Last Sunday my window lady went to Big River Chestnuts to learn about silvopasture and food forests. I’d seen the info a while back and passed it onto her. It turns out it was a festival and she had a great time. She said we had to go see the place, so my friend and I headed out in the late morning on Sunday.
I live on the other side of the Connecticut River and this is the valley I grew up in. Big River Chestnuts is the field at the bottom of the photo. It is in “Africa”.
A bit of ancient history:
Back when all the continents formed Pangea the supercontinent, the left side of the river was the North American continent and the right side was North Africa. This was the rift where it should have broken when Pangea broke up. But instead it broke out by Boston.
The subsoil layers here test the same as in North Africa, but the top soil layers are the same due to this whole area laying under the glacial Lake Hitchcock until it drained about 10,000 years ago. This created the 7th best soil in the world here. Mt Sugarloaf in the photo was an island in that lake.
The weather didn’t look like the photo at all, being overcast and raw, but not too cold. We were in search of roasted chestnuts, a great favorite of my friend’s.
They had a big bowl of pre-cooked chestnuts and an induction cook top and steel pan for quickly roasting the nuts. She immediately asked for a bag full and happily munched them as we wondered down among the little chestnut trees. I had a good time identifying several of the plants growing with the trees. But many I couldn’t guess as they were mostly dried twigs at this time of year.
When we got back, I got a bag for myself (and gave her half of them) and also got her an early Christmas present of 2 lbs in hopes it would hold her until Christmas. (Probably not...)
She had wanted to go to Montague up the river so we headed up the river road. The foliage was still amazing for being the 23rd of October! Usually it is gone shortly after Columbus Day weekend.
We looked for the waterfall that’s just off the river road but it wasn’t flowing, probably due to the drought. When we got to Montague I showed her the old family store, now selling used books, having changed hands several times now.
She wanted to go to The Book Mill in Montague. I hadn’t been in years, so off we went. We were amazed at how many cars were there. She’d hoped to get an inside table looking out on the river, but they were occupied by people with laptops, so they wouldn’t be moving soon.
They had lots of cozy seating throughout, and big windows of the river. I browsed the books and found a series by a local author David Brule, West Along the River: Stories from the Connecticut River Valley and Elsewhere. I was intrigued enough to order the 2nd and 3rd in the series (the system didn’t have the first one) from our regional library system when I got home.
We had to stand in line to order, having snagged a tiny inside table on the back wall. While standing there, we noticed an empty outside table overlooking the river. We decided to have my friend snag it while I stood in line. This was our view, and we had the unobstructed sound of the river cascading over the stones.
I finally got her hot chocolate with whipped cream and my white peach tea and we sat and enjoyed the view and sounds.
We headed back down the river road when we’d finished, heading for Mt. Sugarloaf. We were hoping the road to the top would be open, but it was not. So we headed back home on our side of the river, back in America.
It had been a lovely way to spend the gloomy midday on Sunday. The foliage had been lovely, even without sunlight to brighten it. The rain was coming late afternoon and in the forecast 2 days of it, would probably knock most of the leaves from the trees.
I spent the afternoon eating roasted vegs and reading. I lit the stoves about 4PM and made a supper of tuna melt sandwich and homemade tomato soup.
It had been a lovely easy weekend and I was recovering from the hard week I’d had.