A long-awaited outing into the Berkshire night

One can’t help but wonder why copper casseroles have become the de facto image for French restaurants in America. Domo is skeptical, but Beaver has faith; tonight they will sample the best French restaurant in the Berkshires. The wine list is impressive, the occasion is a birthday, and the Maitre d' has outdone herself with the jubilatory scamperings behind the celebration. But the bistro is named a somewhat perfunctory “Chez Nous”, and they’ve elected those damn casseroles for their tawdry signage. It awaits to be seen what they can do on the stove.

Monster de gateaux

This astonishing piece of shocking gastronomy just in: Domo is up to one packet of cookies a day. After discovering a delectable hamlet in North Lee where his very favorite cookies are sold at a discount, the little animal has become an unstoppable mangeur de gateaux. Beaver doesn't have the heart to hide them, as the benefits of this most American treat seem to outweigh their potential hazard. A cookie a day keeps the doctor away. Six cookies a day? She'll have to keep him on a strict diet of winter wood chopping.

Tag sale, ti amo

The site of the blue truck and the wooden black bear that Beaver thought was real until the day the fog lifted...she was called to them today, called towards their estate sale.

Antique milk crates and Fiestaware and stationary bikes galore!Is there any better way to spend a crisp and windy Sunday than to go a'tag-saling in picturesque Colebrook?

School desks, ironing boards, doorknobs and spice racks. A thrilling host of thingamajigs laid out amongst the leaves.

Beaver came home with a vintage brown bike and visions of pumpkins spinning through her head. There are so many nice places to live on this planet, but the light of a Northeastern October is something to be reckoned with.

Pregnant with the melancholy fragrance of childhood, it transpierces everything. The light here, the light!

The postman and the puddle

"...Please find enclosed your purchase orders. They came back to me because the address on the front of the envelope was destroyed. (The postman probably dropped it in a puddle)."

There is a couch to sell in September. A couch that has moved more than she has. It has crossed an ocean, like she has. Been witness to scenes without curtains, putrid betrayals, cookie-making, cookie-eating, a cookie-cutter lifestyle.

This is an item that was won, once, in an earlier time, in a more private place. She thinks of her guitar, how strange that she once knew how to play it. With the coming winter, her fingers are fingerless with cold rumination.

A hawk flies. A snake sleeps. The garden can't remember.

Pommeau & Pimms

The eager wood of a brand new pressing machine, cold drinks with bubbles and blankets on the grass. Who would have thought that Domo and the Beaver could have found such like minded creatures in the middle of the woods?

Three cheers, then, to the Garden Party, so often passed over for cocktails or for dinner. But the sun is setting earlier now, the leaves have started on their final journey, and it is the afternoon, not the evening, that ripples with excitement.

So why not, a garden party? Why not, indeed? Puppies and horses and a gargling goose, fresh cider, iced spiced cake, scarves and sunglasses. The apples crash down with a thump- with a thump, thump- into a gold field of delightful imaginings.

Leafing September

Before, she thought of them only in leaf piles...crisp pyramids from a fragrant past. Jumping or crashing into a world of certain maybes, sometimes wet and scary. The little bugs. The worms.

But now they fall most everywhere around her, and their presence feels different. Nostalgic, but changed. What are these things that have to be raked? How is it possible- there are so very many- tumbling in somersaults down from the sky. What is the use of putting them in piles? What will become of the grass underneath? How is it that these leaves used to be "dealt with"...They fell, and then they disappeared, ushered away by modern contraptions buzzing in the hands of men with red T-shirts.

Here, there is no buzzing, no humming, no logo-printed truck to take them all away. They fall and keep falling, covering her house in such physical rain.

Very electric

Her E.T.A was one PM, but she arrived at quarter past, looking forward to the homecoming. Feed the duck, mop the floors, change the sheets for her much-awaited house guests...The list was long for little Beaver, recently left seul after Domo's departure for Franche.

Her afternoon plans shifted when she came upon a gigantic redwood blocking her dirt road; a web of power lines and telephone poles brought down in its wake. The very ground she walked upon was buzzing with electricity, as was her roof and her freshly cut wood.

She ran inside to check on the duck, who was red-eyed and frightened by the recent, loud crash. "It will be okay, little duck!" She said, brushing his feathers. No power, no water, no way to telephone. Just a house full of candles and sharp cheddar cheese.