All in a row on the bridge rail overlooking the river.
Tag: New England
ABANDONED MILLWORKS AND REDEVELOPMENT
In many communities across the Northeast, the once neglected mills along the running waters have found new life as commercial real estate. Often, high-tech firms and other startups find them to be flexible incubators. Other times, floors are occupied by stylish residential condos or office suites.
The small city where I live proves that, three decades after the boarded up windows were once again open the light and the spaces within refurbished. The new tenants were the key to a revitalized downtown, especially.
Before relocating to New Hampshire, though, I envisioned something similar while drafting my novel, Big Inca Versus a New Pony Express Rider. Actually, I had no idea that was about the same time the mills were being restored one by one by developers like Joseph Sawtelle. Not that he was anything like Bill’s mysterious Boss.
Oh, how I love the mills – even before we get to the intrigue in my novel.
THOSE FIRST BLUSHES OF AUTUMN COLOR
Last weekend, we got away to the Northwest corner of Vermont for a lovely, make that magical, gallivant enhanced by a Friend’s gracious hospitality.
The jaunt began with a long overdue stop at the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site in Cornish, New Hampshire. Admittedly, sculpture – especially public statuary – has taken a lower rung on my visual awareness to painting, drawing, and printmaking. Let me say simply that this visit to the home – originally summer residence – of the American genius Augustus Saint-Gaudens was a revelation. The National Park Service has done a remarkable job in preserving not just his house and studio but in displaying his studies and castings of his memorable monuments. The glade devoted to the “Shaw Memorial” alone was worth the visit. And, let me add, the floral displays in the gardens at this time of year, when relatively little is blooming, were delightful. As for his work designing American currency, at the invitation of Teddy Roosevelt? The short take is we’re ready to return, soon.
That was followed by a late afternoon jaunt across the Cornish-Windsor covered bridge spanning the woefully low Connecticut River, due to an ongoing drought, into Vermont and eventually through the Green Mountains, taking a questionable route our host suggested through Rochester Gap and Middlebury Gap, one I doubt we would have found via GPS but altogether perfect. This was the real Vermont, not just twee but also working-class hanging in there, apparently happily so. We’re still wondering how many of these folks get to work through the winter.
Not much later we were sitting on his deck, sipping hard cider we’d brought from the Granite State and munching some amazing cheese from his locale. Oh, yes, while watching a feathery sunset stretching toward us from the New York State’s jagged Adirondack mountain range. Does life get any better than this?
The next morning brought my reason for being here, a committee meeting an hour to the north, and the first of two breath-taking mornings with a drive that included Adirondacks in the distance on one side of the highland farm country I traversed (with its seemingly contented dairy cows and huge barns), and the Green Mountains, a wall on the other side, along with glimpses of long Lake Champlain far below to the west.
Still, we weren’t seeing what we’d anticipated: signs of frost. Not all that long ago, northern New England – especially this far north – would have had a killing frost by mid-September. Instead, where we live, we’ve been able to get to the end of October with an occasional throwing blankets over the garden. In other words, global warming is real. And that frost, by tradition, is essential to the famed New England fall foliage.
Leap to Sunday morning, when we ventured off to Appalachian Gap in a second crisp, dewy morning with the mountains veiled in a haze – breathlessly, as it were. What surprised us the most was how quickly some trees were already in prime foliage, albeit surrounded by green. The color comes in waves, actually, and much of the glory depends on the ephemeral angle and quality of light more than the leaves themselves. So the autumn foliage was beginning to arrive. Just like that.
In the week since, it’s starting to appear where we live, too. And, to heighten our awareness, we know all too well what will follow, just a month hence.
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My essays and photographic slide shows on New England autumn foliage are available in the archives of my Chicken Farmer I Still Love You blog. Take a peek!
MAINE RETREAT
Spending a week this time of year in this cabin gave me a taste of Thoreau at Walden. Some of the nights were quite icy, even with a wood fire beside me.
LOBSTER TRAP DEBRIS
Wreckage on the shore serves as a warning and reminder. The sea can turn violent in a moment. Another harsh winter’s ahead for all of us in these parts. And commercial fishing’s an especially dangerous occupation.
Just look at what it does to metal.
TRACING THE MILL RUNS ALONG THE RIVER
The seed was planted back when I lived along the Susquehanna River and was introduced to the trail that twisted through a wooded strip between the water and the freeway.
The site included a bridge now closed to vehicular traffic and a low dam that once diverted water to power cigar factories along the shore. The mill trace remained, filling with moody water after a heavy rainfall.
As I imagined the vanished mills as they might have been in their prime, Big Inca Versus a New Pony Express Rider began to take shape. The town where I lived, after all, was in economic decline and would have welcomed an infusion of investment.
That wasn’t a singular site, even along that particular river. As I would later observe, the opportunity was repeated throughout the Northeast – and many of the communities still had the old buildings, usually in boarded up condition.
As the intervening decades have demonstrated, I wasn’t completely off-mark.
Come along, then, and see where it leads. Just click here.
WHEN NOR’EASTERS HIT HOME
New England gets hit by nasty storms called nor’easters. Often, they’re like off-season, slow-moving hurricanes that move up the coastline, spinning wind off the ocean and inward over land. That is, the wet wind comes out of the east. (Although, to be technical, it often arrives out of the south.)
Sometimes, their wallop comes as heavy rain. At other times, it’s tons of snow – even a blizzard. Either way, power outages, falling trees, wind damage to roofs and chimneys, and flooding can follow.
A power outage with flooding knocks the sump pump out, as well, and then there goes the furnace, if there are delays in restoring electrical service. To say nothing of the freezer out in the barn.
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The so-called Perfect Storm, by the way, was one more nor’easter. A reminder to take these things quite seriously.
MOHEGAN ISLAND
There’s a romantic allure to the idea of living on an island, and Maine has more than its share. Still, a day visit can be memorable.
ON THE HILL
For a decade, I lived on the highest point in the city of Manchester. Sometimes I called the development Yuppieville on the Mountain, but its views of sunsets could be stupendous. There was even a city-run ski lift on the other side of the freeway.
ALONG THE MERRIMACK
For three years I lived along the banks of the Merrimack River, a primary energy source for 19th century New England industry.
Jnana's Red Barn 