Gentleman’s Farm

We spent this MLK weekend down at G’s farm in Raphine, VA, a place cupped by the Appalachians and the Blue Ridge Mountains. The landscape is stunning here, even in the middle of winter. Soft hills in the foreground and the sharper cuts the mountains make in the background, and the hills themselves have been mostly razed to make them amenable to grasses and the pasture animals that feed on them.

The road leading to the house is narrow and snakes along the base of the hills. The house itself was built on the crest of a wooded hill, so that, sitting on the porch, one has pretty views in all directions. At night, the silence is so complete that it was difficult for me to ignore my heart beating as I sat writing.

We had driven down from Hoboken with O the Russian, just in from Moscow. The road trip took most of the day, as we had to stop often to give A some time to crawl around and burn a little energy. Ohio-G had already arrived by the time we pulled in. G had put him to work cleaning the house. I like Ohio-G because he is unassuming and makes us laugh. He has a kind face, the face of a father. Very early the next morning, he left to pick up R from the the Charlottesville airport. With all of them together, the dendro-summit commenced–laptops were unfolded, papers passed around, and conversations began to be punctuated by phrases such as “R-squared” and “climate-forcing” and “maximum-density latewood”. I enjoyed this peek into the lives of scientists, especially this group, who, with the (temporary) exception of N, comprises the top minds in dendrochronology.

The business of science, despite the rather incomprehensible, sterile papers that result from it, occurs with between glasses of wine and bourbon, much laughter and storytelling.

• Why are we going to Mongolia? (0)
• Useful link on Mongolian dendrochronology (0)