I love this painting Coyote Cave in Moonlight by Ashfield artist Jamie Young.
I've written about how my family loves swimming. We also love the woods, I realized again over Thanksgiving, when my brothers were visiting this area from Fort Lauderdale, Fla. and Washington D.C. On Saturday, we drove to Hinsdale and Plainfield.
On Sunday, I suggested Northampton, but my brother Billy wanted somewhere less busy, so we went to Shelburne Falls, one of the most magical places ever.
It still seems so authentic, although there have been two ominous developments in recent years. One was the closing of the stairs to the ancient potholes beneath the dam in the center of town, where we used to love to swim.
Another was the introduction of all kinds of foreign-made knick-knacks at the shop shop near the dam that used to sell only hand-blown glass from the North River Glass studio to which it's connected. The $20 glass balls spheres were the only things I could afford, but I still thought it was good to display only the locally created glass in such a beautiful location overlooking the dam.
A child of Amherst, we used to go to the potholes in Shelburne Falls for family picnics. It was a great place to kids and adults. The kids would scamper off and explore while mom and dad could relax a bit, which is no small feet for parents of seven children.
ReplyDeleteI, too, am disappointed about the Pothole closing. I never went swimming there, but we used to come up every so often and clamber around on the sun-warm rocks and stick our feet in the water and just, you know, ahhhhhh...
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