Here he is – one of two Red-bellied Woodpeckers that we’ve seen on the feeder.
outdoors
Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow
With any luck these babies will be seeing some action on Sunday. The forecast is for 8 to 10 inches and I have to tell you if that doesn’t happen I will be a little disappointed.
The first good snowstorm of the year – especially right before Christmas – motivates me like nothing else. The snow will be coming down outdoors and I will be baking up a storm inside. Nothing says cookies to me like bad weather. It also makes me want to get out the decorations, light the fires in the fireplaces and make the house as warm as possible both literally and figuratively.
In years past Christmas Eve has always made the Martha Stewart come out it me. I work hard on setting the mood. I want my guests to look forward to it year after year. The first year we had it in Rowe I took it as a challenge. The living room was at the end of its renovation and I used the invitation to the holiday to give that little push to get things done. MOST STRESSFUL CHRISTMAS EVE EVER.
We took the plastic up off of the floor the day before, there were big holes in the walls where sconces were supposed to go, the panel that goes over the mantel covering the chimney was drying on sawhorses the week before – unpainted and more than 20 people had RSVP’d. The girls were awesome at helping to clean up the mess. I decided we would do more of an 1830’s theme and took my Old Sturbridge Village and City Stage theater skills to new heights. Everything was by candlelight. Redware was on the table, the menu was traditional beef and root vegatables. There was mulled cider and potted cheese. It was wonderful, it was an event and it was all theater. There is a lot you can hide in the dark.
So in addition to baking I will be finalizing my dinner theme ideas and making my lists. And when all of that is done I may throw in a little weaving.
How We Do It In the Sticks
One great fire.
Five great kids (and Bill).
You never would have known it was 15 degrees.
Too Cold Too Early
This past weekend was one of the coldest November weekends I can remember. Having snow is not surprising but having temperatures below 20 degrees with the windchill making it below zero is quite another.
We went out to eat on Saturday night and returned in what I thought was a squall but Rowe was covered in a good few inches of snow by Sunday morning. I woke up to the sound of the plow going up the road.
We were toasty in the house with the wood stove blazing away but there were things that needed to be done outside before the day was over. I kept putting them off looking out the window at the snow swirling around the field and the trees being whipped about by the wind. I kept hoping it would die down and warm just a bit. Didn’t happen.
I went out and removed the pumpkins that were decorating the grounds (and now looking a little like a Salvador Dali painting melting over the edges of steps). They were all frozen solid to whatever they’d been placed on, the pots of Kale as well. With a little kick they were released from their perches and flung over banks or thrown into mulch piles. A couple I tossed near one of the perennial gardens. This was done in an effort to see if anything will grow in the spring. I also picked up most of my solar lamps decorating some of the gardens.
I finished up what needed to be done in about 20 minutes but I’m telling you it felt like it was taking forever out in that wind. When I got back into the house it took a while to thaw.
You know it’s too cold to go out when Chester looks at you as you bundle up and appears to say “No thanks” and returns to his daylong nap in front of a fire.
Another Home Improvement Project
Saturday morning Bill and I took a ride to Friends of the Sun in Brattleboro, VT to purchase a wood stove for the kitchen. I had done some pretty extensive research over the past few weeks figuring out what would be the best option for us. The stove would be mounted on a 9″ raised hearth with the hookup using the fireplace and chimney. The fireplace, as beautiful as it is, has not been something we can really use for heat, or anything else for that matter. When my parents had it built in the ’70s the chimney was not built to the same height it was originally. Any time we used the fireplace we ran the risk of the wind blowing from the west, over the top of the house and directly down the chimney. I once had to move a blazing fire into another fireplace because the smoke and ash suddenly blew into the kitchen. Many times I woke up in the morning to a kitchen with everything covered with ash.
We decided on a Hearthstone Hearthmount. It’s a soapstone stove which is something I have always wanted because of its heat retention properties and its beauty. When we arrived at Friends of the Sun the stove was sitting right in their showroom and we soon found out they had one in stock. I had anticipated having to order it so this was a bonus. Although after a look in the warehouse our salesman told us we would probably have to wait until next week to pick it up because their warehouse guy wasn’t in and it was in an odd location. He set us up with the materials for the chimney installation and sent us with the owner to pick up what we could.
This set up is going to solve a bunch of problems. It will keep the chimney dry and we will be able to heat the ell with wood. The box consisted of 25′ of stovepipe, along with insulation and a cap. It all seems so simple and easy when you are picking up the parts.
I swear the owner of this business is Mr. Rogers incarnate. If he’d been wearing a cardigan it would have been perfect. Their warehouse is a small, packed little building a short drive down the road from their showroom. When we got there Mr. Rogers informed us that he could get the stove out for us if we wanted to take it right then. Woohoo!
So after moving some things around it was taken off of a rack. . .
and loaded into the truck. We tied a couple of things down and made the trip home. Oh, did I mention that the stove weighs 440 pounds? Hmmm, think about that for a minute.
As soon as we got home BIll got the tractor out, took the stove off of the truck and unpacked it except for the pallet it was bolted to. We decided the only way to get this into the kitchen was through the patio door. Bill drove right onto the patio and approached the door only to find that it was too wide to fit in the door. Damn, now what?
We decided to put it in lengthwise but the pallet was too narrow to hold it with any stability on the forks. We stood in the yard trying to figure out how the two of us were going to get this inside and I just kept thinking WWDD? (what would Dad do). I remembered there were two dollies in the barn that my father had used to move heavy things around. We got one and put it under the stove pallet, then picked it up.
This pic is pretty blurry – probably because I was yelling at Bill while I was taking it. When you are driving the tractor you have no way of knowing the height of the load you are carrying, especially when it is near the ground. He came into the edge of the patio a little low and I could just imagine the sound as the stove hit the ground. We were only able to get close enough to the doorway to set down the first set of wheels on the floor, he tipped up the forks to make it slide the rest of the way off, ran around into the kitchen and the two of us eased it off into the room.
There it is all uncovered waiting for installation. Honestly, that move took about 6 years off of my life it was so stressful. Just writing about it raised my blood pressure. 440 pounds is really, really heavy – thank God for Dad’s little trolley (and remembering it was there). Bill called Mike and made a date for Sunday morning to install it.
The first couple of hours of the installation on Sunday was spent wrapping the 25 feet of stove pipe with insulation and wire mesh. They then went up on the roof and tried lowering it down the chimney. Did I mention it was raining and we have a metal roof? Yeah, even with ladders it was scary. They were unable to get it up there and drop it down so decided to pull it up from the bottom. We had been told that we would probably have to flatten some of the piping to go through the damper in the chimney but we were fortunate to have a damper that allowed the pipe to go through as is. A rope was dropped from the top of the chimney and the pipe was pulled up and attached to the cap. That was the easy part.
As they began to move the stove Mike told me we really needed four strong men, one for each corner. We couldn’t think of any other guys to call so it was up to them. Fortunately the dolly had placed the height of the stove just a little higher than the hearth.
We had to do a lot of lifting and shimming to get this to work. It had to be “walked” over because they could only lift it a little at a time. Another stressful little period of time.
Getting all of this to fit together was another challenge. There was a lot of fabrication going on in the garage and a trip to Wilmington to the hardware store for a piece of stovepipe that would finally enable the hookup. There was a moment when it looked like this wasn’t going to happen without getting a different part for the back of the stove, a minute when they both walked away. Some times you need those moments to walk away from a difficult situation to think of it in a different way.
Both guys were determined to build a fire in this before the day was over and figured out a way to connect all of the pipes in a safe way (not without a few more frustrating moments mind you).
At 2:45 Bill told me to light the first fire and this thing is everything I’d hoped it would be and more. In about an hour the temp in the room went from 55 to 76. Bill thought that was a little too hot, I thought it was just right. And it’s beautiful to boot.
On our way back to Enfield Bill said this was probably the best home improvement we have done. The heat in the kitchen never turns off once it really gets cold outside. The stove is designed to have greatly reduced carbon emissions and will stay hot for 12 hours or so. It should make a big difference in the oil bill. What really amazed me was how efficient the burn was, once it was started we burned 3 good size pieces of wood in 3 hours and it was still burning when we left. Sweet.
It’s Here
Snow on Sunday. Snowing again today. Nothing has really accumulated but it’s here. It’s been quite cold the past week or so, cold enough to break out the winter coat.
This time of year is the most difficult for me in a lot of ways. The days are so much shorter. The house is cold a lot of the time. I know this is one long, long slog until spring. We are talking 5 months minimum on the hill. Yes, we will have a few of those January thaw days and it will warm up in April so we think we can actually do something outside in the garden but . . . never, ever plant anything before Memorial Day.
So what are the advantages of a long, dark winter? For me it gives me time to work on many different projects. I have a lot of handwork that sits idle whenever the weather is good enough for me to be outdoors. It’s a time for woodfires in both stoves and fireplaces. I love hearth cooking and that is really only fun when it’s really cold out. If I sit and watch a movie on TV that’s okay – I’m not frittering away a day when there is too much else to be done. Did I mention weaving? Weaving, weaving, weaving, nothing more to be said about that.
I love the beauty of the snow on the trees and ground, how bright it is with the moon shining. I love the sound of the snow under your feet on those cold, quiet nights with a million stars visible from the driveway. I love snoeshowing the property lines, it gives me a wider perspective of the land (and I can walk on all those wet, swampy spots that I can’t cross any other time of the year). There is bird song of a whole different kind.
So it’s now time to ease into a slower pace, enjoy family and friends and work on things left since last winter. This is what the dogs live for.
Helping Hands
It must look as though all we do is cut, split and stack wood by the numerous posts about it here. This time of year that does seem to be the case. I have to tell you though that this is one chore that I kind of like doing. It is the one thing we do as a little community for the most part. This weekend we went to sister Sue’s to move some of a huge locust tree that came down at the end of the summer. The tree guys cut it up in place and hauled away the sticks and branches (the worst part of the job). They cut the wood to length but it needed to be moved and split. The morning began with the tractor ride to her house, Bill followed with the splitter. A friend arrived shortly after we did and then Sue’s daughter and her husband.
The tree was at the back side of her house so Bill, Rob and Chuck all loaded the bucket of the tractor and the bed of a pick up with multiple loads and brought it to the door of the barn where we had set up the splitter. Sue has a door in the floor of the barn and we split and tossed it through the door into the lower level. This is really an excellent set up. It keeps the wood out of the weather and is attached to the house so in those howling snow storms she just has to walk down the stairs to get her wood. Not ideal going up and down the stairs but much better than keeping it under a tarp in a field somewhere.
Sue and I split the smaller pieces but a lot of it was huge. The splitter can be used horizontally or vertically. The vertical position allows you the ability to split any size diameter wood (you just have to be able to move it around). One large chunk was split into 30 plus pieces – Sue counted. Moving and splitting went on for four hours or so – 3 tanks of gas is how we measure. The wall of wood was a little intimidating initially, they were bringing it up faster than we were ever going to split it. Bill figures they will get 5 cord or more from that one tree.
This kind of work is fun, especially when you have a group of people working towards that common goal. It’s nice to work with people that have experience, a lot can be done without a lot of instruction. Time can be spent working and laughing. And if you’re with my sister you can bet you will be taking stock of what kinds of mosses are growing on any given piece of wood – I did see her set a piece or two aside for closer inspection later.
Gold in the Back Forty
This was an amazing sight to me the other day when I walked into the back forty. It has been COLD for the past week and it was more than unexpected to see mushrooms growing. The photograph doesn’t really do justice to how beautiful they are. They are iridescent, like a pot of gold by a stump. They glowed on a cold, overcast day.
These mushrooms are called Honey Mushrooms (Armillaria mellea). I had to ask my sister for a direction in identification and after a little research found a great description on The 3 Foragers.
As beautiful as they are the thought of cooking and eating them never crossed my mind. The extent of my foraging is stumbling upon mushrooms of some sort, looking them up to see what they are and moving on. “Mushrooms are poisonous” was drilled into my childhood brain. Even mushroom foragers have a saying – there are bold mushroom hunters, and there are old mushroom hunters — there are no old, bold mushroom hunters.
Words to live by.
The Party’s Over, but the Sheep Don’t Seem to Notice
My neighbor has four sheep. They are curious creatures, staring at me the entire time I am outdoors within earshot (they always move into viewing range when they hear any of us outside).
The glorious colors of this autumn are a distant memory. There are a few trees with some leaves hanging on, the blackberry bushes still are beautiful.
The leaves this fall were spectacular, better than I’ve seen in years. The traffic on Route 2 was worse than I can recall in recent memory. I take a certain satisfaction is knowing that I can avoid driving that route by taking back roads with the bonus being better views of the foliage. I have always looked at the “leaf peepers” with a small measure of disdain. How dare they cause these crazy traffic problems on an otherwise lightly travelled road? What are they thinking driving 20 mph and stopping suddenly to take a photograph of particularly colorful maple. These are my trees. I have watched their entire cycle and October is the reward.
I then realize how blessed I am to be living in such beauty. How wonderful it is to have family and friends locally that take advantage of all of it with their cameras and how amazing it is that we can all share our imagery so readily via the internet. With all of the complaints an old film photographer can have this is one time when I think digital is amazing.
Living in Two Places
I’ve lived in a few places. Work, family, friends, lovers have all taken me all over but I always have come back to Rowe. A person I grew up with told me that this town was part of his soul, he hasn’t lived here since 1975. I know that feeling, where you drive into a place over a familiar road not seen in a while and something happens, you feel it in your gut, that little flutter. You know you are home.
I live in two worlds, fortunately they are close enough in distance so I can escape one for the other. 
Just for my own comparison I snipped out the vital info about Rowe and Enfield. Rowe with its 24 square miles and 393 people compared to Enfield with its 34 square miles and 44,654 people at last count. That means there is .49 acres per person in Enfield and 39.09 per person in Rowe. No wonder I feel like I’m suffocating while I’m in CT. That’s probably not a fair assessment but it does speak to the rural vs. urban/suburban situation I find myself in.
You will also notice the difference in temperature and dew point. In the summer it’s a difference you notice, in the winter it’s night and day. The growing season is at least 2 weeks ahead in Enfield. The last frost is something we see at the end of April. In Rowe there is nothing that goes into my garden earlier than Memorial Day – ever.
The one difference I truly notice is the quiet (and solitude). In Enfield there is air traffic over our house close to 24 hours a day – we are on the landing path to Bradley in CT. I think at night I can see the people sitting in their seats as they fly in for a landing. The street we live on is very busy and we are within hearing distance of the railroad tracks where Amtrak runs during the day. Yes, planes, trains and automobiles – the noise never ends. Everyone is always in a hurry to get nowhere as well. You have to be a fairly aggressive driver in this harried place. In our spare time in Enfield we can work on the house (with our neighbors chatting us up over the fence), shop or eat at a chain restaurant. I used to have very large perennial gardens around the house but it’s not the quiet, meditative project that it is in Rowe. Now I look at what I can dig up and move, turning the yard back into something that can just be mowed.
When I get home to Rowe everything slows down. The driving, the breathing, the thinking – once I arrive there is nowhere I need to be but there. There is enough to keep me occupied for days on end without ever leaving the property. I breathe the clean air, listen to the birds, contemplate life. My bedroom window is open at least three seasons so I can hear the owls at night and the birds wake me up in the morning. I can drink my cup of coffee watching the sun rise over the back forty and the mist dissipate in its heat.
I think everyone needs to find a place of peace if they are not living in it. I think that’s why people appear to be so crazy right now or they have such health problems. They are so far removed from the natural world that they are never grounded – at all. The sad thing is so many never know what it’s like to be grounded in nature, they don’t understand how healing it can be. I know people I see often that I just want to shake and say “Take an afternoon and go to a state forest and walk, breathe, listen! Hug a tree, absorb the energy around you.” And they would look at me with those eyes that say “You are nuts.”
Fort Pelham Farm 