Mill Brook House News

Maple Sugaring Along the Mohawk Trail

When nights are cold and daytime temperatures rise above freezing, sap starts to run, and buckets hang from maple trees all over rural New England.  Visitors, eager for some diversion between ski season and summer, flock to sugarhouses to watch the evaporation process, buy maple products, and eat at sugarhouse restaurants.

Colonists first learned about the sweetness of maple sap from Native Americans, who collected it from V-shaped slashes they made on the trunks of maple trees, and the newcomers subsequently developed their own techniques for tapping trees and reducing the sap to syrup or sugar.  When England forbid trade with the West Indies in 1765, colonists looked to maple sugar to fill their sweet needs.

In earlier times, farmers with a substantial "sugar bush" set up sugar camps in the woods, and the whole family would move to the camp to help with the labor-intensive process of gathering and boiling sap.  So originated the one-week "winter vacation" still observed every February by New England schools, a custom non-natives find bizarre--who wants their kids home in February when they can't go outside to play?   What began as time off from school to work at a sugar camp is, today, an opportunity to visit a modern-day sugarhouse.

During the Civil War, cane sugar became scarce once again, and maple sugar, supplied to the troops and used at home, was considered the "patriotic" alternative to sugar produced in the South.  Metal buckets with lids, such as you see here, were developed to aid in collecting sap, and the development of the tin can in these years allowed syrup to be preserved, shipped, and used year round.

Today large sugaring operations use less quaint, time-saving tubing to collect sap, but small producers still use sap buckets, and many larger operations use buckets to collect sap from outlying trees.  A single farmer may tap the trees on many properties, paying his neighbors for sap in gallons of finished syrup.  The ratio of sap to syrup is 40:1--forty gallons of sap to one gallon of syrup.  To be tapped, trees need to be 10 inches in diameter, which means they need to be c. 40 years old.  Each tap hole will yield about 10 gallons of sap, which will reduce to 1 quart of syrup.

Maple syrup comes in four different grades, named by color: golden, amber, dark, and very dark.  The darker the color, the stronger the flavor.  Which is best depends on one's personal taste.  Each has the same proportion of maple to water, and the producer has no control over which grade each boil will produce, but darker syrup tends to come later in the season.  In addition to syrup, producers usually offer maple sugar, often made into candies, and maple cream.  A favorite at Western Massachusetts' many fall fairs is fried dough smeared with maple cream.   

In the 1960's, three Franklin County sugarhouses, Gray's in Ashfield, Davenport's and Gould's in Shelburne, began offering maple-syrup-laced breakfasts during the sugar season, an early foray into the now popular "agri-tourism."

Of the three, only Davenport Maple Farm, up Little Mohawk Rd. off Route 2, still offers breakfast during the sugar season. (See Sugarshack Restaurants in Western Massachusetts.)  Gould's has ceased all operations for the present.

Gould's Sugarhouse

The evaporator at rest

Gould's evaporator in action

Monitoring the syrup

 

While Canada, mainly Quebec, produces 80% of the world's maple syrup and Vermont leads the U.S. with around 1 million gallons, Massachusetts, ninth in the nation, produces about 60,000 gallons, worth 5-6 million dollars, and interest in this local industry is growing.  Eighty percent of our 300 plus producers are located west of I-91. Sales of Massachusetts syrup are mainly within the state.  For more information visit www.massmaple.org.

                           Syrup flows from the evaporator

Maple syrup production benefits the environment by preserving forests and woodlots, important habitat for birds and other animals.  By making commercial use of forested areas, sugaring saves them from other uses that might destroy the trees.  Sugaring preserves approximately 15,000 acres of open space in Massachusetts.  It also allows local dairy farmers to stay in business by giving them additional income.                  

Unfortunately, maple sugar production everywhere is is threatened by the invasion of the Asian longhorned beetle, which destroys hardwood trees, particularly maples.   It was  discovered in Worcester, MA, where 25,000 trees were destroyed to stop its spread.  Today officials urge people to keep an eye out for the pest and, most particularly, never to transport firewood from one location to another, but always to burn local wood.  For more on the beetle and how to identify it, see www.beetlebusters.info.

Maple syrup is high in antioxidants, minerals, especially manganese, vitamins, especially Riboflavin (B2), and low in fructose.  For recipes that use maple syrup, visit millbrookhouserecipes.com.

Sugarshack Restaurants in Western Massachusetts

Gould's, the iconic sugarshack restaurant on Route 2 in Shelburne, has closed.  Gould's has served tourists and locals alike since 1960 and will be sorely missed.  

                                       Davenport Maple Farm Sugar Restaurant

But off Route 2 at 111 Tower Rd. in Shelburne is Davenport Maple Farm with a restaurant, sales area and evaporator to view.  The restaurant is opens in the sugar season March to mid-April, 8:00-3:00. Their pancakes and other syrup delivery items are quite straightforward and include gluten-free options, but their "Finnish" pancakes are unusual and delicious! Diners are served a 2 oz. bottle of maple syrup to use with their breakfast and take home as a souvenir.                                       Sap buckets hang near Davenport's evaporator.

The Red Bucket Sugar Shack's red buckets         

Sadly, this delightful sugar shack has closed its doors for good, but I leave the pictures up in memory of it.  Worthington in western Massachusetts is far off the beaten trail from Charlemont, but when the Red Bucket Sugar Shack topped a 2013 Fox News survey of the ten best sugar shack restaurants in the U.S., we had to go.  

We were happy to report that Fox News has much better taste in restaurants than in politics!   

 

The sales area fills with steam from the evaporator (above).

Worthington boasts two other sugar restaurants, both open weekends in the foliage season as well as the sugar season. Just off 112, Windy Hill Farm claims to be the oldest sugar shack restaurant in Massachusetts and is certainly the most rustic.  If you need cream for your coffee, an open pint will appear on the table, family members grab breakfast among the guests, and if you need to use the facilities, a genuine outhouse awaits you. 

Windy Hill Farm: the oldest sugarshack restaurant in Massachusetts

But the food is plentiful and good: feather-light French toast, waffles, or a variety gigantic pancakes—apple, pumpkin, chocolate chip, blueberry—that you can mix and match, and the restaurant has a loyal following and a longer season than most.  It’s open from 8-2 in a sugar season that lasts from late February until Easter and re-opens in foliage season.

Inside Windy Hill

South of Windy Hill, right on 112, the High Hopes Farm sugar restaurant, open from 7-2,  serves an all-you-can-eat buffet... 

 

Satisfied customers at High Hopes Farm

 

 

 

 

 

...with pancakes, French toast, scrambled eggs, home fries, bacon, sausage, ham, and a variety of beverages including tea, juice, and coffee.  A pitcher of pure maple syrup sits on every table, and, if you sit near the window, you'll look down on a beautiful gorge, carved out by the Little River.

 

 

The Little River runs behind High Hopes sugar restaurant.

 

 In the fall, High Hopes turns its evaporator room into a haunted house and serves the same plentiful buffet.

 A number of sugarshack restaurants serve the I-91/Northampton area. Steve’s Sugar Shack at 35 North Road in Westhampton is open weekends from late February through mid-April from 7-1. The menu is limited, but the French toast is delicious and the blueberry pancakes look great. Steve’s employs an efficient system for ordering your meal. Guests are seated at long tables near or below the evaporator. On Sundays, a neighbor brings his oxen, who, ostensibly, pull a sled outfitted with a tank to gather sap from buckets in the woods. (When we were there, however, the oxen mainly greeted visitors, while their owner explained how he used them for his logging business as an environmentally friendly alternative to a truck.)  

 

 

 

 

Oxen greet visitors and (maybe) help with sugaring at Steve's Sugar Shack in Westhampton. 

 

Williams Farm Sugarhouse, located on Routes 5 & 10 just south of Historic Deerfield, is open daily mid-February to mid-April and serves a variety of delicious pancakes, waffles, French toast and various sides, including maple cream doughnuts.

The Williams family began sugaring on Mt. Toby in Sunderland in the 1850’s and opened their more conveniently located sugarhouse in Deerfield in 1994. Patrons order at the counter and can visit the evaporator in the next room while they wait for their food. 

 

 

A Williams family member stirs the boiling sap.  A sign from the original Mt. Toby Sugarhouse sits against the wall.

 

 

 

 The North Hadley Sugar Shack is conveniently located on Route 47 three miles north of Route 9 for those who want to visit the Amherst area. 

 They serve the standard French toast, waffles, and pancakes, with eggs if you want them and ice cream, fruit and whipped cream toppings also an option.  Breakfast is served every day in sugar season (mid-February to mid-April) from 7:00-2:00.  Compared to the more out-of-the-way sugar restaurants, service here is very fast.  Visitors can view the evaporator, which sits right outside the dining room, and a well-stocked farm store is open for most of the year. 

 

 

       Tending the evaporator at the North Hadley Sugar Shack

 

 

 

 

The Strawbale Cafe at Hanging Mountain Farm at 188 North St. in Westhampton is open year round for breakfast every Saturday and Sunday from 9-2 except in January.  The cafe has a full breakfast menu, including pancakes with a wide variety of add-ins, during most of the year but is more limited in sugar season because of the large crowds.  The menu is simplified at that time and pancakes are limited to chocolate chip and blueberry, but, of course, the sugar house is working and can be visited.  Seasonal vegetables, like asparagus, are added to the menu as they become available.  The cafe is so named because it is made from bales of straw although these are covered by wood and stucco, so you won't see any straw when you visit.  

 

 

 

 

 

In the town of Hancock, almost on the New York border, Ioka Valley Farm offers four-season family entertainment, not least of which is its maple breakfasts, served from mid-February to early April on weekends 8-3.

Once a dairy farm, Ioka offers an array of pancakes and French toast, including a delicious stuffed French toast, in the former calf barn, aptly named the Calf-A.

 

Visitors can observe an enormous high tech evaporator and purchase all grades of maple syrup as well as maple cream, maple sugar, maple cotton candy, cider doughnuts and other farm produce. Ioka’s four-season entertainment includes a petting zoo and play with wooden bovines in the summer and fall.

Good Neighbors

 Be kind to these guys (above) because they turn into these guys...

 

Swallowtail larvae love parsley and, if you grow parsley, will eat it to the ground.  Solution: plant a special parsley bed away from the one you use for your kitchen and gently place any swallowtail larvae you find in the wrong patch onto the parsley in their designated patch.  (They also love dill...)  Currently there are five swallowtail caterpillars in this particular patch.  Two are visible in the photo.  They are as beautiful as the butterflies they turn into, but a lot more destructive!  Be a good neighbor and plant extra parsley for them.  You will be rewarded with floating, fluttering, black and yellow striped beauty throughout your summer.

Apples in the ‘Hood

Outside the store at Pine Hill Orchards

No country experience satisfies like picking apples in the fall, especially when it’s followed by pies, soufflés, pancakes and every other sort of apple delight.   In Charlemont we’re favored with four orchards in three nearby towns, Shelburne, Colrain, and Ashfield, and they all offer “Pick-Your-Own," from mid-September through late October.  Two orchards sit close together just over the Shelburne line as you drive west from Greenfield on Route 2.  Many years ago, the Peck family owned these and more; consequently, you’ll find your first orchard on Peckville Road, which meets Route 2 just where it makes a sharp left at the top of the rise coming out of Greenfield.  Apex--turn right on Peckville Rd--has a new store selling cider, apples, peaches, honey, beeswax products, and other items.  You can pick your own Macs, Cortlands, Gala, and Honey Crisps at any time during the week and enjoy tractor rides out to the orchard on weekends.  Apex also features spectacular views from which one can see all the way to Mt. Monadnock in New Hampshire.

 Apex' Cortlands, ready for picking

 

 Hager's orchard in bloom

The second Peck orchard is owned today by the Hager family, which has a thriving Farm Market right on Route 2, just up from Peckville Road.  The store is open year round, offering locally grown vegetables, frozen meat from the Hager farm, home canned goods, baked goods, breakfast, lunch and ice cream!  The orchard faces Route 2, and U-Pick is available every day.

Pine Hill Orchards offers tractor rides to the trees ready for picking.

Turn right on the next road, Colrain-Shelburne, and follow it into Colrain, where it becomes Greenfield Road.  Up a few miles is Pine Hill Orchards' farm store and restaurant, which are open every day.  U-Pick is also available every day for those who don't mind walking out to the orchard, but tractor rides to the orchard are offered on weekends.  Pickers have a wide variety of apples to choose from: Jonagold, Delicious, Spencers, as well as Macs and Cortlands.  In addition to a great breakfast (see Breakfast Along the Mohawk Trail), Pine Hill has a beautiful pond, picnic tables, and a small petting zoo.  Cider from Pine Hill’s substantial cider mill is sold out of its spacious cooling room in the farm store, where visitors will find peaches in season and an array of apples, including Honey Crisp. 

Bear Swamp Orchard in Ashfield is further afield for people willing to go out of their way for organic products.  Bear Swamp offers U-pick from 11-5 on weekends, but the orchard is small, so go early in the season.  For sale in their tiny farm store, Bear Swamp offers their own delicious organic cider, soft and hard, along with organic apples, pears, and peaches in season.  To reach Bear Swamp Orchard, take Route 112 south to Ashfield and turn right on Hawley Road (the other side of Route 116 East).  Beautiful views from the farm are a bonus, as are the many hiking trails in the Bear Swamp Reservation, half a mile back on Hawley Road.

Check millbrookhouserecipes.com for apple recipes.

You can also find Apex Orchards, Bear Swamp Orchard, Pine Hill Orchards, and Hager's Farm Market on Facebook.  

 

 

                                                                                               Bear Swamp's traditional harvesting ladder

  

Mothers and Babies at Mill Brook House

I came around the corner of the house and stopped.  A young bear, shiny and slender, a perfect ingénue, was crossing the road.  She hung in the middle for a moment as she turned back for one, two, three (!) reluctant cubs, who came tumbling out of the underbrush and followed her across the road from the mountain on the Hallenbeck property to the streambed on ours.  Everyday, my neighbor tells me, the bears cross back and forth from our property to his, sometimes in front, sometimes in back of our houses.  Seeing them is serendipitous—looking up or looking out on the correct side of the house at the exact, right moment.  In mid-September I looked out in time to see one of the cubs, three times as big but still a roly-poly bundle of fur, bounce across our backyard.  Was he on his own or had the others preceded him moments before?  No way of knowing.

Yearling bear, Mohawk Trail State Forest 

And so it is with all nature encounters at Mill Brook House, although our chances of seeing wildlife seem greatest when mothers are tending to babies. One April, as we were working with a friend and his tractor to remove some trash from our front woods, we almost stepped on a nesting woodcock, who blended in perfectly with the forest floor and never budged from her nest, despite the tractor operating no more than six feet away.  We returned later that afternoon with a camera, and some weeks later I determined that the eggs had safely hatched. 

Woodcock on her nest

Another year, in early June, we flushed a doe from our back meadow and subsequently discovered the reason she had let us get that close: a large brown patch near our mowed path turned out to be a newborn fawn.  We took pictures while Mama skulked in the back woods, moving from shadow to shadow but never leaving.  Newborn fawns have no scent: our dog Nellie, with us on a leash, never noticed the baby lying three feet away.  Only later in the afternoon, when our house fell completely quiet, did the doe move her fawn to a less conspicuous location.

"Kinda wobbly, ain't 'e?" 

The opportunity to photograph a deer close up comes rarely, but we nevertheless witness fragments of deer drama from the house, never quite knowing the beginning or the end of the story.  One year, three fawns played in the tall grass in the front meadow day after day, ignoring me painting on the porch and men working  on the roof.  Some days their moms joined them and one day moved them on.

Fawn in the front meadow 

A pregnant doe checks out the back meadow

In the same spot at the end of the back meadow where we found the baby deer, Nellie flushed a mother turkey, who, it turned out, had been hiding with her babies.  Each of what of I subsequently learned were sixteen or seventeen chicks, was individually wrapped, dug into its own little nest of grass and completely invisible.  Although already starting to sprout their black feathers of adulthood, they could not yet fly.  Three weeks later, when Nellie flushed them from the back of our woodpile, over a dozen black, gawky teen turkeys flew up into the nearby trees.  Mama fled across the small brook that partially encloses our back field, and eventually they joined her. 

Wild turkey chick

Every spring phoebes nest under the eaves, and yellow-bellied sapsuckers pound on dead trees to attract mates and announce their territories.  More quietly they build nests, raise young, and soon our trees are full of pint-sized little sapsuckers.  Hawks and hummingbirds also nest in the nearby woods, while song sparrows, chipping sparrows, and common yellowthroats, cheeky, black-masked warblers that scold prodigiously from low branches when we come too near, nest in the tall impenetrable weeds near our mowed paths.  One year neglect allowed the weeds in my lupine garden to get so thick that the yellowthroats found it an ideal nursery.  Gardening one day, I discovered the babies running through the lupines.  Like the parents, who fly up from their nest to perch on low tree branches, the chicks instinctively hopped up on the sturdy stems of the lupine leaves, where I caught them with my camera.

Common Yellowthroat chick 

Less serendipidous are the babies born regularly in our birdhouses or under the front porch.  After Hurricane Irene, the phoebes moved.  Did they have a nest with young when walls of water from the misdirected brook slammed against the back of our garage where they had nested for a decade or more?  In any case, they moved to the front and took up residence under the front porch.  That put them at eye level, and the first year they freaked and abandoned the nest but returned to the same spot the next summer to try again.  They fussed and fidgeted when we came near, but stayed to raise two broods.  The following summer they were back....

Phoebe nestlings

Ready to fly 

Every year bluebirds and swallows battle it out for the birdhouses.  Fortunately, the bluebirds get a headstart, but the swallows are agressive and often take over at least two of the three nest boxes.  One of the houses can be opened in situ, which permitted me to snap this photo of a surprised youngster almost ready to fledge.

Baby tree swallows

 

2015: Once again we have a bird nursery with bluebirds and swallows in the bird houses, goldfinches, cedar waxwings, yellow-bellied sapsuckers, indigo buntings, common yellowthroats, hummingbirds (and no doubt many other species) hatching babies in our woods.  Baby turkeys accompany their parents from open field to open field throughout the neighborhood, and a yearling bear made its way across our lawn from the neighbors’ apple trees (and barbecue pit).   Twice this spring we’ve surprised mother deer with still scentless fawns and watched the mamas bound off while the babies lower themselves to the ground, where they remain completely motionless, though wide awake.

This fellow wanted to run but couldn't keep up with mom; he left to join her as soon as we went inside.  

Each year the magic repeats itself, and each year we wait to see what new delights spring and early summer will bring.   

 

(all photographs copyrighted by Steven Sternbach and Kathe Geist) 

 

    

Late Autumn

 

Late Autumn is the name of a film by Ozu, who often named his films after seasons: Late Spring, Early Spring, Early Summer (despite being best known for Tokyo Story).  Western culture doesn’t usually draw such fine distinctions between the seasons, but country life has sharpened my sensitivity to the differences between the early, late, and mid of any given season.  Late autumn is a particularly delicate time of year--often gray, an impression heightened (so to speak) by the tall bare deciduous trees all around us.  But within that grayness, muted splashes of color still abound.  Baby trees, with perhaps only a dozen leaves, are bright red or yellow.  Weeds, touched by frost, color up.  The fuzzy, cream-colored tops of goldenrod gone gray nod in the fields and white splashes of milkweed seeds unfurl.  Juncos settle on the fields to enjoy the weed seeds and fly up when startled, darting and tumbling like a gust of leaves in a fall wind.  They, too, are gray with a striking splash of white on their tails, which fan out when they fly.

With trees and bushes bare, I can better see the contours of the Mill Brook and down into the mini-gorge below the dam: the ancient retaining walls, crumbled cabins, and abandoned machinery, covered in rust and fallen leaves.

Late autumn brings hunting to Massachusetts, and last year we discovered a refugee in our backyard, a male pheasant unable to find his way past the new fence that cut off the back fields from the front.  He walked up and down the fence, staying close to the gate as if he knew that was the way out if only it would magically open.  He seemed not to think about other options.  He could have flown out or gone back the way he came, but he apparently felt  strongly about walking through the gate.   We watched him for some time, sure he would momentarily take to the air, but he stayed stubbornly by the fence.  Steve grabbed a camera and, coming quite close, photographed him, then took pity and opened the gate.  Magic at last!  Our bird strode through the opening and only then took flight.

 

Re-Opened Route 2 Greets the New Year

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 course during Hurricane Irene 

As 2011 drew to a close, however, there was much to celebrate in the re-opening of Route 2 between Charlemont and North Adams.  Six miles of this major artery, closed since the hurricane on August 28, re-opened the week before Christmas.  Until we traveled the newly opened roadway, we had no idea of the magnitude of the damage: entire mountainsides had washed onto the road, which had toppled into the river in many places.  With crews working round the clock, what should have taken an entire year to complete was finished in less than four months, although men and machines are still at work to stabilize the landscape.

Route 2 in Savoy, December 30, 2011

Stabilizing the banks of the Cold River

Thankful for this 23 million dollar Christmas present from our state and federal governments, we pray that continued "recovery" continues to bless us all in 2012.

 

Happy New Year from Mill Brook House!!

 

Goodnight, Irene

        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 place is named, decided to play Niagara Falls for a day and roared down the valley, ripping out trees along the banks, which smashed into bridges and destroyed them. 

The bridge by Goat Rising

In DuPree’s horse pasture, the brook jumped its banks, tumbled across the field and roared around our house, wiping out the dog pen and turning our meadows into moonscapes.  For five stomach-churning days, it continued to race past us along the beds of two small streams that surround the back field, while its normal course lay empty. 

Trees and silt caused the brook to change course.

On Thursday, Jerry and Brian DuPree tried, with backhoes and a small bulldozer, to force the brook back into place, only to watch it jump out again in the wake of another flash flood.

At 5:00 Friday afternoon the cavalry finally arrived. 

Help at last

National Guard troops with giant bulldozers moved earth and rocks and trees to get the Mill Brook back on course.  No Frenchman on D-Day was ever more elated to see American soldiers take to the field.  They worked through the Labor Day weekend, securing the brook, and on Monday, with more flash floods predicted, they showed up on our property to cut up trees already in the brook to prevent them hitting the Bissell Bridge, which, thankfully, received no injuries from the storm.

Entertaining the troops at Mill Brook House       

Badly in need of relandscaping, Mill Brook House is presently closed to guests.  We hope to open again next summer.  Goodnight, Irene.

(Photos courtesy of Steven Sternbach and Jerry DuPree.)

Charlemont Spans the Centuries

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 c. 1880         

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                          Avery's store, 2009       

 

 

 

 Meanwhile, our ski resort Berkshire East has brought us into the 21^st century with a giant windmill, which will provide enough electricity to run the resort and then some.

  

HAPPY 2011 from MILL BROOK HOUSE!!

 

In Defense of Hanging Laundry

         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 option of giving up the dangers of a wringer washer and the inconvenience of hanging her laundry outdoors for the joys of an automatic spin washer and an electric dryer.  (Floating around our backyard in those days remained a zinc washtub and a rippled washboard, compared to which the wringer-washer had been a marvel.) She, of course, never looked back and sometime in the 1960’s dismantled our complicated apparatus for hanging laundry outside, but not before I had been imprinted with the magic of wandering through groves of sheets billowing in the wind.  When we learned at school that water evaporates even when it has turned to ice, our teacher reminded us that our mothers’ laundry dried in the winter, even as it froze!  (If you watch carefully, you will see Marjorie Main gesturing with a pair of frozen bloomers in the 1944 film Meet Me in Saint Louis as she takes laundry off the line while the children make snowmen.) Hanging laundry outdoors was universal, and no one found the sight of it offensive.  How did we go so off the rails?

         I myself took up hanging laundry as a graduate student studying in Germany, back before global warming was a popular concept much less a cause celebré.  The home I rented had a washing machine, but no dryer, so I hung my laundry on a line next to the washer and, despite the long drying time in that damp climate, I loved the results.  I, too, never looked back.  From then on I hung laundry in every apartment where I lived or in its basement.  I found hanging laundry, like cooking, calming and therapeutic, perhaps because both reminded me of the security of early childhood when mom was always at my side and my worst problem was having the snarls combed out of my hair.

         When my migrations took me to Hawaii, I quickly discovered that every dwelling in that sweet climate came with a laundry line—what luxury!  My boyfriend, also a recent transplant, was likewise seduced by the improvement air-dried laundry made in his clothes.  A big date was a trip to the laundromat, followed by hauling the heavy wet clothes back to hang on his lanai.  Eventually we married—clearly a match made in heaven!  Next stop, Japan: again we found most apartment dwellers owned a simple washing machine and hung laundry on their balconies.  (Traditionally, Japanese hung their clothes outdoors on poles threaded through the loose sleeves of their kimonos and similarly constructed garments.  That lovely sight has been immortalized by Yasujiro Ozu, whose films  often cut to such pole-hung laundry flapping in the breeze.)

         Except in Hawaii and Japan, I have, as an apartment dweller, always had to hang laundry indoors, not altogether bad since I avoid the inconvenience of inclement weather.  Imagine, though, the thrill of discovering our house in Charlemont came complete with a laundry line on a covered balcony.  Our clothes hang there unabashed to the amusement, I’m sure, of every passing driver.  I admit it sometimes gives our house a roguish appearance, never more so than back when the balcony’s peeling paint already made us look like a hillbilly encampment.  But there are days when the laundry’s bright colors against our new beige paint job create an enchanting composition, akin to the visual poetry Ozu extracted from drying clothes.

         For those who didn’t grow up playing hide-and-seek amid their mothers’ flapping sheets, hanging laundry may be more of a time-consuming chore than a pleasure, but those who embrace it from consciences stricken by a warming earth should be supported, not discouraged.  Notions of beauty can be reversed much more easily than climate change.