Walking Windham

It was a lovely autumn afternoon at the height of leaf season when we walked the property outside of Windham. After visiting Windham's street festival that makes one feel as if he has fallen into Thorton Wilder's play Our Town, we spent the rest of the day scouting the best building sites for a weekend house on Bouler Design Group's parcel of property. Mary King of Village Greene Realty has been listing the parcel with Living Machine House H, so that gave us good reason to check out every leaf and rock, as if we needed a good reason beyond its untouched beauty.
The site has many natural features including a running creek and a sweet waterfall. Excited by the possibilities of the nearly ten acre site, my digital camera was humming with image after image. Some of my favorites were of rotting tree stumps and mushroom colonies. I love how nature evolves. It reminds me of the recent article in the science section of the New York Times which described how Thoreau's Walden is now being studied as a scientific account of the ecology of Concord, MA during the 19th Century. By comparing Thoreau's careful observations to the same terrain today, it's clear just how much variety has been lost in wildflowers alone. It makes me feel more passionate about integrating more eco-friendly features into our homes, as well as being sensitive to the untouched nature which surrounds it. What a fantastic panecea to the modern age to live softly in the woods.