My Visitors

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • October 31, 2016

It’s cold again.


Last week, I began to put the Mitchell House garden to bed.  With no frost yet though, the morning glories and nasturtiums are still going.  I didn’t have the heart to rip them out so I will let the frost get them and then, I will pull them out.


The rest of the MMA landscape is tended to by our wonderful landscaper and his crew who has been working for the MMA for over thirty years, Greg Maskell.  I believe we are the recipients of some generously discounted work at times.  Recently, Greg just put in a dry well and re-graded the area to the south of Hinchman to help us with our drainage issues.  I also asked him to put some gravel down in that work area – the old driveway – and it looks so much better and will be much nicer for the Natural Science Department to work over there – instead of working in mud!


One thing Greg and his crew did yesterday was cut back Peleg Mitchell’s grapes on the arbor at Mitchell House.  Always sad – and I fear another cold winter that might damage even more than last winter. 

But now, its stark once again with just the close cut vines and no more straggling- hanging on-not yet fallen-or-eaten off grapes.  (This year the grapes were super sweet!).  The grapes have been a boon to a male cardinal who has been on them for weeks now.  I was upset to see him this morning though – and he was upset to see the grapes were gone.  I feel badly for him – those were nice meals he was having!


But, the cutting of the grapes did yield two more visitors today!  A Downy woodpecker and a White-breasted nuthatch were hopping around on the vines searching out a little sap and most definitely some bugs.  Such stark contrasts in color compared to the cardinal – all blacks, whites and greys save for the downy’s little red tuft on the back of his head.


So, I guess fall is here.  I finally had to drag out my heater since I have no heat over here at Mitchell House!  Brrr!


JNLF

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By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger May 27, 2025
This is what our landscaper for MMA calls it. “The ancient vine.” He tells the people who work for him not to touch the “ancient vine.” I have probably made him – and all of them – terrified of it. I am even terrified of it to some degree. I refer to the grape vine behind the Mitchell House this is supposed to be Peleg Mitchell Junior’s grape vine – Maria Mitchell’s uncle who inhabited the house from about 1836 to his death in 1882. It has two trunks but one died several years ago. Because of that, each year I try to root shoots. It’s fairly easy to do – when you cut back the vine in late fall/early winter. I have had success but not success protecting the shoots I baby all winter from bunnies and other critters try as I might. I started doing this when the one trunk died – I was PANICKED! The landscaper stays away because I have told him if anyone is going to accidentally harm or worse yet, kill, this grape vine it would be me so I only have myself to blame. So each November/December – once ALL the leaves have fallen off – I climb my ladder and quietly, carefully, and fearfully cut back the stems typically to two buds. I have been somewhat successful in spurring grape production – and these grapes attract some amazing birds in the fall. It takes me some time – and I pretty much hyperventilate the entire time – and then, I stare at it all winter. Passing under it multiple times a day to reach my office. Hoping, and yes, praying, it will come out in the spring. It’s a late budder so just recently the buds started to show themselves – thank goodness! – and I was rewarded today (May 5, 2025) with this wonderful hot pink color on the edges of the leaves as they are uncurling. JNLF
By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger May 19, 2025
May 27. {1857} There is this great difference between Niagara and other wonders of the world, that is you get no idea from descriptions or even from paintings. Of the Mammoth Cave you have a conception from what you are told, of the Natural Bridge you get really a truthful impression from a picture. But Cave and Bridge are in still life, Niagara is all activity and change. No picture gives you the varying form of the water of the change of color; no description conveys to your mind the ceaseless roar. So too the ocean must be unrepresentable to those who have not looked upon it. Maria Mitchell would tour the Mammoth Cave and the Natural Bridge during her trip to the southern United States as Prudence Swift’s chaperone – I have written of these travels and Prudence before. Niagara Falls is a place she likely saw on her way to visit her younger sister Phebe Mitchell Kendall, who once lived with her husband in Pennsylvania. I was a bit surprised that she feels the way she does about the Cave and Bridge being well-represented by images but I do kind of se her point. But Niagara, the ocean, any moving body of water – she is right. You don’t fully comprehend it until you hear it, touch and taste it, see its colors, and feel it splash, sprinkle, or mist across your face. Niagara certainly mists across your face – sort of like a breezy day at the beach and the salt mist that slowly builds across your face and coats the beach grass so that it shimmers in the sunlight. JNLF
By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger May 12, 2025
I have been watching it. Waiting. Today, I was rewarded with the scent as they have now started to open. From late fall, all through the winter and early spring, there is a very large patch of dirt with traces of roots and purple-like portions of some sort of plant. Then, they slowly start to send their shoots forth – up from that dusty pile of dirt come little greenish pips that become the leaves. Then, you start to see the stems tightened against the leaves and then lovely chartreuse buds are visible that then turn to white and slowly open from top to bottom. As soon as they star to open, I wait. Knowing that one morning I will walk by soon and then I will get a delicious waft of Lily of the Valley. I have written about this patch at the Mitchell House before. I have always been fascinated by the fact that these grow in full sun – they have no shade whatsoever. And this patch is old. I’m not sure how old – I do not think late nineteenth century but possibly – or maybe very early twentieth century. We have one or two images in the collection from the early 1900s but one does not show the ground, and the other not so much either. I also think this is one of the earliest flowering patches of Lily of the Valley on island – let me know if you’ve seen others this early. And in FULL sun to boot! But in any case, today was the day – May 5, 2025 – that I got the first waft. Saturday when I was here, they were not ready yet. But now, they are! And when I smell it, I know why it was my mother-in-law’s favorite flower. JNLF
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