Author Archives: Helen

Autumn Reflection

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Autumn in Vermont

(photo credit: Jason H. Clark)

Time tipped into a new season this week and summer was gone. It was a summer of waiting and unanswered questions.

First we waited for the rain to stop. Then we looked for signs of life in the economy. All the while, I watched my much loved dog slide further and further into incapacity, unsure about when it will be the right time to let go.

I’ve imagined the right time will be when she can no longer get up. When I come down to her in the morning (her days of climbing the stairs to sleep beside our bed are long gone), she isn’t ready and waiting for me to feed her. She lifts her head and looks at me without recognition. But once awareness dawns, she still rises, slowly. I help her up and coax her to the kitchen. Her once-graceful tail now permanently curved down between her legs and bedraggled. I don’t know if I can bear to see her lie down and stay there.

So many people have told me this summer that when the time comes, I will know. Instantly. The time hasn’t come. It’s autumn and I’m still waiting.

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Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time. ~John Lubbock

I will

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And when at last I’ve found you
Your song will fill the air
Sing it loud so I can hear you
Make it easy to be near you
For the things you do
Endear you to me
Ah, you know I will
I will

- Lennon and McCartney

Full house and new music on the home page

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The Yellow House is full to capacity this week with a gathering of Clarks from all over the country. We were hoping to have outdoor jam sessions on the patio all week leading up to some big July 4th events this weekend but so far the weather hasn’t co-operated. It’s a good reminder to make the best of what we have to work with.

This week we are featuring new recordings of Wrensong in Fresh Tracks on the home page of the website. Wrensong is the acapella renaissance choral group Dave and I sing in along with Elizabeth Harley, Miriam Langner, Sue Neighbor, Oliver Goodenough, John Severinghaus, Frank Fields and Tyler Harwell.

Memorial Day

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We live across the street from a cemetery. Every spring, the flags appear in preparation for Memorial Day.

It’s an old cemetery. The veterans there mostly fought in the American Revolution and the Civil War. A couple of years ago, when I was out walking one morning, I met two young men putting the flags in place. They were carefully studying each headstone, worried about missing one. We talked for a while and I learned that up until that year they had an older man working with them who knew exactly where all the flags had to be placed.

Shortly after I moved up here, we were walking in deep woods out past Barnard in early summer. There in a small clearing was a small cemetery. It had a forlorn, abandoned appearance and yet the grave of each veteran was marked with a flag. Just like across the street from my house. Just like at Arlington National Cemetery.

How I spent my three-day weekend (so far)

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I’m spending a lot of time this weekend on website redesign. I’ve made huge progress templatizing the new design and finding drop down menus that work (pure CSS, not JavaScript). Here’s a sneak peek:

http://www.yellowhousemedia.com/yellow/

Only the home page is active right now. I have about 80 pages to convert to the new template, but once I do, new updates will be a lot faster and easier.

The next big hurdle is finding a good calendar solution for the events. We’ve been embedding the Airset calendar that Dave keeps updated but I find it slow and all around annoying.

I also need to write a lot of copy. The stuff on the home page is old and I need new filler stuff for the music page, etc. Also on each of the over 70 musician pages, I want to add a blurb and links to their sites. It’s a big research project from that point of view, but it’s the least I can do for these people who are so graciously letting us stream their original music.

Luckily it is grey and cool here so I don’t feel like I’m missing out too much staying glued to my Mac.

(PS – the radio and “Fresh Tracks” feature on the new page work so enjoy!)

Update: the new site is live now!

Trouble in the Fields

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There is a song running through my brain this morning that our friend Kerry brought to our attention last year. It is called “Trouble in the Fields” by Nanci Griffith and Rick West. It starts out:

“Baby, I know that we’ve got trouble in the fields
When the bankers swarm like locusts
out there turning away our yield.”

The only recorded version I’ve heard of it is by Griffith and she sings it quickly and lightly. When Kerry sings it at the Acoustic Coalition, the sound is so much more soulful.

Dave and I sing it together, too, generally in private or for my mom (she and Dave share a love of the guitar). I can’t match the richness of Kerry’s voice. And I have this little problem where parts of it bring tears to my eyes.

I suppose I’m feeling sorry for myself. I haven’t blogged much because I still feel there is just one topic — that business is hard and getting harder. How many times can I say that without beginning to feel like I am creating it just by giving voice to it?

But there is a part of this song that gives me comfort and hope that we can work our way out of this. We’re strong enough and we have the will to do it. It is in the refrain:

“And all this trouble in our fields,
If this rain can fall, these wounds can heal.
They’ll never take our native soil.
But if we sell that new John Deere
Then we’ll work this farm with sweat and tears.
You’ll be the mule, I’ll be the plow,
Come harvest time we’ll work it out.
There’s still a lot of love,
here in these troubled fields”

These are the images in my mind as I start my day — images of working steadfastly together as best we can, with hope and love, sweat and tears.

New Year’s Day horizon

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Chronologically I should have posted this photo a few days ago. I took it on my first walk of the new year. It is one of my favorite views looking out over the high meadow above Dewey Mills Pond.

I had to snap this one in a hurry just before sundown because the dog was pulling hard on her leash, being very eager to get home and eat. The meadow is much steeper than it appears, I know because I sometimes cross country ski there and it is a tough climb.

On the horizon about two-thirds of the way over from the left, you can see just a sliver of Mount Ascutney, the only monadnock in Southern Vermont and (strange trivia tidbit) eternal resting place of Charles Bronson.