Once we completed our house sit in western Massachusetts, we drove east to explore Boston and other more touristy areas. Boston felt reasonably compact – we were able to get around nearly everywhere on foot. We also felt that with four full days there, we were able to visit all the places we wanted to.
Our favorite way for experiencing Boston was a walking tour. Of course, we were walking around the city on the hottest day since 1953, at 98 degrees, but we had a great time, nevertheless. The most amusing moment was when the tour guide stopped us at a pay phone. There were several children on the tour who had never seen a pay phone. One said, “What the heck is that?” Another asked, “Does it have data?” Times change.
What’s a pay phone?
There are a ton of historical sites in Boston and visiting the actual sites where history happened really enriches one’s understanding of history. Some of the highlights for me were the site of the Boston massacre, the house where Paul Revere raised his 16 children, the USS Constitution, the buildings where critical meetings were held and decisions were made. There’s so much to walk around, experience and learn about, and history comes alive all around!
USS ConstitutionPaul Revere HouseJohn Hancock was known to have a sense of humor. His family created their own family crest for his memorial. At the very top you will see a cock, and a little below it a hand – “Hand-Cock”!We also drove out to see Plymouth Rock
I am unable to post a video directly to this site; you can see a very short video of history coming alive on YouTube at: https://youtu.be/2nQisSxe-fI
To end this post, let me offer a money-saving tip for travelers – after Boston, our plan was to fly to Europe for six weeks. Parking is expensive in the Boston area and would have added a lot to the overall cost of our Europe trip. So we went on Craigslist and searched for people offering parking at their homes. We found a place near the airport, parked our van there and took a bus to the airport. Parking for the full six weeks cost us just $150.
Here are a few items that didn’t merit a full blog post of their own, but that I still wanted to include.
Near the very small center of town in Heath, nestled among the prolific growth of hickory and maple trees in the area, lies a stone cottage that can easily be missed as you drive by. What makes this one notable is that for a time it was the occasional home of Reinhold Niebuhr. He was a renowned theologian of the first half of the 20th century. He is credited as the author of Serenity Prayer and is said to have first preached it in the church a few steps from the cottage.
Niebuhr’s stone cottage
We were surprised to learn of the artistic heritage of this part of New England. It seems that everywhere we turned we encountered art in one form or another – outdoor music events, writers, glass blowers, ceramics artists, artists of other media. In addition, there were multiple universities and art museums within an hour’s drive, including the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, the Smith College Museum of Art, and the Clark Art Institute, with an extensive collection of works by Renoir.
Ceramics by a new artistA painting of apples by Renoir
Ticks have become a major problem in this part of the country. We saw them often, and both of us repeatedly found ticks on our skin. It put a damper on our desire to do outdoor activities. Upwards of 25% of ticks in the area test positive for Lyme disease, and we met people who had been impacted by debilitating cases of Lyme.
Gardens and woods provide an environment where ticks thrive
The locals say Massachusetts has two seasons: July and winter. Even though we were only there for five months, we felt we understood the meaning. We arrived in winter, which lasted much longer than what we’re used to in California; once it finally warmed up (around July), we started seeing signs of fall coming on. In reality the summertime weather we experienced in northwestern Massachusetts was very pleasant. It is not the same hot, humid weather you find in Boston. The extensive forests covering the landscape in every direction kept the temperature very pleasant. The one unusual weather event we experienced appeared to be a tornado; there was a distinct stretch of trees about two miles from our house sit where multiple trees had been blown down and the power went out for several hours.
One afternoon while taking a hike through the woods we noticed a couple of mushrooms growing on the forest floor. As we looked closer, we noticed other mushrooms. The more we looked, the more we found. We found pink mushrooms, yellow, black, brown, orange, large, small… it was amazing! Prior to this I had no awareness that mushrooms came in so many shapes, colors and sizes. It’s not something you see in the California suburbs!
I think of it as a county fair, but in this area they’re more commonly referred to as agricultural fairs. Heath hosts one of the more widely attended fairs in northwestern Massachusetts, attracting people from probably a 50-mile radius due to its advertising throughout the area. It was a treat to experience such a small town fair. In fact, we were not only attendees. We had met the fair director a few weeks earlier, and we were recruited to help sell tickets on the first day of the fair.
Heath Fair mosaicFairgrounds at nightPreserved barn moved to the fairgrounds as an exhibition hall Classic tractors
In the early 1900’s there was a trolley bridge across the river, connecting Shelburne Falls and Buckland, Massachusetts. After the trolley company went bankrupt in 1927, the Shelburne Falls Women’s Club adopted the bridge and in 1929, brought in loads of soil and planted gardens on the bridge. Today it remains a beautiful, relaxing spot that changes almost every day as new flowers bloom.
We enjoyed experiencing a different “culture” in Massachusetts. Yes, we were still in the US, but I’m sure many of you have experienced the fact that cultures and traditions vary in different regions. In a diverse area such as the Bay Area in California, culture can shift quickly from one neighborhood to another.
When I say Massachusetts, I am referring specifically to northwestern Massachusetts where we spent most of our time. The area we lived in is sometimes referred to as the “hill towns”, for obvious reasons (lots of hills). The area is also known as the Berkshires. I am NOT referring to Boston, which has its own unique culture.
I know I am generalizing, but the sense I got was that people in the small towns of northwestern Massachusetts watch out for each other. Yes, people there are highly independent and individualistic as is the stereotypical cultural image of much of the US, but at the same time, you don’t feel that people are so independent as to not care about their neighbors.
One day we stopped our car on the side of the road to take a photo. Within moments, another car stopped to check on us – “Is everything okay?”, the driver called out. It was a small gesture, but something that I don’t feel happens often enough in the Bay Area where people are too busy to take the time to check on others. In fact, in the Bay Area it is more likely that one or more aggressive drivers would try to intimidate those in the stopped vehicle.
We stopped to document this road sign, which points to Long Hill Road
Similarly, on another occasion, we had spotted an interesting-looking cemetery beside the road. We stopped to walk around and see how old the gravestones were. After a few minutes of walking around, a man tending a grave on the other side of the cemetery came by and asked us if everything was okay and if we needed anything. He then proceeded to show us some of the markers that he found interesting.
It’s hard to fully capture the feeling in words, but we really felt a sense of community in the area. These stories may not sound that unusual, but sadly, in my experience in the SF Bay Area, I rarely experienced these types of uplifting interactions with strangers.
Most of the homeowners who we’ve done house sits for have been pretty flexible with us. That is, they are willing to work with us on the timing of our arrival and departure, when and whether we do a visit in advance of the start date, discussing the expectations of the sit, etc. Our sit in Massachusetts was almost five months long, and the homeowners were even more flexible, making it a great experience for us.
For example, we asked if we could do a summer vegetable garden in the side area of their yard. They had no problem with us setting it up, so we collected some branches from the forest and put together a makeshift fence, in order to keep out the many deer in the area. When our sit was complete, we checked with the homeowners and they said we could leave the garden as is, and they would enjoy the late summer produce.
Peas, chard, nasturtiums in the gardenWe kept the garden off to the side of the yardOur maturing garden, with its makeshift fence
Another example was that we were interested in having chickens. We’re mostly city people and didn’t have much experience with chickens, but we saw that they had an old coop out in the meadow that was in need of some repairs. We had been thinking about giving chickens a try anyway, so we checked and these homeowners were fine with us repairing the coop and bringing in a few chickens. That gave us a great opportunity to try it out without too much expense or commitment. Since we only had a few months, we purchased adult chickens from a local hobby farmer. It took the chickens a few weeks to adjust to their new surroundings, then they began producing eggs for us.
We selected Cochin chickens. We found them to have beautiful coloration. Additionally, the rooster did very little crowing.
We also try to be as flexible as possible, such as adjusting our schedule in order to meet the homeowners’ needs. In addition, we always do our best to be respectful of the homes where we stay. That’s why we’re sure to get approval in advance of doing things like this. We also want to leave a place as good or better than when we arrived. As for the chickens, we not only got approval to leave the chickens behind, but we also made a backup plan with a neighbor to adopt the chickens in case the homeowner was no longer interested.
Following a little over two weeks of leisure travel, we drove to our next house sit, in the Berkshires area of northwestern Massachusetts, also referred to as part of the “hill towns”. People ask us if we like to visit Boston, but we’re nearly as far as you can get from Boston while still remaining in Massachusetts. We are north, almost to the Vermont border, and we are west, almost to the New York state border. Needless to say, we’ve only driven in to Boston a couple of times. That makes for a very different experience than if we were in Boston or another nearby coastal town.
Instead, we are in a small, rural town in the hills. It is remote, yet it has an active, welcoming community which helps us feel right at home. This region was developed many years ago, with some of the nearby towns being established as early as the late 1600’s. Our town was incorporated in 1785. It currently has a population of around 700 people.
House sitting through TrustedHousesitters.com almost always involves taking care of one or more pets as well, since people cannot leave their pets alone while they travel. Sometimes the homeowners have other special requests. For example, on our Kentucky sit, the homeowner had a setup that required monitoring the pipes during the winter to prevent them from freezing. In our new sit in Massachusetts, there is a pet and there is also a small job that we will be responsible for. Read on…
This house sit is on a 100+ acre maple farm. The family actively taps the maple trees and produces maple syrup for sale. They have multiple channels to sell the syrup, one of which is a roadside stand. The stand relies on the honor system – we label the prices on the bottles of syrup and put out a fresh supply in the morning; then in the afternoon we stop by to pick up the cash and checks that have been deposited in the lockbox. This only requires a few minutes of our time, and the stand is open for business only on the weekends.
Berkshire Sweet Gold maple syrup stand
Since we are house sitting during the summer, we are not involved in the rest of the maple producing business. During the summer, the trees are simply doing their own thing, absorbing sunlight, growing, and stocking up on sap for the next season. The trees are tapped in the late winter, the sap is immediately processed into syrup and then bottled. All of those steps were complete by the time we arrived.
A deer in the maple forest
If you
are interested in ordering some maple syrup, or just learning more about the farm
where we stayed, check out the various links on their web site at: https://www.berkshiresweetgold.com/
We highly recommend the syrup!
Having this “job” of operating the roadside stand is really enriching our house sitting experience. Of course we are learning a lot about the actual process of maple syrup production, and that makes the history of the area come alive (for example, we learned that in earlier times, sheep production was a significant industry in the area). It also gives us the opportunity to interact and become more engaged with the community. This is an experience that we never would have had otherwise.
For anyone who might be interested in looking into this type of house sitting, the website we go through is TrustedHousesitters.com. There is an annual fee to join and to be able to see the full listings, although it does allow non-members to preview some information. The last time I checked, the fee was $119 per year. If anyone is interested, use the following link for a 25% discount: https://www.trustedhousesitters.com/refer/RAF123171/
For those who read my earlier post about molasses, i.e., it’s lack of availability in Mexico, rest assured that the situation is much better in Massachusetts. At the grocery store today there were at least four options. Note there was also a large selection of chocolate chips in the same shelf area, another item that is unavailable in Mexico.
We parted ways with Maricela’s brother in New York City and headed to New England where we spent a week exploring around the area – Connecticut, Massachusetts, upstate New York, Vermont. We’ve run into snow flurries nearly every day, and it’s very cold (at least by my California standards). After all, we are halfway through April.
We found many places still “closed for the season”, and those that are open have shortened hours. We stopped by two state parks in Vermont to see if we could go for a little hike. One was completely closed. The other had a sign on the road at the entrance: “Snowmobiles only”. From what we’ve seen, most things don’t open for the season until May 31.
The trees are not budding yet, daffodils haven’t bloomed… It’s definitely still winter here.
Yesterday, today (April 16), and tomorrow we’re getting a mix of snow and freezing rain. Here’s the view outside our window this morning:
Several inches of snow in mid-April
From what I hear, the next season we have to look forward to is “mud season”!
