Building a Story

August 9, 2016 / handmadebyjo / 4 Comments

There are families that embraced photography wholeheartedly when it was introduced. I think of them as being sentimental. They understood that life was fleeting and it was important to them to remember moments in time. Not all families are like that. My father’s side was very sentimental and there are hundreds of old photos of my grand and great grands as well as my father growing up. They go back even further to the ambrotypes and tintypes although those are fewer. My mother’s side was not recorded quite as well but there is still quite an archive.

I have always been the “keeper” of the photographs. When households were emptied the boxes of photos were brought to me. I have closets full of boxes of photographs dating from the 1850’s to the present. I have to say the advent of digital photography makes organizing and making sense of this archive much easier.

Recently I volunteered to digitize the photographic collection at the Rowe Historical Society. I became a trustee and am hoping to organize their collection to give everyone access and help make sense of some of this imagery. I have to tell you I’m extraordinarily happy that Rowe is an extremely small town. I can’t imagine trying to make sense of a collection that is much bigger.

This was also self-serving in some respects – I wanted to see more of the photographs of Fort Pelham Farm back in the days of rolling fields and farming. I was also in search of angles of the house from the south side. I had never seen any. The Wrights were photo centric people. They were very social, had a wide circle of friends and family and took pictures at many occasions. They also kept many of their photographs glued in albums. This helps give a timeline to the images you are viewing. You have to be a sort of sleuth to figure out what is going on because all of the players are long gone and the names and dates often went with them.

Last week I scanned roughly 400 photographs from a few albums. I haven’t taken the time at this point to really examine them. There were a few that caught my interest because they were what I was looking for but an interesting thing has happened along the way. Not all of the albums belonged to the Wrights but there were many photographs of Fort Pelham Farm in albums belonging to families I’m unfamiliar with. One of these albums was fairly well labelled as to who, what, where and when. I pulled out the genealogy and realized just how many people were related to each other in town.

I think I love doing this sort of project because of the stories that form while you’re looking at the images. The body language, the clothing, the history that is shown even though they weren’t aware of much of it at the time. The stories grow as the collections come together. It takes some patience and a good memory for detail to make this all work but the technology we have today makes it all so much easier. With a little luck and some time this story should come alive and an archive will be available for everyone.

Critters of the Worst Kind

July 25, 2016July 25, 2016 / handmadebyjo / 6 Comments

A few years ago Bill and I put in a perennial garden that included a stone stairway to nowhere. The garden was on a bank and we had huge flat stones that we placed as stairs. It was satisfying work and we placed a bench on the top step to sit and enjoy the view of the back forty with our morning coffee.

Yesterday I noticed this.

A friend of mine had just posted about the problem he was having with rabbits in his garden. I had commented on how I have a lot of animals around my garden but they never get in it. Apparently they have enough to eat everywhere else.

This hole is huge. I see these woodchucks daily in the back forty grazing on the grasses and I know where numerous holes are around the property but this one was a surprise.

Now the problem is how to get rid of the buggers. I don’t even know how many there are. I actually don’t mind them being on the property I just don’t want them here.

I’m open to suggestions.

Just Trying to Keep These Kids Alive

June 29, 2016June 29, 2016 / handmadebyjo / 11 Comments

For the past few years whenever I photographed the house I could do it at such an angle that it looked pretty good. The shed had been rebuilt and painted and so had the front. The gable ends were a different story. We’d talked about getting a high lift for the job but even in one of those it’s pretty high up there. Then there is the square footage that needed painting.

We’re not painters. In our younger years we painted because we had to and I can truly say I didn’t enjoy a single minute of it – especially exterior painting. We decided to hire a company that works with college kids for the summer. The kids are local but they have to play by the rules which gets me to the ranting part of this blog today.

By law in Massachusetts if the building where paint is to be removed was built before 1978 it is assumed the paint is lead based. If you are a contractor doing the work every chip has to be accounted for and if, God forbid, it touches anyone’s skin they could be poisoned. This law, in my opinion has put these kids at extreme risk in their jobs. As you can see from the photograph they are wearing hooded coveralls, booties, respirators and goggles. I should also tell you they began work at 7 A.M. and finished around 4:30 P.M. It was over 85 degrees and the humidity was over 90%. The booties they wear have nothing on the bottom of them that prevent slipping so they climb up and down an aluminum ladder that is pretty slick. One false move at the top of one and we’re talking bad, bad news here.

My first thought when I walked out to see their progress was “I hope to God they have amazing liability insurance.” My second was to make sure they had enough water. It was so hot.

They scraped all day with the paint landing on the plastic they had carefully laid over the vegetation near the house. At the end of the day they used a shop vac to pick up anything that was in the grass. At least they took the hoods off to do that.

They told me over the weekend and yesterday morning that they had estimated 24 man hours to scrape both ends of the house – I laughed. A little over ambitious was my replay. All day 4 of them scraped and just about finished one side with the idea being today two of them would prime while two worked on scraping the other side (you must have a lead abatement person present whenever paint is being removed).

It poured rain last night (much, much-needed I might add) and threatened to do so this morning so painting was out. One of the kids was sick overnight (my guess was heat stroke) and they decided to put it off until tomorrow. Maybe it’ll cool off and they will have recovered.

Want to know the worst part of this story? If we had decided to paint it ourselves we do not have to adhere to the MA law, we wouldn’t have to suit up. Even worse? All of the exterior wood was replaced on the house in 1984- there isn’t any lead paint on it.

The Hipocrisy of It All

May 11, 2016May 11, 2016 / handmadebyjo / 3 Comments

160510 Red Squirrel (1) Yesterday the sun finally came out after a week of cold, rainy weather. Our lawn was beginning to look like a hayfield so I decided to take out the lawn mower. When I engaged the blades something few out from beneath the mower and I thought it was just a leaf but out of the corner of my eye I saw it kept moving. It was a baby red squirrel, not quite able to run, trying to crawl away.

I got off of the mower and took by jacket off to pick it up (I didn’t know if it would bite me). When I picked it up the shivering little thing curled up in the warmth of the fleece. I looked all around for signs of other squirrels or a nest but found nothing so I put a warm bottle of water underneath a small fleece blanket and tucked him into it.

Okay, I have to tell you that I am not a fan of red squirrels, they are destructive little buggers that get into everything. I have a good many of them that spend a lot of their time on my bird feeders or in the shed trying to get into the containers of chicken feed or bird seed. If they feel trapped in any way they chew their way out. We trained Chester this past winter to chase them away from the feeders and would send him out multiple times a day. He thought it was fun and an important job, sadly the squirrels were much smarter than he was so it was really just a game played over and over again.

This was a seriously cute little animal and I couldn’t imagine just putting it back outdoors to surely die of starvation, exposure or owl fodder. He let me pick him up and was pretty content in the warmth of my hands. He’d hang onto my fingers.

Years ago we had friends that raised a baby squirrel, he’d ride around in their Dad’s shirt pocket so I googled care and rehab of squirrels. Yeah, uhm no. Who has that kind of time and energy? Sure he’s cute, sure I don’t want to be the one to bring him back out into the cold world to starve. Ugh, I hate this sort of thing.

I called my vet and she gave me the name of a woman who rehabs wild animals and birds. When I called her she said she’d take him but it would have to be later in the day and to just keep him warm.

So over the course of the next few hours I continued to keep the hot water bottle hot and held him off and on just to check him out and give him a pat or two. Made sure my sister came up to see him. It’s so very rare to get up close and personal to a wild creature to really inspect them. The paws are amazingly long, to grasp and climb. And the whiskers . . .

I took him on a little car trip and dropped him off to be cared for with 17 other squirrels (this is the only red one). It was with a sense of relief that I didn’t have to send him to his doom as well as knowing that he would be set free when old enough far away from my back yard.

The Miracle of Seeds

April 18, 2016April 18, 2016 / handmadebyjo / 1 Comment

This morning I finally started some seeds for the garden. People may be shaking their heads and thinking it’s late but I have to tell you nothing goes into the ground before the first week of June here. You just never know. I think I will be building a cold frame in the next week or so to give them a little more growing space and sun and ease the hardening off process.

I love planting seeds, they hold such promise. I’m always amazed that for a couple of bucks you can get a little packet of seeds when planted and harvested could feed a hundred people. That’s not to say that every seed I plant will produce to that extent, there are variables but there are also the memories of those years where the harvest was beyond belief. Those I look forward too with a little trepidation. One summer I canned enough beans to last until the next harvest eating them every single day. I was really sick of canning beans.

Into the soil they go, in a few days their heads will be popping out of the soil, a couple of weeks and they’ll need new pots, more sun and more water. A few months, if all goes well, things will be picked and served for every lunch and dinner. Such freshness and flavor is something you will never find anywhere else and the personal satisfaction is something that can’t be beat.

Spring Has Sprung

March 31, 2016March 31, 2016 / handmadebyjo / 1 Comment

The signs are all there now, the crocuses are blossoming, random garlic is coming up. I say random because I didn’t plant any last fall so there must have been bulbs that I missed. A pleasant surprise. The leaves are coming out on my strawberries which I had given up for lost since they had been totally taken over last year. I figured it being their first year they had been choked out. It gives me an opportunity to weed all around them and mulch, we’ll see what happens. No asparagus yet but the rhubarb is coming out of the ground.

The robins are back and I have to tell you there is nothing like hearing their sweet, sweet song. I always forget how much I miss it until I hear it. There is no more obvious a harbinger of spring for me.

Sugaring is over, the last boil was this past Sunday. I was afraid I was going to miss it altogether and had threatened to boil syrup on the stove to make sugar just so I could smell it. The syrup made over the weekend was my favorite, dark and robust as the grading system now tells you. If I’m going to eat maple syrup I want it to really taste like maple.

Things here are coming back down to a new normal. Everything was in place so the transfer of property was seamless. My father’s name has been taken off of everything. The utilities don’t make anything easy to transfer but in my mind I figure if it all takes a month that’s okay.

Dad’s memorial service is next week. The last thing to be taken care of. Looking through hundreds of photographs over the past few days has given me a greater understanding of what it means to have a good life. Sometimes he didn’t see it but he was charmed.

We all need to look through our lives like they are photographs I think. We only take pictures of the good things. The big family events – births, weddings, graduations. Vacations or jobs well finished. When it all comes right down to it it’s the little moments that make up that whole grand life. When I go I want someone to look at the snapshots and say, “Wow, her life was pretty great.” I know I feel as though it has been and I think it’s because I can drop the bad stuff by the wayside.

Live for the moment, don’t dwell on the past, you can’t change any of it. Just remember all of the little gifts because that is what a good life is made of.

Eulogy

March 21, 2016March 21, 2016 / handmadebyjo / 16 Comments

Saturday morning as the sun rose I was sitting by the bedside of my dying father and I had to take this photograph. The scene said so much to me about the state of things at that moment. I had brought him home 9 days earlier and with the help of hospice we were going to send him on his way from the comfort of his own home.

I put his bed in the living room so he would be surrounded with the things he loved and the sunlight could stream in around us all.

There is an African proverb that says, “When and old man dies a library burns to the ground”. These words have gone through my head for the past few weeks knowing the wealth of knowledge we were about to lose.

My father spent his entire life working. He went from high school to the Navy in 1951 during the Korean conflict. He traveled to many different ports, all of which were on the opposite side of the world from Korea.

Once out of the Navy he began working for the power company in Worcester. The building of Yankee Atomic brought his young family to Rowe and he began as one of the original crew. He and my mother bought a ramshackled house on Potter Rd. and he set about improving it. There was no running water, heat or foundation under the house. He’d work by day and every evening would work on improvements. Starting with the basics and moving to comforts.

He began a little menagerie of animals at the time as well. A cat, a couple of goats, a horse. He loved his animals dearly. He moved an old garage from miles away with the help of friends and placed it in the back of the house for their shelter.

All of his hobbies/projects were always on a grand scale. His love of steam came from a childhood spent on his grandfather’s farm that was along the railroad tracks where he watched the train’s daily runs.

He moved his family and animals to Fort Pelham Farm in 1967 and went on a quest to have his own locomotive but ended up with a collection of steam engines and steam-powered equipment that came to him more easily.

He received a grant for using a renewable energy source to power his sawmill with steam and spent a couple of years putting together an amazing network of machinery that allowed him to saw boards while also heating the house with the residual steam from the boiler. It was a sight to behold when running and blowing the whistle when everything was up to steam would let the entire town know what was going on.

While he was working at the plant and at his hobbies he enlisted in the Air Force Reserves out of Westover where he served for many years including active duty for Desert Storm as a loadmaster and in vehicle maintenance.

He retired from Yankee in 1988 and started up his little business making patio furniture keeping him busy into his seventies.

In his later years we talked a lot about weaving and the processes that were used in the woolen mills of his childhood. His parents and grandparents were all part of the weaving community as he grew up. After the flood of 1955 his father bought all of the looms in the weave room at Charlton Woolens for junk and they spent weeks welding pieces of the looms together to make a few running machines out of the many parts that they had. This was the beginning of Alix Woolens, a dream his father had. My father didn’t understand weaving but he knew how the looms worked and as I learned to weave he was right there learning with me, making sure my loom was put together properly and talking about the differences between what they had done and what I was doing.

He talked about weaving until his last few days actually. Partly knowing I was interested but also because I think it brought him back to something he was so fond of. A time when he was working with his father, figuring out how to make a complicated piece of machinery out of so many parts. Firing it up and having it work. He had such pride in that particular accomplishment and I think he was also grateful for his part in helping his father realize a dream. One of my earliest memories is going to my grandfather’s mill and listening to the looms run in the weave room.

So the library burned on Saturday. I have no one to ask about the mechanics of the house. I can only take a guess at where water lines to the barn might be. I have a vague understanding of the septic and sewer or where to buy replacement parts for the cupola on the garage. But I can look around me everywhere and see signs of him (some good, some not so good) and know his presence will be felt here for the rest of my life through the big things and the small.

I’m quite sure there will be many things that I will never understand, those projects begun and walked away from. A universal understanding by anyone who creates anything – sometime things just don’t work out the way you’d planned so they are abandoned. My abandoned projects are quite small in stature compared to the things that make up the amazing collection that is our backyard.

So rest in peace Dad, and thanks for being the crazy, eccentric, brilliant guy that you were. You made our lives interesting and I think you may have taught us to follow our dreams no matter how quirky they might seem.

25 Random Things About Me

February 19, 2016February 19, 2016 / handmadebyjo / 3 Comments

Anyone who has ever been on Facebook has probably been tagged in one of these schemes or another. A fairly new thing that pops up on my Facebook page is called On This Day. What came up was the 25 Random Things About Me that I wrote in 2009. Upon reading it I was struck by how relevent it is today so I thought I’d share.

25 Random Things About Me

1. I live in two worlds – urban and rural. I’m sooo in love with the rural and try to make my urban residence feel as rural as I can. I’m one of the fortunate few in Enfield to actually have more than a postage stamp yard so I have large perennial gardens. We used to sit in Adirondack chairs every night and pretend it was quiet and peaceful (with the traffic going by and the jets making their landing approach to Bradley). Now we have inconsiderate neighbors who let their dogs out into their postage stamp yard abutting ours and they just sit and bark at us (the owners stay in the house). Sometimes people are jerks.

2. I’m currently unemployed but I have a long list of jobs I’ve had beginning with picking blueberries for Jack Cable in Heath. When I think about it now – that job would kill me. I’ve worked as a bookkeeper for Lamson & Goodnow, a photographer for at least 4 different studios over the years as well as owning my own for about 5. I worked as a Nuclear Engineering Clerk, a waitress – which is one of my favorite jobs, sad as that is. I’ve been an Activities Assistant in long-term care, worked in hospice and with people with dementia. I’ve set up offices, been in Administrative Support and was an Executive Assistant to the CEO of a large corporation (if you’ve ever seen “The Devil Wears Prada”, that was totally my job). My favorite job has been mom to my two girls and a fine job I did (with Bill’s help of course).

3. I love dogs, all kinds of dogs. I could have 20 of them but my family keeps me in check. Someday you will read about the lonely old lady who’s house was condemned and they took away 30 dogs.
4. Gardening is a passion. I think I got it from my mother. Flowers mostly and I photograph them all the time.

5. I prefer to drive a standard shift car. One with power.

6. I’m a pile person. I keep my papers in piles. I have a very good memory and know where everything is unless someone touches something.

7. I can multitask like you can’t believe – kinda scary sometimes.

8. I’ve been working on the genealogy of the Alix and Semanie families for over 8 years. I love social history but my kids get scared looks in their eyes when I tell them I can make history come alive for them.

9. I photographed over 4,000 historic quilts for the state of Connecticut’s Quilt Search Project (and made many friends along the way).

10. I collect vintage cabinet cards (old photographs made between 1880 and 1900 or so but only with children and dogs on them. It’s a little surprising how many other people collect them as well.

11. I make hand bound books with photographs and stories for my family.

12. I’m a very good cook. We entertain every Saturday night in Rowe. I love it because it gives me an opportunity to plan a great meal, serve great wine and have a fabulous dessert and I have the whole day (usually) to work on it. It’s actually very relaxing for me – and then we have people over that make us laugh until we’re sick (isn’t that supposed to be therapeutic?).

13. I’m a little obsessed with having my own chickens and making cheese these days. A little concerned about where my foods coming from. I’ve been cooking from scratch for a very long time but now I think about growing my own ingredients. My family thinks I’m a little weird.

14. My favorite flowers are lilies.

15. Lake Winnepesaukee is just about my favorite place on earth I think. We usually go there once a year and stay on Bear Island. We never see our truck for the entire time we’re there and do everything by boat. We have a view of Mt. Washington on a clear day and the water is spectacularly clear.

16. I like the idea of community – this may be because I live in an urban area. When we’re in Rowe we are really surrounded by family and friends. Work gets done as a group. Cutting a spitting wood, putting up a building, painting, demolishing and redoing a room, there are always people there to help us or we’re helping them. This is the way life should be I think.

17. I had a rather odd childhood because my Dad is a bit of an eccentric. Someone was laughing the other day when I told them how many times we had our pictures taken on the backs of trains, trolleys or anything that had anything to do with tracks. Train wrecks – oh the excitement of visiting train wrecks.

18. I have about 3 books in me right now but I can’t get them down on paper. I’ll bet everyone else does too they just won’t admit it.

19. I am the laundry queen – no one goes there.

20. I forced my kids to sit and let me photograph them more times that any of us can count. Now I’m glad I did – except they are all in boxes and not sorted out.

21. Wow, 25 things is a lot. Let’s see, my kids are begging me to write down my story (like every kid begs their parents), I just didn’t think I was that old.

22. I had a total knee replacement in December – I’m doing okay, a little freaked out about having a prosthetic and a metal card. Another reason I felt old – everyone that was on the ortho floor with me was over 80.

23. I love walking in the back forty in Rowe.

24. I have big plans for Middletown Hill Rd. A lot happened this year with minor set backs. I think Bill’s a little scared sometimes at the scale of the whole project.

25. I love winter when it is sooo cold the snow crunches under your feet when you take the dogs out for their nightly constitutional and the stars are so bright you can’t believe your eyes.
There, that’s probably more than you ever wanted to know about one of your bloggers. Practice this yourself, write down 25 things, be honest. Put it away for a few years (like a time capsule). When you bring it out into the light again, if you were honest, things are probably very much the same. I’ve learned that life – the big picture – really works in slow motion. We want things, we work towards things but everything takes its time. The problem we have is wishing our time away when all we really have to do is work towards what goals we have or be our authentic selves and things slowly unfold the way they should. Maybe that’s the key, stepping away and taking a look at how everything is unfolding. It’s not a race, we have to enjoy the ride.

Review 2015

December 31, 2015December 31, 2015 / handmadebyjo / 3 Comments

Every year I post a year in review that is largely visual in nature. It seems that this year may prove to be different. There have been so many profound changes that the photographs would only just scratch the surface. I’ll throw a few in for good measure though, I can’t resist.

After living with my father for a year and a half I put him back into assisted living. It was a huge learning curve for me – but I learned that I cannot live with negativity day in and day out. Living under a black cloud only drags you into that black abyss and it becomes more and more difficult to climb your way out. In my heart I know it was the right thing to do for everyone involved yet on some level it feels like failure. I’m working on getting over that in ways that feed my soul.

Living here helped me maintain my sanity. The close proximity to nature was a balm many times during each and every day. Being able to see magnificent sunrises so many mornings began my days in a positive way. It was a summer of rainbows – every day it seemed . Hiking trails at the park, new trails in old familiar places brought discovery and appreciation anew. Let’s face it, it’s quiet here, it smells good and nobody bugs you. What more could the introvert in me want?

Then there were weddings, lots of them. My favorite was the marriage of my daughter – here. Ten people, surrounded by my gardens in full bloom. My favorite moment – the family humming Pachelbel’s Canon in D while Amanda and her father walked down the little makeshift aisle, thanks Cait for getting it rolling. Although Amanda and Yusuf have been together for 9 years and we all knew this was coming it still felt like we were giving her away. It was a line for me, both joyous and sad.

As if all of this wasn’t enough November 11th was the birth of our first grandchild. A boy who dear husband Bill never thought he was going to see (and now has big plans for). Another shift in my life – from mother to grandmother. I’m not sure how it affects other people but the generational shift has always been a profound one for me. When Amanda was born it took me a while to wrap my head around going from daughter to mother, I’m still getting use to the idea of going from mom to grandma. He is wonderful and I’m enjoying watching them grow into a loving family.

All through this the constant has been craft. The ability to make and do things with my hands is the thread. It feeds me – no, it is a necessity. If I wasn’t able to create something, on a daily basis, I would have sunk into that deep, dark hole long ago. It sustains me. It seems odd to me in some ways to admit this. I have been a crafter all of my life. My modus operandi is to learn a new craft, work it to what I deem the best I am capable of (more of a plateau really) and move on to the next craft. This year was all about weaving – again. It was the realization that I’ve been searching my entire life for what my hands knew how to do. Weaving has connected me to my past, to people I remember and loved the most. It is something that will probably take the rest of my life to move towards perfection. Meanwhile it calms me and helps me to reflect on daily life, meditation. Something we all need and I daresay find in little things we do. We just need to recognize it.

The new year is promising in so many ways. Growth is what it’s all about. I’ll keep on sharing my skills and insights. I’ll watch my family and friends embrace the changes in their lives and hold them all close because really, that’s what it’s all about.

How Blessed We Are

November 26, 2015November 26, 2015 / handmadebyjo / 4 Comments

As I made my first cup of morning coffee today I considered all that I have to be thankful for. A Thanksgiving day ritual for so many.

I put a couple of pieces of wood on the coals from last nights fire to take the chill out of the kitchen. Thought of all of the time and work put into getting that wood in. Thank you.

I pulled a beautiful, local, 20 pound bird from the refrigerator to bring it up to temperature and considered that it was walking this earth until just a few days ago. Thank you.

I turned on the water and washed my hands in its wonderful warmth. Such a convenience taken for granted. Thank you.

I will walk out to the garden and pull up the very last vegetable there this morning. My rutabagas. Tiny seeds placed in the earth 5 months ago turned into amazing purple and yellow orbs by earth and water, amazing when you think about it. Thank you.

Potatoes that were dug two months ago will be peeled and cooked. Carrots that were pulled and pickled will be chilled will be served. Thank you.

The big table, made by the hands of a favorite friend will be moved into the middle of the room and set. Thank you.

Guests will arrive bearing food they have put time into. The conversations and reminiscing will begin along with the laughter that always ensues. Thank you.

Thanksgiving is about the food, family and friends for me. It’s one of those warm, fuzzy holidays and always has been. This year looked like it would only be three of us eating a 20 pound turkey but evolved last week into a party of 10. One of my favorite things to do it to cook for others. It’s a gift of the heart and hands.

I am a fortunate person. I live most of my time in an extraordinary place and know it. I have a loving family and the most amazing husband who works harder than anyone I know to make all of this happen. The newest member of our tribe was born two weeks ago and he will grow up surrounded by the love of so many. The shift in generations has occurred and I can take up my mantle as grandma to help him know how blessed he is and how blessed we all are to have what we have.

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