The trail to the toilet - which passes beneath my favorite madrone tree

The system of composting toilets and the use of humanure at Apro is actually, bizarrely, one of my favorite things about this place. It makes me feel good to think that my crap is being used to fertilize bamboo and other non-edible plants instead of being leached into the ground or getting into the water. I don’t mind being slightly inconvenienced. (I write this honestly, even while eyeing the pouring rain outside my window and wondering why on earth I thought it was a good idea to drink two cups of tea in such quick succession…)

(The top of the watershed, taken yesterday)

Week 2 at Apro has been interesting. It got off to a brilliant start with a group hike to the top of the watershed – the place where all the waters drain out of to fill the creeks and ponds lower down – and then an afternoon of cobbing. The “builders” and the “permies” all worked together on the cob wall. With 16+ folks we made a good amount of progress, and we builders especially enjoyed sharing our new-found expertise on working with cob with our fellow interns who are here learning about permaculture. It was warm enough that I ditched my boots and socks and mixed cob with my bare feet – the proper, delightful way.

We then spent a day working on the dry stacked stone retaining wall that will be part of the foundation for another section of cob wall. On the Equinox we flexed our hippie muscles and had a late night drum circle dance party, which to our dismay brought only a storms worth of super heavy, wet snow. On the first day of spring in 2012, the grandfather oak that has shaded half of the garden for decades split down the middle and came crashing to the ground. It seemed like the worst sort of omen.

By the end of that day though, everyone was through fearing a legit Apocalypse and was marveling over a series of miracles. In spite of the greenhouse roof collapsing from the weight of the snow, not a single seedling had been spilled. The tree that fell over in the camping area chose to fall while the campers were in class, and it missed crushing two tents by mere inches. As for the grandfather oak, it fell in such a way that most of the garden wasn’t even disturbed – and to be honest, the garden will appreciate the extra light.

We got a few extra lessons out of the snow storm too, such as how to clear a black locust tree out of a road. Look out for the dagger thorns! Black locust is a really rot resistant wood, so although it was a pretty tree and it’s a shame that it fell over, some of the branches will make really excellent fence posts!

It snowed again on Thursday so we spent the day in the workshop clearing and cleaning and setting up the space for when we will come back in a few weeks to learn some timber framing and build a loft in there. Thursday was also the day of the epic snowball fight, and the first game of Stump (which involves tossing hammers and pounding nails into a stump…) That evening there was a fantastic bluegrass band called Conjugal Visitors at the Axe & Fiddle in town and most of the Apro interns went to dance the night away.

I really dug the addition of a sax to the bluegrass sound

The sun came out on Friday and there was general rejoicing. I went with a couple folks to learn how to milk a cow in the morning, and then joined an expedition to the coast in the afternoon.

(Purple sunset)

Yesterday I turned in my proposal for my personal project (a few details are here if you’re interested) and then hiked back up to the watershed. I made homemade postcards in the afternoon and wrote letters, then spent the evening crocheting a new hot pad for the Apro kitchen while a group of us learned about different fermentation and food preservation processes.

And so another week has passed. I’ve now been here two weeks (only two weeks?! two weeks already?!) and every day I have woken up feeling totally thrilled to be here and excited about what the day would bring. Pretty rad.

Next week we will start working on a green roof for “The Playhouse”, a small cabin that was built last year during the Shelter Series (something I am seriously considering doing later this year) as well as some natural plasters. I will begin working on my personal project too, learning some basic woodworking skills and building a bookcase for the Apro library. I expect the week to be super fun!

This afternoon I have a huge batch of biscuits to make as part of tonight’s dinner, and I have dreams of reading an entire book (one of Roald Dahl’s short ones!).

At this precise moment though, I am thinking about that chamber pot again. The rain is REALLY coming down…a chamber pot would surely come in handy! Oh well, time to bundle up and make a dash for it.

Chamber pots of course MUST be floral

Enjoy the last week of March and happy spring!

Last night I realized that one of my favorite things about being here at Aprovecho is one of the skills (among many) that I am starting to pick up. I am learning to live more intentionally, by which I mean I am taking a bit more time to consider most decisions and actions. This stems from two kind of silly things – the fact that I have to take my shoes off every time I enter The Strawbale (the dorm and general living space of the interns here) and the fact that I have to be mostly dressed and equipped to face the weather whenever I need to use the bathroom! It seems fairly obvious that I would quickly learn to untie my shoes every time, and leave them at the door I am pretty sure I am going to exit through the next time I need to go out, or remember to grab my flashlight when I make a midnight bathroom run…but as I was untying my shoes last night I realized that I was taking a few extra seconds over each task to consider the implications of the action.

This is kind of an essential concept to the whole lifestyle I am shifting toward – slowing down, taking a moment to think, doing everything for a considered reason instead of hurtling round in a tizzy. In a way, living more thoughtfully is a way of making a beautiful thing in the sense that I’m making a life, and a more beautiful life at that.

So, Aprovecho. I’m here in a nook amid the hills of Oregon with about 16 fellow interns and 10 or so staff members plus an assortment of their children. Aprovecho isn’t exactly a school, but it’s far more than just a community. I am learned how to build structures or shelter with natural materials along with a few folks, while the rest of the interns are studying permaculture. We’re all going to be here for 3 months in total, picking up the concepts and ideas while also getting a chance to apply them in real life situations.

I’ve only been here since last Sunday, but the days have been full to the brim and it feels like much longer. It’s pretty amazing to be surrounded by people who are passionate about the same things you are, and there are few things more wonderful than geeking out over something like cob with a whole community! The atmosphere here is full of excitement and joy. Hardly anyone really cares that it has rained with varying intensity every day since we got here. The things we are doing are too much fun to be dragged down by a little rain.

In my practicum, so far we have had some intense and enthusiastic discussions about what natural building means to us, which led to this interesting “tree”:

Natural building is all about using local materials, processing them as little as possible, and then using them to make shelters that exist in harmony with nature, impacting the land only lightly. You are merely borrowing from nature. Your structure or home should reflect the personality of the place it came from, and then also the personality of the person or people who built it. The facilitator of my practicum said that one of the most basic and important concepts for him was the responsibility he felt to make only beautiful things.

Of course we have spent minimal time in the classroom. This week we have been slinging mud – we have been cobbing. Cob is building material made from clay, sand, and straw. It has been used since people first started building shelters but it fell out of use for a few hundred years in the US. A fellow named Ianto Evans built the first cob structure in the US here at Aprovecho in the 70s. It was taken down some years later, but we placed fresh balls of cob on what remains of the walls on the second day of the practicum. We learned to mix cob (something that is traditionally done barefoot, but we remained sadly muck booted due to rain and chilly air!) and worked on building the new garden wall.

The ribbing you see on the top of the wall is a technique used to make incorporating the next level easier. The poles will hold up a ceder shingled bit of roof and aren’t necessary to the cob.

Cobbing in the rain is an adventure! We had elaborate tarps covering our work area, but even so too much water kept getting into the cob mixture, which makes for less structurally sound building material. We learned a lot about what it takes to get the right consistency. Between the wind and rain blowing the tarps away, the general pleasure that comes from getting very muddy, and the swift development of friendship and camaraderie between us, we all could cheerfully admit at the end of the day that cobbing is fun – in fact, it’s cob-tastic! (Oh yes, the cob jokes are never-ending…)

Yesterday it was raining even more enthusiastically, so we abandoned the cob in favor of building a retaining wall that will be the foundation for another bit of cob wall. We learned about dry stacked stone walls, and spent the day playing Tetras with rocks.

Our days begin at 8ish with breakfast, then the work/study begins at 9 and runs until noon. The lunch break lasts until 1:30, then work resumes until 4:30 or 5ish. A rather lovely schedule. Lunch is prepared for us all by a staff member, but the interns are in charge of breakfast and dinner in shifts. I will be making dinner on Sundays with 3 other folks, and I am on the breakfast team Mon-Thurs next week. The following week a different team will tackle breakfast. The food is great – hearty and healthy and delicious.

So far the cooking and cleaning has been accomplished with relatively few hitches. The power did get knocked out during a storm on Monday which made for some exciting times, and the oatmeal has gotten dangerously close to burning at least once – cooking for 20 people takes some getting used to! We’re all learning together how to live together, which has been almost entirely fun if not downright hilarious.

Evenings are especially full. Spontaneous sewing bees break out, we seem to have the beginnings of a resident jam band, the other night the most enormous apple pie materialized, and last night (the “Friday night” of everyone’s week) The Strawbale rang with laughter as games and general shenanigans ensued.

Amid the fun there is also a great deal of fairly serious conversations – ideas are tossed around, dreams are given a bit of airtime, and people are free to imagine a more beautiful world. And then the really cool thing is that the next day we all go out and really try to make those dreams become reality. It’s pretty amazing to be surrounded by folks that aren’t just dreaming, but are actually doing. There are things being invented and dreamed into existence here at Aprovecho that have impacted the world and will continue to do so.

The confidence I’ve gained from just a few days of being here is extraordinary. I’ve never been more certain that I picked the right path to head down, and I can not wait to see what is around the next bend – not to mention what amazing things I’ll discover or experience in just this day alone!

And that’s all the news from Aprovecho. If you’re curious about anything please don’t hesitate to ask me. I’m hoping to post something here at least every other week, but also check my new Tumblr site for briefer (and probably more frequent) updates. If it ever stops raining for long enough I’ll hopefully get some prettier pictures from around the place and share those too.

Cheers!

I spent the last few days in OR, checking out the Coos Bay area. I had a relatively relaxing time walking and reading and writing letters and staying in a yurt at Sunset Bay State Park for two nights. I finally found a place in this great country where there was a pocket of no internet or cell reception! Out at the end of Cape Arago I could pick some up, and I found myself wanting to drive the few miles to the point more than was necessary in order to “check in”. Ah habits…bordering on addiction. I am looking forward to unplugging a bit once I’m at Aprovecho, but I recognize that it might be a struggle for me at first!

I wound up the official “ME to OR Roadtrip” yesterday by spending the day at a jazz festival in Coos Bay, listening to swing and big band music, 50s and 60s era rock ‘n roll, blues, zydeco, and surprisingly little actual jazz – which suited me fine. The folks of Coos Bay can certainly boogie on the dance floor – proper dancing, waltzes and foxtrots and salsa, etc. – and I enjoyed watching them nearly as much as the musicians.

I want to reflect on what I’ve learned over the past month, but frankly I can hardly breath round the knot in my stomach! New things, new people, new experiences…you know. I am sure, based on my experiences over the past month, that I can take in stride just about anything – and I am more confident than ever that I am on the right path. Whether I end up loving building with strawbale and cob, or choose to try farming or urban gardening or something else along those lines, I know that I am willing to devote myself entirely to bettering myself and bettering the world. After a trip like this how could I possibly aim for less? Time for the Lupine Lady to strike again!

And now a few last pictures from my roadtrip.

Q: What is your idea of perfect Happiness?
A: Imaging that something somewhere wants us to like it here.

And then also, later in the same interview:

Q: When and where were you happiest?
A: About ten years ago my Finnish publisher took me to a little inn on the edge of the permafrost in his country. We took a walk and found frozen ripe blueberries on bushes. We thawed them in our mouths. It was as though something somewhere wanted us to like it here.

I have definitely been feeling like something somewhere wants me to like it here lately!

That thought led me right to John Green’s angle in The Fault in Our Stars (the last book I read):

‘”I believe the universe wants to be noticed. I think the universe is improbably biased toward consciousness, that it rewards intelligence in part because the universe enjoys its elegance being observed.“‘

It pleases me to combine these thoughts and let a fair exchange start happening. Something somewhere wants me to like it here, while I am eager and willing to notice and observe the elegance of the universe!

Here are a few things from my last days in CA that I thought the universe was especially wanting me to notice:

I arrived in the state of OR this evening, although I won’t go to my final destination until Sunday. I have been in motion for nearly a month straight, and I find that I am very much looking forward to remaining in one area for awhile. I’ll be in OR for at least 3 months, then it remains to be seen what the universe has in mind for me to notice next!

Fontainebleau State Park, LA

This trip has been odd in the sense that I am traveling by myself, but I have spent so much intense and amazing time with other people. I have visited some of my best friends and have gotten to share experiences with them that have floored me. I genuinely like being by myself and have enjoyed the challenges and adventures that come with solo travel, so much so that I have put off seeing a friend for a day or two in order to relish my solitude and total independence. However, aside from that first brilliant moment on Myrtle Beach which I mentioned before, I have found myself sharing my snow-angel moments with other people. Beaming at the world in general is well and good, but seeing an answering grin on a friend’s face and knowing that the joy surging through you is setting them on fire too takes it to a whole new level.

In LA I spent an incredible late afternoon exploring the bayous with a friend. Every egret we saw was whiter and more elegant than the last. Pelicans kept us company as we watched boats bustle up the water channels. The sunset was glorious. And just when we thought we had seen everything the day held, a dark smudge at the top of a tree turned out to be a great-horned owl. And then a second owl landed on a nearby branch. My friend and I were dumbstruck – and joy-struck.

On the boat ride out to Santa Cruz Island (the largest of the 5 islands that make up Channel Islands Nat’l Park) a different friend and I, along with the rest of the passengers, were treated to a humpback whale who seemed to be having a snow-angel moment of it’s own. It circled the boat, dove beneath it, and rose straight out of the water in front of us – majestic and comic all at once.

Exploring Santa Cruz Island that same afternoon was like being caught in a joy whirlwind. Everywhere we looked there was a jaw-droppingly beautiful vista, or a splendid bit of flora or fauna. Although my legs ached that night from romping across 15 miles worth of trail, my face ached even more from smiling. Ridiculous.

Santa Cruz Island, CA

After dropping my friend off at the airport I set sail into the remaining 12 or so days of my trip, cheerful about being on my own again. I thoroughly enjoyed driving up the CA coast on Rt 1, and contentedly explored parts of the Big Sur area with just my camera and binoculars for company. However, it crossed my mind as I was standing on Point Lobos watching migrating Gray Whales pass, that I missed having a friend to share the experience with. I texted my little sister and told her as much, and she reminded me that I was sharing the experience through my photos and blogging. Oh right, I was supposed to be blogging about this trip!

I determined to spend that evening writing, documenting my experiences. I stopped in Marina for the night and fortified myself with a cozy motel room and plenty of internet service. But then I popped out for a quick pint at a local brew pub and my blogging plans were hijacked by fate and a total stranger.

I had snow-angel moments this past weekend while watching waves crash on Marina State Beach (no ocean does waves the way the Pacific does them!), while hiking in Pinnacles Nat’l Monument, while under the spell of the jellies at Monterey Bay Aquarium, and while saturating my soul in stunningly good music. I made those metaphorical snow-angels with someone who was the eye of this joyous storm, whose very existence (a kindred spirit, and one so unexpectedly met) causes me to cry “Hurray!” That’s what my snow-angel moments sound like, by the way – I don’t know how to better articulate the rush of happiness and humbleness and pleasure in being alive to receive the blessing of such things than with a “Hurray!” Which sounds a bit silly and not very profound, but I don’t care.

I’m in awe of the gift that has been given to me and I have no idea why I am so fortunate. What could I ever do to give back to the universe even a fraction of what it has given me in the past few weeks? That’s a project that will fill the rest of my life, and the incredible thing is that there will still, surely, be more snow-angel moments for me in the future.

I’ve been too busy experiencing things to document them here as I planned to, but tonight I’m overflowing – hence this copious word-dump. I’ll stop blathering and soul searching now, and just share a few more pictures to convey all the things that I can’t quite put into words.

Palo Duro Canyon State Park, TX

Sunset over the TX Panhandle

NM

Big Sur, CA

Only 5 days more, and then a whole new sort of adventure will begin!

Part of a 5 mile walk on Valentine’s Day included a visit to the Martin Luther King Jr. Nat’l Historic Site.

(Gandhi, not MLK Jr. obviously!)

My travels often include a lot of eating and drinking, as I love to try regional foods and drink local beer. I sampled beers from The Wreaking Bar, the Atlanta Brewing Company, and Terrapin Beer Company (out of Athens, GA), ate shrimp and grits at Gladys and Ron’s Chicken & Waffles, and learned how to make grits at home with my friend (and they tasted far better!) She whipped up a yummy breakfast every morning I’ve been here, and also made some very tasty dinners. Today (my last day in ATL) we went to Ru Sans where I discovered that a sushi buffet is without a doubt the way to go – all you can eat, and totally delicious! In conclusion we went to Yogli Mogli, a frozen yogurt place found almost exclusively in GA.

Yesterday was my one warm, sunny day in the greater ATL area. I dragged some very wintery temps down here with me, and rain keeps dodging me…but yesterday was lovely. We went about an hour outside the city to visit the Dauset Trails Nature Center, and High Falls State Park.

I’ve been to ATL a few times before, both on work-related trips and to visit my friend. This has been my favorite visit though. I feel like I’ve gotten a better feel for the city and it’s been relaxing and fun. My cameras and I have been happy here!

Tomorrow I’ll spend the day driving down to Baton Rouge, where there is another good friend to visit and Mardi Gras parades to see and more delicious food to eat. See you there!

There was glorious sunshine in Delaware when I woke after my first night camping in the cold and the rain at Killens Pond State Park. Rehoboth Beach was pretty and the “jin” at Dogfish Head Brewing and Eats was remarkable. The flock of migrating snow geese I came across as I was driving down the Delaware coast was hilariously loud and wonderfully flighty. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel was every bit as fun as I had imagined, and that day (my second on the road) was so enjoyable that I decided to stay on the road an extra day and detour a bit to Myrtle Beach State Park. Although rain greeted me there, when it cleared up there was a rainbow and my favorite sort of clouds hanging over the beach. The sunrise the next morning was beautiful and I got to see a pelican right before I headed off, Atlanta bound.

I had moments where it occurred to me to panic, or get frustrated – like when I realized if my tent got too wet while I was setting up in the rain it wouldn’t do me much good and I would be cold and wet all night; or when I arrived at Myrtle Beach State Park and it started to pour with no sign and no hope in the forecast of letting up. But for some reason I didn’t panic, or get frustrated. I felt that it wouldn’t do me any good, and it would certainly detract from the fun I was having along my journey. So I stopped trying to set up my tent in the rain and got in my car and had a snack, and the next time I tried it the tent popped up quickly and a swish of a towel dried it out just fine. And at Myrtle Beach I waited under a picnic shelter for the rain to stop and that fun bird standing on the back of the bench in the picture above kept me company. And the rain DID stop and the beach was beautiful and I loved the warm air and the shells and the clouds, and as I was walking along I had this weird moment of complete contentment, total rightness, where I actually sighed deeply (without thinking about it) and beamed at the world in general – at peace with myself and all the rest of it. I think my eyes were sparkling. If there had been snow around I would have flung myself down and made a snow angel.

I believe moments like that are relatively rare, and if that is the only such moment during this trip I’ll consider myself blessed. If I receive more than one (and I fully expect to be in more situations that have the potential at least) I will see it as all the confirmation I need that I am on the right path. Heck, just that one moment is enough for me.

The title of this post refers to the fact that I accidentally plotted a course that took me from the beaches of Kennebunk, ME, to Rehoboth Beach, DE, to Virginia Beach, VA, to Myrtle Beach, SC, to…well, Atlanta. It took me awhile to get away from the coast and what I’ve decided is that I was subconsciously aware that I have in fact been won over by the sea. When I moved from NM to ME as a kid I resented the ocean for years and was convinced that I was a desert person forever and always. I think I can now safely say that I love both. I am eager to return to the Southwest for a few days during this trip and I hope to live there again someday – but for the time being, I am awfully glad that I am merely switching coasts, and am eagerly anticipating discovering new beaches in OR!

I’m landlocked for the moment though. I’ll stay in Atlanta until Friday, then move on (to New Orleans, yum!). Meanwhile there are friends to enjoy, kids to play with, walks to take, southern comfort food to eat (I learned how to make grits yesterday!), and of course, inevitably, more pictures to take.

Not a Pandorica Box after all...

(I couldn’t remember what one looked like, and the title of the piece was “Time Traveler” so of course I instantly thought of Doctor Who. Oh well!)

And now it is my last day in Maine, and it is roaring by far too quickly. There have been errands, lunch with my grandparents, and November Cakes to make, camping reservations in Delaware and Virginia Beach to book, my car to pack, one last dinner at the good Indian restaurant in Biddeford to eat, and bed to get to early. I plan to leave around 5 tomorrow morning and be in Delaware by the afternoon, where I will camp overnight and explore a little bit the next day. Then on to the next stop. Perhaps I will have time to write book and movie reviews when I end up in Atlanta for a few days next week.

Here are those November Cakes, fluffy and sticky, with just a hint of orange and slathered in caramel-honey – a delicious baked good straight out of the pages of The Scorpio Races. My little sister and I fulfilled our promise to make them before I left, and it was such a pleasure to spend time in the kitchen with her. Yet another farewell, but certainly a sweet one!

November Cakes, just as yummy in February!

I have been working on this post all day between all the other things, and now it is really over – my last day in Maine. It has been a good one. I’ll sleep for a few hours now (probably not that much, due to being excited!) and then I’ll set off, back on the road again.

Here we go!

I went to the library with my little sister on Friday and we returned with a proper armload of books – 9 in total. I had told her that while I was at my parents’ house for my 3 weeks visit, I wanted to read ALL the good new YA fic, since I won’t have as much time to read once I start traveling. She dutifully put the books (which she’s mostly already read of course) into my hands until I had a stack that barely tucked under my chin. Since I spent the first 2 weeks of my visit finishing The Savage Detectives I was a little behind schedule if I wanted to read ALL the books, but I was determined to give it a shot. I conveniently came down with a cold, and tucked myself into bed with tissues and Dayquil and novels.

Over the weekend I read Forever by Maggie Stiefvater, finally laying the (were)Wolves of Mercy Falls to rest indefinitely. Then I blasted through Cinder by Marissa Meyer, and delighted in a cyborg Cinderella. I finished off with Chime which, to the dismay of my hard working white blood cells, kept me up far past my bedtime.

I enjoyed both Forever and Cinder and would be quick to recommend and praise them. They were perfectly sufficient in plotting, technical craft, and entertainment value. I know for a fact that Stiefvater has written a book that’s better than Forever in almost every way (The Scorpio Races), and as Cinder was Meyer’s debut novel she gets loads of kudos for a worthy effort and I’ll certainly look out for more books by her. I’m not comparing here, I’m just taking note of the fact that there are good books like these and then there are great books like Chime.

20 pages in, I said to the room in general, “OMG, I love this book,” and my little sister looked up from Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion (which I had recommended and she ended up liking, yay!) and said simply, “Right?”

At that point I didn’t really care what the story was about, or if I had connected with the characters, or if the setting was well realized – it was the writing that I was in love with. Franny Billinsley uses words in a way that grabbed me immediately. As my little sister went on to add (because she knew exactly what I was reacting to without my saying anything more,) “Every sentence is perfect.”

Billinsley has strange metaphors wrapped round her little finger. She repeatedly described objects or emotions in a way that I wasn’t expecting but that I immediately recognized as just right. Her word craft was a constant delight, a delicious surprise on every page. Lovely, dark prose, evocative and haunting but still rooted in reality.

Chime doesn’t just skate by on good writing though. It has an excellent story to tell too. The setting (wonderfully well realized, by the way) is a version of England at the beginning of the 20th century. The Steam Age is finding its way to the lands of Swampsea, where train tracks are just now being laid. The little village Briony grew up in is still the very end of the line though, and a long, long way from London. Golden, electric Eldric comes from London in his university clothes and refuses to believe that there could be anything dark about Briony other than the color of her eyes. Briony knows better though. She knows that it is her fault that her twin sister Rose is simple-minded. It is her fault that Stepmother’s spine was injured, and her fault that she died (Stepmother never killed herself, she wouldn’t). It is her fault that the children of the village are perishing from the swamp cough, her fault that the house flooded, and the library burned. It’s all her fault, for the simple reason that Brinoy is a witch. Perhaps she could fix it all, save the children, save Rose, save Eldric, but if she did so everyone would know that she was a witch, and then the Chime Child and Judge Trumpington would let them hang her by the neck til dead, and what good would that do anyone?

Billingsley makes Briony’s complexities real and terrifying and beautiful, expertly handling issues of guilt and mercy, balancing vulnerability with humor. The book is a mixture of mystery and fantasy, psychological analysis and wild magic. The Old Ones and Freud smash heads. The romance is lovely, natural and never cute. The details are exquisite, from Rose’s knitting needle screams (always pitched to B flat) to Brinoy’s first hangover.

It is a sad, darkly funny, achingly original tale. I said it on page 20 and again on page 361 – I love this book.

I think I read both Well Wished and The Folk Keeper when I was younger, but I believe I will read them again because Billingsley’s writing style is addictive. I may even read Chime again, much more slowly, savoring every word this time like I would sips of single malt scotch (amber and golden on the tongue, sparking fire on its way down my throat…)

It is somewhat amusing to me that I read two books this month that will very likely land on my favorites of 2012 list – this one, and The Savage Detectives. One book from each of the polar opposite ends of my reading tastes, and yet what I liked about them is similar – both were incredibly well written, original, challenging, funny, and strange. If the only two books I manage to read and review this year are The Savage Detectives and Chime, I will feel good about that.

Although I hope that won’t be the case! I’ll raise a glass (scotch, yes please) to the hope of at least a few more great books for me – and for you – before the year is out. Maybe Chime will be one of yours too?

Portland, ME:

Laudholm Farm, Wells, ME:

Kennebunk Beaches, ME:

The other beach in Kennebunk, ME: