The trees are beginning to fill in and for that brief moment in time there are beautiful views of the mountains and fields that are softened by the light green of spring.

One big thing that sold us on buying the house we are in now was the yard. The house itself is fine, much newer than the money pit we had left behind, on a quiet dead end street and located in a town where real estate retains value and is one of the better school districts in the state. But the house itself, when we saw it, had enormous bird cages in the family room and most of the room were very dark wallpaper, including rooms with only one window facing north and it has electric heat, which in New England draws is costly.





But in a town with a limited number of mid priced houses you make compromises. The irony of our decision to live here for the schools comes back to us on a regular basis as although we live less than a half mile from the high school, neither one of our kids ended up going there. As this is a public blog, I won't get into it much but there are challenges when you don't fit the mold in a very small town and though the schools are great, our kids thrived in a neighboring district 20 minutes away(you can go out of district at no cost) with a larger more diverse population and a broader curriculum.



How hind sight gets you. Had we known a dozen year ago about the job situation and the schools we might have moved somewhere very different.

But that rainy day when we looked at the house a second time, I walked to the back of the yard with the kids, while my wife was in the house. It was the softness of the trees that isolated and defined the property but didn't cut it off and the uneven grade of the land creating pathways and coves that was magical.



But living so near the woods has challenges as the woods is always seeking to reclaim the land, I never realized how much work property is, especially when your power equipment consists of a push mower and a Jeff powered rake and saw. Its good exercise and the kids pitch in when they have the time. But the clearing of all the debris from the winter and spring is where the burning season comes in.

From January through April, with a cheap permit, you can burn. So handling the dead limbs that are always falling and clipping back the bushes that seem to gain 3-4 feet of year each summer as well as disposing of the Christmas tree and wood pellet pallets becomes possible.

I think burning tends to be more of a primal guy thing, having the blazing fire and chopping and hauling wood and brush. It definitely is satisfying seeing things get cleaned up from the winter and the big piles disappear. Plus and area of grass that was previously just weed has a chance to come back seeded.



I know that when the kids are off to college and it is time to downsize there will be some things I'll miss about the house. But it will be the yard that I know I will miss.

Sitting out on the back porch listening to the wind, the animals trouping through, the views of Mt. Greylock in the winter through the bare trees, the way the fog settles between the trees and the blossoms of the trees in spring; camp fires in the back with kids gathering around; the way it connects with the woods and forest and a times becomes one.



I think by then the maintenance will have worn me a bit, as I feel it more and more now, but it will always be something special.