Looking East

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • February 7, 2022

Or west, if you are considering it’s the west side of the Mitchell House. In the setting sun the week of January 24. I love how the sun has such a warm glow on the House. For the most part, that would be the same setting sun that Maria saw on the side of the House ̶ save for the telephone pole – you can make out its shape there. Sort of right in the middle and running up into the attic window.


You can also see some of the “debris” from work we are doing. First – the Mitchell House chimney is being reparged on the rear. Pen Austin, an island mason who specializes in historic masonry, plaster and paint treatments is conducting that work which was grant funded. She has given this chimney some TLC over the years and is now adding layer upon layer of lime mortar to the chimney. While this is not historically accurate (by 1790s standards when the House was built), it was done to the chimney starting in the late nineteenth century and thus it stays that way – and helps protect it at this point. The chimney was rebuilt at some point – probably in the later part of the nineteenth century – but below the roofline it is completely the 1790 chimney. Believe it or not, that’s not a common thing as when chimneys were rebuilt, a lot of the time they would be rebuilt in the attic spaces (below the roof/ridgeline), too.


The second area is the wood in the yard and the staging. This is for the mason, Wayne Morris, who is working on the conservation of the Maria Mitchell Vestal Street    Observatory – also grant funded and this time via a Community Preservation Act grant. He’s completed some work where you see the support on the roof and if it was a better, closer photograph, you could make out the area of the last “parapet” closest to the Mitchell House where he has done some investigating. He will need to re-build those.  He has been investigating how the slabs was installed so that he knows how to pull them (they are made of concrete) without damaging them. On that particular one, he found a wood shim. Not unusual, but it was completely rotted and crumbled because it had gotten wet over the last 100 years as water found its way in. That shim will be going away and if something is needed, a steel piece will go in – it doesn’t rot and it doesn’t rust! And it’s the acceptable thing to do in such conservation work here.


JNLF

Recent Posts

Corn Niblets

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • January 12, 2026
I wrote this several years ago and have re-blogged it but the juncos are so adorable – little puffball corn niblets. And they are ubiquitous during New England winters. We all know I am not an ornithologist. I would liken myself to a very amateur birder. While I worked a great deal with my friend and mentor, Edith Andrews, over the years, particularly on her book, I still am TERRIBLE at shorebirds and warblers. Even harriers and hawks. I grew up watching birds – my parents are birders. My Dad had a primo seat at the bird venue in his study – close to the feeders and the hummingbird feeder right outside the shop keeper’s style window of his study. But (as I tend to do), I digress. What are corn niblets and birds doing in the same blog you wonder? Well, that’s what I think of when I see Dark-eyed Juncos. Their beaks remind me of a piece of a corn kernel – and thus the niblets term. Believe it or not, I had never really seen – or maybe noticed – a Junco until I was in my early 20s and my husband and I were living outside Washington, DC where he was an officer stationed with the US Coast Guard. We had a large second story deck and I was feeding the birds. It was November or December and all these little birds with white-greyish breasts and black backs with little beaks showed up. I called my Mom who said, “That’s’ a Junco!’ And probably also then thought, “Duh.” If you haven’t seen a Junco, they’re absolutely adorable and a harbinger of cold weather around these parts. Last year, I never seemed to glimpse one at all. We seem to have waves from year to year where we have a lot or they are few and far between. But in any case, I was rather excited to see one under my feeder the other day. I went back to look in my bird list and realized I never saw one in 2020 nor in 2021! Now, identification books state they have a pink-ish beak but I always see them more as a yellowy color – maybe it’s my eyes – but it’s really the size that reminds me of a kernel of corn! But take a look and let me know what you think. JNLF

PEACE

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • January 5, 2026
As Walt Whitman once wrote, “Peace is always beautiful.” Peace can mean many different things. I have used this Whitman quote above before – my Father loved Whitman. And when I quote Whitman, it makes me feel like my Father is here. Maria and her father, William, were close. In fact, even with a large family of twelve people, the Mitchells were all close. My family is close as well, though we have our moments as most, if not all, families do. As we bring to a close another difficult year in which the world and its people continue to struggle, take a moment to be thankful and to find and give peace. May you always find peace in yourself and peace with others. May our world become more peaceful and may we all learn that this small space we inhabit is shared and meant for everyone. In the echoes of one of my favorite Maria Mitchell quotes, your small step, your small gesture to another or towards helping something happen, can make a difference – more than you think. I’ll end with another quote – and a poem I have used the last few years – that is fitting and that also reminds me of another Whitman poem. JNLF In Memoriam, [Ring out, wild bells] Alfred, Lord Tennyson - 1809-1892  Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light: The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true. Ring out the grief that saps the mind For those that here we see no more; Ring out the feud of rich and poor, Ring in redress to all mankind. Ring out a slowly dying cause, And ancient forms of party strife; Ring in the nobler modes of life, With sweeter manners, purer laws. Ring out the want, the care, the sin, The faithless coldness of the times; Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes But ring the fuller minstrel in. Ring out false pride in place and blood, The civic slander and the spite; Ring in the love of truth and right, Ring in the common love of good. Ring out old shapes of foul disease; Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace. Ring in the valiant man and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be.

Keep Calm and Bird On: January 2026

January 1, 2026
“If you don’t look, you don’t see. You have to go and look.” -Edith Andrews
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