The Folts Home with Orion
I spent last night housesitting and dogsitting - but no generic ranch and retriever.
Abstract & plein air landscape artist Blair's home is an 1800 hilltop farmhouse and barn, and Orion - my favorite constellation - a 145-pound Bernese Mountain Dog. Bernese as in Bern, Switzerland, homeland of her ex-husband. What an comfortable home. Art everywhere, of course, mostly hers in every room but her own. A bay window full of plants, a full bookcase in each corner, an old cookstove and soapstone sink, a spacious back porch looking out on the garden and grassy hill, a huge barn with studio and rock-climbing wall. I spent the evening patting Orion, drinking Blair's tea, listening to her music, and reading the recently-published Early Settlement poems of a writer from just over the Maine border. Smoked a clove at twilight on the hammock chair on the porch, listening to the night bugs. I felt completely at home - it was my house - and safe. Maybe because that dog is a bear, as big as me. Blair gave me a quilt to sleep under that was made by her Grandmother during the Civil War, and this morning I slept until I should have already been out of the house.
Abstract & plein air landscape artist Blair's home is an 1800 hilltop farmhouse and barn, and Orion - my favorite constellation - a 145-pound Bernese Mountain Dog. Bernese as in Bern, Switzerland, homeland of her ex-husband. What an comfortable home. Art everywhere, of course, mostly hers in every room but her own. A bay window full of plants, a full bookcase in each corner, an old cookstove and soapstone sink, a spacious back porch looking out on the garden and grassy hill, a huge barn with studio and rock-climbing wall. I spent the evening patting Orion, drinking Blair's tea, listening to her music, and reading the recently-published Early Settlement poems of a writer from just over the Maine border. Smoked a clove at twilight on the hammock chair on the porch, listening to the night bugs. I felt completely at home - it was my house - and safe. Maybe because that dog is a bear, as big as me. Blair gave me a quilt to sleep under that was made by her Grandmother during the Civil War, and this morning I slept until I should have already been out of the house.