Walking the Berkshires

Free Wheeling

My seven-year-old daughter has traded in her earthbound roots for two-wheeled wings.  There were spills and tears those first late summer evenings when we took the training wheels off the red bicycle she has loved since she was five and it suddenly seemed as she might never ride it again.  Balance, momentum, steering above all had to be relearned as time and again she ended up under the bicycle rather than on it. 

By the end of the second session without training wheels, Emily had figured out it was better to take a spill in the grass than crash on the sidewalk, and if she forgot to brake it was better to bail out than hit trees and signposts.  She started to put the pieces together and made it further each time she got back on "blaster" before coming undone.  The gear we equip our children with now ensures that pride is all that gets injured.

The third day she could travel the length of the sidewalk in front of our house and beyond to the "Princeton" Elm hybrid that I bought for the town beautification committee and they kindly planted on our street.  Then she made it to the Linden tree beyond.  And seemingly just like that, she was on her way.

Getting going from a dead start is still a challenge for my little girl, but she muscles the bike into position and advances the pedal until she can lurch forward and regain her steering. Then it's away like a flash to pedal and coast, pedal and coast to the end of the street and back.  Each time on her bicycle her boundaries expand, and I watch her delight in her newfound abilities and accomplishments with fatherly pride, and nostalgia, and a hint of sadness, marking each new milestone when roots come with wings.

Elias is more than happy to tear about on his small purple tricycle, but he too is finding his freedom.   "Look Dad, no hands!"  Next year, he will have the bike with training wheels.  Turn, turn, turn.

Dad and Lad

The Housatonic is low in its stony bed, and crayfish scuttle in the shallows. Elias and I drove down River Rd. on the East bank of the river between Falls Village and West Cornwall, watching herons stalk and fly fishermen casting at shadows. It was a warm, clear Autumn day and the though the land is very very dry and we could really use the rain we were happy for the lovely weather and some time just the two of us.

Elias is a great hiker, so we went to Kent Falls, where water cascades and pools over marble terraces and through a Hemlock studded ravine.  The falls were muted but still impressive as they poured through clefts in stone.  These are the most accessible waterfalls in this part of the Litchfield Hills, though I am partial to the ones that are more seldom visited along the Taconic Plateau: Sages Ravine above all.  Still, I would have a hard time with a four year old in the primeval gorge of Sages (tried it once with Em and Eli and gripped each tightly by the hand the whole, slippery way). He mountain goated his way up and enjoyed every overlook and stepping stone.

We're home again, with low angle afternoon sunlight shining through the backyard windows.  Mother and sister will be back from shopping in time for dinner, and we'll be glad to see them, but Dad and lad have had a banner day.

Family Archive Caption Contest #10

Once again, you are cordially invited to submit your best and brightest captions for a photograph from my ancestral vaults.  Yes, it's time for the Walking the Berkshires Family Archive Caption Contest #10. Who will claim the prize, be the wag with the swag, the wit with the shekels?  There's a fine, custom made testimonial in it for you, suitable for download and proud display, so see what you can make of this...

Go Figure, Then Figure It Out

Satellite data suggest there are fewer than 88,000 acres with farm and field cover across 27 towns in Northwest Connecticut.  Some of these are undoubtedly neither farms nor land in agricultural production.  The Litchfield Hills Greenprint has shown that no more than 11,400 of these acres occur on permanently protected land, or 13% of the total.  Some of this protected land is not protected for farming.

The same 27 town area has 150,000 of state designated prime or additional important farmland soils, and 20,000 of these are on permanently conserved land, though not always available for farming.  Again, that is hardly better than the percentage of farm and field cover in protected status (13.3%).

There is a statewide goal of 80,000 acres of farmland, permanently protected, and we are 50,000 acres short.  we lose 1-2 of our dairy farms across Connecticut every month and at this rate will have none left that are not protected in less than 35 years.  Litchfield County and Sherman in Fairfield County together have the highest amount of farmland acres in the state and should provide a large percentage of the protected farmland needed to meet this goal.

There are 357 parcels of land in this region greater than 50 acres with at least 25% farm and field cover and 25% or greater prime or additional important farmland soils.  This adds up to 32,000 acres, averaging about 100 acres in size and with an average of 50% farm and field and farmland soils.  These farms are clustered in six or eight areas that might have a shot at retaining their character as farm communities and provide the nucleus of a farmland viability effort to keep agriculture part of this landscape.  How many of them can we afford to lose before farming becomes not merely imperiled but extirpated in Northwest Connecticut?  What will it take to maintain farming as a vital part of our communities and forestall reaping the final farm product: subdivisions?

I believe we need to retain at least 70-75% of the largest, high quality farmland parcels (say 12,000 acres) and another 4,000 acres of farmland that these farmers rent or that are smaller parcels but part of  farmland clusters.  I believe we have a dozen years in which to achieve this rate of conservation and increased farmland viability.  That's 1,250 farmland acres, every year, kept from the auction block and real estate pages, until 2020.  Some of these farms will only be permanently protected if a portion of them gets developed.  Some will only survive if the lands they lease are conserved. We need large animal vets and meat processing capacity and new markets for new farm products and affordable land for those who want to farm and beside that it means doubling or tripling the rate at which we conserve farmland.  That will take new and expanded resources and partnerships to achieve and the will by those who support farmland preservation to make this a priority.

I believe we need to give the same degree of thought and analysis and develop the same regional conservation metrics for forest land and fresh water resources.  We need to figure out how we are going to reach minimum viability for conserving these significant assets while also sustaining healthy rural communities, addressing the economic challenges that contribute to the outmigration of young people and working families, and managing the change that is affecting each and every one of the communities of this special region.

That's my day job.  Tonight, I'll be talking along these lines at an open space and development forum in Sharon, CT.  If we make any headway, I'll let you know.

2nd Amendment Sexy or Candy Coated Killas?

As noted in the previous post, if I get back into reenacting I may be in the market for a reproduction 1st model long land pattern Brown Bess flintlock musket.  There is no way on God's green Earth I'd choose to buy one if it were pink.  But then, I'm not the demographic they market these things to.

"Jim Astle, owner of Jim's Gun Supply in Baraboo, has been coating guns in pink and other  colors for four years. His 12-year-old daughter owns a pink camouflage shotgun.

'Females want to shoot guns, but they want them to look pretty, too,' he said. 'Guys could give a rat's butt what their gun looks like.'

Connie Cody, a 48-year-old administrative assistant in Kenosha, said she wishes she had seen pink guns for sale after she completed her hunter safety course 18 months ago.

Since then, she has bought a 9-millimeter pistol, a .357 revolver, a .38 Derringer and a .380 pistol, all in traditional colors.

'If they stock them,' Cody vowed after learning about pink guns, 'I'm going to buy one.'"

When guns are cute, only cuties will have guns.  Maybe also those well adjusted men who don't "give a rat's butt what their gun looks like."  Damn things look like toys, though, and firearms need to be taken seriously.    I'm glad Ms. Cody did the responsible thing and took her hunter safety course before purchasing all those handguns, even if they weren't pink.  I hope she gets her deer.

All I want for Christmas are a Bayonet and Breechclout

After several gorgeous days exploring the historic Lake George region of New York's Adirondacks, my wife has decided that maybe I could get back into reenacting if we did it as a family and focused on the 18th century.  I can appreciate that depicting a camp follower in the French and Indian War era - rather than being one in actual fact - offers more attraction and possibilities for participation than are available to her should she go in for the American Civil War period, where my prior reenacting experience lies.  Plus, she is not a hoop skirt and corset sort of girl. I imagine she'd be handy with a tomahawk, though, and I know what she can do with cast iron and a wood fire.  We shall see.

We took in the final encampment of the season at Fort Edward on the 22nd and I certainly had a good case of garb envy going even before the powder smoke started wafting through the air.  Reenacting can be an expensive, consuming hobby, but there is a casual nonconformity about homespun colonial militia attire that would work well for the Revolutionary War period as well as the French and Indian War.  As for historical interpretation there are a bevy of ancestors to choose from representing both conflicts.  Of course, Viv's people were French Canadians, so she could go either way.

I know far less about the service history of my ancestors who served during the French and Indian War than those in later struggles.  One of these readers of Walking the Berkshires have met before: Elias Dayton (1737-1807) of New Jersey.  He was commissioned a Lieutenant in the "Jersey Blues" March 19, 1756 and was made captain four years later.  I know he was at the taking of Fort Ticonderoga (Fort Carillon) in 1759 and served with Wolfe in Quebec the following year, but not whether his service included the disaster that befell many of the Blues based at Fort William Henry on Lake George in 1757.  According to an address given at the Annual Meeting of the Sussex County Historical Society, March 26, 2005 by T. G. Cutler;

"No sooner had they arrived at Fort William Henry, at the head of Lake George, than they were ordered to scout the lake in whaleboats. Knowing little or nothing about the terrain, they rowed around Sabbath Day Point and discovered the entire French Army, including hundreds of Indians, making their way toward the Fort. The Jersey Blues were shot to pieces in their boats, some were even eaten, according to a Jesuit priest who accompanied the invading army. A few days later, the French began the famous siege of Fort William Henry which is the centerpiece of James Fenimore Cooper's Last of the Mohicans."

Another ancestor was at Fort Ticonderoga during Abercrombie's failed attack as well as the taking of the Fort the following year.  Reverend Jonathan Ingersoll (1713-1778) of Ridgefield, Connecticut was Chaplain in Colonel Eleazer Fitch's 4th Connecticut regiment in 1758 and then transferred to Colonel David Worcester's 3rd Connecticut in the same capacity in 1759. 

John Stearns of Billerica, Mass (1686-1776) fought during King Georges War with Pepperell in 1744-45 in the Louisburg Expedition as Lieutenant in the 6th company of the 4th Massachusetts Regiment commanded by Colonel Samuel Willard and then in 1745 as Captain in the 2nd Massachusetts Regiment under Colonel Samuel Waldo.  He then served during indian fighting in 1748.  During the French and Indian War, he commanded a company of 74 men in Shirley's ill-fated Expedition against Fort Niagara in 1754-1755.

Lastly, Captain Stearns son Lt. Isaac Stearns (1722-1808) of Billerica, Massachusetts served in 1755 and 1756 in operations against Crown Point.  I believe he would have been in Colonel Moses Titcomb's Essex County Regiment and was definately in Major Ebenezer Nichols' Company, which saw heavy service in the Battle of Lake George on September 8th, 1755.

Those are the direct ancestors who fought during the French and Indian War - I haven't made a thorough  search of the collaterals.  Given that there are many other pressing calls upon my purse, I am unlikely to go looking for an 18th-century era sutler anytime soon, and if I do I am probably not looking for an officer's outfit. 

Nor yet a breech clout.

Adirondack High

We are back from our long weekend retreat at Lake George in the southeastern Adirondacks - refreshed, rejuvenated, and realizing that we can leave the kids at home in complete confidence that they and their Gramma will have a wonderful time until we return.  Viv and I have not had time like this together since before Emily was born, and we had picture perfect weather and gorgeous scenery to make our 12th anniversary especially memorable.

Later I'll post about some of the history of the region, for how could I pass up exploring the chain of colonial era forts and battlefields that run from Lake Champlain to Saratoga?  For now, though, let a few pictures tinctured with the first clear colors of Fall suffice.

   

Potpourri Post

The Equinox will mark our 12th wedding anniversary, so Viv and I are taking a long weekend in the Adirondacks to celebrate and leaving our children (for the first time) at home with their Gramma.  In the interest of having many more such anniversaries, I am taking a few days leave from blogging until we return.  A few observations, then, about where readings might go in the meantime:

Yesterday my inveterate blogging cousin Tigerhawk witnessed the 2,000,000th unique viewer viewer of his eponymous blog.  What is even more extraordinary, TH's first million happened on July 30th, 2006, marking an incredible growth in readership.  Our politics are often quite different but I find myself reading Tigerhawk more than any other political blog (more often than most other blogs, period) because the community of readers and commenters that it sustains provides a wider tent than other conservative blogs.  Some snark, to be sure, but then, you can get that here, too.  What I appreciate most is the ability to speak with and learn from people with very different outlooks on what are often "defining" issues, but also to find areas where those on the left or right can nonetheless see each other beyond the labels, as well as sometimes eye to eye.  Well done, TH!

Some great carnivals came through town recently that deserve a mention.  The 4th edition of Beautiful Africa is a rich stew of posts and well worth sampling.  Check out South African Hannes Coetzee playing slide guitar with a spoon!  Military History Carnival #6 is at Armchair General Magazine this month, where you can read about Katherine Prescott Wormeley and her experience working with the Sanitary Commission caring for wounded Union soldiers during the American Civil War.

The Katoomba Group's Ecosystem Marketplace featured Lars Smith of the blog Conservation Finance and his innovative proposal to benefit local communities that rely on tourism but whose natural resources suffer impacts from too many tourists through a system of tradable park quotas.

"This system would put daily visitor entry permits into a trading market, with each conservation area's visitor carrying capacity limiting the number of permits sold. As demand for a limited number of permits in a popular conservation area swells, prices rise, generating more money from permit fees for those who still choose to come, while encouraging visitors turned off by the price to explore more remote areas with less expensive permits. Revenues from the trading scheme could then boost biodiversity conservation in each participating area.

In developing countries, these protected-area tradable quotas (known as PATVIQs, for Protected Area Tradable Visiting Quotas) could be used to increase revenue for under-funded parks, and mitigate pressure on overcrowded ones. By requiring biodiversity tallies from member parks, more money could also be channeled to protected species. Last but not least, Smith hopes that along with raising money for conservation, the proposal could also involve local communities, who are too often the losers when it comes to protecting natural areas."

Read the whole thing and then tell Lars what you think about this concept.

Mountain top removal and valley fill coal extraction operations are a national disgrace.  Bloggers like Fred First of Fragments From Floyd are exposing the damage it does to watersheds and communities.  Fred makes it easy for your voices to be heard.  Here was my post on the subject back in April.

Finally, the incredibly talented and personable Jennifer Forman Orth of the Invasive Species Weblog is in the job market.  Anyone who needs someone with her skills and abilities would be lucky to have her on board, and if you happen to be located in the Greater Boston area, all the better.

All the best, then, until next Tuesday when, refreshed and revitalized, we shall return to regular programming here at Walking the Berkshires.

Blasted Buccanneers: A Seafarin' Tale for Talk Like a Pirate Day

Avast, ye freshwater swabs, if it's a tale of treasure and treachery you'll be wantin'.  Ye may keep your infernal Blackbeards and bloody Red Rackhams for all the good they'll do ye, for sure and all there's never been the like of "Step Captain" Emily and Elias "The Red Hand Man" to swamp a shallop or plow a pinace under the brine. 

Set ye down on that hogshead yonder and I'll spin you a yarn sure to curdle the lifesblood out of ye, and you can lay to that!  T'was on a dark summer day with a foul wind and a falling glass when they slipped anchor in old Hyannis town and crossed the bar in search of sunken treasure. 

Aye, it were a rum bunch on that three hour cruise, and nary a ginger lass nor stouthearted skipper to be seen. Full and by comes a hail from the topmast, and spy they a sail hull down on the forequarter.  'Tis another wicked pirate such as themselves, d'ysee, but dismasted and adrift and ripe for the taking. 

They raked her from stem to stern, me hearty, and stood by to repel boarders, like their blackhearted brothers the sharks, rot them, that feed on their own kind.  Aye, there was blood in the scuppers before their scurvy work was done, and you can lay to that.  They sent that sloop to Davy Jones, then sailed to harbor roaring their dreadful hornpipes to spend their plunder on ice cream sandwiches and orange soda and other such fare as seafarin' swabs do crave on a summer's day. 

So, shipmate, if ever you come upon these blasted buccanners between the devil and a lee shore, best scuttle quick and be done with it, me beauty, for the end is certain, sure.  Take it from Hogback Tim; the rotten apple don't fall too far from the binnacle, and the likes of you be no match for me an' mine.  Arr!

And I'll be wishing ye a jolly International Talk Like A Pirate Day, for all the good that will do ye.

       

Never an Unkind Silence

Quite belatedly, I'd like to thank Bill West for acknowledging the good natured spirit with which I generally approach blogging at Walking the Berkshires with a "Nice Matters" award.  Bill had some very kind words to say along with this acknowledgment, for which I am most grateful although I wish I were as deserving as Bill suggests.  Something to strive for, certainly, though when I figure out how to smirk nicely I'll let you know.

My grandmother Athalia Barker used to say that even worse than unkind words were unkind silences, and every opportunity that one could take to say something to brighten someone's day and value them was worth actively seeking.  With that in mind, I can think of no other blogger who so epitomizes the positive virtues of converting unkind silences into acts of kindness than Lené of the nature writing and discussion group blog Whorled Leaves.  Lené is one of those uplifting souls who find reason for hope in spite of difficulties and are always ready with words of affirmation.  Never an unkind silence with her.