Category: MBH Essays
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Flower by flower, Mill Brook House is coming back. There are bluebirds in the birdhouses, yellow-bellied sapsuckers tapping up a storm in the woods, and a great blue heron is frequenting the Irene-enlarged stream that runs behind the house. Having channeled the entire Mill Brook for one week, the stream is now large enough to…
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A year that started out so hopefully for us in Charlemont, a new windmill and an old store turned 150, turned out to contain multiple weather disasters for Western Massachusetts with Hurricane Irene causing the most distress in the hilltowns. Avery's store c. 1880 The Mill Brook off…
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Veteran’s Day this year will be 11-11-11. It won’t happen again for another millennium. 2011 is also my mother’s centennial, a year she didn't live to see, although she came close. She died in 2004, the year we bought Milll Brook House, and money from selling the modest home in Michigan where she had…
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The beautiful Mill Brook Downgraded to a tropical storm, Hurricane Irene made its way relatively languidly through the northern Appalachians, dumping record amounts of rain and causing massive flooding. Little Charlemont, which, in the past, had escaped floods, ice storms, and tornadoes, took a direct hit. The beautiful Mill Brook, for which our…
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Culling our video collection prior to the latest renovation project, I came across some old dubs of Northern Exposure which we’d made in the mid 90s. (Both TVs at Mill Brook House have video playback, so most of our videotapes have migrated here.) While I’d seen the shows broadcast, I’d never actually watched these tapes. Throwing…
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Charlemont is indeed a Janus-head looking backwards and forwards. This year Avery’s general store turns 150. The Averys have owned the store since it was built in 1861, which makes it the oldest general store in America to have been owned by the same family. Avery's store…
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As a 60-something, I am appalled and mystified whenever I read some community has discouraged or banned hanging laundry outdoors. For the land of the free, this seems a petty and ridiculous, not to mention environmentally disadvantageous, limit on personal freedom. I was well into grade school before my mother had the…
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