So I am sitting quietly in the living room last night around 9:30 contemplating life and scholarship forms. Its quiet with only the faint sound of the TV and pellet stove a few rooms away. Gradually my ears perk up to the sound of sirens. Is it the wind, something going on in the neighborhood?

To get a context, we live on a dead end street adjacent to a state forest and the main road is about a tenth of a mile at the entrance and we live about a half mile from the high school. [remember I have this whole town measured out in running lengths]

So quiet is what it is pretty much all of the time. The town has a population of 5,000 which decreases in the winter months as the snow birds disappear and it is without a doubt off season and dull around here.

As I get up an move to the front door there aren't many house lights on as an indication of some emergency. But opening the front door and poking my head out there's the roar of ladder trucks and pumpers clearly on the move. Sensing the direction the Ah Hah moment hits.

What school team was playing tonight? A sweet tradition in town is that when ever a high school team wins the championship and is out of town, the returning bus is met at the town line by just about every fire truck and police vehicle the town has and is escorted into town and then sirens blaring, the bus is escorted around town a couple of times, ending up at the high school. What I heard was the caravan making a pass by the high school then heading back across town and then back again a couple of times. As I said, its a sweet tradition and my kids have fond memories of being in one of those bus escorts.

Not something you could do in a city or perhaps in the summer with all the tourists that might freak out, but in the dullness of the winter in a small town its one of the best traditions.

It was the girls basketball team that won the district championship by a point. Good for them.

Reflections,,,,after a dunking

A couple of free hours this morning and the inspiration to take out the kayak. It has been so hectic that this is the first time this year, so the bugs and cobwebs needed to be vacated. Placing it in the water I felt so out of practice and as I put one foot in and got ready to push off, just as I had done dozens of times before, the boat tipped and in I went. Drenched and looking at 4+ inches of sluggy water in the kayak and standing in a foot of silt. Most everything was tied down so nothing was lost and fortunate my camera and phone were in plastic bags.

In the 3 years I have had the kayak and launched it more time than I can count, this is the first time I had ever gotten wet, and of course their were 2 people standing by offering help and suggesting how to I might successfully get in. How embarrassing.

So after draining the water out the plug and sopping most of the rest with my now soggy towels, I head down river. It was then also that I remembered that that I should have taken a picture of the mess, but back then I wasn't thinking that way.

As I was paddling, I kept noticing how much more I was seeing looking across the water, rather than up on the shore.


The reflections in the water were vivid and the picture above perfectly joined with the one below. The water was a mirror.


The top and the bottom became one picture.





It was so quiet and the water so smooth that I found I could get up closer to animals than usual. I was about 10 feet away from this heron as he decided I had come close enough.





The turtle sunning out on the rock let me pass before diving in. He was back on the rock when I came back, watching me with caution but knowing he could dive in quicker than I could get to him.


The banks were lines with yellow daisies and purple millfoil.





When the air was perfectly still there was not a ripple.


Monet is one of my favorite artists and this shot and the ripples of the image seemed to have a similar feeling, even if it is upside down.

"Isn't it fun that the cars stop when you are in the cross walk?"

Coming out of the library in the center of our little town, I overheard a mom saying to her son, as the family walked down the sidewalk, "Isn't it fun that the cars stop when you are in the cross walk?"

It made me smile as I too walked down to Main Street and as I approached the road and stepped into the crosswalk, the cars on both sides stopped. I did my half wave of acknowledgment and proceeded.

I think I was at first caught by the word "fun" in this comment then by the reality of the observation. We aren't a theme park with artificial behavior and sets though this town is more touristy than many due to its many cultural attractions. I often wonder what these tourists think we are as "locals". We are for the most part just like them I came from the library picking up a couple of books and a new book on CD for my commute. I was doing routine errands.

The second part of my thoughts was this person's actual observation. It is state law that cars stop for pedestrians in a crosswalk and the local cops do at times enforce it as do the citizens. Out of state cars that are oblivious, even thought there is a sandwich board sign at the crosswalk saying to stop, will get a comment or shout. It also is just a courtesy. something we practice and something we expect from visitors.

My daughter just came back from a week in Pennsylvania with a youth group and in the city, the chaperones reminded them that the rules aren't the same and cars don''t necessarily stop for anyone.

The flip side are tourists who think this is a theme park and will just walk right out into the street also oblivious that this is a thoroughfare or people who will walk down the middle of some of the streets where shops are. It's a small town with perhaps a slower pace but really, you can't be stupid. Though as I drive through downtown, it is now intuitive and what we teach out teenage drives, to watch the road but also the walkers approaching the road.

So, I am glad if that family is having fun here. Just be safe, be courteous and if you are eating at some of the local restaurants, leave good tips for my kids.

Weather wise this week it has been one of extremes. Starting the week off with this stuff coming down and covering the ground. It kept on coming after I left for work and while it went on for several hours more it just wasn't cold enough for it to stay around, unlike parts of Vermont that got a foot of snow.



Chilly was the key word for much of the week, frost and cold enough that the pellet stove was going regularly.

Then we hit today and it 85 and gorgeously sunny. I went out for an 8 mile run this morning and left the camera behind. I only felt like doing a short distance until I got to the stop sign near my house and instead of going straight (which is my 3 mile loop) I had an impulse to go left down the hill. At the bottom of this long hill I normally would have taken a right (which makes another 4 mile loop home. But instead, on impulse I headed straight and across a footbridge and figured I'd run around the pond at the base of October Mountain State forest. But then I came to a road that I'd passed x-c skiing several times and decided to take that turn. It went up into the forest (the road is paved so its not totally uncivilized), past fields and lakes I'd never seen before, past houses I never knew were there, past a big sand pit that I'd only seen from the distance and from the other side. The road went up and up and around 'til it came to a picnic area and the ranger office in the other entrance to the park.

The sign on the office board said 2.5 miles to the pond where I been so that was the decision time. I was feeling good but 2.5 miles out meant 2.5 miles back plus the mile up the hill to get home. So I walked around a bit, picked up a park map to see where I was and headed back home and took another detour to check out another path that I had wondered about.

A beautiful morning to be out, got to see an area I had never seen and before the heat of the day and all because I followed impulse to take a turn I hadn't before.

Something profound about that.




The moon was big this week as well but unfortunately my point and click camera shrinks even the biggest things and that's when the zoom is on.

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.

Spring is definitely here and as I think about it, that is unusual. Usually we bounce around in an out of winter and then right into early summer. Because we live at a higher elevation spring and summer comes later than the lower areas. But this past week has been glorious. Warm and sunny and the sun is up later, I've even been able to take some late afternoon runs, which always brighten the spirit.

Last week or so ago we went through several days of high winds. I've written about the wind here, as it is fairly constant and can be quite active.

I had just cleared the yard of all the branches brought down over the winter and gad enough to keep a fire going for hours and then wind came and blew down much much more and the yard looks like I never done anything.

Another thing that it blew down were pine cones. Hundreds and hundreds of them.



All around the yard and in the woods there is almost a layer. More so than I can recall.



From a distance they look like a mole or something similar until you realize they aren't moving.

Looking high in the trees there are still plenty up there and who knows when they will join the rest.

I recall when we lived in a house with oak trees that would go through cycles and would dump so many acorns that I used a snow shovel and barrel to clean them up.
I am sure there is a similar cycle for pine trees and cones.

A Hike up Monument Mountain

As the sun gets brighter and hangs around more each day winter is retreating and spring advancing. Though if you looked at the 6 inches of snow in my yard you might think it is advancing on the slow side. But as the day time temperatures are hitting the 50s snow and ice (in other places) is turning to water.

I have a couple days off and my plans on at least one of them was to spend some time with my son who is home on break. Our first idea was cross country skiing, but the conditions are mediocre with a strange combination of ice and slush and mud. So we decided on a hike up Monument Mountain, a local mount ridge that we have pass almost every day dropping someone off at school. He had been up it a few time but I never had. At an elevation of almost 1800 feet is has some great views and the trails up across and down offer several miles of good exercise, which I was in need of.




Deciding to start off the shorter route, which means more quicker up hills, there was a combination of snow and ice and frozen ground. Much more of a challenge the the soft yielding ground of summer. This meant climbing more rocks and occasionally getting off the trail to pull yourself up the side through the snow with the assist of friendly saplings and roots. A much more vigorous approach than a potentially average climb.




The sound of a stream could be heard but not seen until much further up as it had a thick covered in ice and snow and the sound we heard was echoing from below. When it was finally reveled, its racing waters cut though the hard rock.


Further up the stream made a waterfall that was completely caked in ice. The column at the base was easily a foot thick and created a cave behind the ice falls. Getting down to this required "climbing" down the sides of the wet icy rock and my only
sitz" of the day. Sometime gravity just helps you our when there is not better footing. Which made returning the same way not possible, so back into the woods and snow and around and over the falls to catch the trail further up.




The Mountain is made of Quartzite, extremely hard yet with veins running through the case it to break. The fallen rock makes dozens of caves along the base and the side, many big enough to climb in, though I was leaving that for more warmer weather and without the ice. The rocks are all sizes and are as big a a bus.



The face of the front side is sheer with sharp drops and the trails make there way around the edge and in and out of the woods



and around and up to the summit.



The views from not that far up are spectacular with this view off to the southwest and hills in Connecticut and the Catskills in New York


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and this view to the north and Mount Greylock, 40 miles away.




The back side is just as rocky though not as sharp a drop and a little easier on the return. Coming back through the snow on the backside there were several animal tracks, a reminder of this remoteness so close to "civilization". Unfortunately the camera couldn't focus on some rather large tracks, which looked like some sort of cat, bobcat perhaps. They followed the edge of the path to the bottom and were not that old. It had me occasionally looking behind just in case until we reaches the base.

An enjoyable hike, good exercise and good company. What could be a better way to spend and afternoon off.

The most descriptive word I have heard to describe the way it has looked the last few days is "Narnia"


Snow hangs heavy on the trees and while the snow falls took a rest for most of yesterday it is back at it as I write now. Like Narnia, spring is in the air but winter is not ready to let up its grip. Mid last week we got 6-8 inches then the next day another 5 then a day and a half of rain reduced the piles by half and then another 8 inches on Friday with some pretty serious wind. Had all that rain been snow, the piles would easily be at the 3 foot mark.

So how much snow do we have? With the pluses and the minuses and the double pluses that is too much of a math problem for so early in the morning. But I'd eyeball it at 8 inches that is left.

This seems like this is the most snow we've had this year but definitely not of all the dozen years we've been here. Reminiscing last night about the snow caves the kids would build in the drifts, there has been at least another foot or so a accumulation that would need to be there to match the high points.

But spring is in the air. The morning light is stronger, the afternoon light stays longer. February is over, the longest shortest darkest month is past. Soon it will be time to patch the multitude of potholes, but that is a post in itself.

Movement in the Dark

On my commute home from work the is about 15 seconds when the road dips and rounds a bend and a large wind turbine is right in front of me, gracefully and rhythmically turning in the breezes. At this time of year when I reach that point in my journey it is often dark and all that can be seen is the bright blinking red beacon alerting airplanes. Then quickly I pass and it is hidden again by the woods.

But if you look a little closer you can also see that the light does not always blink in a pattern and there the slightest blur. Both of these are cause by the blades of the turbine that can't be seen but that, when they pass in front of the light, interfere with the blinking pattern and give it that blur.

[no this is not a picture of the turbine as it is difficult to snap a shot so quickly at 70 mph.]



It was on one of these trips home in the dark, having passed the turbine, that I began to think of all that happens in the dark that we don't see and sometimes have to look closely even for a sign.

Living so close to the forest, I am often reminded of this. Noises of animals heard in the night; the road kill that is not longer there in the morning; the sense that something is out in the yard when I go out in the dark for the morning paper; the shadows that disappear when I run in the early hours. All of these are life in the dark hours.

I am someone who likes the dark and is fortunate to have good vision in being able to get around with minimal light. But sometimes even I am a bit unnerved by what I can sense and just barely hear out there, and quite honestly I'd rather not shine a light and be scared for sure.

We think of life as something we can see and something that we observe or we brightly light our paths or houses or public ways, but there is so much out there that can only be picked up by sound and by sense or, like turbine, the slightest change or that we never notice at all.

So what is this picture if it is not the turbine? It isn't anything specific, just a shot in the dark. I just aimed the camera at the moon and this is what came out.

Merry Christmas

It’s a quiet day in the Berkshires. A mild snow covering makes it a white Christmas without the burdens of a blizzard, which have happened on many a Christmas. It’s a little warmer than it has been in days, actually close to 30.

The tree is all decorated and by now the presents are all unwrapped and we are doing not much more than relaxing and doing family things. I went out for a short run in a late afternoon as a little gift to myself, very little activity and just "warm" enough that it was comfortable after the blood is pumping.




Around the neighborhood the Christmas lights are on. It is peaceful and a time to slow down. Perhaps that is what I have felt missing and some of what Christmas is about.







Merry Christmas to all.

Some times what you are looking for is right in front of you....if you stop long enough to look

This weekend was our annual Christmas tree hunt. I could not find the camera (a hazard of too many pockets and too many coats) but the photos would have been almost identical to last year, less one in our hunting party :(.

We went to the same tree farm as last year in Great Barrington, with its several acres of green on white.

http://www.seekonktreefarm.com/

It was cold but the farm and its tiny parking lot were very busy. Our specifications are not that unusual other than the size, which needs to be big enough to not get lost in a room with a 10 ft ceiling. Sometimes the size is a problem and we end up looking and looking and looking; wandering up and down the hill, through the snow, trying to remember where we've already looked and keeping track of where everyone is.

But not this year. We stopped in the hut to say hello, confirm the choices and prices and pick up our saw and were heading out to the trails when my youngest, who is just a little up ahead, comes back and says, "I've found the tree". Yeah, sure...3 minutes out and the tree has been found? What is wrong with it?
But there it was about 20 feet from the hut; tall, and full.

We stop and looked.....and looked. Is this a tree you can cut? It seemed to obvious and too good. Why had no one else cut it. But it was.

How many people have walked right by this tree today and never noticed it? We walked by it last year and never noticed it. We never really started "seeing" the trees until we were on the main trail.

So in about 10 minutes the tree was cut, and we dragged it back the 20 feet to the shaker (to get those tenant mice out) and we were done. Start to finish with it attached to the car was about 30 minutes.

So this got me thinking, if my youngest hadn't been observant and in the moment, would we too have walked right past this beautiful tree and had to cover the acres and perhaps not found a good tree? What else might I be missing that is right in front of me because I am thinking of something else or not ready to find the answer?

So the tree is up in time to avoid the second half of a snow storm, waiting to be decorating over the next week or so.

First Snow

While we have had several bouts of snow furies and white coverings on the lawn in the morning this is really the first decent snow and the first snow of the season is often the loveliest, at least on the morning after. When it started yesterday and I was driving up back country roads in the higher elevations, my expressions were not so poetic.



On a morning after when the sun is bright, the fluffy clumps of snow are still sticking to the branches.



The sun has not yet warmed to knock of the snow and the breeze is mild. The moon is visible in the bright blue sky.



Winter is beginning and this is a way of easing us in. The heavier snows will come and with it the sloveling and clearing and driving in the mess. But for now I'll appreciate the beauty of the first big snow.

One of the reasons I like the Berkshires is the natural beauty that is so plentiful and so readily accessible. Of course given the primary topic of this blog, that statement is more than obvious.




These are pictures I took from the borders of our yard and the woods out back just wandering around for a few minutes. The air is so clear and the colors so bright.



A beautiful early fall day. The temperature in the mid 50 is cool enough for long sleeves yet the sun bright enough for sun glasses. The woods are thinning out as the nights are getting cooler. The leaves dropping from the bushes and trees open up views that have been hidden since late spring.



The sound of shots at dawn and dusk indicate that hunting season ( I don't know which) has begun making some of the woods off limits. A few bears have been spotted wandering down the street at night on their way back to the deeper woods of the forests. The night winds seem stronger, which usually is the case that these start thinning the trees out more and filling the yard with leaves. Not something I look forward to and one of the down sides of living near the woods. Though if I am fortunate, the strong winds will make my job a little easier and relocate some of the leaves to where I don't need to deal with them.

September

You can tell it is September in the Berkshires without even looking at the calendar. Though it's a few days early, I've already noticed leaves beginning to fall on some of the trees, the goldenrod is leaning over and many of the tall weeds along the edge of the woods are doing the same; bending over to drop their seeds for next year.



Like a timer that has clicked, at September 1st the temperature drops, light becomes dimmer and while there will be some warm days ahead, they are never as intense.






Its one of the last tourist weekends. The annual Tub Parade was yesterday and the Great Josh Billings Triathlon is taking place across town as I write. 26 miles of biking, Canoeing around Stockbridge bowl and then a 6 mile run. There are hundreds or teams breaking up the legs and dozen of Iron-people taking on the who feat themselves.
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Summer seems to far away as we look into the face of fall and prepare for the cycle of winter and cold. But for today I'll enjoy the sunny fall weather and remember fondly the summer.