October 28: Slender Moon

I spent my day in a leadership class at Cellardoor Winery in Lincolnville, its renovated new space (what used to be an old farmhouse attached to a barn) a beautiful venue for a group get-together. We enjoyed views of a mountain in the distance (Levenseller?), lingering foliage of orange and gold, the vineyard's neat rows, vast mown fields, a pond, and a rainbow-colored line-up of Adirondack chairs. After our day's class, we then partook in a delicious wine-food pairing. At one point in the tasting session, someone from the winery mentioned "body-to-body pairing," in which you combine a complex wine with a complex food to bring out the best in each. I like that phrase for many reasons and left thinking that was somehow going to be the subject of today's haiku.

This is what I was going to write about...

But then as I was driving home past Megunticook Lake at dusk, I happened to glance to my right, across the calm water of the lake. The lake's surface was so calm, and the day so cold, that I had to remind myself that I wasn't looking at ice. Beyond the still water, blue and deep, rose the dark form of Bald Mountain, with just one house lit up in its center like a welcoming lantern. And above the mountain's smooth shape hung the slimmest slender crescent of the brand-new moon. If there had been a place to stop and pull over, I would have done so. Instead, I admired the simple, iconic beauty of the scene as best I could without driving off the road (lake on one side, mountain on the other). I'm a sucker for the moon. At least half of our artwork includes the moon in some form. So I guess it's no surprise that even after spending my day looking out on the idyllic landscape of the vineyard, I'd be most inspired by the moon.

Dusk: new moon setting.
Barely there, this slim crescent
trumps the fall vineyard.

July 14: Why did the turkeys cross the road?

A friend and I enjoyed a lovely lunch today at Cellardoor Winery. We ate our sandwiches out on the sunny deck overlooking the young vineyards and distant farm fields, sipped our complimentary glass of wine with  pleasure (we passed up doing the full wine tasting in the middle of a work day). It felt so decadent, wine with lunch! We talked and laughed for a couple of hours, savoring the break, imagining we were in Tuscany. I think for a little while we felt like the other patrons there, all clearly visitors on summer holiday.

As I was speeding along Youngtown Road on my way back to the office, trying to get my head back into work mode, I was forced to brake quickly as I crested a hill. Crossing the road in front of me were a mother turkey and one, small poult. In no hurry, they dawdled their way into the underbrush on the other side. Slow down, they were telling me. You move too fast. Got to make the moment last...

Turkeys in the road
force me to slow down, regain
my prandial calm.