New England – Page 6 – New England's Narrow Road

Now That’s a Bug Bite!

I apologize for the poor quality of this picture, but you are probably thankful you CAN’T see it very well.

I took this picture in the mirror after I realized how huge this bite had become. I had a total of about 5 of them that got this swollen – thankfully none were on my face!

Kinda gross, I’ll admit, but this is what happens when the black flies bite me. Not every bite does this, only certain ones – maybe the bugs with the really big teeth…

I suppose I am allergic to them, but I don’t have any trouble with other types of bug bites.

Black fly season is over — yipppeeee — and I can go outside again without fear of becoming deformed.

THIS IS NOTHING – check out the one from THIS year (2012)

What is a Grange?

My grandfather belonged to The Grange when I was growing up in Massachusetts. Other than that, I knew very little about why there are buildings called by this name. So I thought I’d find out.

Wikipedia says that the full name of a “Grange” is the National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry. The grange hall was the meeting place for farmers and the order of the grange was an advocacy group for farmers and their needs.
Everyone was welcome to join, and even women could hold positions of importance.
The headquarters is still in Washington, D.C. even though membership is now less than it was back in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.

Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman were members of the National Grange along with Norman Rockwell. Read more about the history of the grange here.

The Antrim Grange is a place where various meetings are held to honor community members for service and once or twice a year they have art shows there. Since the number of farmers has declined, most grange halls are used for meetings such as this now.

Red Barn in Winter

A couple of years ago we rented a house just outside of Concord, NH and in winter I had a partial view of this barn out behind my house.

I love to hike in the winter even though it’s a bit tricky when not following a trail or road, because you never know what lies beneath the deep snow. But the leafless trees give great views to places otherwise unseen.
I ventured out into the woods and navigated the little stream to get this shot of the red barn. It seemed like the perfect country winter photo to me.

What kind of Seed/ Nut is This?

I am showing my stupidity here…but haven’t lived in the northeast long enough to learn all my tree names. I found a bunch of these “nut shells” on my neighbor’s property when I went to feed their chickens while they were away. I forgot to ask what they were, so I’ll ask here.

Since Beech trees are abundant, I thought maybe a Beech nut although I don’t know what those are. Then I remembered back to when I used to hike to Mill Hill in my childhood and there was a lone chestnut tree up there and thought maybe this was a chestnut shell – I saw no sign of any chestnuts near these pods though.