Journal of a Sabbatical |
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February 4, 2001 |
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actual fireplace of
snowbound |
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Today's Bird
Sightings: Today's Reading: Snowbound by John Greenleaf Whittier, The Island of Penguins by Cherry Kearton, Poems of Whittier edited by Markham (The Norsemen, The Wreck of Rivermouth, School-Days) Plum Island Bird List
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Over breakfast this morning Nancy suggested that we drive by the Whittier birthplace on the way to Plum Island. It must have been that picture on the coffee cup! I figured we could at least see the house even if the place wasn't open. Well it was open and the tour was excellent.
At the end of the kitchen is the master bedroom, which is higher than the kitchen because it's built over a rock they couldn't move. The bedroom contains a bed, dresser, and mirror, and a small table in pretty close quarters. Whittier's boots stand on the floor next to the dresser and two of his coats are hung on the door. To the left off the kitchen is a parlor with a spare bed that flips up and hangs off the wall when not in use. A bedspread or whatever you call it - a big woven cloth - with scenes of Whittier, California, the town that was named for him, was given to the trustees of the birthplace by some visitors from there. Our guide/docent bristled a bit at the mention of Whittier, CA's most famous son, Richard Nixon. I said something about his being in the sanguinary Quaker tradition of the Nantucket whalers and Nancy completely missed the Moby Dick reference (not like her, and it did dawn on her later). From that parlor we went upstairs. The stairs are really steep. Only one room is open up there, a bedroom. There's a loom there like the one that Whittier's mother used, but not her actual loom. It looked to me a lot like the one Vince's wife has in Budapest. I think it's about the same vintage. It's one of these upstairs bedrooms where the snow drifts in through the chinks in the wall in Snowbound, and our guide says that's happened at least once since she's been there. Back downstairs, the other room off the kitchen is the birthing room. The whale oil lamps in the birthing room got us into a discussion of beeswax and tallow candles (which smell terrible), which reminded me of the butter lamps so I had to say I just got back from Tibet and they light the temples with yak butter, which smells rancid and made me sick. I was less graphic in my description of the butter lamp sickness than in my account of the Jokhang Temple. The whale oil lamps also reminded me that New Bedford was once the center of the universe but I won't get onto the New Bedford track right now. Anyway, other cool things in the birthing room were a small red blanket chest, samples of his mother's weaving, and some of the books that were in the house when he was growing up. Best of all was a small book of Robert Burns poems given to him by his schoolmaster Joshua Coffin and carried with him all his life. He had it with him when he died. And out the window of the birthing room, I saw a flock of dark-eyed juncos hopping around on the snow.
The visit to the Whittier birthplace was extremely cool. I was hyped up afterwards. The trip up to Plum Island might have been an anticlimax to such a day but there were highs yet to be had. The resident snow goose flock was browsing close to shore at Joppa Flats so Nancy finally got to see them up close. Snow geese are favorites of hers. Then, on the refuge near parking lot one, a short-eared owl was putting on a spectacular show. It flew back and forth across the road, swooped low over the dunes then low over the marsh, perched on a sign, then perched on a tree... I got great views. Nancy was having trouble seeing it. A guy in the parking lot offered her a look through his scope but she couldn't pick it up through that either. I got a tiny bit frustrated because I really really wanted to share the short-eared owl experience with her. Finally we got back in the nice warm car and drove a tiny bit south sort of following the owl. If flew very low right in front of us and perched on a tree close enough for Nancy to get a good look with the binoculars. We watched it survey the marsh from the tree, turning its head all around with incredible flexibility. (If I can't have a neck like a goldeneye that bends all the way backward, I want one like an owl that swivels.) I was happy. Nice day. Whittier birthplace. Short-eared owl. Snow geese. What's not to like? |
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Copyright © 2001, Janet I. Egan |