Nowhere Lovelier

As much as I do not look forward to the onslaught of winter weather, there is nowhere lovelier in October than Western Massachusetts.  If you can't make it out this way, or if you simply need to remember the beautiful places of the world, take a look at these photos:

 

The Madley Report

I often enjoy reading The Lehrer Report in the weekly paper; it's a great little old-timey column with short comments on gardens, weather, and local people and places.  In response, here is The Madley Report for the month thus far:

The tomato plants are heavy with green tomatoes.  With a little luck and sunshine, they will soon start to ripen.  Some of the Cherokee White Eagle corn is presenting two ears on one stalk; this corn will make beautiful blue cornbread in the winter.  The summer squash are producing predominately male blossoms, which causes a fruiting problem.

The apple tree in the front yard needs pruning, despite its abundant load of summer apples.  With a taller ladder, I could harvest more for dehydrating.

A hummingbird flew by my window this week; it was attracted to the large purple butterfly bush and new crocosmia.

Last week I walked up Huntington Street to see that the entire wooded area at the top has been leveled for "luxury" homes. The road has been renamed "Heartbreak Hill." 

Scenes of Summer

 

(I should probably repost this in January or February to remind us just how beautiful and warm Hadley can really be!)

If You Missed the Leaf-Peep

Columbus Day weekend is often touted as leaf-peeping weekend, when the leaves are at their autumnal peak.  I'm not yet convinced that the trees don't get a little more grand just a few days later, but nevertheless, the leaves are beautiful over that long weekend.  If you missed them, either couldn't make it to Massachusetts, or just didn't get outside because of the weather, here are lovely pics to show you what you missed.

Happy Autumn in Western Massachusetts!

Sugaring Season has Arrived

On my way home from work this afternoon, coming up Rt 47, I was excited to see a group of guys tapping and bucketing sugar maples by the side of the road -- lots of metal buckets hanging from lots of trees.  When I arrived home and shared the news, Mr Madley said he had heard one of the Boisverts from the N. Hadley Sugar Shack on the radio this morning talking sugaring and syrup.  Therefore, I am most happy to announce that a visit to the North Hadley Sugar Shack website (which has a new look) shows that they are open for business (as of today)!  Breakfasts are being served and the store is open.  Don't miss your opportunity to have a home-style maple sugar shack breakfast and to pick up some of our delicious local maple syrup.
For more on the Sugar Shack, see last year's post: Hadley Maple Syrup -- good on everything!
Happy sugaring season!

Root for Your Radio

Make a pledge -- plant a tree.
NEPR has partnered with the Connecticut River Watershed Council and several area nurseries to distribute 2600 trees to local environmental organizations who are working to restore areas of the Connecticut River affected by the June tornadoes, the August storm and flooding, and the October nor'easter.

So, for every contribution made to support WFCR and WNNZ during the current fund drive (February 24 – March 3), a tree will be planted in our community -- a tree to replace one of the thousands of trees lost or severely damaged.
Curious?  Interested?  Want to know why we care about replacing those trees?  Find out more (and even make a contribution) at NEPR.

 

Halloween Storm of '11

One week ago Massachusetts was hit with what is coming to be known as the Halloween Storm of '11.  Inches and inches of heavy, wet snow fell across the region of Western Massachusetts -- up to 28 inches in some locations.

At my house in Hadley, we received something close to 8 inches of snow.  Our electricity went out around 4:15 Saturday afternoon, flickered around 5:30, and then remained off until Wednesday evening -- 101 hours later (we are so thankful to have it back!).  According to the WMECO outage map, there are still 77 Hadley customers without electricity (I know N. Maple is still closed because of downed trees and wires) -- there are still thousands without power across the state.  We fared well, all things considered.  We lost 2 limbs off our old apple tree and a few small branches from other trees at the perimeter of our property, but others in the neighbourhood and town lost entire trees and branches the size of trees.  Massive old maples and oaks were wrenched apart, split down the middle, limbs ripped down the side.

Sunday evening we went out for a short tour.  The entire Rt 9 strip was black, except for Target; Stop and Shop was open and receiving a truckload of goods.  Darkness everywhere else.  By Monday, many of the stores were open again and we were able to charge up our cell phone at The Black Sheep.  There were shelters with charging stations, heat, and food around the Valley, but we mostly stuck to our fireplace.

The pictures below show some of the story (click on the pictures for larger, higher resolution shots).  Make a comment, share your story.  I'll follow this up later.

Waking up on Hallow's Eve eve.

Low lines, broken trees.

Detour signs on many of the frequently-traveled roads.

Some detour signs were more creative than others.

Fast food restaurants were closed.

We did a lot of cooking over the open fire....

Trees split.

Branches breaking and falling like twigs.

Massive piles of brush were (are still) a common sight along the sides of the roads.

One of the old trees sent branches crashing into the cemetery.

Just Peachy

This is the peach I picked from our baby peach tree before Irene came to visit.

Mr Madley and I split it, and it was just like eating a little piece of heaven -- delightfully sweet and juicy and peachy.  We were very impressed that our new tree was strong enough to produce such perfect peach (2 of them, actually).  If all Cresthaven peaches taste this good, I might be tempted to give up apples!  Well, not really, but I'm definitely looking forward to a whole tree full of these mouthwatering delicacies!

Acorns Grow Trees

Yes, oak trees really do grow from acorns, as is proven by the number of oak seedlings in our lawn.

Kind of amazing that that huge tree grows from that little nut; it's also amazing that I keep finding more and more to pull out of the yard....

Yesterday, We Bought Fruit Trees

Last year, when we bought our house in Hadley, two things I knew we had to do were buy a piano (check) and plant some fruit trees (almost check).  Both of these two things are reminiscent of home, family, and community -- there was always a piano in my home when I was growing up, and my parents always planted fruit trees, even when they knew they might only be in a house for a couple of years.  Occasional evenings spent singing around the piano; autumn afternoons spent picking and eating fresh apples from the trees (our trees and orchard trees) -- a good way to grow up.

So yesterday marked a happy day -- with a "welcome to the neighborhood" coupon in hand, we headed over to Hadley Garden Center to pick out fruit trees.  Apples, peaches, cherries, and plums abounded, with pears and other varieties in the mix (including some amazing multi-apple grafted trees).  With a little help from the kind folks at the garden center, we picked out two apple trees and a peach, and two bags of planting mixture, all of which they managed to get into my little Honda civic to help us save on the delivery fee ($20).  Great customer service.

What kinds of trees did we buy?  One red fuji apple, one suncrisp apple, and one cresthaven peach.  We weren't entirely decided on which varieties of apple we wanted when we visited (though honeycrisp was high on our list), and actually made a rather spur-of-the-moment decision.  Upon post-purchase research, however, I am quite delighted and excited with the choices made.  (There were many other interesting apples available, which we may consider in the future: cinnamon spice, wolf river, pound sweet, winesap, arkansas black, wealthy, smokehouse....  Also, as I wrote, cherries!)
The peach tree was something of a bonus, simply because we had a few extra dollars on the coupon and couldn't make up our minds about another apple tree.  It's possible that we will have a peach or two this summer; almost definitely next (there are already tiny little peaches on the tree).  And the apples -- well, we're looking forward to those appearing within the next 2-3 years.  I can hardly wait.

Blossoms on the suncrisp.

A slice of apple trivia -- the Suncrisp, which I had never heard of, is a cross of Golden Delicious and Cox Orange Pippen and was bred at Rutgers.  It does not show up in supermarkets because it is not considered a "pretty" apple; instead, it is usually sent to food manufacturers.  Nevertheless, I hear the taste is quite nice and it has a long storage life. Looking forward to it!

I could buy and plant apple trees and other fruit trees until there is no room left in the lawn -- I love them!  What experience and memories do you have with planting, growing, tending to, and picking apples & peaches?

Seasonal Scenes of Beauty: Winter

I know we're all completely tired of winter these days, snow piled everywhere higher and higher.  But we're in the middle of a February thaw, and I just loaded a new set of pictures from my camera, and by golly -- winter can be pretty!  (Click on the pictures for larger versions.)