Gardens, Chickens and Summer Projects

The gardens are all in.  Planted the corn yesterday.  The corn seed was the last to go in.  The soil was dry and warm.  I pushed each kernel into the earth with my thumb, driving it deep into the dirt and it felt like summer.  It typically does not feel this way where we live in late May.  The peas are well up, as are the greens.  Tomatoes, eggplant, all the sensitive shoots, they are in the ground too.  Sunflowers are in.  The rhubarb is already cut and will be baked into sweet crisps or pies before the end of May, at least the stalks not just eaten raw.  It is early to be so into what feel like summer.  I'll take it.

Short Film "The Brothers"

This is easier.  No link.  I am learning!

Enjoy the film as we head to summer. You can read about the film on the vimeo site.  You can read the short story here.  I would love to hear what you think.

Thanks,

D




David Rocchio lives, works and writes in Stowe, Vermont. (c) 2012 David Rocchio

Stream of Thoughts of Spring and Coming Summer

Climbing the stair master at our local gym, which is one of the most perfect gyms in the world, way beyond what a small town deserves, I flipped between two movies – Apocalypse Now and Music Man.  The time flew but I had a wicked headache when I got off the machine.

            The stair master is the closest thing there is to walking up a mountain.  Dwight “Dewey” Evans, probably the best right fielder in Red Sox history (with all due respect to Tony Conigliaro – we’ll never know), was an early adapter of this climbing machine.  I remember the controversy in the early-eighties when Dewey made the then-dead Sox drag his Stair Master around the league during the season.  I suppose hotel gyms were not so good back in the day.  At our awesome gym, called the Swimming Hole, an allusion both to rural landscape where we reside as well as the kick-ass Olympic size pool at the place, there are but two of us as far as I can tell who love the machine and we go to the gym at around the same time most days.  Maybe by writing about it the management will take pity and buy another one – or a ski erg.  Another great machine.

            When did our Swimming Hole change from a new sports facility in a rural town to an established, cherished institution in this almost-suburb?  I never knew we needed it but now I cannot imagine the town without it.  I don’t use it anywhere near as much as I should but I am darn glad it is there.

            I am not a diarist.  If I were it’d be easy to check this fact:  April has always been a cold month where we live.  There is typically snow on the ground through the month and the ski area is typically open and aiming for May.  We don’t usually start mowing our lawns until May.  We do not uncover let alone plant a garden until May.

It is not normal to be able to hike our mountains in April without trashing both hiking boots and trails due to wet conditions.  It is not normal to put in peas in March.  It is not normal to be sun burnt in April heading to May.  This all is not normal.

            Having said all that, and as you may remember from an earlier post now the peas are up (as are the lettuces, the collards, the spinach and some others), the sun is out and is bright, the lawn looks, to quote my son, “like the PGA.”  Can’t decide whether this is a good thing or not.  Kind of like watching Apocalypse Now and Music Man at the same time.  Weather as dissonance.

            And I’ll end this stream by quoting Katie Ives, editor at Alpinist magazine, a world class journal of mountaineering, writing, photography, illustration, and life, built with love just on the other side of our great mountain, now reachable by simple serpentine road rather than needing to drive around the edge of the world. 

Katie posted a note on Facebook (and I’ve come to peace with Facebook – it’s a cacophony of the inane but also not unlike, as a good friend put it, a coffee shop where you see familiar faces), commenting on the beauty of late-spring snow: 

Since last night’s storm, a layer of new snow lies across the hilltops, as brief and soft as the apple blossoms in the spring woods a shimmer of green rises from the valleys, with the sounds of water, growing brighter, and louder.

There is a thinness, a delicacy to spring and summer if you live in a cold place.  Katie, a much better writer, captures it.  I try to capture it here and there (take a look at the film I just posted about).  At the end though you cannot capture it; you have to go out and live it.

David Rocchio lives, works and writes in Stowe, Vermont. (c) 2012 David Rocchio

Short Film THE BROTHERS

Here is a short film, The Brothers, to get you in the mood for late-spring/summer.  It's a small film about judgment.  The story is here.  Adapting it for film was interesting.  The story didn't translate exactly and then, shooting it for zero-budget in two days with three other 'crew' (and mostly just one other), an untrained cast of kids and a dog, the shoot didn't translate exactly to the script.

It was not only interesting to make the film.  It was fun.

It was fun to build because of the story, of course.  It was mostly fun because we shot it with local kids and a dog, which is not easy.  My son, Callum, stepped up.  An older boy in town, also a Callum, was great.  He is I believe going to pursue film acting as a career (not just because of this experience).  We met the older Callum when he was my son's 'reading buddy' when our Cal was in kindergarten.  The other 'older boys' are kids I coached in little league and they all took it very seriously, worked hard, had fun on the ski jump and really paid attention and worked.  Young Park Crist plays the younger brother.  He is great.  I never coached him in baseball but wish I did.  He paid attention and did awesome.  It was funny too because he was so serious during the shoot and then became this goofy little kid again.  Actors.  His parents were cool with the script, too, which was nice ("okay, Park, you can say the word while filming but normally you can't! ...").

The crew was terrific.  We shot the film in a few days and needed to drive all over Vermont because I had specific places in mind for each shot.  It was hard work.  Christian Clark, who shot the film, is now a dear friend.  He did a beautiful job.

The festival thing was terrific.  Capalbio was an unforgettable experience where we met such great friends.  Being there with my son, 'the actor,' who was so into the movies at the festival and loved the people we met, was just unbelievable.

Last thing -- I recorded the sound as we shot and feel it colors the piece well.  Maybe listen with headphones ....

There's more descriptor about the film on the Vimeo website but mostly just enjoy the film.  Share it all you'd like and let me know what you think.



David Rocchio lives, works and writes in Stowe, Vermont. (c) 2012 David Rocchio