First snowstorm of the season

I had to work today (my last Saturday) and took this picture on the way home. They had been predicting a heavy, wet snowstorm for a couple of days. They also said that there would be a very good chance of power outages. An hour after I got home (4:30 p.m.) the power went out.

***Update - Little did we know at the time that we would be without power at our house from Saturday afternoon until Tuesday night. Mark and Janelle didn't get power until Friday.

These pictures were taken on Sunday, October 30, of our tree in the front yard. We were pretty lucky. We had limbs come down on three of our trees but nothing that couldn't be salvaged.




In the whole time that we have lived in our house, I don't remember a power outage of this magnitude. I will never take electricity for granted again!

Craft Fair at Dave's Soda and Pet Food City

Kristen and Marley did their second craft fair at Dave's Soda and Pet Food City in Agawam today. It was in the back of the store and there were a lot of "pet" crafts. It was a perfect place for Marley; she loves to "browse" in Dave's and look at all the animals.

When we left there, Paul and I took a ride to Brimfield, MA. The tornado damage there was unbelievable. It looked like a bombed out war zone. Really.

There used to be a house at the end of this driveway; now just a foundation. Of course, it has been over 4 months so things are starting to get cleaned up, but it still looks awful - so sad for so many people.











P.S. More post offices.

Brimfield, MA


Fisksdale, MA


Palmer, MA

Ride to Wilmington VT

We probably should have stayed home today. We have a lot of things that we need to work on.....but since yesterday was my birthday we decided that we would take another ride and just relax. The calm before the storm so to speak. We headed up to another part of Vermont. The leaves are really starting to turn up in what I call the "high country" (Rt. 9 across southern Vermont).



I was not prepared for what we saw in Wilmington. We have seen a lot of flood damage on our last few rides to Vermont, but what we saw today was the worst, because the whole main street of this town was devastated. We have been to Wilmington many times and know the town well. Dot's restaurant has been a haunt of ours. It sits right next to the river. It was flooded along with the rest of the street.












Here are some pictures of the rest of the main street.











This weekend they were having "Floodstock" at a farm nearby to benefit the town.



Again, I was amazed at the force of water.

It's going to take parts of Vermont a long time to clean up and recover. They have had to rebuild a lot of their roads. It's amazing how much they have done in a month.

***Another Post Office - Wilmington, VT

Ride to Putney, Bellows Falls, and Grafton, VT

Today we took a ride to Vermont. We headed up to Bellows Falls, stopping on the way at Harlow's apple orchard in Putney, VT. I was hoping that they had some Honey Crisps. They are by far my favorite apple. I discovered them here at Harlow's a few years ago. They had them and they were delicious.






Paul reminded me that this was the reason I started my blog, him throwing his apple out my closed window.


After lunch at Fat Franks (one of Paul's favorite hot dog places) and a stop at the scrapbook store in Bellows Falls we headed home on Rt 121 through Saxtons River. That town had so much flooding damage. You can still see where the river rose.

This covered bridge is lucky to be still standing.





So much water damage along this route, roads washed out, trees on the river bank pushed over, homes destroyed. It was just amazing. They have already done at lot of cleanup.

This is just up the road from the Grafton Cheese factory. I saw a video on YouTube about the flooding in Grafton. This is where we have picnics after getting cheese.






This is what it used to look like.





The cheese factory had a raging river right around it. Luckily the covered bridge right next door was alright.

It's just amazing how forceful water can be.


***Some more Post Offices

Feeding Hills, MA


Saxton's River, VT


Townsend, VT

The work of Hurricaine Irene

Hurricane Irene blew into our area last Sunday. Luckily our particular area did not have too much damage. All of the weather channels were really talking it up to be a really bad storm, high winds,flooding, etc. You can read about it here.

Vermont was one of the hardest hit areas in New England. You can read about that here.

Today Paul and I decided to go for a ride and check things out. We took back roads through Western Massachusetts. We had to re-route twice and never did get very far into Vermont. All the roads were closed. Parts of Brattleboro were a real mess, streams flooded, roads buckled, mud everywhere. Sam's Outdoors Outfitters had their basement flooded and lost thousands of dollars in shoes.

On Rt. 9 in Brattleboro Channel 22 News was there reporting.

We have had such weird weather this summer, from the tornado in June, to a microburst a week or two later, to an earthquake in August and now the hurricane.

Here are some pictures that I took, although they did not do justice to what it was really like.

This is Littleville Dam. Although it was nowhere near flood stage, the road that goes down to the lake was totally flooded.




Knightsville Dam. Still not at flood stage but usually in the summer it is just a stream. Note the debris.




Road in Brattleboro, VT




Channel 22 reporting




These next few pictures are from the Green River Park, or as I call it, the Greenfield Pool. This was a place I used to go to frequently with my grandfather and my cousins. My grandfather's brother lived in Greenfield and we used to come here a lot with him.

The water had bent over the iron fence and there was mud everywhere, on both sides of the road.









This is where my grandfather's house used to be, across the street from the golf course, which was flooded. They moved all the golf carts here.




We came across a little door in our travels. I can't remember exactly where this was, but I'll remember eventually.




***Note - today I decided to begin, in addition to my little doors, another series of pictures.

With all the talk of the Postal Service maybe closing some of the post offices, I decided to take pictures of the post offices that we encounter in our journeys.

Today we went by the Brattleboro, VT post office



and the Deerfield, MA post office.