Fresh Air Fund Visit

In a not-too-long-ago post, I mentioned that we serve as a host family for the Fresh Air Fund.

Our Fresh Air child, Eternity, was here for a fun-filled week with us, and is now back in Brooklyn. It was her third summer visiting us. While she was here, we:

• Picnicked (one of her favorite things to do); she LOVES sweet midgets pickles, tomato & mozzarella salad, chunks of bread torn from the Italian bread loaf and slathered with herb cheese spread, and Beach Bunny Cake from my Retro Beach Bash cookbook.


• Visited just about every waterfall in the Berkshires and surrounding area, including Bash Bish Falls, Mt. Hope Farm, and the Cascades.


• Shucked corn, roasted marshmallows on rainy nights over candles, and played LOTS of board games.

Here's a slideshow of some of the things we did and places we visited:



It was a fun week, and we enjoyed having Eternity with us. We're looking forward to next year. And, if you have a home in a rural New England area with an available bed in it, hosting a Fresh Air child is a really easy way to help someone in need. Give it a try!

Photo Expedition - Route 22

On Mother's Day, my daughter lets me choose the locale, and we head out on a photo expedition. This means taking a camera along, with plenty of charged batteries, and seeking out beautiful photo opportunities and taking hundreds of shots. It's fun, creative, and helps us look at things a little more closely and with an eye toward framing a great shot.

This year, we decided to head south down scenic Route 22 just over the border in New York. Here's what we found as we meandered along

(NOTE: I can't figure out how to slow down this slide show. If it's running too fast, just hover over it until the control buttons appear, then click Pause. You'll be able to continue playing it when you're ready, or use the arrows to view one photo at a time.):



We had a lovely meal (late lunch, early dinner) at the quaint and cozy Hillsdale Crossroads Diner. It was pleasant inside, with friendly servers, interesting old farm implements hanging from the ceiling, and the requisite aluminum diner backsplash. They serve breakfast all day (hallelujah!), so I had my favorite corned beef hash and poached eggs. My daughter had the special - popcorn shrimp and fries.



After that, we turned around and headed home again...still finding many great shots along the way. And, we still made it home with plenty of time to spare for uploading photos and creating slideshows!

PS - If you head out on one of these rural road trips, be sure to gas up the car ahead of time, pack water bottles and snacks, and bring cash! It can often be quite some time before you can get these items. We ended up needing cash to pay for our meal, as the restaurant didn't take cards, so went to the nearby gas station ATM. It only could dispense ONE $20 bill!
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Baby Animals at Hancock Shaker Village

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We've been to Hancock Shaker Village (HSV) many times...sometimes just to tour or show to friends who are visiting, and sometimes for a business meeting or special event. But, we've somehow never made it during Baby Animal time. So, today was the day to rectify this sad situation.

We couldn't believe how packed the parking lot was when we pulled in...we kept our eyes peeled for a car pulling out, and found a spot amidst many New York plates. The fantastic weather seemed to have brought everyone out in droves - 85 degrees under a beautiful blue and sunny Berkshire sky.

At the entrance, we met the very pleasant Laura Wolf, Director of Marketing, who helped us find our way to the Behind the Scenes tour in progress (my daughter brought along two of her friends).

I think this post will be different than some of my past ones, because we have 186 photos!!! So, I think I'll put lots of photos with some words, instead of the other way around. To get an expanded view of anything, just click on a photo.


Here, my daughter learns how to milk a real cow (as opposed to the fake one she "milked" when she was younger, in the Shaker Discovery Room)! The very funny and knowledgeable Bill Mangiardi skillfully oversees the whole operation...he named this cow Luna because she was born under a lunar eclipse. All the girls tried it, and even I was able to get the milk to squirt out. Imagine having the job of milking the cows before modern milk machines came about?

The girls have handfulls of a corn and molasses mixture that Bill gave them to feed to the sheep. Feeling little sheep lips nibbling against your palm is quite a sensation - pleasant, actually. And, not to worry - no teeth, no biting - just gentle nuzzling. These sheep had recently been shorn. You can see an adorable little lamb on the right - they don't eat the grain mixture yet...too little. We also got to hold a soft lamb...it was like holding a baby. (For all mom readers... afterwards, all hands were cleaned and sanitized with supplies handily provided by fellow tour guide Todd Burdick.)





The charming Rachel shows us Ash, the baby ox she has been raising and training (love her jaunty cap!). The calf is named Ash after the type of wood used frequently at HSV, and it's partner is named Stone, for the stone used in the round barn. The ox begins its training at birth, and the trainer herself feeds the calf from a bottle. The bond between the two must be quite close for a successful working relationship. If I remember correctly, Ash is about 500 lbs. here, but will grow to be about 2,500 lbs!

My daughter and her friends say Rachel is a schoolmate - quite impressive animal husbandry skills for one so young.

The girls hold the softest sweetest baby chick, while Bill is holding it's mother...a Peking Duck, which was also beautiful and very soft. The mom was a gorgeous downy yellow color with a long slick orange bill...right out of a Beatrix Potter book. The chick wasn't the least bit worried, and actually seemed to nod off to sleep in the girl's hands. A little bit later, we saw LOTS of adorable chicks in the Discovery Room incubator.






Peeking into one of the many sliding doors in the chicken house for eggs. Sadly, there were none in any of them at the moment. Bill told us that if we found one, we could reach in and take it home. He told us that they are quite tasty and have a much more yellow yolk than a store-bought egg.








Lots of little (and big) piggies! The girls actually held one of the
little oinkers, and we discovered that the hair on their bodies is quite bristly to the touch. The sows were covered with a pretty tannish color hair; they weigh about 250 pounds!

Tip: if you ever take part in a pig-catching contest, here is the key to winning...grab the pig by the hind leg. If you grab around the middle like most people do, the pig will wriggle out like a sausage, but if you grab the hind leg, it can't get away, yet it won't hurt it.




The girls help each other try on the Shaker girl outfits in the Discovery Room. It's nice that there are so many sizes available, so all ages can have a go at this. Love the pretty wooden hangers with string hooks, that hang on wooden pegs...just like the Shakers would have used. Their immediate impression was wondering how Shaker girls could work, or even live, in these clothes, because they were hot and the long sleeves were confining.






The girls thought that the Shaker boy clothes looked much more fun to wear, and liked trying on various tunics, vests and hat styles. They wondered if men wore pants under the knee-length tunics, as there weren't any pants in sight. The girls think they didn't. I think they probably did!








Todd teaches one of the girls to use the foot pedal on the hand lathe (Todd - my apologies if I'm giving this cool tool the wrong name!). It is a replica of a Shaker original...the user sits on the seat, puts the item to be shaped under the clamp, presses a foot pedal, and the item is clamped in tight. Then, a pretty hand planer (even the most mundande and utilitarian Shaker tool is pretty) is pulled across the item until it is the desired shape. Todd has worked at HSV for 25 years or more, and has lots of knowledge to share about the Shakers. We all agreed that if we lived here, we would hope that the woodworking house was our assigned task...it just smells so good, and has a cozy well-worn feel.

Naturally, every visit to HSV includes a tour of the famous round stone barn. No matter how many times you've seen it, it is always a marvel of clever design and simplistic beauty. It's round to make it easy for oxen to pull a hay cart in, someone unloads the hay into the aerated center, and the oxen then continue on around the perimeter and go out the door they came in. This avoids the difficult task of trying to get them to back up.

In the past, we've also toured the Brick Dwelling (where the Shakers cooked, dined, and slept) and other buildings in the village. Everything is beautiful and orderly...a Virgo's dream. All in all, a totally fabulous day - so Berkshire. And, the idyllic weather was just the icing on the cake. Thanks for a great tour, HSV staff!
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Alphabet of Daily Life - I

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I is for Ice Glen…

Ice Glen is a local natural wonder – a wooded glen filled with ancient boulders set in a dark old-growth forest, and spotted even in summer with areas of ice that still haven’t melted. Walking up to one of the cave-like areas in the boulders gives one a whiff and a feel of very cold vapor trapped in the rocks.

I happen to have a penchant for this scent of refrigeration – odd, I know, but here’s how it happened:

When we first went to live with my grandmother in Schenectady, NY, my whole life had been spent traveling the US with my family in our “custom RV” which didn’t have electricity, and certainly didn’t have a refrigerator. One of the first and most important things I got very excited about at my grandmother’s was the refrigerator and freezer (hers was one of those avocado green babies!).

I still recall opening the freezer on the summer day we first arrived at her house…a gust of chilled white air rolled out into the sultry heat of her kitchen, which was decorated in varnished wood paneling, red dotted-swiss curtains and quilted calico appliance covers, and an avocado stove with turquoise pots and pans. I stuck my head inside the freezer to feel the coolness, and smelled my first scent of refrigeration. I've been hooked ever since. To this day, I will just walk up to the freezer, stick my head inside, and breathe in very deeply several times to get my “fix” of the scent of refrigeration.

That’s what Ice Glen smells like. I get to walk around in that scent.

Located in Stockbridge, MA, we traipsed through Ice Glen as kids when we “went back east” to visit relatives. And, we’ve taken our Fresh Air child there for the past two years. It makes for a short, relatively easy, and beautiful hiking experience (it's especially pleasant to bring a picnic to eat on one of the rocks). The boulders are fun to clamber over, though sometimes a bit slick with moss, the stone steps scattered throughout are enchanting, and the forest is truly dark and deep. We've always hiked in from the Ice Glen Road side, but we understand there's an entrance on the Park Street side, which we hope to try soon. (PS - be sure to wear bug repellent - you'll thank me for this tip!)

If one wants a strenuous and longer hike, they can head up to Lauras’s Tower, which is reached by a winding uphill climb through ferned and leafy woods. At the end of the trail is the tower, a lookout which is accessed by very steep steps and with a view that is far and wide. (I had vertigo when we were up there, and my knees wobbled climbing back down.)

A funny thing happened last year during our annual pilgrimage to the Glen. We met up with a tourist couple heading out as we were heading in. “Don’t bother going in,” the woman said to us. “It’s not worth it.” Little did she know that we dearly love this Berkshire treasure and find it well worth it!

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Alphabet of Daily Life - G

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G is for (Mount) Greylock...

The highest peak in Massachusetts is right in our backyard! Mount Greylock is 3,491 feet high at the summit. It got it's name because the peak is often locked in grey clouds or mist - a sight I often see as I drive to work in the mornings. (Photo at right is from the mass.gov site.) On the right side of the mountain you can see a patch of treeless brown - this is the site of the Great Mudslide that happened there a few years ago during a particularly rainy season.

Someone I know has a large molded-vinyl topo relief map of Berkshire County, showing the height of Mount Greylock, the Taconic Mountains and the Berkshire Hills, as well as the depth of the valleys in between. In looking at the map, one really gets a sense of how the mountains protect the cities and towns below. This same feeling is evoked when standing atop the mountain and surveying the expansive view, especially if you use the available binoculars.

Appalachian Trail

If you've read Bill Bryson's humorous "A Walk in the Woods" (I listened to it as a book on CD from the library during my daily commute), you'll know that the Appalachian Trail wends across Mt. Greylock on it's way to Vermont and into Maine, where the trail ends. In the book, Bill and Katz (I think Katz was still with him at this point) stop to pick up a few supplies in Cheshire, and I know exactly where they were from Bill's description of local roads and buildings.

Greylock Ramble

For years, the town of Adams has sponsored an annual Greylock Ramble, designed to reunite the locals with their mountain, and to help visitors discover it. (Not sure if this event still takes place?) On Columbus Day, hundreds of hikers, including many families with children, slog up the slightly muddy (depending on the weather each year) Cheshire Harbor Trail to the peak and admire the breathtaking views. Various family members and I have made the trek in years past, and it was a fresh and new experience every year.

Bascom Lodge

A favorite feature of mine on the mountaintop is this rustic lodge, built by the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) in the late 1930s. It is beautiful - made of native schist stone and red spruce - with a large old fireplace in the main area and an aging screened porch full of picnic tables along the length of the back of the building.

I've stayed overnight at Bascom and the experience was charming and just a bit hippy-ish. In the dim evening light, someone was playing the guitar in front of the fire as we lounged in cabin-style chairs and rockers. Later, we had a hearty family-style meal in the large dining hall, with many friendly and talkative strangers. We slept in a spartan, but clean and comfortable, room, which I imagine is heaven to an Appalachian Trail hiker who's been roughing it out in the elements.

If I remember correctly, Bascom Lodge is currently in search of new caretakers.

March Cataract Falls

When my daughter was young, we hiked EVERYwhere in Berkshire County...she was such a trooper. (Sadly, she doesn't enjoy this anymore.) One of our day trips was to March Cataract Falls. We drove up the mountain and parked near the Sperry Road camping area. From there, it's a reasonable hike through a fairly flat wooded area with a floor of luscious green ferns that rustled against our feet as we walked - me with the backpack containing our picnic and her sashaying ahead of me with her pink Little Mermaid backpack and a walking stick. We ate lunch sitting on the rocks near the falls, and then had time to wade and splash and play a bit before heading back to the car.

War Memorial

Another feature on the top of the mountain is the 93' War Memorial. It's shape is often used in local advertising. I've never been up the many steps to the top of the memorial - I believe it's been under construction any time I've gone up there.

A favorite memory of mine is taking my daughter up to the summit one summer evening. We sat on the stone wall near the base of the Memorial, and listened to the Berkshire Highlanders bagpipe band play "Amazing Grace" as the sun set slowly behind them.

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Alphabet of Daily Life - B

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B is for...Berkshire County.

We live in a beautiful little corner of the U.S. called Berkshire County. Besides being lovely to look at, it's also considered a cultural mecca of sorts, and we get visitors from all over the world. Here are some of the local attractions we've enjoyed:

Ashuwillticook Rail Trail: we're one of the lucky communities with a Rail Trail, which is an old railroad bed that is paved over for recreational use. These types of trails, which are great for walking, biking, roller blading, are wonderfully smooth and flat, and this one is so scenic. It's our tradition to hike the Trail and stop for a picnic along the way on Mother's Day. I'm determined to learn to roller blade on the trail!

The Colonial Theatre: this is a restored theatre originally built in 1903. It was closed down and hidden for quite some time, boarded up behind an art store (where I used to buy my art supplies for school). It's since been beautifully restored. We went not long ago when my daughter entered a 24-hour film festival, and won 3rd place (on her very FIRST film ever)! The film showing and awards were presented in the Colonial.

Jacob's Pillow: this is a secluded summertime dance festival, featuring dance troupes from all over the world. As a single mom, I've always paid special attention to listings of free events, and the Pillow offers free weekly outdoor performances at their Inside/Out stage - it's really spectacular to watch top dancers on an outdoor stage, with a large blue sky as backdrop, surrounded by beautiful New England woods, while we sit on our picnic blanket enjoying delectable goodies. Sometimes my daughter isn't into the whole "culture" thing; one evening as we were watching an avant-garde dance troupe from Russia, I glanced over and she and her friend were playing a game of cards!

Mass MoCA: this is an old (and large!) electrical factory turned modern art museum that has really gained international acclaim. It's fun to go and just allow the wild modern art to change your perspective. Their really cool gift shop, Hardware, is pretty funky; I've found some of the best gifts there.

Tanglewood: this is a wonderful outdoor concert venue that is also the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The Shed is an outdoor pavilion, and Shed seats are coveted but a little costly. I splurge every now and then, and a few years ago, a friend and I were thrilled to sit in on a live broadcast of "Prairie Home Companion," which takes place at Tanglewood once each summer. Lawn tickets are much more affordable, and that's also where the action is. Many people bring elaborate picnics, some even resorting to white linen tablecloths and silver candelabra! My daughter is not a huge fan, but she and her friends did like running around the manicured lawn and grounds when she was younger.

Williamstown Theatre Festival: for several years, we attended WTF's free outdoor performances at Buxton Field, in the woods near the Clark Art Institute. There's a stage in the middle of a grassy area, everyone brings lawn chairs and blankets, and, of course, a picnic. And, while we sit outside in the dusk on a warm summer night (wearing lots of bug spray!), actors put on a lovely performance under the stars. (I haven't been able to find the outdoor performance info for the last couple of years - I hope they're still doing it?)

These are some of our (my) favorites...maybe you'll get to visit some for yourself. If you've already visited some of these, I'd love to hear about your adventures!
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