My Visitors

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • Oct 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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I have a thing for lichens and mosses. For a curator, of a historic house museum and one who also does stone monument conservation, probably not something you would think but. They are little microcosms of life full or all sorts of tiny things – and a small feast for birds looking for what they hold (insects). I am not here to identify this for you. I am here to have you appreciate its beauty. This large and lovely piece I found at the Coffin School on Winter Street laying on the brick path just before the front portico. To better appreciate it in a photograph, I put it up (temporarily) on one of the marble footings of the Coffin School’s columns. It is a stunner. Maria Mitchell took daily nature walks and was a naturalist as well. Her father, William, led daily nature walks for his students. It highlights the importance of observing things that you also might think do not matter, like this lichen. Next time you are our and about, try and look closely at how beautiful it is and how many chickadees might be clinging to the lichen and moss on a fence or the side of a house as they mine it for goodies! JNLF
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March 21. {1855} I have held to tears just behind my eyelids for a month, not being able to cry because of the danger of affecting mother and being ready to do so, at every moment. I felt when this year came in, a sinking of the heart, as if it had more duties for me, than I could well go through with. I did not think of the many trials to which in less than three months I must be subjected. Maria started off 1855 with heartache and fear. Several of her close friends died – two of them within four days of one another. Her mother’ Lydia, in failing health went through a very serious bout which caused Maria “great anxiety” as she served as her nurse and caregiver. Happily, Lydia made it through though her health continued to decline over many years. I assume she may have had some form of dementia or possibly even Parkinson’s Disease or perhaps a stroke to start that then kept her in a state of deterioration as years went on. But those things were not as defined, or in some cases, well known or understood then. Lydia would die in 1861, so her family’s care of her, especially Maria’s, must have been some help in keeping her with them. JNLF
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