MARGARET KNIGHT
508-627-8894
The shad trees are in bloom. They’re the first of the wild flowering trees and bushes to bloom. They open the show for the next month or so when the honeysuckle, beach plum, autumn olive and rosa rugosa decorate our roadsides with blooms. The shad are very early this year — usually they don’t bloom until the beginning of May. Their delicately petaled white flowers cover the tops of the small trees, which are especially thick in the woods between North Neck Road and where the road slopes down before Litchfield.
More and more people are showing up to open their houses, to move back in after a winter spent in warmer climates, or to enjoy Chappy for a few days before it gets busy. Other people have gone on travels to faraway places.
Bob and Marvene O’Rourke and their daughter Brenna were in northeastern Mexico recently. They took the Chepe train on a 400 mile route through the Copper Canyon to Chihuahua, hopping off to visit several remote towns along the way. On Good Friday they drove to the village of Norogachi to witness the native Tarahumara dance festival with dancing 24 hours a day for three days. They continued on to the old silver mining town of Batopilas, and numerous other deep canyon sites. One of Bob’s first jobs was to write travel articles about places he had never been to or even heard about, and he had read about this train in northern Mexico 50 years ago.
Susan and George Gomez traveled by train from Boston to Chicago, and then on to Denver. They arrived in a snowstorm but stayed for a tour of the city. Back on the train, they promptly reached the snowcapped Rockies, through which they traveled during the daylight hours. Once in Sacramento, George’s brother and his wife took them to the Redwood National Forest, Cannery Row in Monterey, San Francisco and the Central Valley where they bought a 10-pound bag of oranges for one dollar. They took the Coast Starlight train to Los Angeles where Susan got her toes wet in the Pacific. On the way back they visited the Grand Canyon. Susan says about the trip, “It was the most fabulous experience. Especially my Stetson!”
The next potluck at the community center will be on Wednesday, May 5, and Annie Heywood will be the host. Appetizers start at 6 p.m. and dinner at 6:30. All are welcome.
The On Time III has a new control console built by Eric Gillies, Peter and Sally’s son in law, who has been helping to keep the boats in tip-top shape. The surface of the console is so shiny that everyone has been running their hands over it for the past week or so. The clickers that the captains use for counting cars and passengers rest on top of the console, and to keep them from scratching the surface, Eric glued on circles of carpet like the ones that keep a chair from scratching the floor.
It’s been nice weather for working in the yard, and no mosquitoes yet! My two chickens follow me everywhere around the yard like dogs, but unlike dogs, they don’t seem to get bored when I stay in one place working for awhile. They stick close when I’m gardening to pick up any worms or bugs that get uncovered.
When I’m in the house, they keep track of me, too, and often if I look out a window, one or both chickens will be looking back at me. As I write this, one is banging around on some shelves on the porch, trying to make a place to nest. They like to stick close to the front door because I often toss them a handful of cracked corn when I go out. Their first choice is to come into the mud room to look for spilled feed. I let them sometimes, but they’re not too careful where they walk — or where they do their business.
I’m down to two chickens now. One chicken was killed by a dog (off its leash on a path near our house). We think the other one was taken by a hawk. Two chickens don’t exactly make a flock, but it’s better than one chicken!
Brad Woodger will be writing the Chappy column for the next couple of weeks.
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