EPISODE 796 EARLY SPRINGTIME ALWAYS TAKES ME TO ANDREW WYETH’S PAINTINGS and THE BIG SNAPPER
alan skeoch
April 11, 2023
When the frost is gone and snow has disappeared then the dead grass of last year IS
exposed…light beige… gives all the land a beautiful but harsh appearance. But not for long.
Andrew Wyeth captured those first moments of springtime. His painting
‘Christina’s World’ comeS TO mind. (available on internet but under copyright) ChIrstina Olsen was a severely crippled woman that Wyeth
noticed dragging herself across the fields of her home farm in Maine. The painting has intrigued art
critics and art lovers ever since.
For me. Wyeth is synonymous with those first light brown days of intensive sunlight when
April arrives.
Andrew Wyeth, WIND FROM THE SEA, 1947
PONDS ARE OPEN ONCE AGAIN….THE BIG SNAPPER IS RESTLESS
Today, I tried to catch the first breath of springtime as the ponds opened up.
You may wonder about the turtle. It is made of cement and was placed
oN that rock years ago. Amazed at how many people think it is real.
The turtles eyes are permanently closed while Woody takes a bath in the nude.
Real turtles are just waking up down in the mud below. One of them is a big snapping
turtle whose anger matches his or her curiosity. How many times have I met the
snapper on the trail to the back field….watching me with eyes protruding from that long neck… ready to snap off
my fingers if I am fool enough to pick him or her up.?”
“Crunch
“Grandpa, come and sit down. I have bad news for you.” said Jack a few years ago.
“How bad, Jack?”
“I found the Big Snapper over by the old barn…he’s dead Grandpa.”
“You know Jack, that Big Snapper has been living in the small pond as longs I can
remember. He or she lived there long before you were born. He might have been here
when my grandparents lived here… could have been 100 years old. We will miss him.”
“Very sad,Grandpa.”
“But we will get another. “
“How?”
“Around June snappers begin to move about….cross the Fifth line road…seems we help them cross every year….we will catch
one and give him or her a new home.”
And we did. A big one was crossing the road and I Lifted him into a box with the toe of my boot. Not my hand
Not sure of the sex. Our old snapper may have been a female because
Andrew found a clutch of baby snappers a while back. Hatched about time ponds froze
up so likely did not survive. Nature can be brutal.
alan
odd wants to know why those red sticks now coming to life are called DOGWOOD?
