Rowe

Early Morning Musing

/ handmadebyjo / 1 Comment

I woke up early this morning to the sound of a train passing through the valley. The roar of the engines and the whistle as it passed through Charlemont sounded as if it was right in the center of town. It’s a common phenomenon – when the wind is just right it sounds as if you could walk to the tracks.

It made me think of a time in Rowe’s history when people were almost completely dependent on the railroad for travel or commerce. Summer visitors would board the train in Chicago or Boston to come to Rowe to take in the fresh air. The visits were long and quite relaxing I’m sure. Many households took in boarders, some enterprising individuals build cabins or camps to accommodate vacationers. Other families built or bought homes that were only used in the summer months.

.Edward Wright and his team on Fort Pelham Farm 1900

There were people in town with a good horse and buggy that would drive to Zoar to pick visitors up for their stay or residents coming back from bringing butter to North Adams to sell. Arrangements were made and the train was on schedule. It was a slow motion Uber if you will.

Back forty at Fort Pelham Farm

Summer is the most glorious of times on Fort Pelham Farm. It’s lush and green. The gardens are in full bloom and the birds sing you awake in the morning. You can take a little walk and see all sorts of wild animals – some visit that aren’t always as welcome (bears) but are still a thrill to see. It’s not just Fort Pelham Farm though, a drive about town gives a sense of why people want to come here. It’s slower, cleaner, calmer.

View of the hopper from Fort Pelham Farm about 1890

There are still spots in town where you get a glimpse of what was once great views of the valley. Diaries speak of taking walks in the evening up the road by my house to take in the sunset. There are photographs of these vistas.

The cool brooks and pools were always a welcome spot on a hot day and people took advantage of not just the big pond but those little ponds scattered about town as well.

There was a big difference between the people in town working everyday of the year and the summer people arriving in June to wile away the summer months. I always fancy myself as a visitor sitting in the gardens, picking fruit as it came in. Reading a book, playing croquet or lawn tennis, eating a meal that someone else has grown and prepared.

These are the photographs we see at the museum. The pictures of people relaxed and enjoying their days here. There are very few taken in the winter and fewer still of the day to day life in the very early 20th century here. Photographs, especially of a candid nature, were more of a luxury. We are fortunate to have the collection we do at the historical society. It gives a small glimpse into what we all know to be a most wonderful time of the year even if we don’t get to ride a train to get here.

Winter Wonderland

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We have been having a wintery winter this year.  You know, the kind with lots of snow, cold and wind.  I try to remember to bring my phone with me when I do the chores in the morning because it has been so incredibly beautiful.  I will also take little walks to favorite spots if the snow isn’t too deep to go without snowshoes.

The sky is often interesting but the snow has been with us every day except one in the past 10 days.  Even if the sun is shining it’s snowing.   My daughter tells me Rowe has its own climate which may not be far from the truth.  This would be a problem if I didn’t love winter so much.

I can sit in the warmth of my kitchen with the woodstove going and watch the birds or life going on all around me.  It’s a time for handwork for me as well.  Things slow down without the gardening and general outside maintenance, pleasurable or not.

This year has been so difficult for so many and I feel blessed that I have been able to do so much in my own yard and home.  For me the pandemic forced me to narrow my focus – both in photography and life.  My bubble is small, painfully so, but those that are most important to me are in it.  There are so many pleasures that we have had to give up,  like going out to eat.  It was a weekly event.  I haven’t been to a restaurant, or gotten take out in almost a year.  It’s forced me to cook outside my comfort zone.

What has really happened is I’ve also discovered that I pay closer attention to what’s happening in my little world and I take more photographs of the same things.  I try to have a newer view or perspective.  Sometimes I am just given something like this.

This is affectionately referred to as a bathrobe photograph.  It’s fleeting, happens early in the morning and you can’t ignore it.  If I got dressed to take the shot it would be gone.  The fact the it’s 12 degrees out has no bearing.  I’ve done a lot of bathrobe photography this past year because my world is so much smaller but I am happy my world is really so large.

Get Outdoors

/ handmadebyjo / 3 Comments

I woke up this morning to the realization that I have done nothing – nothing in the past two weeks.  Sitting in my house, in the company of dogs most of the time, with my days defined by taking them out, bringing them in, feeding them.  The goats and chickens also have their own time schedule but I combine them all.  I return to the house and am obsessed by the news – the radio mostly to hear someone talk.  I have meetings online for work but have been essentially immobilized by – anxiety.  I’m not afraid but anxious, more that fear of the unknown.  I work for the town Board of Health so I have been busy in a team that is working diligently to keep our residents informed, safe and calm.  Our demographic skews to the aging side, more retirees than not and we have had many volunteers step up to help those that are sheltering in place.  I can’t express my gratitude for living in a community where we know everyone’s name and care for every single one of them.  It may be in the background for so many of them but every  resident has been touched in those meetings.

It has been looking like spring but March never really turns out quite the way you think it will.  We had 8 inches of snow on an otherwise bare landscape at the beginning of the week.  This morning is warm and bright and the animals are ready to spend their days in the sunshine.  The ground is still too frozen to fence in the hens and I really do fear for their safety with every predator in the world coming out into the sunshine as well, and hungry.

I took a walk around the back forty and stopped at the bench to look at the beaver pond.  We have a family of ducks that we get glimpses of early in the morning.  I haven’t seen them up close but am assuming they are Mergansers as they were here last year as well (but I still dream of Wood ducks taking up residence).  I saw a woodcock do his little dance this week and I know that spring is arriving just by the sounds of the birds.  It changes.  You hear birds you didn’t know you missed until you hear them again.  It just sounds like spring and probably will more so shortly when the peepers and frogs emerge and we will be privy to the overwhelming sounds of their love calls.

Immobilization can no longer be tolerated when your seeds arrive in the mail and you can now see bare ground.  My garden has diminished in the past few years because there really wasn’t a need to have one – but I am a planner.  I think things will get better here in a month or two – slowly but I’m also concerned for next fall and winter so I will grow and put more by.  I will also have my salads and fresh through out the summer and enough garlic to last me the year (there’s never enough garlic).  My asparagus will come up as it always does and the rhubarb will be ready by the youngest daughter’s birthday for the obligatory birthday pie.  I may have to eat it myself in a virtual birthday party (but is that really bad?).

Get outside for a walk, or sit in the sun and soak up some vitamin D.  Listen to the birds, poke around at the things coming up in your gardens or the woods.  Breathe in the air, look at the blue sky.  It’s the little things that will keep us all going – the little gifts are right there, you just have to stop worrying long enough to notice them.

Kind

/ handmadebyjo / 2 Comments

I’m tired.

I know that I always try to find some inspiration in everyday things to pass along for my readers but wow, sometimes life is exhausting.

I’m tired of angry people.

I’m tired of paranoia to the point where everyone is suspect in some non existent crime of corruption.

I’m tired of people so callous about the natural world around them that they would destroy the breeding habitat of endangered birds instead of power washing the building when they leave their nests at the end of the season.  Whose weekly commentary is about getting rid of the birds.  They should see it as a privilege to have them there and take a few minutes to watch them.

I’m tired of policy changes that do not take into consideration the lives that are affected without any input from them.  Changes in policies they know nothing about but because they see themselves in positions of power, they feel a need to micromanage things that have worked for decades.  Stop, just stop.  Walk a mile in someone else’s shoes before making a knee jerk decision based on someone’s anonymous complaint.

I watched the trailer for the new movie coming out about Fred Rogers called “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”  and wept at what we have lost. I think there are so many fears, so much anger that people have lost sight of the fact that our world would be a better place if they were kind.

Try to be kind, you have no idea what the people you talk to today are going through, a kind word can go a long way.

 

 

A Little Better Place

/ handmadebyjo / 6 Comments

I live in an extremely small town.  A unique town.  Now I’ve known it was special my entire life, probably because it’s been a part of me for close to 60 years.  I became Clerk for the Board of Health and Treasurer a couple of years ago and that’s when I found out what a true anomaly Rowe is in the real world.

I think I have a naive perception of the people and landscape colored by a love of local history and constant immersion into the life and times of this town through the 1800s until the 1970s or so.  This opinion is also a reflection of my childhood when Yankee Atomic was in full swing.  Families moved in because the breadwinners worked at the plant and the natives were friendly and welcoming for the most part (maybe because they were outnumbered suddenly).  My childhood included monthly community potlucks, square dancing lessons in the Town Hall, youth group at the Community church (my family was not part of the congregation).  This was involvement by everyone, not just the newer residents.  My mother was Treasurer when I was young and it was drilled into our heads that we never had a right to complain if we weren’t going to be part of the solution.  A call to serve for the greater good of the community.

The word community comes up over and over again.

Berry’s description describes how I see community in the context of being involved in town politics.  I lived in Enfield, CT for many years, that’s where my children grew up.  I was involved on a superficial level there.  When you are in a large, suburban area politics is essentially an anonymous business.  You can go to meetings, surrounded by people you don’t know, represented by people whose names you recognize but you only know what they tell you in order to get elected to the positions they hold.  There is nothing that represents community in an area like that where you can live for 30 years in one neighborhood and barely know the names of your neighbors.  My parents were always in Rowe and I spent weekends and summers here wanting my children to grow up understanding what small town life was.

In Rowe you know the names of your neighbors, you know their parents, you know their histories.  Over the years we’ve seen a loss of community with the old timers moving or passing away.  People have moved in from much larger communities and keep to themselves.  I don’t fault them for that but I think something huge has been lost in not reaching out to newcomers and bringing them into the fold.  New Englanders are known to be cautious with change but in doing that we’ve gone  from helping and holding each other to every man for himself.   It doesn’t have to be that way.

We are coming up on town elections and have seen a poverty of people willing to serve.  Positions that are important, elected positions have no one running.  Positions that historically have been elected are now being changed to appointed.  Appointments are not a bad thing, it speaks to the changes in regulations that have forced small towns to do this because the skills necessary to do the jobs are not part of general knowledge.  Some of these jobs are thankless and the people who are doing them see the big picture and are doing so for the good of the community.

If you live here get involved in something.  Visit the museum, or the library, find a group to knit or craft together.  Go to a meeting or two.  You might find there is something you are interested in and be able to  give a little of your time .  Who knows, maybe in the process you will gain new friends, get to know your neighbors, and create a community that’s just a little better for everyone.

 

 

 

 

Deconstruction

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I finally decided that the piano needs to go bad enough to actually take it apart.  Beginning was no easy feat since the top of it had been the repository of a large collection of fiber waiting to be woven.  So many projects, so little time.

Once cleared off I took the screwdriver to the hinges on the top and realized that I didn’t need to unscrew anything – everything was so loose it just pulled apart.  The top was removed in three sections.  These beautiful pieces of wood I will find some way to repurpose.

All of the felts, leather, even wood have turned to dust in this piano.  I didn’t realize how far gone the instrument was until it was opened up.  There really was no restoration that could have happened here.  It would have been a complete rebuild.

The harp is one of the most beautiful things about this piano.  Hand painted in gold, reds and greens it shows the artistry of the time in which it was built.  Once the strings were off you could actually see why it’s called the harp – it looks like one.  The question remains, how many strong men is it going to take to remove it, it’s cast iron.

I’ve also decided to save the keyboard.  It’s ebony and ivory which is illegal to sell no matter how old it is.  I started to think about all of the hands that have pressed these keys and it began to take on a magic of its own so it stays for the time being with ideas floating around on how to repurpose it with the wood that’s been salvaged and other odd bits and pieces.

There is interest in the beautifully carved legs so the only piece to get rid of will be the case.

I thought that getting rid of this instrument would be a painful experience – in some ways it is – but in taking it apart and realizing what bad condition it really was in made the job easier.  I also learned a lot about the actual mechanics and how long it takes to unscrew hundreds of screws.

Once it is out of the room there are things that need to be mended, painted, reworked.  It has been in the same place since the late 70’s I think.  Once that’s done, a rug will be put in place to make way for another loom that has been waiting patiently in the shed for its moment.  That’s a story for another day.

 

Whining

/ handmadebyjo / 5 Comments

I’ve been sick. Sicker than I’ve been in quite some time thanks to a visit to pick my grandson up from daycare.  I forgot what a hotbed of germs those places can be and the fact that once your own children fly the coop your immunity goes with it.

I had a good nights sleep last night, felt rested and was thankful because I knew there was snow waiting to be cleared.  The driveway was cleared at 4:45 this morning and I have appointments and work tonight.

Peggy called me this morning to tell me some loom tales and offer her sympathy.  Taking care of it all by myself couldn’t be good, I assured her I was fine.

I grabbed my keys on the way out to feed the goats and chickens.  There was a crust of ice on top of the 6 inches of snow/sleet that had fallen overnight.  Heavy shoveling.  I opened the car door, inserted and turned the key – nothing – deader than dead.  I have a little jump box so figured I’d jump it so the car could thaw out.  Had to clean the car off first, my battery is in the trunk.  Put the cables on, go turn the key, nothing.  I called Bill and he told me I should charge the battery with the charger for a couple of hours.

Ugh . . . . . . .

I shoveled through the bank in front of the garage to get the charger out.  Shoveled to the car to get the charger close enough.  Dragged the charger to the car and searched for an extension cord.

At this point I’m thinking to myself – assisted living has never looked so good.

I fed the goats, then cleared a narrow path to the barn.  The boys were causing enough of a ruckus just knowing I was outside.  The shoveling was slow, I was out of breath and thinking maybe I’ll just lie in this snow bank for a few minutes til I feel better.

Again – assisted living never looked so good.

As I was finishing up shoveling out the chicken coop I could hear the thunk, thunking of a pileated woodpecker in the trees next to the driveway, then heard it call from across the road.  I looked around at how beautiful it was with the ice on the trees and noted that the temperature was milder than usual and there was no wind.  Chickadees were in the trees waiting for the seeds I toss out on my way to the coop and I reached in to get the warm egg laid by the only hen that seems to be laying at the moment.  Those eggs are precious little gifts right now.

Okay, assisted living wouldn’t be that good.

My sister and I often talk about how long we will be able to stay in our old, drafty, cold houses by ourselves.  I’m fortunate to have help on the weekends but the weekdays can sometimes be a reality check.  Honestly I didn’t mind the physical aspect of the work this morning it was the mental exercises that had to take place in order to do what needed to be done.  These were things outside of my usual daily routine and my brain just was not in problem solving mode.  Let’s hope the car starts and the day improves from here.

 

 

Döstädning

/ handmadebyjo / 3 Comments


It must be the sun becoming warmer (or shining for a change) that has had me doing some cleaning.  It could be the fact that the cobwebs have taken over the house and clearing them out always involves moving everything in a room.  Let’s call it spring  cleaning, that sounds more hopeful when it’s still mid winter.

The truth is that things have been weighing on me of late – big things, huge things.  When my father died he left a collection of some of the biggest machines any ordinary man could own.  A couple of them I always saw as hobbies but there was a point where it crossed over into obsession.  The time has come for us to dismantle it.  There is a huge building that houses 2 large stationary steam engines and all that goes with it including a steam turbine generator and a sawmill run by diesel and steam.  Equipment so large that a rigger will have to be hired to get it out and moved.

It’s fairly easy to ignore that building with everything in it.  Walking into it is a time capsule of sorts but it weighs on you.  We are not getting any younger and the idea of leaving that to my kids is not appealing.

Every year about this time we make lists of the things that need to be done, sorted in order of importance.  This list begins by realizing that your kitchen is so cold and could be fixed in an hour or two with very little effort.  You just have to wait until Spring to do it.  This is the list that extends through the year consisting of all the maintenance and repairs that every homeowner has.

There is another list and that concerns the cleaning out of the property.  It’s the death cleaning or döstädning as the Swedish call it.  This has taken some time to embrace, probably because it’s my childhood home – there are memories I’m not ready to let go of and it causes me to hang on to things that no one would understand.  In talking about it Bill very astutely said “These were your father’s dreams not ours”.  That one comment changed my perspective on a lot of things.  I’ve gotten to the point in life where my list of long term dreams is beginning to be whittled away.  The sawmill is an example.  Ten years ago we thought we would use it.  There are always people who want lumber cut and it could also be useful to us in the repair of our buildings.  Last year we realized we were probably never going to use it and said it out loud.  We found it a home with someone who will use it and take care of it and be part of his dream.

The steam equipment is another story.

The out buildings are the bigger problem but there are things in the house that present similar challenges.  There’s the piano.  A huge, rosewood Chickering square grand – built about 1870.  It needs a full restoration.  No one plays, no one ever played it (well my mother hacked out a couple of tunes and my uncle would play something wildly out of tune when he visited – all vivid childhood memories).  It is large, heavy and no one wants it.  I’ve contacted museums, previous owners, piano restorers, craigslist, social media offering to give it away if  someone will move  it.  Nothing.  That leaves taking it apart and getting it out of here.  I’ve been saying I was going to do it for two years but haven’t, probably hoping something magical will happen.  It’s got to go, now it’s come down to what pieces I will keep. (Yes, more junk in storage – baby steps).

I realize that I’m entering into old age (although I will always be 27 years old in my head) and in the paring down of dreams comes the need to get rid of  stuff so no one else has to do it.  Döstädning, death cleaning, not a sad thing at all but really done with an eye to the future.

 

Hens in Winter

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The snow squalls have passed through and the very cold air is here.  Once again the hens are loaded up with water, food and treats in anticipation of weather they will suffer through gracefully.  I have 12 hens in a 12 hen coop.  For the most part it seems to be the right size but with blasts of cold like this it seems like you could add another dozen and they would all be fine.  They roost very close together when it’s cold.  Hunkered down with their feathers covering their feet very close to their neighbor.  I swear all 12 can fit on one roost that’s 4 feet long.  I always feel bad for the girls on the ends but in my mind they swap spots as the ones on the ends get cold.

There is a heater in the coop for their water (5 gallons) and their feeder holds 5 lbs of pellets.  I throw their treats in through a small opening rather than opening the coop to keep the wind and cold out.

The wait is on for spring, although I don’t mind the cold I do fret about the animals but they all do much better in it than one would expect.  I check for non-existent eggs just to make sure they don’t freeze but I don’t light their coop so we are just waiting for longer days and the natural rhythm of egg laying to begin.  The true signs of spring are the house plants growing again and the chickens laying.  It’s those longer days and everything knows.

An Eye on the Weather

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This morning’s sunrise was fleeting, maybe 10 minutes, but always worth it  You know what they say about red skies at dawn.

The past 5 days have been the kind of weather I could do without.  This is the time of year when we watch the forecast obsessively yet try not to be taken in by the hype.  Those dire warnings that pop up every couple of hours – winter weather warnings, high wind advisories, wind chill frostbite warnings send people out in droves to fill their tanks with gas and get that bread and milk.

This past weekend we saw about a foot of snow and sleet but the real news was the frigid temps that followed that precipitation.  Minus 8 degrees with 20 to 30 mph hour wind gusts made for an extraordinarily uncomfortable couple of days.  We have the wood stove but the idea that we have to bring wood in, after breaking the frozen chunks apart on the pile never really occurs to us until it happens. (Yes, the wood is inside the shed that is attached to the house and the pile remains frozen together).

There is always the worry that the pipes will freeze.  We were blessed with the wind and snow drifted up against the house banking it and allowing the ell to stay warmer.  The old timers used to bank their houses with leaves or hay in the fall for just that reason.  The stone foundations are pretty drafty.

Then there are the animals – and the worry about their well-being.  The goats have very heavy coats this year, their space is fairly tight and their water is heated.  They seem unaffected (that doesn’t take into account how affected we are in taking care of them).  On the coldest, windiest morning the hens didn’t get off of their roost or make a sound when they were fed.  They were just hunkered down keeping their feet and each other warm.

Yesterday felt like a heat wave at 13 degrees with no wind.

January is the longest month of the year for me.  It’s dark, cold and very often windy.  The days may be getting longer but it won’t be noticeable until mid February, although I must confess to taking notice of the time the sunsets to convince myself that the days are indeed getting longer.

We have people who take care of us.   Our town is small enough so I know every member of the road crew personally.  Almost every morning this time of year I wake up to the sound of the plow going by the house.  It is always comforting to know that their job is to keep everyone as safe as possible in awful conditions.  There is also the guy who plows my driveway and back yard – he’s a kid really.  I grew up with his grandfather plowing the same yard (he still does on occasion).  They are always a phone call away from getting me out of my yard.  If I have to be somewhere at a particular hour I let them know ahead of time and I will be at a different spot in the queue of driveways to be plowed.  If I cannot walk to the barn because of ice they are here to sand.  There’s a lot to be said for dependability.  Of course they are also neighbors and have always felt like family.

So a flash flood warning just came up on my phone and the town payloader just dug out drainage spots in the banks.  The forecast says highs in the 40s – until Friday when it all freezes again. The signs are all there that I will be hunkered down in the house for a few days weaving.  Winter weather does have its advantages.