A Rare Opportunity

I haven't had many unscheduled afternoons lately. I had free time on my hands and with no particular plan,I found myself heading up the Kancamagus Highway. I was able to find some solitude, a few pictures worth taking and plenty of black flys and mosquitos. The calm before the storm as we expect baby boy #2 this week.

Sabbaday Falls. White Mountain National Forest, NH.





The Swift River

Weekend Away

Tub Time

Is serious business



Ernie and R. Ducky think differently

Old Home Back Door Chillin'

Enjoying the granite lounge chair at Mar & Bup's house.

For more info on what this old homes stuff is all about see this post from March 5th.

Cracker Jack, Child Psychology and Hazmat Suits

I never realized just how many years I kicked around this patch of ground until I stitched together this panorama of hand held shots from Community Field in Berlin, NH. I played baseball on these fields from the time I was six years old right up through high school. The zenith of my baseball star was here as a pitcher for the mighty Little League Giants. The field next to this one is a full size diamond and the right field line is only two lanes of road away from thousands of gallons of caustic chemicals in the paper mill's pulp operation.

Making this picture, I also realized that this field is always under the watchful eye of St. Anne (left side of the picture). The size of this photo doesn't show it, but the tower on the right side of St. Anne's church actually has a statue of St. Anne looking right toward the field. Click the image for something a little bigger. I certainly knew I was in the cradle of my home town when I played on these fields. The Brown Company paper mill was omnipresent. As a local, the smell of the working mill never bothered me. Only later did I appreciate the mill worker phrase "that's the smell of money". Teams from out of town hated it and subjected us to all sorts of ridicule. Today,the smell is gone and so is the mill, mostly torn down. The same story as the rest of industrial America.

The great thing about any image is how it speaks to the individual. When I looked through the viewfinder to shoot these photos, I just thought I'd test out a panorama shot for something to do. The sky looked kind of cool and I was hoping for the best without a tripod. The completed image was initially disappointing because the pano didn't stitch perfectly and I was going to lose parts of the image if I cropped it. But, I came to see the influences from my life captured here and identified with the picture in ways I didn't think I could. Growing up in a mill town, French-Canadian culture, Catholicism, playing sports, good friends, feared bullies, my Father's occupation, my middle school up on the hill. It's all boiled down right here in this image. There is good and bad in this picture for me, but mostly good. I hope my son can get some of this kind of good. I also hope he won't be playing Little League on a field near a Super Fund site.

Black and White Old Home

You can walk from my yard and hike up-slope through my in-law's back 40, sometimes on old skidder paths and sometimes bushwacking. You'll top out on the first ridge after passing the biggest Oak snag you've ever seen and crossing over a property line or two. A road from a 15 year old logging job leads along the ridge. There are deer tracks going down those muddy ruts. Don't be tempted... keep climbing. Over the rocky ledge with the freakishly uniform, square cracks in the granite. Through the opening in the rock wall, around an old wind row of slash and you are in a field, most of the way up a mountain. You turn around to catch your breath and look back towards where you broke out of the woods. Maine and the Atlantic unfolds to the East and the Ossipee Lake watershed is West. Looking back uphill, you see the old homestead and it's a world apart.

I don't noodle with black and white as much as I should, but it seemed to fit here. For more info on what this old homes stuff is all about see this post from March 5th.

Old Homes Number Three is a Two-fer

Now it's time for the third episode in our serial on rural residences in a small New England village... The Old Homes of Freedom.



This paint shade isn't available at Sherwin Williams, but I bet it would be popular if it was.


For more info on what this old homes stuff is all about see this post from March 5th.