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The one-year anniversary of Hurricane Irene
came and went, and I tried not to notice. 
Grass has grown back, as best it could, given the drought.  The garden is re-established, still lacking
many perennials but with improved soil and design; we have added a second
garden, especially for daylilies.  We
love the broad, mow-able path down to the brook that Jonathan, our landscaper, created out of
the tangle of rocks, trees, and eroded soil the storm left.  We still miss our secure dog
pen—created from the fence around the defunct swimming pool that became my
garden—but we’re managing with enough fencing to keep the dog off the
road.  With the constant labor
these improvements have required, my sense of trauma has receded.

         But
all disasters, natural and man-made, leave silences.  For us the sights, sounds, and, yes, smells of the goat farm
are an echoing absence.  I stand
long on the bridge by the former farm. 
2004 (the year we bought Mill
Brook House) is carved into it.  I
can remember the construction and how we first visited the farm, using a
temporary bridge to cross the brook. 
John and his aunt had owned it only a year and welcomed more newcomers.  We admired the goats and the single
Jersey cow.  I was glowing with
excitement over our new adventure. 
Hard to believe that seven years later the bridge would split apart and
leave a car dangling over the edge of the ravine.*  I stare at the empty farm. A family lives there, but they do
not keep animals.  Across the
street the homeowner has purchased four donkeys, one pregnant, as pets.  They are shy and often prefer their pen
to the narrow field along the road that she has fenced off for them, but they alleviate
the silence.

     I
return some weeks later to take pictures of the reconstructed brook, and then I
hear it: a rooster crowing.  I look
at the farm, and there are chickens in the coop and baby goats in the pasture.  As if a paintbrush wielded by Disney
were filling them in, the animals are reappearing.  A week later a duck appears and sheep.  New folks, oh my! 

The Mill Brook at Mountain Road before the hurricane

The bridge at Mountain Road after Hurricane Irene

The Mill Brook at Mountain Road today

*A picture of the car hanging off a collapsed
Mountain Road, which we included in our blog entry “Good Night, Irene,” was
published three (!) times—once in reverse on the back cover—in the recent book of
the same name, Good Night Irene, by
Craig Brandon, Nicole Garman, and Michael Ryan.  The book details the stories and destruction from eight
locations in New York, Massachusetts, and Vermont (mostly Vermont).  About 25 pages are devoted to the Deerfield
Valley from Williamstown to Greenfield, with several pages and pictures covering
Charlemont.