Late Report on Halloweeen

This was our first Massachusetts Halloween. Our old house, on Pumpkin Street, was a natural draw. Fortunately, we had no windows that faced the street and it was easy to pretend to not be at home. That's not the case here. Combine that with the fact that the town collected donations brought us candy to distribute to the kids and we really had no choice but to participate in Halloween.

Being at the town center, we'd been warned that we might expect as many as 200 trick-or-treaters. Halloween being on a Saturday threw a wrinkle into things. It might have meant an increase but we only saw about 60 trick-or-treaters. The kids were probably at parties or traveled to other towns - they weren't here.

Trick-or-treating was from 5-7pm with a parade to follow at 7pm. We closed up at 7pm and went up to the town square to watch the start of the parade. We'd been told that the entire town participates in the parade. The Fire Department led the parade and the police department followed up. In between, there were 4 or 5 small children with their parents. We cheered them on as they went past and then went back home.

We had a ton of candy left over that, through Briar, we were able to donate to charity.

Last night, we attended a dinner party at one of our neighbor's home. This party is an annual tradition and usually includes a bonfire where a cutout of a witch is burned (must be a Massachusetts thing). It's been dry and it was pretty windy yesterday so the bonfire was cancelled. We had a nice visit with our neighbors, some of whom we hadn't met before.

It's been interesting to learn what we can see when the leaves are gone. Our lot abuts nearly every other lot on our block. We couldn't see any of them before but we can now see the silhouettes of almost every house on the block through the woods. The local church steeple seemed far away but, all of a sudden, it towers. We can even see the ancient tombstones silhouetted across the crest of the fill.

I've already mentioned the stone wall that we've discovered across the back of the property. I was seated next to the lady that we bought the house from at the dinner party and she told me that the wall goes all the way around the property. I've been thinking about building a greenhouse in the brush area at the back of the lawn. The prior owner told me that, come springtime, we'll see that there's a large concrete slab back in that area (it used to be a goat shed). It might provide a perfect foundation for the greenhouse.

-JC-

Mountain Climb, Tree Removal and Discovery in Our Own Back Yard

A couple of years ago, we saw the foliage from the top of Wachusett Mountain and we have been meaning to go up there again. This week, we invited Briar along and visited the mountain. We had intended to drive up the mountain and climb the last quarter mile or so, The gate was closed because of some maintenance that was going on so we had to park at the Visitors Center near the base of the mountain and hike up. It was a beautiful day for a hike.

That's Boston in the distance.

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That's Mt. Monadnock in New Hampshire. Briar, Gus and the kids climbed it a couple of weeks ago with the Cub Scouts.

When we had our house inspection, it was pointed out that we had a couple of dead branches that were potential threats to the house. On further inspection, we realized that we had 2 trees, an ash that had succumbed to beetles and a hickory that had been choked by a vine. We had them both cut down today.

This is the vine that strangled our hickory. It's twisted around a maple that it killed before jumping to the hickory.

They also did some cleanup in the neighboring hickory.

Taking the top off the ash.

TIMBER! The last bit of the hickory coming down.

Cleanup was still in progress but I shot this view of the finished product while there was still some light.

While all of this was going on with the trees, we discovered that we could finally get to our rear property line through the now leafless trees. We weren't surprised to learn that there is a stone wall on the line.

That's our house down through the trees from the back property line.

-JC-

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-