Wildlife – There and Here

  • Post published:11/23/2009
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It was wild on the field in Ashburnam when our grandson, Ryan, and his team, the undefeated North Middlesex Wranglers, played for the state Pop Warner championship title. And they won! The Wranglers are State Champs. Next weekend they go to the regional playoffs. Ryan has a pretty good grip on that amazing trophy. Great team and a great game. Ryan's mom went wild cheering - and can barely speak today!  Yay Wranglers!  Good luck next weekend. This porcupine has been lurking around…

Blossoms of the Fall

  • Post published:11/21/2009
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  During the spring and summer most of look at the trees surrounding us and see a generally undifferentiated green. The tree foliage grows full and heavy; for the most part we don’t see the individual hues, or shapes.  That changes in the autumn.             During the past few weeks I have been particularly aware of the changes in the trees, partly because of the color changes each hour with the fluctuation of sunlight and shadow. Then, each…

Christmastime is Wreathtime

  • Post published:11/20/2009
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The Greenfield Garden Club held its wreath-making workshop last evening at Chapley's Garden in Deerfield. Linda Tyler knew what she was doing and helped all the rest of us who didn't. Chapleys provided all manner of greenery from blue spruce to euonymus, rose hips, pine cones and I don't know what all - except that a lot of different and unique wreaths were being created all around me. Karen Helbig and I were working side by side. She was…

Truffle?!

  • Post published:11/19/2009
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Ted Watt has worked with the children of the Heath Elementary School for years, teaching them about the land and the world they live in. One of the blessings of the school landscape is a woodland where the childrren have studied the seasons and phases of life of many woodland creatures and plants. On their most recent exploration of the woods they  found - drumroll please - a truffle. I know nothing about truffles, except that they are a…

Quotidian Pleasures

  • Post published:11/17/2009
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There were frosts and snows here in Heath, but in between we have been having the most delightful weather. Sun and warmth are such blessings at this time of the year that every ordinary (quotidian) task brings an awareness of the pleasures of the earth.  I have my morning routine, beginning with feeding and watering the chickens who are enjoying this weather even though it does not prompt them to lay eggs. I'm down to two or three…

Poison and Charm

  • Post published:11/16/2009
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 Things go bump in the night at this time of the year, but in her new book, Wicked Plants: The Weed that Killed Lincoln’s Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities (Algonquin Books $18.95), Amy Stewart takes us on a tour of the more bloodcurdling aspects of botany.             We all know that Abraham Lincoln grew up motherless from the age of nine, but I certainly never knew that it was white snakeroot (Eupatoreum rugosum) that killed his mother in1818.…

Only Two for Bloom Day

  Early this morning, after yesterday's rain, the sun began to break through the autumn mist. The grass is still lush, but all bloom has fled from the garden, except for a single pot of verbena blooming in front of the house on this Bloom Day.  And indoors  only the ever faithful abutilon is blooming.  Still, the Thanksgiving cactus is heavily budded and it may bloom right on schedule. For many more Bloom Day treats visit Carol over…

The Flower of American Womanhood

  • Post published:11/13/2009
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On Veteran's Day the Shelburne Falls Area Women's Club, and the greater community, celebrated some of the women who have served in the Armed Forces. The women on the panel above, left to right, are Georgette Devine (Marines 1944-46), Trice Heyer (Army nurse 1967-72), Sandra Lucentini (Air Force 1988-92), and Sandra Magill who is still serving as a Reservist after 27 years in the Navy. It was luck that we got to hear stories from four of the Services and hear how…

KIKU at NYBG

  • Post published:11/11/2009
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I went to the NYBGfor the roses but I got chrysanthemums, kiku, too. This is the third and final year for this extraordinary exhibit of Japanese chrysanthemum art forms set up at the Enid Haupt Conservatory courtyards. I was familiar with this form, Kengai, because similar cascades are created for our local Smith College Chrysanthemum show. All season long a single chrysanthemum plant is trained through wire mesh, pinched and artfully pinched again to create this waterfall of bloom.…