August 1, 2010 - Littleton Farmers Market

   Each year from Fathers Day in June to Columbus Day in October, Littleton Main Street sponsors the Littleton Farmers Market. Each Sunday, farmers and crafters from New Hampshire's North Country and Vermont's Northeast Kingdom set up their tents behind Littleton's Main Streen, on the south side of the Ammonoosuc River, to offer farm/home crafted produce and products. The market is located at the end of the pedestrian bridge which makes for a scenic venue easily reached on foot from the commercial area of Main Street.

	Some farmers bring animals, always a hit, especially with kids. A local couple who breeds Bernese Mountain dogs, bring them to the market since the hubbub makes it a good training venue--the dogs learn to focus on their handler and not be distracted.    Referred to as "Berners", they accompanied the alpine herders and dairymen in Switzerland. Berner (or Bernese in English) refers to the area of the breed's origin in the Canton of Berne in Switzerland. Originally kept as general farm dogs, they were also used as draft animals, pulling carts.
Click image to watch video.

   Nearly every weekend music is provided by talented local musicians who seem to like the crowds at farmers markets. They do the circuit of all the local markets often playing a given market two or three times in a season. This year, Mt. Eustis Inn sponsored the Market Music tent at the Littleton market.

	Click image to watch video.

July 17, 2010 - Fireworks

	We ventured again this year to Haveys Lake in West Barnet, VT, to watch the annual fireworks. The weather was ideal. We ate an outdoor supper clad in shirtsleeves, then, as darkness approached, we donned some shirts and light jackets to watch the show. We captured more this year, even up to the all clear sounded by the fire truck.
Click image to watch video.

June 18, 2010 - Chickens Love Ice Cream!

It was a warm day and we were outside doing yard work and enjoying the sunshine. Jim took a break to have an ice cream cone. While sitting on a boulder enjoying the sweet, one of our Golden-Laced Wyandottes decided she should have some also, and jumped onto Jim's foot, climbed up his leg and helped herself. Sally got the camera in enough time to capture some of the action.

Click image to watch video.

June 8 2010 - Resident Bear

	We have a resident bear who visits us occasionally and sometimes we see him. Once he greeted Sally as she took some brush clippings out to the burn pile. On another occasion, he was spotted taking a drink from the ground-level bird pond next to the porch.
Usually, he doesn't make a long enough appearance to allow us to get a picture. On this occasion, however, we happened to have a camera at the ready and got a few pictures.
	On this trip, Mr. Bear wandered out around our garden plots over to the mulch pile. Something there enticed him because he batted the wire enclosure away and began foraging while Jim tried to sneak up on him with the camera. His insticts were on alert...he suddenly looked up, spotted Jim and in a flash was off through the woods.

December 7, 2009 - Gold in That Thar Hill?

   A long-time Littleton resident stopped by and gave us an article from The White Mountain Republic-Journal, dated June 7, 1901. The newspaper was published in Littleton from 1894 to 1913, the year the Federal Reserve was created (one wonders if there is a connection!). The article covers Mr. Blair's gold mine. We have found a hole, reported to be the mine entrance, but have no intention of doing any digging.

November 7, 2009 - Deer & Chickens

A young deer has been visiting frequently...there must be some good foraging in our meadow. The chickens seem to enjoy his visits and run over to greet. They get along pretty well together.

October 21, 2009 - Moose

These two moose came to visit. They spent some time foraging out by the picnic table.    This is the first time we have had moose visit in the fall, and the first time two mature ones at the same time. Visits usually occur in the spring when we get a cow and her newborn.

October 20, 2009 - Sunrise

Not only did we enjoy colorful foliage this fall, but on a couple of mornings we awoke to some brilliant sunrises coming up over Mount Washington.

October 9, 2009 - Wedding

We hosted our first wedding during foliage season!. The wedding tent was set up on the south lawn with a full view of the foliage covered mountains. Nature's color added a unique cheerfullness to the event

July 18, 2009 - Fireworks

	A couple of weeks after the July 4th festivities in surrounding towns have started to fade into memories, the Harveys Lake Association in West Barnet, VT, puts on a barbeque and fireworks display on the town beach. Boats line up down the lake full of expectant fireworks fans and the camps along the shore buzz with revelry and anticipation.    Here's a peek at part of this years display.
Click image to watch video.

July 6, 2009 - The Chicks Are 3 Weeks Old.

   The chicks are 3 weeks old today. They got a chance to go outside yesterday for the first time. I put up some fencing from the stone wall to the barn so they would have a large triangular corner to investigate (Jim’s good idea). I shaded one corner and brought out their water.

   Now you would have thought I was culling the flock when I went to round them up and put them in a box for the short transport. It sounded like they were headed for the chopping block the way they screamed bloody murder. I stopped being nice when the first one “flew” out of the box and back into the melee. Now it was me against them and they were winning. It was obvious I had to get into the brooder to do this and because it’s round (round them up…remember), we went round and round. Then I had to close the box top after each one was placed inside (notice I said “placed” that’s because it sounds more gentle)…not an easy task as I’m trying to get them inside a closed box.

   So now I’m ready to release them and thank goodness Jim’s on the other side of the fencing. This fencing has small spacing, but it’s not chicken wire and now I know why they use chicken wire! I’ve got them all out of the box and 2 have headed for the fence and GONE through it! OMG—I’ve got to gather the 6 back up and get them back into the box—see above. Jim is trying to herd the 2 loose ones together and catch them—yea, right—when one comes back through the fence and the other flies over the end corner where I’m supposed to go in and out! I’ve now got seven screaming (you didn’t realize, did you, that chickens scream—most people say squawk, but I swear it was screaming) 3 week-old chickens back in the box, the lid is closed and I’m looking for the 8th one. She’s climbed into the stone wall—literally—and gone deep into the hillside like a Hobbit. She’s safe and she’s quiet and Jim says it looks like I’ve lost one for good.

   OK, it’s the bird netting that obviously should have gone up in place first, but will have to be a hurry job for now. All of the fencing is now covered with the netting and I can let the girls out of their boxed prison. They are bunched together running up and down the stone wall scratching and pecking and chirping contentedly. What about #8 (there’s no way I can name 8 chickens that all look almost alike)? She’s still deep in the wall in a nice little cave. She won’t come out, but then who’d come out to my food call “here chick, chick, chick” ever again after all this? So I herd the other 7 back the other way until they are under #8’s cave and they are chirping when a little head appears from between the rocks. That chirping seems to draw her out and she joins them—I’m back to 8 baby chicks again and I’ve covered that section of wall so no one can climb in again…at least not there.

   What a wonderful time they had scratching and pecking and finding bugs—chasing each other and fighting over them. And then they were practicing their flying! Do I have to net over the top, too? We spent 2 hours out there in the first sun in weeks and I got sunburned and they got freedom. Then it was time to reverse the process—see above!

   It is bleak and chilly this morning and the girls are wary of me, but if the sun comes out and dries last night’s rain maybe we’ll try this again—I don’t know. The coop is under construction and hopefully will be finished before we have to repeat the above too many times and then they will have free-range and I will have peace.

Yours Truly,
Momma Hen

June 13, 2009 - Summerfest Parade

The day is perfect: sunny, not too hot or too cold and a gentle breeze puffing up every once in a while. A great day to start the summer season.    Each year summer is welcomed to Littleton via Summerfest. Music, food, sidewalk sales, Pollyanna and a parade attract happy residents and tourists alike. This year we grabbed our camera and tripod and set up at a good vantage point to take video of the parade.

Click image to watch video.

May 2009 - The Organic Apple Orchard

   We've planted our organic apple trees. I call it my organic orchard; it has such a nice ring to it, although it’s small—only 4 trees: black Oxford, Gala, Redfree and Akane, it was about as much as I could manage this time around.
   They don't call this the Granite State because of the color, oh no, it’s because we are littered with rocks and layers of solid granite. Digging and planting is a challenge if not near impossible. So, these four trees were my limit.
   I dug up the strip with the tractor and with each pass I turned up stones the size of footstools and—I swear, no exaggeration—Mini-Coopers! Then I had to move the rocks somewhere else and fill in the void with dirt.
   Well, the deer love apple trees, too—they eat the apples and the bucks rub their antlers on the bark when they shed their velvet and so we had to fence in the orchard. Now you'd think digging up all those rocks would have made this an easy task, well, think again. Every time Jim pounded the stake into the ground he hit rocks—small ones, but big enough to make him move the stake over a few inches. And so it went—pound in the stake, pull it out and move it, pound again and so on until he had 15 stakes finally in place. Then the fencing was a challenge; it was 4-feet high and a little floppy and hard to handle. By the time we were done the fencing cost more than the trees—these had better be great apples!
   The four trees will fruit starting early in September on through October. We bought them from our northern neighbor and renowned organic orchardist: Michael Philips at his Heartsong Farm in Groveton, NH.

The Apple Grower: A Guide for the Organic Orchardist by Michael Phillips

   We won't have apples this year, because my instructions were to nip off the flower buds this year and next to give the root stock and trunk the energy to develop a stronger foundation. It broke my heart to pluck off those beautiful pink and white buds knowing they would have been apples. It’s like pruning—a necessary evil.
   The comfrey is now planted between the trees as a companion plant and hay is down as temporary mulch. After we saw up the logs across the road we will use the wood chips as the final layer of mulch for the winter.
   Now to get the raised garden beds going….

April 2009 - The Library Is Done!

Starting the first wall. The piano is covered with a moving blanket.  Sally did all the finish work.  The countertops were fabricated and finished in the shop then taken outside and in through a library window to be put in place.  The "music wall"  Now to catch up on some reading.

Talk about blood, sweat and tears (and some off-color language) and you have the Library Project. Ah, yes, the Library Project; a project of some enormity, a project of some expense, a project of extreme beauty, a DIY project; Jim’s project!    It was on the schedule for the first winter we opened, 2006-2007. And because of one small (a little tongue-in-cheek) snafu it was put off just like a government funded project. You ask “what snafu”? And I must tell you Jim stepped off the top step on the side porch stoop late one evening saying goodnight to friends, missed his footing and fell and dislocated his shoulder; that was in September 2006.    I love to recant the story that these friends (and neighbors) Bonnie (with her husband Dick in the back seat) drove Jim to the hospital (we had guests and I couldn't leave) and whilst talking to a man in EXTREME pain—20 on a scale of 1-10, missed the exit and had to continue to the next, turn around and head back—another 20 minutes! Now you can see that the Library construction had to be postponed. There was the waiting, the MRI, the surgery, the healing, and Jim’s volunteer position as President and acting Executive Director of Littleton Main Street, Inc., plus everything else that came first. But I digress…    Anyway, as of this spring, 2009, the job is done and it is lovely. It is everything we imagined. We only now wait for the love seat to arrive (the recliners have been here since last November). It is our favorite room with its own source of music and a rich, warm, comfortable feeling, the smell of books and a soft muffled quietness … so with a book in hand it’s way to easy to fall asleep in this sanctuary.    I want you all to know that even if Jim complains that for every saw cut he made he had to traipse back and forth…out and back from the work shop to the library at least 6 times and maybe more…it was the only exercise he got through the winter! The staining alone took 4 coats and then 3 coats of Tung Oil and it sometimes took a week between coats to dry.    The books have been unpacked and uncrated after all these years. We forgot what we had and invariably ended up buying more, which turned out to be duplicates. We're not quite set up with the Dewey Decimal System, but it is by genre and then by author—and Jim’s fantastic lighting above the shelves is soooo professional.    But it is DONE! Now the next project—the back hall closet.

March 2009 - Chicken Sitting

   For those who don't know, I'm chicken sitting for our friend and fellow innkeeper, Annie, while she’s in CA. I go over ever day or other day depending on my schedule. I should have been in the Mad Birds video after Annie’s rooster attacked me. The first time I had to throw the water dish and swing the 5 gallon water bucket at him because I made the mistake of going in without the cane in my hand. I got wet, but the eggs were OK.
   The second time I had the cane, but my hands were full of eggs and the water bucket and I couldn't get the cane free to swing it and then the rooster charged the door to get out when I was fumbling to latch it and all hell broke loose. This is baptism by fire.
   The third time Jim came with me to guard me. It was really great; Jim fended the rooster off with the cane and I used both hands for collecting eggs and filling the water. Then I had to go around Jim to get to the feed canisters and the rooster saw his opportunity…Jim had to work quickly; it was a close call.
   Everyday I fight with the rooster and today I whacked him a dozen times before he finally backed off. He kept me in his sights…waiting for a slip up…for me to drop my guard, get occupied or turn my back and wham—he’s on me. I hate that rooster. He crows constantly, the chauvinist.
   It is really hard to replace the water, collect the eggs and fill the feeders while one hand is swinging the cane and never losing eye contact with this killer rooster. He just might have a heart attack before Annie gets back home, but I haven't figured out how I'll explain the bullet hole! For now I wear insulated Carhart coveralls and swear I'll never own a rooster.
   PS: Did I mention I hate the rooster?...he knows it, too!