Foliage is Winding Down

We've reached the point where our beautiful Fall foliage is coming to an end. The trees that turned earlier are losing or have lost their leaves. The trees that didn't turn earlier have started to turn. We're starting to see some of our neighbors' homes through the woods and I'm sure that we'll be seeing a lot more of them before we're through. It's interesting to see all of the things that have been hidden by the woods.

The weather has been interesting. Most nights are getting down to freezing but some are still in the 50's. Some days don't get out of the 30's or high 40's but some are still reaching the low 60's. The interesting thing is that the cooler days are clear, crisp and beautiful. The warmer days seem to be cloudy if not rainy. Our thermometer is one of those that shows the current temperature and the low and high points from the previous 24 hours. It's been interesting to observe that the 6am temperatures can be 10-15° higher than the low point (warm front moving in).

Halloween is coming this weekend. The towns in Massachusetts all announce when Halloween will be. In Oakham, it will be on the 31st from 5-7pm and will be followed by a parade from Town Center to the Fire Station at 7pm.

As remote as we would seem to be here, we are apparently at trick-or-treating central. Because the houses near Town Center are closer together than anywhere else in Oakham, all of the trick-or-treaters come here. The parade starting here has an impact as well. We've been told to not be surprised if we get over a hundred trick-or-treaters.

Because of this situation, the town takes up a candy collection from people who plan to bring their kids here. They then deliver the candy to the Town Center houses to distribute to the kids. We had never heard of anything like this but Kristen just read that our old community is doing the same thing and distributing the candy to houses on Pumpkin St. (our old street).

We finally replaced our broken camera so here are a few shots of what's happening with our foliage.

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View from our farmers porch. The (newly brown) open area behind the trailer is our leach field.

Looking back at the trees on the other side of our property.

View across the valley from our front porch. There's supposed to be a pond at the bottom. We haven't seen it but it's what attracts the mooses (moose?).

The same 89 year Oakham resident who told us about the pond mentioned that we are across the street from "The Great Wall of China". It has come into sight and, even in a community where field stone walls are everywhere you turn, this 5-6' wall is pretty spectacular. No pictures this time but a number of pieces of ancient, rusty farm equipment are also showing up as the leaves drop.

Our property from the corner of Coldbrook Rd. and Barre Rd. The leach field is through the trees. Trailer is just to the left.

Looking up the driveway (house is to the left).

-JC-

First Snow

We had just a hint of what is to come today. A cold front has moved in and we had a low in the high 20's last night and a high in the low 40's today. This morning, we joined Briar, Gus and the kids at the Applefest over at the Wachusett Mountain Ski Area.  No snow there but it started just as soon as we headed for home. We've had very light snow flurries throughout the afternoon but nothing that is going to stick. Snapped a couple of pictures when we got home:

It's supposed to get  down to 23° tonight but we're not expecting any more snow. The rest of the week is supposed to be up in the 60's.

-JC-

And Even More Foliage!

We just can't get enough of this beautiful foliage!

These first pictures are along our usual morning walk route. I've show many of the same trees before but the colors have gotten more intense.

We went to a pumpkin patch yesterday and saw these trees.

This morning, we decided to take a longer walk and retraced the route that the hayride took at Oaktoberfest.

This is looking up the hill toward Oakham Town Center. This street, Ware Corners, becomes our street, Coldbrook Rd. at the top of the hill and our house is 4 doors down the other side of the hill. The stone building on the left is the town library. The Congregational Church and Town Hall are on the right.

Most of the Oaktoberfest events were held at the sports field below the library.

My favorite tree so far is at this Revolutionary War era cemetery behind the Congregational Church. They keep little American flags on the graves of  Revolutionary War veterans and casualties.

I meant to mention the other day. A local weekly paper (that we'd never heard of) recently did a mass distribution of a single issue. News about what's happening in Oakham is difficult to come by and this paper had a lot of it so we will probably subscribe. At any rate, the first thing that we noticed was that, on the front page above the fold, there was a picture of Maya enjoying the Stupendous Mr. Magichead at Oaktoberfest. It was taken from behind her but it was still quite a coincidence.

-JC-

New Truck / More Foliage

When we were still talking about moving East, we realized that, because of the snow, we would probably want to trade our 2 wheel drive pickup in for a 4x4 pickup. We considered making the change before the move but realized that our best move would be to wait.

Winter is rapidly approaching so we finally made the move this week. Here are a couple of pictures of our new 2016 Colorado.

The foliage continues to be amazing. In past years, we've made several attempt to see the foliage with varying degrees of success. We've never seen anything like what we've seen so far this year and, apparently, it's just getting started.

Here are a few pictures that we took this morning on our local stretch of the Rail Trail.

-JC-

Early Foliage

I said that I'd post some foliage pictures. It's still early so the foliage is just starting to change. I took these pictures with Kristen's phone on our walk this morning.

This is at the Coldbrrok Rd. / Barre Rd. corner of our property.

This is just across Barre Rd. from the first shot.

This beautiful tree is up above us on Maple St.

Also on Maple St.

Looking across the Town Square. Bandstand in the foreground with the old post office just behind it.

Looking uphill past the bandstand.

These trees are on the Coldbrook Rd. side of our property (that's our front lawn in the lower right.

-JC-

Oaktoberfest

Our new town of Oakham has an annual event called Oaktoberfest. It was on October 3rd this year and was supposed to feature a beer garden. Apparently, it was apparently so cold and damp that the brewery that was supposed to stage the beer garden cancelled out.

In the morning, Kristen and I walked up to the open house at the fire department. It's a volunteer fire department and we met several more of our immediate neighbors who volunteer at the department (one is the chief). The firemen were demonstrating how to put out dryer fires, gas bar-b-q fires, and stove top grease fires. They seemed to get great joy out of lighting the fires for a change.

Oaktoberfest also featured a 1 mile kids race and a 5k adult race, both of which passed the front of the house.

We invited Briar, Gus and the kids to join us and they showed up at about noon.

Our first stop was the hayride. Briar took this picture. My camera was in my coat pocket and, when the wagon started with a jerk, when flying out of my pocket and out onto the road. I recovered it but the display was dead. I've ordered a new display and hope to fix it myself.

The hayride passed the front of the house so I tested the broken camera with this shot.

Another of Briar's pictures. Maya was asked to inspect The Stupendous Mr. Magichead's hat.

Another broken camera shot. If it isn't obvious, the kids really enjoyed the magic act.

Another Briar picture. Niko and Maya petting The Stupendous Mr. Magichead's rabbit Lulu.

 With the magic show over, the kids played a dozen or so carnival type games. They were the usual impossible to win type games but $5 let them play and unlimited number of times and the kids running the games were very generous with consolation prize tokens. The kids really cleaned up at the prize counter.

After warming up at home for a while, we walked back up the street to watch the ball roll. This is a library fundraiser that occurs every couple of years. You buy a numbered ball for $5 (we had 4). When they raise the gate on the dump truck, the 2000 or so balls, roll down the chute. First one to the bottom wins $1000. There are 40 prizes in all. Our balls did not win.

Briar took these photos, looking uphill at the approaching balls on the left and looking downhill at the finish line funnel on the right.

 Niko and Maya still had their wristbands for the carnival games so Gus and I took them back down to the ball field for some more games. Unfortunately, the games had shut down for this year. We decided to get some cocoa and hot cider to warm up.

Walking back to the house, we found that they were announcing the ball roll results. Kristen and Briar were listening to the results but decided to let Gus and I relieve them and take the kids on home to warm up.

 

The kids were very comfortable with their hot chocolates and decided to let Kristen and Briar chill while they sat down and finished.

 We all had a great chili dinner and then Gus and Briar took off. The kids spent the night so they could go with us to the Oaktoberfest bonfire and the accompanying Otters concert.

Briar managed to get this shot of the bonfire on her way through town.

The fire was nice and warm but, with the cold damp weather, the turnout was low. Kristen and Maya danced up a storm in front of the Otters' stage. Maya would have probably danced all night but the lead singer decided to compliment her on her dancing and that was it. She immediately decided that it was time to go home.

All in all, it was a great day. We are really loving this little town.

I hope to get the camera fixed soon so I can share some images of the amazing fall colors.

-JC-