Come spring, it is time to schedule a vacation. Yesterday a flurry of information requests kept me close to the computer. We booked Seagull Cottage one weekend in May and one week in July. The May couple are bringing friends from Germany who will stay in our Studio. I also spoke to a man in Belgium about an August trip. He sought advice on whether to go to Nantucket or Martha’s Vineyard. Funny how innkeepers suddenly become experts on local travel options. I picked Nantucket but told him Wellfleet is even more worthwhile. There is beauty everywhere. Even the trailer park down at the harbor merits a second glance.The other day Sven and I went walking through "Harborside Village."
Sometimes you see ads for trailers in the classified. I was amazed at how lovely the tiny plots can be. Some trailers seem to be inhabited year-round. There were clotheslines and decks and arbors. The owners obviously care a lot about these well-tended homes. Pussy willow, a tree that is easy to grow from a rooted cutting, was planted along the paths. Sven spent 17 years above the Arctic Circle where there are no trees. He is following news from Kiruna these days because the local government has decided to move the town. A person, who has trees as a part of his daily landscape, comes to take them for granted, he says.
When the colonists came to the New World, they felled whole forests. We have a photo of our house at the beginning of the century.
It is fascinating to see the area without pitch pine and locust. Sometimes guests ask how a house could have been moved here on rollers, and the answer is there were fields everywhere back then. Lumber had become scarce. Moving a house apparently made more sense than building a new one. I wonder what Wellfleet settlers would have thought of these trailors? They certainly are easier to move.The forsythia and daffodils were out at Harborside Village. All the tiny leaves on the bushes along Old King’s Highway have begun to unfurl. Homeowners who live off-Cape
have started to come for the weekend in order to check on winter damage and prepare for the season. With Easter around the corner, I noticed a new type of tree in Wellfleet. The fruit is oval-shaped and comes in many colors. There is one in the yard next to the Congregational Church, and another out on Route 6. Easter-egg trees!
