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Posts Tagged ‘massachusetts’

Another Harvest of Photos

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on October 18, 2013| 2 Comments »

No real theme among the collection today.

The first picture is of a rock that gets repainted all summer long — sometimes a few times a day — with pictures and messages of various kinds. This painting features mermaids, starfish, and octopi.

I also wanted to include some more lovely clouds, the old Massachusetts state house (dwarfed by modern buildings like Virginia Lee Burton‘s Little House), a warehouse interior repurposed as an elegant atrium for a Fort Point hotel, another one of those “Play Me, I’m Yours” street pianos, the Barking Crab restaurant sign, and a sleeping bee.  “When a bee lies sleepin’ …” (Do you know the Harold Arlen song from the 1954 musical House of Flowers?)

Perhaps there’s a theme after all: Trying to see what is right in front of me.

mermaid-rock

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Prosperity Candle

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 24, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Last fall, I blogged about the worthy Granola Project, which gives employment to refugees in Rhode Island. It is housed at the social service agency Amos House in Providence. I bought some of the granola at the farmers market a just last week.

Now Sarah Shemkus has written for the Boston Globe about a similar initiative for refugees in Massachusetts, but with the goal of helping refugee women to spin off companies on their own.

“Moo Kho Paw fled the violence and oppression of Myanmar for a refugee camp in Thailand nearly a decade ago,” writes Shemkus. “Five years later, she, her husband, and their baby daughter resettled again, this time landing in Springfield.

“As she adapted to her new home, Paw started looking for a job … That’s when she learned about Prosperity Candle, the Easthampton company where she has now worked for three years.

“ ‘I love the job,’ Paw said. ‘It helps me to pay the rent, to buy the baby diapers.’

“That’s precisely what Ted Barber, 46, hoped for when he and partner Amber Chand founded Prosperity Candle in 2010. … Sales are only part of its mission — the company says its real goal is to help women in and from developing countries by teaching them new skills and creating jobs. …

“In Easthampton, the company employs refugees such as Paw to make and package candles and fulfill orders. Currently, up to four refugees are working there at any given time, though Barber expects to hire more as the business expands. …”

The idea for an enterprise like Prosperity Candle first occurred to Barber when he was working in Africa, helping entrepreneurs build small businesses. …

” ‘I realized I wanted to do something different.’ …

“Rather than giving away money or supplies, [his] company would provide women with the resources, skills, and support they need to start a sustainable businesses. …

“Prosperity Candle formed as a low-profit limited liability company, a structure that requires the business to put its social mission ahead of profits.”

More.

Photo: Matthew Cavanaugh for The Boston Globe
Moo Kho Paw (left) and Naw Test made candles at Prosperity Candle in Easthampton.

Prosperity Candle formed as a low-profit limited liability company, a structure that requires the business to put its social mission ahead of profits.

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And How Was *Your* Blizzard?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on February 10, 2013| 2 Comments »

snow meter height

I don’t know how to use our television, and the radio has only three channels, so I ended up streaming WPRI out of Providence.

I follow WPRI’s Ted Nesi on twitter, and he kept tweeting useful storm tidbits, so I thought I’d try his tv station. Things were a little chaotic there, which felt real. At one point Ted had his mike on accidentally, and I could hear, “I got stuff! Take me, please!”

Overall, Saturday was a quiet day at the Woebegone Chalet. I caught up on old newspapers (new ones had not been delivered for two days). I made guacamole. Put in a laundry. Did some exercises.

After a while I bundled up and climbed over the front fence, getting my boot stuck and full of snow. I hailed a couple young men from the Academy who were digging out a neighbor’s car. They agreed to shovel my front walk for the price I usually pay for both walks. It was well worth it. I returned from a hike around town (everything closed but Dunkin’ Donuts) to a cleared walk.

long view

coming soon

after

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Oldest Continuous Volunteer Orchestra

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 10, 2012| Leave a Comment »

The holiday concert last Saturday deserves its own post.

I learned about the Melrose Symphony Orchestra, the oldest continuous volunteer orchestra in the country, because my friend Alden began playing the oboe there a year or so ago and loves it. Saturday was the first time we got to a performance, and we were amazed by the whole scene.

Memorial Hall, remarkable for its size and its caryatid-supported honorary box, must have had a thousand people in it. It seemed like everyone of every age in Melrose had come, and a look at the program suggested that every business in town was a supporter.

The website says that “the mission of the Melrose Symphony is to give the citizens of Melrose and surrounding area an opportunity to participate in the joy of music.”

The conductor, Yoichi Udagawa, is determined to make classical music fun and accessible to all. He is not only an excellent musician but a real showman, drawing applause from audience members who have attended before as soon as he said he was going to tell a joke.

Alden told us the orchestra provides scholarships for high school students who often join up again after college. And he explained that the kids who were walking around before the performance and in the intermissions selling tickets were raising money by giving audience members a chance to conduct the last number, a jingle bell sing-along.

We also had music from Grieg and Vaughn Williams, so it wasn’t 100% holiday. But the guest star, Renese King, sang Gospel music with two talented nieces, a backup group, and a lovely young woman who danced sign language — and that really got everyone in the spirit of the season.

I have to say, I have lived in New England 30 years and have never seen a whole community rally around a cultural institution to this extent. Melrose must have a secret formula. I’d like to know what’s in the water.

Photograph: Melrose Symphony Orchestra

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Gardening Flash Mob

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 8, 2012| Leave a Comment »

In a sign of moving with the times, the 54-year-old Littleton, Mass., Country Gardeners now call themselves a flash mob when they descend on public spaces to pull weeds and trim bushes.

Writes Grant Welker of the Sun, “The club of 34 active members — ranging in age from 30s to 90s, and all women — might not turn as many heads as a flash mob that quickly forms in a public setting, and there’s surely no dancing or singing involved. But it does serve more of a purpose.

“This group plans its mobs, shows up at the arranged time, works its gardening magic, and then disappears again, leaving a beautified space in its wake. …

“On a recent Saturday at 1 p.m., a group of five assembled at the Littleton Cemetery at the intersection of King Street and New Estate Road, fixed up a butterfly garden and, within about an hour, was gone, with some of the same members on to the next project. There were three mob-gardening sessions that day: at the cemetery, and then at Littleton Cafe at 3 p.m., and Common Convenience on Littleton Common at 5 that afternoon.” More.

Now, without calling these cheerful efforts at all staid, I can’t help thinking that a little singing and dancing wouldn’t hurt. I wonder if anyone has ever thought of pulling a flash mob on a flash mob?

You could find out when the gardening flash mob was scheduled, then show up with a brass band and baton twirlers to encourage the workers in the town common.

Or what about something around Halloween, with the surprise mob descending on the cemetery clean-up wearing costumes and handing out candied apples while “Monster Mash” plays on someone’s iPod?

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Apple Picking

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on September 29, 2012| 4 Comments »

Today we joined forces with our son, daughter-in-law, and two-year-old grandson for a lovely, low-key apple-picking adventure in Harvard, Massachusetts.

Carlson Orchards has many varieties of apples. Small painted signs tell you which ones grow in which part of the farm. The trees have been pruned so as not to grow too tall, and they are loaded with fruit. The purplish ones are Empire. I had never seen Empire apples that looked purple. We picked Empire, Cortland, Mac, and Pink Gala.

A friend from the office told me about the farm. She likes to go pick peaches in summer.

The little general store had hot cider and donuts, pumpkins and a nice variety of apple products and jams.


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Mortgage Paid Off in Pennies

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 21, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Thomas Daigle, an optician in Milford, Massachusetts, is a thrifty guy.

Writes Martine Powers in the Boston Globe, “Daigle, 60, has finally fulfilled the goal he set for himself decades ago: Arriving at the Milford Federal Savings and Loan Association in April with two 200-pound steel boxes, Daigle paid off the couple’s final mortgage payment with the contents — more than 62,000 pennies.

“That day was also the couple’s 35th wedding anniversary. Daigle hopes his story, first reported Wednesday in the Milford Daily News, will teach others the value of good old-fashioned long-term commitment.

“ ‘One of my sons always tells me, “Dad, you’re stuck in the ’50s,” ‘ Daigle said. ‘But it’s how you’re brought up, and it comes down to values.’ …

“It took the bank two days to count the coins, Daigle said, but it turned out his tally was exactly correct — to the cent. The sum was a little more than what Daigle owed, he said, but he did not ask for the surplus.

“ ‘I just wanted the pennies out of my house.’ ”

Wouldn’t you have liked to see the customers’ reactions when the 400 pounds of rolled up coins were delivered? But good for him. I value pennies, too.

Read more.

Photograph: Essdras M. Suarez/Globe

Thomas Daigle paid his last mortgage payment in pennies.

 

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Mr. Beford’s Barn

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 9, 2012| 6 Comments »

I’ve been enjoying the album “On the Road from Appomattox,” the latest release of outstanding local bluegrass band Southern Rail.

I’ve also been asking myself what makes a song on the album, “Mr. Beford’s Barn,” so moving.

An old man comes to the narrator’s farm and says he wants to see the barn he helped his daddy build years ago. The barn is very solidly constructed, nearly 100 years old now, and the refrain says it will probably last another hundred years.

It makes a person think about how fine it is to make something that lasts hundreds of years. But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered if maybe the hundred-year-ness is not what’s moving.

The old man will not be there for hundreds of years and will not be enjoying the fact that the barn lasted so long. The reason he wants to see it is that he knows he helped make something that’s very fine. It’s the well-built-ness that is valuable. The hundreds of years are merely a feature of the value.

I think you will like the song. Although it is not on YouTube, the band lists its YouTube songs here, and you might want to listen to a few if you are thinking of buying Appomattox.

http://www.southernrail.com/

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Quiet Town in Summer

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 8, 2012| 2 Comments »

I was pumping gas, and a guy with California plates who was filling the tank for his wife commented that our town seems incredibly pretty and quiet. I said it’s quiet because everyone leaves in summer. That surprised him. He thought it would be busy in summer because it’s so beautiful.

Made me think. Why are we always looking for someplace else to be?

 

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July 4 in Concord

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 5, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I haven’t been to Concord’s homey celebration in years, and yesterday was a good day to see it at its best. Please note the “burning building” with fake flames, which the fire department repeatedly doused, cooling off the children watching at a safe distance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Signs and Portents

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on July 3, 2012| 2 Comments »

First there were ghost leaves embedded in the sidewalks. And then … mystery messages.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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500,000 Lenses in the New $100 Bill

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 6, 2012| Leave a Comment »

A new $100 bill is in the works. For security, it will have half a million tiny lenses in a special strip, and the lenses will create a particular optical effect as you tip the bill this way and that.  Kind of like a hologram, is my understanding. There will be even more tiny lenses on the Liberty Bell and the numeral 100, and as you tip the bill, the one will turn into the other, thanks to the lenses.

This rather surprising information I learned from a speaker today — Doug Crane, vice president of the family company that has been making America’s currency and some other nations’ currencies since 1801. He makes paper only from cotton (80%) and linen (20%).

There are a lot of interesting old documents about the history of Crane & Co. — and how it overlapped with key events and players in American history — at this blog on WordPress.

More information is on the regular website of the company, which is based in Dalton, Massachusetts, and employs 850 people locally. Among them are the people who make print so tiny you could “print the Bible twice on a dime.” They also employ optical engineers who create the micro lenses and are responsible for Crane’s 80 patents.

Other employees work in Tumba, Sweden, ever since Sweden asked Crane to take over its currency making. At the Tumba site, Crane makes currencies for additional countries.

A paper-making enterprise requires a lot of energy, so Crane is working with numerous alternatives as it moves toward its goal of 100% sustainability. It has   already drastically cut its oil use in a partnership with a steam-producing landfill enterprise. Hydroelectric is proving trickier because there are so many jurisdictions on the Housatonic River to give permission to remove waterfalls.

Perhaps the river could become a Blueway and get everyone working together. (See yesterday’s post.)

Postcard from cranesbond.com

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Transforming the Connecticut River

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 5, 2012| Leave a Comment »

You probably think of the Connecticut River as being in Connecticut. And so it is. But it flows through most of the New England states, so protecting it results in protecting a large chunk of the Northeast. Its 7.2 million acre watershed runs through Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont.

The Christian Science Monitor recently added to its Change Agent series an article on the U.S. Interior Department’s May 24 designation of the Connecticut River as the first National Blueway.

Correspondent Cathryn J. Prince writes, “Between 40 and 50 local and state entities, both public and private, from four states will work together to preserve the 410-mile-long Connecticut River and its watershed. …

“It took the cooperation of between 40 and 50 local and state, public and private, organizations from four states to make the designation possible. While it doesn’t mean more federal funding, it does mean better coordination between these groups to promote best practices, information sharing, and stewardship.

“National Blueway is more than a label, says Andy Fisk, executive director of the Connecticut River Watershed Council.

“ ‘There are no turf wars here, but there are a lot of folks on the dance floor,’ Mr. Fisk says. ‘It’s important to recognize that this is a new way in how you get things done. It’s not one entity that will get things done, it’s diversity.’ ” Read more here.

Photograph: John Nordell, Christian Science Monitor

The Connecticut River, as photographed from the French King Bridge in Gill, Mass. The river and its watershed have been named the first National Blueway, an effort to coordinate the work of nonprofit groups and governments to protect and wisely use the entire 410-mile river and its 7.2 million acre watershed.

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Audubon

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on May 20, 2012| 4 Comments »

Years pass, and I forget how delightful Drumlin Farm is and how close. The Audubon Shop there is also a wonder. You find things in the shop that you don’t find anywhere else. All nature related.

It must have been years since I visited, because it looks like the “new” entrance and parking lot have been there a long time.

It’s a good place to go on a day that feels like summer.

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Meanwhile in Concord

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on December 10, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Still the best sugar cookie recipe comes from the cookbook John made in nursery school, age three.

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