Life on Vestal

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • November 28, 2022

You would think in the midst of town – albeit the edge of town – that animal life would not be as abundant. However, that is not the case. I know I have written extensively about my nemesis – the rabbit – but we have other creatures hiding about. You just have to take time to notice.


For example, deer tend to come into tow. It used to be that they mainly only came in during the winter when it was quieter. In summer, they tended to shy away from more crowded areas though not exclusively. Now, with more building outside of town, they come in more often, and year-round, because there are some good pickings for food. A few weeks ago, I walked into the Mitchell House backyard and the first thing I notice was a smell. It was the distinctive smell of ivy that’s been cut. I looked down and noticed that the ivy along the hedge had been eaten – the leaves nipped off and the stems left behind. Now deer never used to eat ivy. This is a more recent phenomenon that I have noticed over the last few years.  In some places, over the course of a winter, they eat ALL the leaves off exposing the old vines along the ground and on trees and even revealing ancient picket fences that look like they may fall over without the ivy and which haven’t seen unfiltered sun in many, many years. So far, the ivy has come back each spring and while it’s an invasive nuisance it does help to hide bare spots where other things won’t grow – or hold up an ancient fence. (The deer also left me a deposit. I guess her or his way of a thank you – ha.)


Then there was the Red-bellied Woodpecker. I was sitting at a meeting facing out into the office driveway area and noticed him on the tree. He pecked and hopped about the trunk and then stuck his head slowly, several times – going more deeply each time – into a hollow in the tree that likely someone else had made. Finally, he hopped into it and remained inside for the length of my meeting, occasionally popping his beak out ever so slightly. A nice accommodation for the winter. If you are not familiar with the Red-bellied, I include an image here – they have quite the bright red patch on the back of their heads, which makes them instantly recognizable, and always a shock when you catch that glimpse of red.


At the MMA, we have a wonderful stand of cedars on the west side of the MMA Research Center and they attract all sorts of interesting birds, Cedar Waxwings among my favorites. The trees on the MMA grounds are a mecca for all sorts of birdlife, including my first Brown Creeper about a dozen or so years ago, and on and off a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker up in the gingko tree that one of our former board members and the former director of the UMASS Field Station gave us, Wes Tiffney.


As my friend and mentor, Edith Andrews, always said, “If you don’t look, you don’t see. You have to go and look.”


JNLF


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By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger June 30, 2025
As we are now complete with the conservation of the historic Maria Mitchell Vestal Street Observatory (MMO), I thought it would be good to post a series of blogs concerning it history and activities, as well as some of the amazing people who have made it what it is over the last 100 plus years. Therefore, over the next few weeks, the focus will be on the MMO. And it is now open for tours – Monday through Saturday 11-1PM. Founded in 1902, the Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association (MMA) had its beginnings in the Mitchell House where Maria Mitchell was born. Over the first few years, the preservation of the Mitchell House, family artifacts, and the collection and display of Nantucket’s native flora and fauna, as well as a small library, were the key components of the MMA. Special “Moon Evenings” were held on the lawn and people observed Nantucket’s night skies using several small telescopes, including William and Maria Mitchell’s two-and-three-quarter-inch Dollond telescope. The popular evenings led to the inevitable – a desire and need to expand based on the demands of the visitors to, and members of, the MMA. In 1906, Lydia Hinchman, a founder of the MMA and a family member, purchased the house and lot adjacent to the Mitchell House. The house – once the home of William Mitchell’s father and mother – was taken down. The MMA began a dialogue with the Harvard College Observatory and its director, Edward Pickering, Ph.D. The connection to Harvard was to become essential to the success of the beginning years of the Maria Mitchell Observatory and continued a legacy of friendship and work – Maria Mitchell and her father worked with the Bonds who once ran the observatory at Harvard and the families were close friends. Besides his assistance, Pickering asked a member of his staff, Annie Jump Cannon, to assist the MMA. This “provided an indispensable collaboration for Nantucket astronomy,” with Cannon spending two weeks on the island in 1906 and 1907 lecturing and teaching. While back at Harvard, she continued to teach the students on Nantucket by mail. Cannon would go on to be recognized as the leading woman astronomer of her generation and as the founder of the MMA’s Astronomy Department. JNLF
By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger June 23, 2025
An older term, that we seem to not use that much anymore but maybe that’s in part because not many people “put things by” anymore. It is having a bit of a resurgence as people try to return to the garden and focus on local produce. My in-laws used to spend a lot of time – before I knew them – canning and preserving many different things – from jellies to string beans that became “dilly beans.” I, on the other hand, do not can produce. Frankly, I fear messing up the process and making my family sick. So, for now, I stick to making refrigerator jams and pickles. I have made some chive vinegar – that is frankly, amazing, and a brilliant shade of pink! But in any case, Bartlett’s Farm opened for pick-your-own strawberries on June 7 and I made my way over on June 8. My son has been asking for strawberry jam since about February – I told him I wait for fresh and local but he wanted some so badly he was begging for store bought. I almost caved but then I told him – out of season and they taste like cardboard – and also made a LONG journey to get to us. Once people ate with the seasons – now we do not have to with trains, planes, and ships crossing all over. It is also, why, oftentimes, fruit has no flavor. Produce is picked often before it ripens and “ripens” as it ships – or with sprays – and since many varieties have been crossed with others or engineered, we have lost the taste. I remember tasting a peach a few years back from North Carolina – fresh off the tree. After rubbing it to get all the “fur” off, I bit into an exquisite peach that tasted like a peach of my youth. So, Maria was not eating a strawberry in January but she was eating them in June – local and full of flavor. And likely, putting some by as well. JNLF
By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger June 16, 2025
June 1851 My Dear Sister . . . . Mrs. Dassel has painted me kneeling at my telescope. It looks like Adeline Coffin and is of course not handsome. If thee was here thee would have Mitchell’s {William Mitchell Barney, son of Sally and Matthew Barney} painted at once. She has a head of a child N. P. Willis that is very lovely. She has taken a room at the Atheneum and put up about a dozen pictures – very beautiful – Isabel is lovely. She has not tried to make a portrait, but a very pretty picture . . . . She is now engaged on Abra’m Quary – he is much flattered by it and it will be a fine portrait. I think we shall buy it or a copy for the Atheneum . . . . She will paint father also for herself – having made a pencil sketch . . . .We like her very much . . . . The above is from a letter sent by Maria Mitchell to her eldest sister, Sally Mitchell Barney. In it, Maria details what everyone in the Mitchell family is up to. She includes some details about Herminia B. Dassel, an artist who came to Nantucket to paint the last Native Americans and also took an interest in the famous Mitchell family. This was of course four years after Maria’s discovery of the comet. At the time of this letter, Maria was still the librarian for the Atheneum and the portrait of Quary that she mentions possibly buying for the Atheneum, she did buy as it hangs in the Atheneum by the front door today. Another Dassel portrait of Quary is in the collection of the Nantucket Historical Association and the portrait of Isabel Draper is currently on display at the NHA’s Whaling Museum – on loan from a museum in Rhode Island. The portrait Maria states she posed for at the start of the letter is in the collection of the MMA. It was given to us in the early 1990s by Sally’s great granddaughter – the granddaughter of Mitchell whom she mentions above as well. Maria and Dassel would become good friends – Maria was named the godmother of Dassel’s daughter. And the sketch of William made by Dassel that Maria states would become a portrait? It likely did come to fruition. It made its way down a side of the family but was unfortunately lost, likely sold as part of a family estate though we do have a photograph of it and one can tell it is the brush work of Dassel. JNLF
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