it have always been good neighbors and good friends.

The move is now far enough behind me that I wonder what all the fuss was about.  It was a fuss; I spent most of two days in tears, not only because of moving out of what was my home for the last 15 years, but also because moving punches most of my buttons.  I hate to say goodbye to anybody or anything.  I hate to be disorganized.  I hate feeling burdened down with possessions.  I hate big changes in my daily habits.  I hate being new to a place and not knowing where things are or what the rules of conduct are.

You can see it was definitely time for a move!

I accomplished most of the transfer myself with our Garden Way cart, with Basil as my faithful companion (he liked to cadge free rides home in the empty cart, and he liked to visit Argus, the Whybrow’s old golden retriever).  Dennis and Suzanne helped me with two pick-up truck loads of desks and file cabinets.  Since the Whybrow’s house is full of furniture already, I didn’t move any furniture except my work desks and one rocking chair.  What I did move was paper, tons and tons of paper.  Sixteen full file drawers plus uncounted boxes of books, and these were only the professional books — I left all the light reading back at Foundation Farm.

It occurred to me as I hauled all this stuff that if I were a spiritual teacher assigned to bring about the enlightenment of Dana Meadows, I would order her to live the rest of her life without ever seeing another piece of paper (nor, in this modern age, the screen of a computer).  She would have to live life instead of contemplating alphabetic symbols.  It would do wonders for her, once she got over not knowing what to do with herself.

But of course she has just assigned herself to be a full-time writer, so she’d never submit to that discipline.

In order to describe what has happened in the last month, I have to introduce you to three farms, all lying within a mile of each other, where various former denizens of Foundation Farm now live.  I also have to bring some new characters into the plot.  Sorry about the complications, but these farms and resident characters are now all closely linked and important in my life, and you will probably be hearing about all of them as this newsletter cranks on.

I think I’d better leave space here for a small map.

On the southeast is Blow-Me-Down Farm, where Ruth Whybrow and I live.  The farm is named for Blow-Me-Down Brook, a stream that flows through the fields of both this farm and Foundation Farm (last week in the rains it overflowed Daniels Road).  No one knows how the brook got its name, though there are many colorful, contradictory stories about it.  The farm is about 100 acres, much of it open rolling hills.  Ruth’s two daughters, Helen and Kate, used to raise dairy cows here for 4-H, but the girls are in college and the cows are gone.  There’s just one horse, one dog, and three cats left in the animal population, but plenty of barn space and hay.  I may bring two yearling ewes over here, just to have a little something to take care of.

Ruth’s husband Peter is an expert on the physiology of manic-depressive illness.  He used to be the head of Dartmouth’s mental health center, and now he heads the center at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where he lives.  Ruth supervises part of a community health center, working with the mentally-disturbed elderly people in the valley, a job that sounds terribly wearing to me, but she seems to carry it lightly.  In fact she does most everything cheerily and capably.  Both Ruth and Peter are British by birth and speak with wonderful accents that I’m trying to cultivate.  Raspberry is “raaahzbry”.  Garage is “GAREaj”.  The girls were born and brought up in America and talk like American kids.

Peter and Ruth are thinking of getting a divorce, but I think there’s some hope of a reconciliation.  At any rate, we don’t see Peter much these days, but the girls, who go to Williams and Amherst Colleges, both in Massachusetts, make it home on occasional weekends.

Kate Whybrow, the elder daughter, wants to be a veterinarian.  She has been crazy about cows since she was a little girl.  Her bedroom is decorated with pictures of cows, stuffed cows, statues of cows.  All of them are Holsteins, the black and white high-yielding kind — Kate will hardly acknowledge the existence of any other breed.  Kate’s monthly copy of Holstein World has more cow pictures in it than you ever believed existed, plus lots of exciting ads like this:

“Beecher Vaquero Nettie, VG-85 at two years, is a favorite catch at World Class!  In 210 days she’s made 12,427 4.0 508 3.3 406 inc.  Nettie’s backed by a VG-87 Valiant dam with two records over 24,000 4.5 and 1,100.  Nettie’s third dam made 120,020 4.0 and 4,786 lifetime.  Nettie’s due in November to Inspiration.”

Kate not only understands this stuff, she reads it from cover to cover.

Kate is sturdy, hearty, and funny.  Her sister Helen is quiet, delicate, and artistic.  She is thinking of becoming an environmentalist of some sort, a tendency I will obviously encourage.  Both girls are lovely and very bright, and I’ve always liked them.  I’m going to enjoy seeing more of them now, and especially seeing more of Ruth and giving her a little help keeping this big place together.

Next door to the west on Daniels Road, Foundation Farm rambles on, in its lively, slaphappy way.  Suzanne and Dennis are still there, along with Basil and 3 cats and the sheep and chickens and the one remaining duck that the fox didn’t yet catch.  They have been joined by Richard Harris, the operations manager for Hitchcock Clinic, who is newly divorced (we ought to give Daniels Road a new name — Divorce Avenue).  Richard grew up on a farm and seems to feel good coming back to one.  He has two nice sons, Wesley 11 and Jake 9.  They will be the farm’s part-time kids to replace Brenna, who has just moved up the road (more on that in a moment).  When Brenna, who is also 11, heard that a sixth-grade boy was moving in, she immediately went upstairs, put on some perfume, and moved in for the kill.  Of course sixth grade is that excruciating time when the girls are Ready but the boys Aren’t, so Wesley is oblivious to her charms.  He’d rather read books or play soccer.

Moving further west, we go through the village, turn north half a mile and come to the Quimby Place, where John and Brenna now live, together with Kate Read who also used to live at Foundation Farm.  Old Arthur Quimby is 91 years old and in a nursing home, and the Quimby family, amply represented in Plainfield by children and grandchildren, want the house kept up, but none of them want to live there.  It’s one of those endless, rambling old houses, stuffed with the material effects of many generations of active, interesting Quimbys.  There are six bedrooms, three parlors, porches, back houses and a barn.  Brenna, Jake, and Wesley think it’s terrific.  John is a bit more aware of how it creaks and leaks.  Living there with John, Brenna, and Kate are Basil’s best friend Moses (who runs back to Foundation Farm almost every day to chew sticks with Basil) and a new kitten named, appropriately, Quimby.

There are so many ties among the people living in these three houses that we are seeing almost as much of each other as we did when we lived at Foundation Farm.  Last Saturday John invited the inhabitants of all three houses over for his famous home-made pizza (Ruth contributed an apple crisp, made from apples Suzanne and I had picked).  Sunday I went back to Foundation Farm to replant the daffodil bulbs I had divided last spring, and there were hundreds of bulbs left over, so Ruth and I planted them on a sunny bank at Blow-Me-Down Farm.

The same day I discovered that Ruth had a lot of ripe quinces on her bushes (she had to tell me what they were — I had never seen a growing quince before).  So I picked them and, because Foundation Farm has the best canning equipment, I went over there to make quince jam.  When I got there I found Suzanne and Jake busily grinding up the Indian corn I had grown last summer.  So I baked a few dozen cornmeal muffins, and both households had muffins and quince jam for supper.

John and Ruth are regular tennis and squash partners.  Suzanne and Ruth go swimming together at the indoor pool in Lebanon.  For years we have been carpooling in various combinations to go to films and concerts at Dartmouth.  Ruth and I like to spin and dye Foundation Farm wool and we’re both fanatic knitters.  Ruth, Suzanne, and I are the gardeners, and we’re already spreading out the Foundation Farm surplus of potatoes, cabbage, and squash, so all three households have a winter’s supply.

I didn’t foresee that we might evolve into an extended community spanning the town of Plainfield, but if that’s what is going to happen, I think it’s a fine outcome.

Meanwhile, my life is much quieter than it used to be, which is just what I wanted.  I’m still doing a lot of sorting and filing and setting up, but that is slowly getting accomplished, and I’m already back in writing mode.  I managed to sell a magazine article, to Harrowsmith, a New-England-based journal of country life.  They took a longer version of the columns I wrote last June about nuclear power ads.  The editors seem friendly and I suspect I can sell to them fairly regularly.

I tried a bunch of syndicates again; here is the sort of response I got:

“I am sorry to advise you that we cannot offer you any encouragement with regard to syndication at the present time.  Perhaps the needs of some of the other major syndicates may differ from ours, and for that reason I would urge you to contact them.” (King Features)

“We have had an opportunity to review your proposed weekly opinion column.  Our editorial board has decided to pass on the idea.  The market is very tight for this type of feature and I do not think we could do your efforts justice.”  (Universal Press Syndicate)

“Your columns are good and have a lot of impact when addressing regional issues.  I don’t think they are focused enough for national syndication.  You are probably doing better for yourself now than a syndicate would do for you.  Try to keep the regional flavor and to write on subjects that national columnists can’t or won’t, and expand your mail list, especially in the Northeast.”  (Washington Post Writers Group)

“I’m glad you are having some good luck self-syndicating your column but we are still unable to add it to our list.  Believe me, our decision has very little to do with the quality of your work, which is excellent.  We can handle only so much, and we are overloaded with commentary.”  (Los Angeles Times Syndicate)

Sigh.

Meanwhile, outside, the beautiful flaming trees are fading into glowing embers.  There’s frost on the ground every morning, and wood smoke is coming out of chimneys.  During the two major leafpeeper weekends, when buses and cars with Connecticut and New York license plates usually clog our roads, we had snowstorms — a disaster for the tourist industry, but, I must say, a pretty spectacular sight.  Forests of red, orange, and yellow, with floors of fresh white snow.  The snow is unusually early, and it has been a cold October.  It will mean that everyone will get their snow tires and storm windows on early this year.

Mail sent to the old address will also reach me — in a small town like this there are no secrets, and Willy the Postmaster knows what box to put things in, whatever it may say on the envelope.  Once I mailed the column out to 20 papers but forgot to put stamps on 10 of them.  Willy just stuck on the stamps and told me about it the next day.  He said he knew it was important that they went out on time.  Every time I come in he’ll sing out something like, “Oh hi, you finally got that check from the Register-Citizen today!”

Thanks for the supportive mail from so many of you.  It helped.  And I’m doing just fine.

Love, Dana