Bittersweet Farm Journal (Number 90) Coles Pond | Walden, Vermont

On Bittersweet Farm we have a grove of walnut trees, over twenty of them. They are majestic trees that provide a rich canopy of green. They have been around a long time. If they could talk I would listen. They could tell me the history of this “Place on the Earth.” The walnut grove divides our acres in half east and west. This time of year, in the second half of summer, some of the walnut leaves turn yellow and blow down when a breeze moves upon them. It is the first hint of fall. The other night it was cool and the leaves were blowing down here-and-there. It was a reminder that cooler days are coming soon–a reminder to drink in every summery hour with ice-tea in hand and enjoy the pleasure of the rocking chair on the porch and shirt-sleeves outdoors. “Teach us to number our days and apply our hearts to wisdom…” Moses wrote in Psalm 90.

The Loon on Coles Pond

I once had a reader from Vermont write to tell me that she always dreamed of visiting Michigan. Funny, I thought. I have always dreamed of visiting Vermont.

My grandfather had and older brother named Elmer and two younger brothers, Orville and Arthur. I believe Elmer died before I was born. Orville lived in Utica. Art lived in Beaver Dam in the Finger Lakes region of New York. Now all of them have passed. He had a sister named Dorothy, who I remember and a sister named Grace who died as a child. He would marry a woman named Grace.

One of Orville’s grandsons is my cousin Jeff Pierpont. Jeff lives in a beautiful home on Cole’s Pond in Vermont. Jeff and I don’t remember ever meeting, though we may have once in our childhood. We bumped into each other on-line a few years ago. I enjoy his facebook and blog posts. He is a good writer, and evidently a pretty good cook, judging from the pictures of his food. I have an open invitation to visit him at his home on the pond. I know our conversation would reach deep into the night and the eating would be as good as the views of the lake.

My Cousin Jeff Pierpont

Coles Pond is about an hour’s drive from northwest Maine and an hour south of the Canadian border. Yesterday Jeff was out in his wooden canoe and got a beautiful picture of a loon. He was kind enough to share it with me so you all could enjoy it. A loon-sighting is a rare and wonderful occasion for me and the call of a loon on a northern lake is a worship experience. Did you know that God created the Loon to live on fish and equipped them with sharp, rearward-pointing projections on the roof of its mouth and tongue to keep a firm grip on slippery fish? What an amazing creation to hear and to see and to study.

Read Psalm 139. God created and arranges all the details of your life. You have just what you need to do what God has called you to do. With God’s help you can do whatever he commands you to do. He will have people in place and arrange circumstances in split-second timing so you can accomplish what he placed you on planet earth to accomplish.

Anyway… It’s about a thirteen hour drive to visit my cousin in Vermont. What do you think? Should I go meet him? I could take the northern route through Canada. I could return the US route through New England. I wonder if he would be open to a guest in the fall of the year when the maples are aflame with color? I imagine he is the kind of guy who would make me flapjacks with real local Vermont Maple Syrup with my morning coffee. What if I took a side-trip to visit the White Mountains of New Hampshire and drove through the Green Mountains of Vermont on the way home. All that good conversation, good eating, and all those beautiful mountain vistas, would make some good writing, wouldn’t it? I saw the loon picture and got to thinking.

Bittersweet Farm
August 10, 2020