A Word About Horses, Many More Words About the Author

Any book with the word horse in the title and a picture of an equine on the cover is bound to get my attention. It is a little bit difficult, however, to know what to make of “Horsekeeping,” a book recently published by Roxanne Bok. It turns out the book is not a how-to manual. Rather it is a memoir; a slice of the author’s life, filled with stories from her childhood, reflections on parenting and marriage and descriptions of a somewhat gilded life, lived part-time in the country. That is where the horse-keeping comes in. Bok and her husband, Scott, residents and landowners in Salisbury, CT, decide to buy the rundown Arabian horse breeding farm that abuts their property. At first the driving impulse behind this decision is to protect the land from “…the bad guys (developers and neighbors who sell to developers).” So, she writes, “Some of our neighbors had counted on us to rescue our road from the tyranny of the developer.” “Can you imagine two new houses, one sitting right here along the edge of our path?” Scott asks her. The Boks have a “lovely” “two-hundred-year-old colonial” situated on a beautiful country lane and they’re determined not to have it spoiled. Of course, the only way to ensure this is to buy the property. The husband-wife team’s desire to live in a pastoral wonderland extends to the author’s fantasies about farm life. She imagines all the goodness that rubbing noses with a variety of animals will impart to her two children, city kids from Monday to Friday. In the two years that go by between first hearing that the property is on the market and finally coming to terms with the seller, the idea of keeping the property as a horse-oriented business has taken full hold in the author’s imagination. It will be a boarding facility, each member of the family will learn to ride, they will own their own horses, they’ll all enjoy hacks in the countryside and the kids will spend weekends mucking out stalls and learning the value of honest work and the satisfaction of caring for animals. Bok is forthright about where her fantasies ended and reality intruded. For one thing, her husband was an unwilling convert to the horsey-life, and though Bok and her trainer gift him with his very own mount, by book’s end, he still prefers his bicycle for touring country lanes. It is a brave person who writes a memoir. For it to be meaningful to the reader, the author must be willing to reveal a fair amount of personal material. In this, Bok is fearless. It is hard not to admire her candor. Conversations and arguments with her husband about time management, money and child rearing, all ring true. As a full-time mom, this is her world and she brings it vividly to life. Her observations, first and foremost about herself, are often quite astute. She is not quite so sure-footed when it comes to the horse world. She starts the enterprise as a neophyte. Her early acumen seems to be mostly for spending money, which is just as well, for surely the decision to take a run-down farm and turn it into an appealing boarding stable with a trainer in residence requires deep pockets. Bok’s enthusiasm for everything equine is endearing. Her “I’m spending all this money — so I should be first in your attentions” attitude with her trainer is less so. But since she’s the first to admit that she all too often feels out of her depth, she should be forgiven. “Horsekeeping” does not have much to teach a reader with any horse sense. It could be a cautionary tale for other monied weekenders with a hankering to play a scene out of Trollope. Mostly, it is a story about a woman, who is trying to realize a dream, and however awkwardly she goes about it, the reader knows she intuitively feels what Churchill said, “There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man.” Roxanne Bok will be signing copies of “Horsekeeping” at Johnnycake Books at 12 Academy St., in Salisbury, Oct. 22, from 5 to 7 p.m. For information, call 860-435-6677.

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Club baseball at Fuessenich Park

Travel league baseball came to Torrington Thursday, June 26, when the Berkshire Bears Select Team played the Connecticut Moose 18U squad. The Moose won 6-4 in a back-and-forth game. Two players on the Bears play varsity ball at Housatonic Valley Regional High School: shortstop Anthony Foley and first baseman Wes Allyn. Foley went 1-for-3 at bat with an RBI in the game at Fuessenich Park.

 

  Anthony Foley, rising senior at Housatonic Valley Regional High School, went 1-for-3 at bat for the Bears June 26.Photo by Riley Klein 

 
Siglio Press: Uncommon books at the intersection of art and literature

Uncommon books at the intersection of art and literature.

Richard Kraft

Siglio Press is a small, independent publishing house based in Egremont, Massachusetts, known for producing “uncommon books at the intersection of art and literature.” Founded and run by editor and publisher Lisa Pearson, Siglio has, since 2008, designed books that challenge conventions of both form and content.

A visit to Pearson’s airy studio suggests uncommon work, to be sure. Each of four very large tables were covered with what looked to be thousands of miniature squares of inkjet-printed, kaleidoscopically colored pieces of paper. Another table was covered with dozens of book/illustration-size, abstracted images of deer, made up of colored dots. For the enchanted and the mystified, Pearson kindly explained that these pieces were to be collaged together as artworks by the artist Richard Kraft (a frequent contributor to the Siglio Press and Pearson’s husband). The works would be accompanied by writings by two poets, Elizabeth Zuba and Monica Torre, in an as-yet-to-be-named book, inspired by a found copy of a worn French children’s book from the 1930s called “Robin de Bois” (Robin Hood).

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Cycling season: A roundup of our region’s rentals and where to ride them

Cyclists head south on the rail trail from Copake Falls.

Alec Linden

After a shaky start, summer has well and truly descended upon the Litchfield, Berkshire and Taconic hills, and there is no better way to get out and enjoy long-awaited good weather than on two wheels. Below, find a brief guide for those who feel the pull of the rail trail, but have yet to purchase their own ten-speed. Temporary rides are available in the tri-corner region, and their purveyors are eager to get residents of all ages, abilities and inclinations out into the open road (or bike path).

For those lucky enough to already possess their own bike, perhaps the routes described will inspire a new way to spend a Sunday afternoon. For more, visit lakevillejournal.com/tag/bike-route to check out two ride-guides from local cyclists that will appeal to enthusiasts of many levels looking for a varied trip through the region’s stunning summer scenery.

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