If You Don't Like the Weather

The weather in Highlands in April is perhaps the most changeable of any time of year, reminding me of that old adage about the mountains that (I recently discovered) originated with Mark Twain:  "If you don't like the weather in New England now, just wait a few minutes."  Early Thursday morning, we were awakened by a thunderstorm, bolts of lightning flashing outside and booms of thunder shaking the house.  The wind began to pick up during the day, and this morning it was howling in a bright blue cloudless sky, shaking the silverbells off the tree out back.  When I went out on the deck this morning it looked as if there had been some kind of brawl, chairs shoved back angrily from the table.

Martha had unstacked the flowerpots from their winter storage place and arranged them around the railing with our many birdhouses, some of which have been inviting curious visits from a pair of black-capped chickadees.  This morning, the tallest of the birdhouses was leaning precariously against a pot, and another had fallen onto the grass below, its little steeple beheaded.

It is Good Friday today, and it doesn’t seem like it at all, with only virtual church services being held.  I remember walking on the streets of Highlands years ago at this time of year (often in similar weather conditions) with an interdenominational group of the faithful, carrying a cross and stopping to pray at the Stations of the Cross.  All such activities will have to be done over the internet or on Facebook this year.  There will be no Easter bonnet, and no frills upon it.  And will we ever feel comfortable again with going to the garden center and buying our flowers and ferns to fill those empty pots, and garden plants and seeds for the waiting garden beds?

Today I drove to Town once again, waved cheerily through the roadblock by a now-familiar Police Officer, to pick up our box of vegetables from August Produce.  This was only the second week they have been doing this, but already word has spread - or perhaps home chefs are growing bored with rice and beans and pasta and the like - and there were half a dozen cars lined up already.  It is an interesting box this week!  Romaine lettuce - nice! - and even a cantaloupe.

After I had picked up my produce box, I stopped at Rhodes Superette on the Dillard Road – Dusty’s to locals – to stock up on crab cakes, and then onward to Bryson’s for a few things, wearing required latex gloves at the former and mask in both places.  One thing about a mask is that I have a hard time recognizing the masked individual.  "Hello, Richard," a masked man said to me in Dusty's.  I squinted at him for a moment or two before guessing, "Mike?"  I was right.

Of course, that is exactly why bandits pull a kerchief over their faces, to avoid being recognized.  But I seem to have a harder time than some seeing through the disguise.  I remember that our old dog Brandy was easily deceived in a similar way.  I arrived home one day wearing a cowboy-style hat (and not even a mask) and she began barking that Stranger Danger Stranger Danger! bark she had, until I was so close, I suppose, that she smelled me.  She looked very embarrassed.  I would be, too, and I do not have the advantage of that keen sense of smell.

The forecast for Easter Sunday calls for heavy rain.  We like our Easter Sundays to be clear, don't we?  And perhaps warm enough to be able to hide a few colored eggs around the lawn for toddlers to collect in a basket.  But these are not ordinary times; they are changing times every day, with empty streets, shoppers wearing masks and gloves, and careful six-foot separation being observed everywhere.  And I am afraid it is going to continue to change.  Just wait a few minutes.