This is the spillway
in August. The big dam is upstream
(right) at the Town Reservoir (now unused and part of the State Forest). There was a mill on the property; the
stonework indicates that it was just outside the photo on the left. I had to “re-register” this spillway with the
DEP and swear that I would maintain it.
Since it is not a dam, it will not be a problem, but I have spent a good
2 weeks with Randy chainsawing and removing the logs that have clogged it since
1989. You can see some of them in the
photo. They’re gone now.
I’m not from around here.
I live In one of those old New England towns that remind me of some of
the places outside the country I’ve also lived in, where you could stay for 40
years, raise your kids there, and be elected to office, and still be considered
a “newcomer.” So I embrace my rookie
status here, and let the lifelong residents guide me through the town and its
history. I belong to the Conservation
Commission and we try to keep up as best we can with the monitoring, or at
least visiting, of all the open space in town.
And there’s lots of it. Too much,
some would say. WE say: not enough. And I was with the Chair and another member,
both pals of mine, on the north end of town where I never go, because nothing
but nothing is up there except woods and fields and The Family, whose weblike
clan encompasses over 5,000 contiguous acres up there, and more to the south
and in other towns, but we were coming back from Blue Flag Meadow down the old
highway out of town that crosses the Air Line Trail, and there was a teeny sign
in the poison ivy and weeds on the side of the road and JO said “Oh my gosh,
Barney’s cabin is for sale,” and Randy stopped the car and I still couldn’t see
it. I am sorry I did not take a photo
then because it was like looking at an enormous bug in a cocoon, the vines and
moss covering everything—and so tiny there was not much to cover—and 20 huge
but spindly oaks and white pine leaning in towards the building as if to shield
or smother it, and by now it was the latter.
But I could see an outline—a dear little mossy roof, a fairytale stone
fireplace . . . and the most lovely feeling of good will and sweetness just
floating over everything, but mixed in with a bit of sadness, a small, choked
cry of “help!” as the little cabin was dragged into oblivion by ivy and rot and
desolation.
Jo and Randy knew Barney, and both remembered driving down
this road as teenagers and seeing Barney at the cabin. Nobody remembered Barney actually building
the cabin—which he did around 1950, using spare lumber and materials that
friends had given him –but everyone remembered seeing him down at the stream
fishing, or hanging out in the cabin having a beer with this or that
buddy. Barney died in 1989. What I know about him I’ve learned from his
dear daughter June, who still lives in town; she’s sad and sweet and misses her
mom and dad—and also her husband who died about 5 years ago—too young and from
what I have never asked. But he’s buried
right up the street from where I live now, in a cemetery shared only by dear
Vic, the man who sold me this house and died in 2006, and a champion golden
retriever who was the cemetery’s first guest.
Barney’s wife Bea did not use the cabin—I have a feeling she
thought it was wrong, somehow, to do so without him. So it’s sat vacant for 23 years, occasionally
lent to Boy Scouts for overnights and also occasionally squatted in by
partygoers looking for a roof and a—what?
player piano? Most of the windows
were broken, but other than that, and the subsequent thieving of the generator
and, right before I took possession, the iron bathtub (bastids!), people did
little damage. It was the elements that
got to the poor thing, starting with the hole in the roof caused by Barney’s
building the stone chimney face right on top of it and not facing it, so that
water poured down onto the floor and did quite a number on the northwest
corner.
That day that we first stopped, I walked around the cabin
and fell in love. Randy and Jo were
amused but not surprised—everyone loved Barney and his cabin. But no one really had a use for it. It sat on 2.5 acres but was non-conforming,
teensy, and of dubious ability to get a septic system (although June said that
for her, the outhouse was always fine.
Unfortunately, it’s long gone and I will have to get another, at least to
be used temporarily—peeing all over the property is getting old.)
At the time (and, well, now) I lived on the other end of
town in another small house—but palatial compared to this one—and was having a
feud with my adjacent neighbors that had begun while I was in Afghanistan and
had continued upon my return a year later to the point where the toxicity of their
proximity was too much for me. I figured
if I could just have a tiny place in town, with no mortgage, that I could lock
up easy and leave when I worked out of the country, and come back to easily, my
life would be more manageable. And if I
could not sell my house right away (which has come to pass—although my
schoolhouse-for-sale blog has become corrupt and won’t show archived files—oy!)
at least I could use the little cabin as an office, which the kind ZEO told me
I could do.
Afghanistan did many things to me: it made me afraid of flatbed
trucks and oncoming bicycles; it allowed me to develop the ability to identify,
by sound, 5 types of military helicopter, and it gave me enough money to
justify taking a chance on buying a piece of property that ostensibly no one
had wanted since 2004 when June first tried to sell it to pay for Bea’s care,
since Mrs Barney was not doing well even then, and died in 2010.
Even if it could never become a residence, I loved it and
wanted to save it. I had no idea what I
was doing or getting myself into. I
still don’t. But I have the kindness of
these town denizens, the uncanny and unexpected engineering abilities of
several scruffy New England types, a disbelieving cheering squad, and the
endless parade of curious hikers, mountain bikers, travelers of this lonely
stretch of back road, horse-riders, and members of The Family, all to encourage
me. This, plus the near-magical beauty
of this spot, is why I love it. All I have
to do is stay within budget (ahahahahahaha) and soldier on.
In July, the lobelia
(cardinal flower) line the opposite bank of the stream (and most of this side, too, where the photo was taken) in the most prolific
display I’ve ever seen. (this photo is a little washed out I am sorry to say.) You can see them
from up above the stone culvert as you walk or ride along the trail; people
just stop and stare, it is so amazing.
Last month I was clearing around the left
side by the water and saw a 10-inch green crayfish! I am from the coast, and I did not know that
there were such things as “fresh water lobsters.” My friend Dan the soil
scientist set me straight. [Note the water lilies, bane of my existence, along with the water hyacinth. Watch for my "Discreet But Mssive Reduction of Nusiance Pond Plants" entries.]
