Rockwell's Berkshires

Yesterday we had lunch in a Norman Rockwell painting. Norman Rockwell lived for much of his life in the Berkshires of Massachusetts, where we are staying.

They've got a nice museum and gallery of his works nearby so we went on a field trip yesterday to see what there was to see there. It was nice, and I was just going to type "no big surprises", but there was one surprise on the grounds of the museum. These gnarly statues were on display right next to the museum. I didn't expect to see them at a Norman Rockwell Museum, but they're pretty cool:


So anyway, we went to Rockwell's hometown of Stockbridge afterwards for lunch, and Main Street looked EXACTLY like his painting called "Main Street". We ate in a little restaurant in the alley to the left of the biggest white building.


I think I told you before that a little robin taps frantically on one of our bedroom windows each day. We trimmed back all the vines near the side of the house so he wouldn't perch so close to the windows, and we also taped a big piece of cardboard to the window so he wouldn't see his reflection, but you knew that already. After we did that he just flew higher to the uncovered peak of the window and tapped against it there. He has also found another window at another part of the house to attack. He's so violent that we can hear him when we are downstairs and he is tapping an upstairs window. We're not sure what to do. I think he's just not right in the head.

We've been continuing with farm chores but the past few days have been pretty rainy so we've spent a lot of time staying snug indoors.


Mark and Heather have started to compete with each other on their morning crossword puzzles (two copies of the same puzzle). Heather has a slight lead at the moment but Mark doesn't mind.

I've continued to develop my friendship with Beau the horse, and a few days ago we started pushing his boundaries. He goes nuts when his back legs are touched, and of course horses need to have all their hoofs trimmed pretty regularly, so this is a problem. I've started gently stroking his back legs with a stiff whip while he eats his supper. He's doing okay with it; only lifting his leg gently when I do it up until now. Actually the hardest part is BEFORE we start doing it. He knows something is up because he is so incredibly sensitive, so he circles around his stall wildly until we can settle him down. He only does this right before it's time to touch his back legs - he just knows something is about to happen, even though nothing has happened yet. Maybe I can make a bit of a difference in his life before it's time to leave Massachusetts. I don't know. I hope so.

We've been continuing with our farm chores, all the time having fun and feeling like we're pretending, but really what we're doing is needed work. We transplanted some strawberries into the garden one afternoon, and we've continued to prune away at the various apple trees on the property.


Mark got into the woodpile and chopped a bunch of stuff up, and all sorts of typical farm stuff. Here are some hay bales destined for the garden.


I've been helping out with horse chores, and fed and watered them by myself one evening so Heather could run some errands in town. It was VERY different to make the long walk to the barn alone in the dark, knowing that black bears frequent the property. I did not get eaten though, so there you have it.

Spring continues to spring, even in the cooler weather we've been having recently.



So that's about it. We have a tentative plan to say goodbye to Heather and continue our road trip on Thursday, but we'll have to see how the roads are. By Thursday we'll have had four days of rain and dreary weather, so it may not be possible to get the Boler out through the dirt roads until they dry up. Here's the only picture I have of Heather. She says she always has a funny face in pictures so I didn't get her face in it:


We're not having exciting adventures, but this is exactly perfect. It will be strange to be on the road again after this, but our trip is nearly over. Next week we will see the rest of New England, and then we're homeward bound!