Day: May 17, 2013

Down the road, a neighbor’s corn has started to come in. Spring is really  here.

Lenore loves her stinky pond, and if you have a lab, you will journey into the messy, the beautiful, sometimes the disgusting (like the stuff she rolled in right after her swim.) Still, all of her love is worth it, and I was enchanted by the reflections in the pond at dusk, when the sun was low in the sky.

Lenore knows how to live, I think. She loves people, she loves food, she loves her rest. When we moved from the first Bedlam Farm we brought her own private sofa, and its in my office, so I often swivel around and see her dozing. She loves her sofa, and no other dog or human ever uses it. We are lucky to have her and she is lucky to have us, the way it should be with dogs. Border collies do not know how to rest like Labs do.

My blog has readers in every state and a number of countries overseas, it is not a local blog and I only occasionally write about local things, but some of them are important and revealing, they speak to broader things. Our small town has a magical new cafe, a friendly place with wonderful food – fresh, healthy, great tasting stuff, and it has quickly become the heartbeat, perhaps even the soul of this town.

I like writing about some local things – Momma’s restaurant, Battenkill Books and now, the Round House Cafe – because they have driven home for me the importance and power of buying local, of permitting the growth of small businesses with values, the antithesis of most modern corporations – just follow the awful news from Bangladesh. I am not political, I found the labels of the “left” and “right” narrowing and distasteful, but I guess I do feel strongly about places like the Round House Cafe, where Nicole and Alliyah seem happy to see everyone and are cheerful and helpful. I had lunch there today with an old friend, and another old friend from my former life wandered in who I have not seen in years wandered in and we had a joyous reunion – I will go and see her tomorrow so she can meet Maria.

Yet another friend who is sweating out a mortgage application came in and half the cafe comforted her and told her it would work out. It did, she got the mortgage. In between, Connie from Battenkill came in for her sandwich, but Scott Carrino, the chef and co-owner had slipped out the back door and delivered it to the bookstore for her. She was shocked and delighted. I call the cafe in the morning, and Alliyah takes my order, knows which dressing I like. I thought I forgot my money one day and they told me not to sweat it, I could bring it in any time. It seems that the veins of the community just flow through there – from noon to 2 p.m. it is intense.

Buying local means jobs for people like Nicole and Alliyah and the other people hired by the cafe, and it strengthens and deepens a sense of community and connection. People from other towns are finding the Round House.  I had lunch last week with an artist using new technology to market her work, just as I am and we traded good ideas. There are not many businesses large or small that are run as well as this one, or that exude such a sense of good will. Usually I bring Maria one of their very fresh salads, and I have been getting her these awesome blueberry scones. I don’t eat there every day but I wish I could. I don’t want to see everyone I know every day either, it is a small town. But I think the Round House is worth writing about because it has become the soul of my town, a beacon of light, an affirmation of what hard work, community, and creativity can do when they are mixed together and served on their own menu. Alliyah feels like family, she knows my voice and reminds me when I forget something I usually get.

Buying local has become a seminal political idea for me, in a period when I literally cannot abide politics and the anger and stridence it breeds. So I’ll take some photos of the Round House from time to time, and write about. No corporate food chain is anything like this. Corporations are devouring individuality and community and are wreaking havoc on small business. We are so lucky we aren’t a big enough town to draw them in. But this town has also struggled to keep it’s Main Street hopping. I think it’s winning that battle.

I don’t know if there is a Round House or Battenkill Bookstore in your community, but if there is, I  hope you will vote for it buy doing your business there. Lots of towns have lost their heartbeats, I am so happy mine has found some again.

This is something to vote for, just like my bookstore, where I will be from 11 a.m. to 2:30 recommending books to anyone who wants to buy them from Battenkill. 518 677-2515. You may not be able to get a sandwich from the Round House, but you can vote for Battenkill and strike one blow for freedom and community.

Maria and I planted five different gardens around the farmhouse in the last few weeks, and flowers are starting to come up. We put four flower holders on the porch to get things going, and dug up gardens and planted perennials, pansies and seeds. We see a lot of life coming up. We also added two Lilac bushes to the front of the farmhouse, a magnolia tree and last year, three maples. All of the are flowering and growing. More garden reports on the other gardens to come.