Bedlam Farm Blog Journal by Jon Katz

As some of you know, Maria has had a challenging week; she wrote very eloquently and honestly about it on her blog yesterday. She’s coming out of it and, with the help of some good friends and lots of courage, is coming out of it.

She came into my office this afternoon smiling and excited, “I’m taking you out to dinner,” she said, “you have been very good to me, and I want to buy you dinner!”

But it’s the Fourth of July,  and we are in the country. Where could we go?

(Brooke came out and asked if I could take her photo while sticking her tongue out – she was very gently training a new employee – I said I would be honored. I went to the window and leaned in.)

“I’m  treating you to one of your favorite meals, a lobster roll!” Maria announced gleefully.

I lit up; I will never say no to a well-made lobster roll, and to our surprise, some of the best-made lobster rolls we have ever eaten are made at a Bennington dairy bar called Billy T’s Northside Diner.

This was the perfect idea for dinner out on July Fourth.

I’m not sure how this lobster roll thing happened, we stop at Billy T’s often in the summer to get some ice cream (sugar-free for me), and I just happened to notice the sign for lobster rolls and whole-belied clams, another favorite food of mine that I rarely, if ever, eat.

I remember saying it can’t be perfect, not at an ice cream place. I was dead wrong. We’ve told our friends about it, and they agree – the lobster rolls are great.

I keep wondering where they buy their lobster chunks, but nobody seems to know or isn’t telling.

It was expensive enough to be for real, so I took the plunge – again and again. It is offered in several ways, the horrible mayonnaise on the role way popular among city people, or the delicious lobster chunks on a grilled hot dog roll with a small tub of butter in a small plastic holder. The good way, the dipped in butter way,  is called Connecticut style, and that’s what we tried.

I don’t use much butter or most of the hot dog roll. It’s healthy for me as well as delicious.

 

 

We were blown away by the lobster, its side, freshness, and taste. We couldn’t recall having a better one, except at one diner near the Maine border.

Since then, Billy T’s has become one of my favorite restaurants; Maria takes me there on my birthday in August.

 

 

It was an excellent place to use my Leica, with many iconic photos; I love taking pictures of people at ice cream stands, especially as the sun sets.

I was getting into the car when one of the counter girls came running out to say they were watching me take photos, and thank you, they said. Would I be willing to take one of Brook, who seemed to be in charge?

I said I would be honored. Brook wanted to take the photo with her tongue sticking out, but she chickened out, then relented at my request.

She was great, the staff is well trained there, and the ice cream and the food are excellent.

Something new is in the air; many people are getting sick of poisonous lying, and politicians are beginning to return to sanity. The inmates have taken over the asylum.

I think we’re all tiring of nastiness and fools.

We want our country back. Some good things are coming.

We had a lot of fun, and I am grateful to Maria for treating me to lobster rolls. I can’t wait for my birthday.

I took a photo of one of the begonias this morning before I realized there was five or six breaking out just below the first one.

These are extraordinarily beautiful flowers, and next year, I will plant more of them.

The first poppy popped up in my garden today, sometime between 10 a.m. and noon. It is beautiful, vibrant and a wonderful absorber and reflector of the sun. I see a dozen or more buds all around it.

My garden is happy and fruitful. There’s a lesson here, but I have no idea what it is.

I call them the “friend” chairs because I look forward to the day when these chairs in our yard are filled with friends. I admit I don’t have four friends to invite at the moment, but Maria does.

One of them came over to sit and talk with her today under our apple tree, and it was a beautiful thing to see the two of them laughing and talking. Maria is a wonder to me, and I never resist or resent her spending time with her friends.

She is precious and much loved and I hope she never feels any pressure from me to not have and talk to as many friends as she wants and likes to have. She loves her friends and is loyal and available to them.

It lifts my heart to see friends in the friend’s chair. One day there will be friends in all of them.