Country roads

I love walking here in Grafton almost any time of year, but spring is the best. There are bursts of color everywhere – the bright yellow forsythia and daffodils, the pink popcorn of weeping cherry trees, violet rhododendrons, and every shade of fresh green in grass and root and bud. Every year the horse farm up the road has some mare ready to birth. But there are no horseflies yet, no mosquitoes, just big fat bumblebees minding their own beeswax in the new blooms.

There used to be a dairy farm and cornfields upwind of me. You could tell it was spring when the smell of manure came wafting down from the fields. Now much of our beautiful rolling hills here have been turned over to developers and their huge, brightly painted houses. Last year they opened up an 18-hole golf course across the valley from me with another enormous housing development all around it. But when I was out walking today and saw people happily planting shrubs and flowers in their new yards I couldn’t hate them, starting their new lives here. My condo was built 17 years ago where there once was a thickly wooded hill, so who am I to complain. Still, it’s sad to see it just go on and on, every bit of open land getting gobbled up.

On a remaining stretch of dirt road today, a tiny Bichon puppy jumped out of her yard and danced around my ankles until her owner came out to grab her. He told me the town is supposed to pave his road this year and he has mixed feelings about it. He’s lived here about as long as I have and bemoans the “progress.” Being on a dirt road gives him some semblance of being rural, he said, but he’ll appreciate not having pits and deep puddles all spring and dust all summer.

The town happens to be in a great location, 35 miles west of Boston straddling the Mass. Turnpike. It’s also a little over a half an hour from Providence, which has become a great little city, thanks to its now incarcerated former mayor. I was just down there last night, having dinner near the Brown U. campus (where I took some Spanish classes last year through their community learning program). We ended up on Federal Hill, the restaurant-rich Italian section, where I had a cappuccino and the fattest cannoli I’ve ever seen. Which explains the extra-long walk today.

They’re predicting rain and cool temps for the next couple of days. As soon as it dries off I’ll be back out making my rounds.

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