"Just Farmering": Remembrances of an Extraordinary Ordinary Man

Every year during the first week of November memories of my father dominate my thoughts. I write on November 2, 2019, the nineteenth anniversary of the day he passed away. As seems to happen with many people, the date of his death was very close to the date of his birth; he was born on November 5. He was a Good Man, well-liked and well-respected by all who knew him. He is with me every day of my life; I'm sure my siblings would say the same thing. 

When it came time to plan his memorial service I volunteered to write the eulogy. This was simultaneously one of the most difficult things I've ever done, and one of the most rewarding. Writing it gave me the opportunity to collect my thoughts about the man, and to reflect on both his life and my own. I shall be forever grateful to my siblings for affording me this privilege. I offer the eulogy here, with the addition of a few photos to illustrate a bit of Frannie's long and rich life. (In the piece I refer to two of the other readings that were part of the service: the famous lines from Ecclesiastes about seasons, and a light-hearted poem that Dick Wilbur wrote for my father and read at the reception given for him the first time he retired from the town Board of Selectmen.)

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Francis Richard Wells

November 5, 1911 – November 2, 2000

How well do we ever really know our fathers? The person who is one of the central figures in our lives, who is responsible for giving us life, often remains a figure defined by role rather than by his own qualities as a person. Over the course of our lives, how much time do we really spend in the company of our fathers, especially in this era of increased mobility, when few people live their lives in the same community in which they were raised, surrounded by family? We grow up and leave home just when we’re getting to the age when we can begin to appreciate our fathers.

It was only after I had been away from my hometown of Cummington, Massachusetts, for many years and had completed my education, gotten married, and had a child—in short, had gotten a good dose of life on my own—that it finally dawned on me what an extraordinary man my father was. He never had a lot of the things that so many people quest for in life—no power, wealth, or fame—yet I have never known anyone who was more content with his life. He was a man who knew himself, knew the world he lived in, and who spent his life surrounded by family and friends.

After my siblings and I left home—and long before the days of e-mail!—our mother faithfully wrote to us at least once, often twice a week.  Letters from our father, though, were a much rarer commodity. I think I received three. Their scarcity rendered them all the more meaningful, and I still have them all today. In one he responded to my plan, in 1983, to leave Los Angeles, where my first wife, young son, and I were living at the time, and come back to Cummington to try our hand at making a living in a less stressful manner. Pop wrote in support of the idea, and philosophized about his work on the farm. He said: “Many of my friends ask me—‘how come you seem to be so happy all the time?’  I tell them that I am doing what I like to do best, and most of the time I understand what it is that I am up to.”

That sentence has stuck with me ever since. “I am doing what I like to do best, and most of the time I understand what it is that I am up to.” How many of us can say that about our own lives and careers? All the career counselors and psychologists in the world could not come up with a clearer, more sure-fire prescription for how to achieve happiness in life.

What my father liked to do best was to be out on the farm working—driving his tractors, cutting wood, getting in hay, making maple syrup, fixing fence, tending cattle, planting corn, or weeding his garden. It was what he did all his life, and what defined him as a person.

He had a great word to describe this way of life, a word that I never heard him use until one day in the early 1980s, during the time when I lived in Cummington again for a couple of years. He and I were down in the village somewhere, going about whatever business it was that we had that day, when we ran into Lincoln Howes. Linc gave my father a hearty greeting, in his usual manner: “Hello Francis! What are you boys up to today?” To which my father replied: “Oh not much…the same old thing...just farmering.”

I thought: “’Farmering.’  What a great word!” It evokes so much more than does simply saying that one farms for a living, or that one is a farmer. It implies a way of being in the world, and describes an approach to life rather than a mere occupation. 

This is a life that is very much tied to the rhythms of the year—to take the words of Ecclesiates 3:1-8 quite literally, for everything in my father’s life there was indeed a season, and a time for every purpose. Spring meant sugaring, and then planting corn, fixing fence, and putting in the garden. Summer meant haying, and at the end of the summer, the Cummington Fair. Fall was time for picking sweet corn and getting in silage, while winter was for cutting and hauling wood. There was always something different to do so the work stayed interesting, yet the constancy of the yearly cycle provided a stable backdrop against which it all took place.

It is perhaps impossible for us today to understand fully the world my father knew and grew up in. To live one’s entire life in one place, to be rooted as firmly in family and community as he was, is something that is becoming remarkably rare in our society. This rootedness gave my father a solid sense of self and purpose, and this sense was inextricably bound to place—to the farm, and to Cummington.

Students at Bryant Schoolhouse, Cummington, MA, c. 1920. Frannie standing far right, under corner of window.

Look at the dates his life spanned—one decade shy of the entire 20^th century—and think of the astounding changes to our culture and way of life that he witnessed! Literal horse power gave way to the internal combustion engine. When he was a boy, a one-way trip to Northampton meant a day’s travel, and long-distance communication was limited to the range of one’s voice. He was born into a world much quieter and more slower-paced than what we know now, a world in which hard, manual labor was the only way to get things done. His was perhaps the last generation to grow up in this world, in the culture of the small family farm that formed the backbone of the rural New England economy for so many years, and that our family has been part of since the first Wells ancestor came to the New World in the 17th century. 

His solid grounding in this world was, I think, what allowed him to maintain his extraordinary sense of who and what he was, in the face of the great changes that he witnessed in his own community and in the world at large. It allowed him to keep farmering into the age of the Internet.

Farmering kept my father out of doors a great deal of the time and, unlike many of his peers, he developed an abiding love, appreciation, and respect for nature and the wonders of the natural world. His interest in birds was well known, and he passed this love along to many of us in the next generations. Every year he would delay cutting the hay in the meadow above the barn until the Bobolinks had finished their nesting—and he took a great deal of ribbing from some of his peers when they learned of this practice.

His face would light up with sheer delight at the sights and sounds of geese migrating in the fall. Some of my own most treasured moments with him came when we were hard at work hauling wood or taking down fence on some gray November day, and all of a sudden he would freeze and say: “Hark! Geese!” Then together we’d search the skies for a glimpse of the V of a big flock, wheeling at full throttle, high in the air on its way to wintering grounds down south. 

He had an excellent ear for identifying and remembering bird songs. He knew the songs of numerous species of warblers that he would hear only a few times a year during migration, and could make the fine distinction between the songs of the wood and hermit thrushes. All of this skill and knowledge he acquired simply through a lifetime of observation, during the course of farmering for nine decades.

But farmering was not the whole extent of my father’s life. There was, after all, the “buzzing swarm of Frannies” that friend and neighbor, poet Richard Wilbur, once described in a short tribute poem to him. He was a man devoted to public service. He served the town of Cummington as Selectman for a quarter century, from 1951 to 1976, then came out of retirement in 1982 when his services were once again needed to fill the void left by another man's death. He served on boards and committees throughout the Hilltowns and the Pioneer Valley, and through this work made many friends far beyond the bounds of Cummington. He was a lifetime member of the Massachusetts Maple Producers Association, and enjoyed many years as a member of the Harvest Club. He also drove a school bus, served as substitute rural mail carrier, and worked many winters at Berkshire Snow Basin. He maintained a lifelong interest in politics on the state and national level. In what was perhaps his final act of will, he completed his absentee ballot for the 2000 presidential election, on what turned out to be the night before he went into the hospital for the last time.

My father had his share of the contradictions and paradoxes that make human beings such interesting creatures. He was an utterly non-violent man, but his favorite sport was boxing. He was a devoted family man, but was an incorrigible flirt. He could wrap a young waitress or store clerk around his little finger in a matter of seconds, blushing profusely all the while. And I can still hear my mother, clucking in disgust: “Frannie!  Honestly!”

He always wanted to travel to see new places and to visit far-flung family members, but was itchy to get back to the farm and to Cummington after about two days away. He felt that he was unmusical, but was an enthusiastic, graceful, and skilled square dancer. He often said that he would rather square dance than eat! His formal education ceased when he graduated from high school, but he was an avid reader and was extremely knowledgeable on subjects ranging from American history, to aviation, to meteorology, to world exploration.

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To close this remembrance of my father, I would like to share a personal memory of one particular time with him. I do not know why this incident sticks in my mind as strongly as it does, but so be it.

On Christmas Eve, 1983, the two of us went to cut some wood in what our family called the Drake Pasture. It was a cold, blustery day. There was a bit of snow on the ground, but not so much that we couldn’t drive a tractor and trailer deep into the woods. We spent the day felling trees and cutting them up for firewood. Fairly late in the afternoon, probably around 3:00 or 3:30, when daylight was beginning to fade, it started to snow. Down in the woods there was little or no wind, so the snow just fell quietly to the ground. We had quit running our chain saws by this time and were loading up the trailer with wood to haul back to the house. Anyone who has ever been in the woods on a day like this knows the peculiar effect that this sort of silent, heavy snowfall can have. A profound stillness descends on the world as the snow covers up the ground and muffles all sound.

Once we had the trailer loaded, we both just sat there for awhile. No words were exchanged between us, nor were any needed. We watched the snow drift down around us, and silently marveled at the way it transformed the landscape into a beautiful world of white. After a few minutes Pop finally broke the spell and said simply, “Well, let’s go home.”

As I remember that day, I like to think that he has now  “gone home” for the final time, to greener pastures, where he is reunited with our mother, and is farmering now with God.

Paul F. Wells 
November 20, 2000

Handel in the Hilltowns: "Messiah" as an Exercise in Community Music-making

On the last Sunday of December we traveled to my hometown of Cummington, Massachusetts, to participate in the 54th annual sing-through of George Frideric Handel's popular oratorio, Messiah. The sing is always held on the first Sunday after Christmas in the Village Church on Main Street in town. The deal here, for those unfamiliar with the concept of a Messiah sing, is that it is not a performance, but rather an exercise in participatory, informal music-making. Professional, or quasi-professional, vocal soloists are engaged to sing the recitatives and arias, and a pro conductor leads the proceedings. But all the singers in the chorus and all the instrumentalists are folks who just show up and sight-read through the score. They don't tackle the entirety of Handel's work, but do all of Part One (that deals with the Nativity) and selected arias and choruses from Parts Two and Three. Hey, ya gotta do "The Trumpet Shall Sound" (from Part Three), and end the proceedings with the "Hallelujah" chorus (from Part Two)! In spite of it not really being a performance, there is always a small audience of appreciative folks who come just to listen and enjoy.

This was our fourth straight year of traveling from our home in southern Maine in order to take part. Cummington is in the western part of Massachusetts, roughly equidistant from the borders of Vermont, New York, and Connecticut. It is one of the towns that comprise the somewhat loosely-defined area known as the Hilltowns, that includes communities in parts of Hampshire, Berkshire, Hampden, and Franklin counties. All the Hilltowns are small, with populations in the range of 1,000-2,500 people. Historically, the demographic make-up of the Hilltowns has consisted primarily of folks of old Yankee stock -- farmers, tradesmen, loggers, practitioners of other blue-collar jobs -- but it is an area that also has nurtured a fair share of folks engaged in more creative and intellectual pursuits.

Bryant's birthplace in Cummington

Cummington in particular has produced or attracted a good many artists, poets, musicians, and writers over the years. The town's most famous native son was William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878), poet and long-time editor of the New York Post. More recently, Richard Wilbur (1921-2017), one of the most esteemed American poets of the 20th century, made his home there. Many young musicians have spent productive summers honing their skills at Greenwood Music Camp, established in Cummington in 1940. During my youth, the now-defunct Cummington School of the Arts (later: ...Community...) provided a congenial environment for mature artists and musicians to immerse themselves in their craft for a month or so.

Though the arts are by no means the defining cultural strain in town, the strong, long-standing presence and acceptance of art and music in the community has permitted an event like the annual Messiah sing to exist as a tradition for over half a century. But I get ahead of myself...

It is about a four-hour drive from our home in southern Maine to Cummington. When we go there for the Messiah sing we always work in some visits with family members in the area, and celebrate our January 1st wedding anniversary with a nice dinner in Northampton or Amherst (where we spend a night) in order to make the trek worthwhile. This year we enjoyed nice weather and hassle-free traveling in both directions.

We got to Cummington far enough in advance of the 4:00 p.m. start time of the sing to spend a couple of hours catching up with cousins at the family farm before heading to the church. There's always a strong turnout for the sing and parking around the church can get tight, so an early arrival is warranted. We were delighted to snag a spot right behind the building. The back door leads directly to the church kitchen and on into the vestry, where preparations for the post-sing reception were already in full swing.

We threaded our way through the group of busy workers, stopped briefly to exchange some pleasantries with old friends, then staked out good spots in the singers' areas in the sanctuary--Sally with the altos, me with the basses. We visited a bit with our section neighbors while the place began to fill up. Most of those around me were long-time veterans of Cummington Messiah sings. I was pleased to make the acquaintance of a man several years my senior from the neighboring town of Plainfield who had known my late mother, not only from previous Messiahs but also from the Hilltown Choral Society (HCS), a long-standing community choir. The Messiah sing in many ways is an outgrowth of the HCS, a subject to which I shall return in a bit.

 The Cummington Village Church is a lovely old building, dedicated in 1839. It is typical, in many ways, of other New England village churches, but not without its distinctive features. Foremost among these is the beautiful trompe-l'œil painting on the back wall of the sanctuary. This was added in 1951, in memory of Eugene W. Lyman (1872-1948), a Cummington native and noted theologian; he taught at Union Theological Seminary in New York for many years. The painting is the work of New York artist and interior decorator Lyman Martin (1928-1992).

Another noteworthy feature of the church is the lovely tracker action organ. It was built c. 1880 by Pomplitz and Company of Baltimore, Maryland; it is their Opus 214. Cummington is not its first home; it was installed initially in the Trinity Protestant Episcopal Church in Staunton, Virginia in 1881 and moved to Cummington in 1903. It was a gift to the town from Worcester Reed Warner (1846-1929), another native son, who was a successful mechanical engineer and businessman. It is a beautiful, small gem of an instrument.

The organ survived an effort in 1961, at a time when it needed repairs, to have it junked and replaced with a fully-electronic instrument (!!!!). Fortunately, saner heads prevailed and money for repairs was found. In the late 1970s a major fund-raising campaign was mounted in order to pay for a complete renovation of the instrument. Messrs. Czelusniak et Dugal, Inc. were engaged for the task and did a wonderful job. It was re-dedicated at the time of the town's bicentennial celebration in 1979. Regrettably, the organ was not played at this year's Messiah. Scuttlebutt had it that no organist was available to play that day. Conductor Gregory Hayes (who has taught at Greenwood Music Camp for many years) provided the continuo parts for the recitatives and arias on a portative organ. Nice, but not quite the same.

In earlier times the church would be packed to the doors with singers on Messiah day, and there were plenty of good string players on hand. For the past couple of years, however, I've been more than a little dismayed to note a drop-off in the number of participants. I don't know that anyone keeps a precise tabulation but the ranks had definitely thinned out from what I remember them to have been in the mid-1980s. A shortage of strong string players was particularly evident. Things were better this year. We had a nearly full sanctuary of singers as well as more, and more skilled, string players--though there were still a few cringe-inducing moments when the intonation was, shall we say, somewhat less than ideal.

This year's vocal soloists were consistently strong: Kristi Spencer, soprano; Cynthia Sanner, mezzo; Dario Coletta, tenor; and Steve Curylo, bass. All have good resumes as performers and/or teachers. Special mention must be made of tenor Dario Coletta who has sung the role each of the years that we've attended. He has considerable experience singing opera and musical theater, and is simply outstanding. He works now as a stone mason in Plainfield. A wry note in the program for this year's Messiah informs us that he "also serves as the tenor section of the Plainfield Congregational Church choir." Sheldon Ross was the featured trumpet soloist on "The Trumpet Shall Sound."

As usual, a good time was had by all. Conductor Hayes kept things on track with skill, artistry, and good humor. I'm still chuckling over his admonition to the singers, before we launched into "For unto Us a Child is Born," to remember that the word "us" is, in fact, a separate word; he did not want to hear anyone singing "For unto wuss..."  As noted, this was not, nor was it intended to be, a polished performance. Speaking for myself, I missed a couple of entrances in the more difficult choruses--as did most of the guys around me! But the key feature of an event such as this is that folks come out and do it. People of all skill levels come together and make music as a body, simply for the sheer joy of doing so. Sally and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves; we look forward to taking part again next year.

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I have dim memories of the inception of the Cummington sing. The first one was held in 1964, the year that I graduated from the local elementary school. Credit for its creation lies with the late Roberta Cowell, a local woman who was the driving force behind many musical activities in the area--as well as being a very fine soprano herself. A few years earlier (1957) she had founded the aforementioned Hilltown Choral Society and served as its director well into the 1980s. She was also my first music teacher in elementary school.

According to an article by Lawrence Raab in the Berkshire Eagle (Pittsfield, Mass.) of December 23, 1967, Mrs. Cowell had originally thought to have the HCS perform Handel's work but felt that the group was too small to do so. "Instead," Raab noted, "the conception was expanded to encompass the whole community of Cummington. Anyone who knew and enjoyed "The Messiah" [sic] was asked to the church to 'perform' it."

For many years I was under the impression that the Cummington sing was unique. Of course this is not the case, as there are countless participatory Messiah sing-throughs in the world; there is even a Wikipedia entry about such things. In fact I'm not 100% sure that the idea of an informal sing-through in Cummington was something that Mrs. Cowell invented out of whole cloth. I seem to recall reading that she was inspired by a similar event somewhere else in the country (Chicago?) but am not certain of this. In any case, starting the one in Cummington was a fairly natural extension of her work with the HCS, as another way to engage the local folks with music.

L to R: Kathy Wells, Margaret Allen

My late mother, Helen Wells, who was a long-time member of the Hilltown Choral Society, was also an early and enthusiastic supporter of the Messiah sings. She sang in them every year until late in her life. My older sister, Kathy, joined her on many occasions while she was still at home. Throughout my high school and college years my mother tried in vain to interest me in taking part. It was not until the early 1980s, when I again lived in Cummington for a couple of years that I finally decided to give it a go -- at which point I immediately regretted that I had not done so earlier! We learn too late to listen to our mothers, don't we?  

Alto section, 1967: Helen and Kathy Wells, front, far right.

A move to Tennessee in 1985 made it impractical for me to attend for many years but after relocating to southern Maine, and extolling the pleasures of the annual sing to Sally for a few Christmases, we finally got our act together and attended our first sing in 2015. We now factor a trip to Cummington on the Sunday after Christmas into our annual planning for the holiday season.

It was after taking part in my second Messiah sing (which, if I've calculated correctly, was on December 30, 1984) that I had a bit of a revelation about the importance of an event such as this. At the time I was serving as chair of the church's Music Committee. This meant that when it came time to get ready for the Messiah sing it was up to me to engage the vocal soloists, secure the conductor, line up an organist, try to get the word out to instrumentalists, arrange for the loan of vocal scores from Forbes Library in Northampton, and ensure that there would be ample staff and goodies on hand for the post-sing reception.

It also meant that I was the person who got the call the following Monday from a reporter at the Daily Hampshire Gazette in Northampton, looking for material for a post-event story. I recall talking with him about the concept of the sing being a non-performance, and that although it had a few rough edges, its real value lay in the fact that it was "democratic, community music-making." I'll admit to being kinda pleased when the paper ended up using that as the pull quote that ran with a photo of folks singing that appeared on the front page the next day.

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The business of community music-making, just for the fun of it, is something about which I feel strongly. Of course, there is nothing remarkable about people playing music together primarily for their own enjoyment; it happens all the time in Irish pub sessions, at bluegrass and old-time music festivals, during after-hours sessions of jazz musicians in nightclubs, when friends gather for house parties, or when teenagers take over their parents' garages to act out their rock star fantasies. Amateur music-making, in both private and public situations, is a big part of our musical culture.

But this is Handel we're dealing with here, for Pete's sake! And a piece of music that is held in high esteem throughout much of the western world. It is typically performed in major concert halls and churches by top-caliber musicians and singers. It is by no means simple music--we're not talking 16-bar reels and jigs, or three-chord rock songs. There are high-minded critics who sniff at the whole idea of participatory sing-throughs of Messiah, and dismiss them as amateurish affronts to Handel's genius. Many classical musicians regard Messiah as a tired, over-done work that they must endure every Christmas season for the sake of a gig or two.

Nevertheless, it is unquestionably loved by, and meaningful to, lots of folks, and many (like us) derive great joy from having the opportunity to sing it. And it is not so very complex that amateurs cannot enjoy taking a stab at it. Its widespread popularity has helped make it accessible to people who otherwise would never engage with "classical" music. I see this as a Good Thing. A Very Good Thing.

In the 1967 Berkshire Eagle article mentioned earlier, writer Lawrence Raab noted that Handel tailored Messiah to the rather modest performing resources he had available for the 1741 Dublin premiere. For this reason, Raab says, the composer kept things simpler than he might have under other circumstances. He goes on to argue: "Thus, 'The Messiah' [sic] in all its greatness is particularly attractive to groups in small communities. So it may become a kind of 'folk' music, a music which people can learn and take to heart."

Well, um, no. Not quite. Speaking as a trained folklorist and traditional musician, I wouldn't go that far, or even close to that far. While there famously is no hard and fast definition of "folk music," there are a few characteristics that are more or less generally agreed on:

1. traditional tunes and songs exist in differing versions with no single, authoritative "correct" version; 
2. it is music that typically is learned and performed via oral/aural means; 
3. it is performer-based music rather than composer-based; i.e., everyone who performs traditional material re-shapes it in accordance with their own taste and abilities.

Handel's score for Messiah defines what the work is (yeah, I know, he made umpteen revisions...). People invariably sing and play it from printed music. There is no appreciable room for improvisation, except perhaps at the hands of skilled musicians who are conversant with Baroque performance practice. It is not, by any stretch of the imagination, or definition, a piece of folk music.

Where Raab is on-target--and the point I want to make with this post--is that the value of an event such as the Cummington Messiah sing lies not in whatever artistic merit it may have, but in its importance to the community in which it takes place; in its role in defining the cultural life of that community. Those of us who study folk music--folklorists and ethnomusicologists--put great value on looking at music as an aspect of the culture in which it exists; indeed, ethnomusicology is often defined as the study of music in its social and cultural context. This is in contrast to the approach taken by historical musicologists, i.e. the scholars who study "classical" music. Their approach has typically been to focus on the music for its own sake; the "text" of the music, as it were, rather than the context.

Happily, this has changed within the last generation or so. Musicologists of all stripes are taking a broader view of things. Still, it is unusual for academics to include activities in "classical" music in studies of music in communities, or to take a truly inclusive approach to the study of music in place. I know of only one book that is relevant: The Hidden Musicians: Music-Making in an English Town, by Ruth Finnegan, first published in 1989, and brought out in a revised edition in 2007.

A publisher's blurb for the book notes that it  "...focuses on the practices rather than the texts or theory of music, rejecting the idea that only selected musical traditions, 'great names,' or professional musicians are worth studying." Another description goes into more detail, noting that Finnegan's book "...presents in vivid detail the contrasting yet overlapping worlds of classical orchestras, church choirs, brass bands, amateur operatic societies, and amateur bands playing jazz, rock, folk, and country."

Or, as Finnegan herself puts it early on in the book (p. 6) , it is: “about what people actually do--about ‘is’ not ‘ought.’” Hear, hear!

What might I say about the broader context of music in Cummington, into which the annual Messiah sing fits? Not a great deal, I'm afraid, since I have not lived there for many years. But I have already mentioned the Hilltown Choral Society, and Greenwood Music Camp. Greenwood students and faculty (including Greg Hayes) perform in the Village Church when camp is in session in the summer. The church functions as a locus for other musical activity as well, including a popular "Friday Night Cafe" series of acoustic music concerts. A second church in town, the West Cummington Congregational Church, hosts occasional musical events as well.

There are no doubt many things musical that go on in the town of which I am not aware. The importance of much of the music-making in Cummington and in other small towns like it stems not from the fact that it does or does not represent some sort of musical excellence, but from the simple fact that people do it, that it is a vibrant and vital part of the local culture. 

In much of our writing and thinking about music we define music by place. We talk of Cape Breton fiddling, or New Orleans R&B, or Kentucky bluegrass. Perhaps we should think more about defining place in terms of the music that is made there.

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Notes on sources

I am indebted to both my mother, Helen Wells, and her mother, Ada Howes, for their tendency to hang onto things that others might have thrown away. They retained many newspaper articles and clippings about Cummington in file folders, notebooks, and boxes that have now come to me. Gram Howes in particular had a strong sense of the importance of local history. She was a long-time member of the Cummington Historical Commission and co-authored the chapter on Cummington in The Hampshire History: Celebrating 300 Years of Hampshire County Massachusetts (Northampton, Mass: Hampshire County Commissioners, 1964). I credit her with instilling in me my own strong love of local history. She would probably be pleased to know that one of her grandsons was the director of an archive for much of his professional life.

Among the newspaper pieces Gram saved are two that I found especially useful in providing background information on the church, the organ, and the local Messiah sings:
     Martha Beaver, "A Joyous Occasion for the Cummington Village Church," Daily Hampshire Gazette (Northampton, MA), Saturday, December 31, 1966. Feature about the history of the trompe l'oeil painting in the church, and about a time when Lyman Martin had been called in to refurbish it after some necessary repair work had been done in the sanctuary. My grandmother paper clipped a hand-written note to this article that had a few other bits of useful information.
    Lawrence Raab, "Instant 'Messiah'," Berkshire Eagle (Pittsfield, MA), Saturday, December 23, 1967. Feature about the history of the Cummington Messiah sing, accompanied by several photos taken by Joel Librizzi and Michael Miller. I have shamelessly used two of their photos (of my mother and sister) here. At this time the sing was apparently held prior to Christmas; in the article Raab notes that it was held "Late last Sunday afternoon..." viz. December 17, 1967.

Two years after the 1979 overhaul of the Pomplitz organ was completed, organist Thomas Murray of Newbury, Massachusetts, performed a solo recital on the instrument. As an adjunct to the recital, the firm of Messrs. Czelusniak et Dugal, who had carried out the restoration work, prepared a marvelous 12-page program booklet that contains an extensive history of the instrument. This was enormously valuable in my research for this post.

Two histories of Cummington were also useful resources:   
     Olive Thayer, Cummington, 1779-1979. (Cummington: Souvenir Committee of the Cummington Bicentennial, [1979]). Modest history of the town. Copiously illustrated with historic postcards and other photos.
     Helen H. Foster and William W. Streeter, Only One Cummington. (Cummington, Mass: Cummington Historical Commission, 1974.) Substantial, meticulously-researched history.
   

"You can observe a lot by just watching" -- Laurence Peter Berra

This past Sunday Sally and I decided to have church outside. Our weather has been so quirky this winter and early spring that we have not been able to indulge in much outdoor recreation; we were hungry for the sort of spiritual renewal that only a good dose of contact with the natural world can provide. Although the previous week had been chilly and generally nasty, with biting winds and even a surprise (and surprisingly heavy) snowfall at the end of the week, the day promised to be much more pleasant. So, with hiking boots on our feet and binoculars in hand, we ventured out.

After a stop at the Maine Diner in Wells for some pre-hike sustenance, we headed for the Wells Reserve. The site of an old farm, the Reserve is a favorite destination for  many area birders, walkers, and general nature lovers. It encompasses a marvelous range of habitats: mixed woodlands, open meadows, overgrown orchard & pasture, marshland, and oceanfront; there's an extensive trail system through the property that allows visitors to sample them all.

The annual spring migration is just in the early stages, so our expectations for seeing a lot of birds were rather low. We hoped perhaps to pick up a few FOYs (birderspeak for "first of year") and since our primary objective was simply to get outside, we figured that any sightings would be gravy; we'd be happy with whatever birds we happened to see.

Things were, indeed, quite slow on the birding front, but we managed to conjure up a few interesting species: a pair of American Kestrels; a half-dozen or more Turkey Vultures;  a gorgeous Great Blue Heron; a couple of Eastern Phoebes; several White-breasted Nuthatches; a few Song Sparrows; numerous American Robins; and the odd Canada Goose or so.

The relative dearth of birdlife notwithstanding, this is an interesting time of year to be out and about in the woods and fields. The snow is almost all gone--the new that fell on Friday disappeared almost as quickly as it came--so, apart from a bit of mud, the trails are all clear. It will be another few weeks before the foliage opens up, so many things are visible now that won't be once the trees and bushes leaf out. Signs of seasonal change are plentiful. One aspect of this re-awakening that we quite enjoyed seeing was the emergent Skunk Cabbage which was abundant in the wet areas near the edge of the marsh. Whatever unpleasant associations its name might invoke, it is really quite beautiful in its early phases of maturation. The flower looks something like a sea urchin without its spines. It is usually concealed by the leaves, but lies exposed in the plant in the photo above right, on which the leaves have been either broken off or eaten. (Click on this--and any other photo--to enlarge it.)

 

Our route had taken us first down the Knight Trail (see map) through the old orchard, then to the beach and back via the Barrier Beach Trail. From there we strolled the boardwalk of the Laird-Norton Trail, which connects with the Farley Trail. There is a (welcome) bench on the Farley Trail, in the vicinity of the marker for the trail on the map. This is a favorite spot to stop for a bit, not only to rest our old legs but also because it offers a fine opportunity to sit quietly and observe whatever the local avifauna might be up to.

The photo at the top of this post shows our view from the bench. Note the small island of brush across the open field from the sitters' vantage point; this provides excellent cover for birds and other critters. The area around the bench is similarly bird-friendly. There are several old apple trees and, again, a good deal of brush; see the photo to the right.

For the first few minutes that we sat there we saw no birds moving around but, soon enough, the wisdom of Yogi Berra, and his words that serve as the title for this post, was revealed. Sally spotted a raptor flying high overhead, high enough so we could not discern much in the way of marking. But the long, pointed wings, slim tail, somewhat-smaller-than-a-crow size, general coloration, and the occasional glimpse of patterning on its face made the ID fairly easy: Peregrine Falcon. His or her presence may have accounted for the lack of activity on the part of any smaller birds closer to our level, though it was high enough to perhaps have been undetectable by any songbirds. And the Peregrine gave no indication of being on the lookout for Sunday brunch.

There may or may not have been any cause-and-effect at work here, but soon after the falcon passed over, the action around us began to pick up. We spotted another Kestrel perched atop a tree in the far corner of the field. A Blue Jay soon chased him from his perch. Numerous Robins began searching the field for food. A couple of Song Sparrows started to announce their presence with authority. A male Northern Cardinal flew out of the bushes to our left, traversed the field, and did his best to disappear in the brush in the mid-field brush island. His mate soon followed; she was more successful in concealing herself.

The real treat, though, came as were beginning to think about resuming our walk. When I got up from the bench to take the photo above I was astonished to look up and see a beautiful female Northern Harrier headed in our direction! Neither of us saw where she came from; all of a sudden she was just there. She tilted her way across the field, then came down less than fifty yards from where we were  positioned. She did not stay on the ground long, and did not seem to have caught anything. She soon lifted off again and went on her merry way. We were left with huge smiles on our faces over having had such a close encounter--the closest I've ever had--with such a magnificent bird.

In the 20-30 minutes we spent sitting on the bench our patience had been rewarded many times over. Another sports cliche came to mind as we reminded ourselves that, when birding, it is oftentimes best to "let the game come to you."

We continued our walk along the Farley Trail. Before it went back into the woods we spotted this old nest in the tall grass along the edge of the field. I suspect that it was last year's work of Red-winged Blackbirds. Red-wings are among the species that are just now beginning to arrive in Maine for the summer.

  The woods in this section of the reserve property are dominated by pines. We encountered abundant evidence of the importance of pines as a source of food for denizens of the woods; squirrels had used fallen trees and old stumps for lunch counters as they feasted on pine nuts.



We also ran across reminders, such as this venerable stump girdled by old fencing, that this property had, indeed, once been a working farm.  

At the point where the trail re-emerges from the woods a pair of White-breasted Nuthatches was bopping around the trunk of a large old pine. After watching them for a bit we realized that they were going in and out of a small hole about 10-12 feet up the trunk. A telltale white smear around the bottom arc of the hole was a pretty clear indication that this was their nesting hole! A male Downy Woodpecker was also working the branches of the big pine, finding whatever it is that Downy Woodpeckers find to eat. A bit further on we were delighted to see a Brown Creeper circling his way up a medium-sized Red Maple tree, and making occasional forays to the smaller trees around it.

We finally made our way back to the parking lot, again heeding Yogi's advice by taking every fork in the trail that we came to. Our bodies were a bit tired but our spirits refreshed. I had started the morning in a bad mood but, happily, my grumpiness dissipated somewhere between spotting the first Kestrel and the close encounter with the Harrier. As expected, we had not seen great numbers of birds, but were quite pleased with the variety of species we had found. We took some pleasure in having re-learned, for the umpteenth time, that you can, indeed, observe a lot by just watching.

Coda:
We were rewarded with one final avian treat on our way out of the reserve -- a female Pileated Woodpecker was whanging away at a tree right beside the road, very near the entrance gate. I stopped the car, and since nobody was behind me we sat and watched her for as long as we cared to. She did not seem in the least bit bothered by, or even aware of, our presence. Sweet.

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The Wells Reserve is a local treasure. We feel very fortunate to have such a resource so close at hand and have long been members/supporters. Perhaps some who read this would consider supporting it as well.

"You cannot walk too early in new-fallen snow” ~ Thoreau

Virgin snow lies before me.

Our weather this winter has been, well, quirky. Snowfalls have been sporadic, and have been followed by periods of weather just warm enough, and brief enough, to partially melt the new accumulation. But only partially. The inevitable return to cold weather then left us with ice-covered walkways and driveways when the snow melt re-froze. A white Christmas was followed by a couple weeks of brutally cold weather around the New Year. We take in stride the occasional dip into negative digits for a day or so, but this time the frigid air stayed and stayed. It was downright nasty. Not a good time for any outdoor activities. By mid-January I was firmly in the grip of an intense case of cabin fever.

A heavy snowfall on January 17 proved to be a blessing in disguise. It forced the cancellation of our plans to enjoy a night of good fiddle music in Portland by the Don Roy Trio, but adorned the landscape with a fresh coat of light, powdery snow. The sun came out the next day, giving us our first truly beautiful winter day. I threw my snowshoes in the truck and headed for the Kennebunk Plains.

It had been a couple of years since the stars and planets had all been aligned properly so I could get out for a little snowshoeing. It was always too cold, or too windy, or we had too much snow, or we had too little snow, or I had other things to do, or...well, you get the idea.
 
When I got to the small parking area on Maguire Road I was a tad dismayed  to see that someone had preceded me; I had hoped to be the first one on the trail. No other vehicle was present, however, just the tracks of one, and no other human being was in sight. Whatever. I'll take it. I strapped on my shoes, crossed the road, and headed north across the open country.

When I got about halfway to the woods on the far side of the field I was delighted to see that whomever it was who had beaten me to the punch had turned around. From then on I had the pleasure of walking on virgin snow.

There really is something special about being the first to walk a trail after a snowfall. There's a sense of elation that comes with being the first person on the ground in fresh territory. You feel as though the woods, the fields, the trail are your exclusive domain, at least for the moment. A selfish feeling, for sure, but so be it.

I recently ran across this gem from the journal of the estimable Henry David Thoreau in which he expressed, much better than I, his sense of joy about being out in similar conditions:

 You cannot walk too early in new fallen snow--to get 

the sense of purity, novelty & unexploredness.

It is always a real treat to encounter a passage from a great writer in which he or she puts their verbal finger on the exact concept I've been trying to get my head around. It makes it seem as though we've all been looking at something with the same set of eyes and with the same brain.* One thing I particularly love about this Thoreau quote is his word "unexploredness." I doubt you'll find it in any dictionary, but it conveys his meaning quite effectively.

I was out and about early enough that although the sun was shining brightly, and warming the air rapidly, the trees and bushes still wore the mantles of fresh snow they had acquired the night before. In addition to adding an extra dimension of beauty to the scene, the layer of snow also muffled much of the sound. State Route 99, a fairly busy road, runs parallel to where I was walking, but traffic that morning was sparse enough that for much of the time I enjoyed walking in relative silence--a state that is mighty difficult to experience these days. The distinctive WHUMP of snow falling on snow as the sun warmed the pines was the sound I heard most frequently.

 

By the time I got about three-quarters of the way around the three mile perimeter of the area my legs and lungs began to remind me how little exercise I'd had recently. I contemplated taking a bit of a shortcut and going cross-lots back to my truck, but talked myself into pressing on...although I will admit that I took more than a couple of rest stops in the final few hundred yards. I worked up a healthy sweat, but it felt good. Although later in the day my body protested a bit, the outing did wonders to refresh my spirits.

 

And I never did see another person. In fact, I saw no other living creatures. The one disappointing aspect of this outing was the total absence of bird life. I did not see Bird One. Not so much as a Crow or a Blue Jay or a Chickadee. Zip. None. Nada. Zilch. Nary a bird.

++++++++++

Just over a month later, on February 18, we had another smallish snowfall. It dropped 9" at our house, but later that same afternoon the weather turned warmer again and we lost a lot of the new accumulation. Unseasonably high temperatures were forecast for the middle of the following week so I again figured that I needed to grab the opportunity to get out for a bit of an expotition (as Pooh would say). This time I headed for the "For All Forever" Preserve, a newish property managed by the Kennebunk Land Trust.
 
The snow conditions were not as favorable for this jaunt, and this time I followed the tracks of a couple of other people for the entire walk. But I never did see them. Whereas the trek at the Plains involved making a circuit around a large, nominally circular open area (which is bisected by a road), the course at "For All Forever" is a balloon, or lollipop, trail. That is, the trail begins with a longish (half-mile?) straight section through woods, and then goes around the perimeter of a sizable (approx. 5-6 acres) field. The Mousam River defines the northeastern edge of the field (on the left in the photo below).

East Point Sanctuary, Biddeford Pool, ME, May 2016

In the spring this is a marvelous birding spot! On a couple of visits last May we were delighted with both the variety of species and number of individual birds we saw: Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, Cardinals, Scarlet Tanagers, Yellow Warblers, numerous other species of warbler, Bobolinks, Indigo Buntings, and more. The brushy border that separates field from river provides particularly good habitat for songbirds; on one of our visits it was alive with Common Yellowthroats. It is always a treat to get a decent look at one of these gorgeous, but often secretive, little buggers. Their "witchety-witchety-witchet" song can often be heard even when the birds do not reveal themselves to human eyes. They are endearing little guys; they're among our very favorite birds.

Unfortunately, the preserve is also badly infested with ticks! This keeps a lot of birders from going there, and keeps me from returning in warm weather.

In February, of course, not many songbirds were in evidence, and ticks were not a factor. Happily, the place was by no means devoid of bird life. Shortly after I began my walk around the perimeter of the field, a beautiful Red-tailed Hawk took off from the trees along the river. He flew across the clearing in front of me, moving to my right as he flapped his way towards the woods on the opposite side. I reveled in the opportunity to admire his beauty, if only for a matter of a minute or so. He soon disappeared over the trees, heading in the general direction of the parking lot where I'd left my truck.

Once he was out of view I turned my head to the left, towards the river, and was rewarded with an even better sight: a fully-mature Bald Eagle, flying just over the treetops. He was tracking the course of the river eastward, heading downstream; if he maintained the same flight path he may well have eventually cruised right over our house.

I had even less time to admire his beauty than I'd had with the Red-tail. I have long since learned that one must take these things as they come; any and all chances to view such marvelous creatures, no matter how brief, must be cherished for what they are. Even though I was again only a few hundred yards from Route 99, the area has a feeling of remoteness about it. Somehow this made the sightings even sweeter. I felt as if I had been granted privileged access to the raptors' world. It was exhilarating in the way that only close encounters with the natural world can be.


It had been mid-afternoon when I began this walk, and by the time I completed my circuit of the field the sun was lowering and the shadows lengthening. All good things must come to an end; with some reluctance I made one final check of the open field in the vain hope of seeing another raptor, then turned and headed back up the string of the balloon toward my truck.

++++++++++

Since taking these walks our quirky weather has continued. Two days after my trek at "For All Forever" the predictions of unseasonable warmth held true. Most of the new snow retreated in the face of temperatures in the high 60s. But March is not yet upon us. No doubt we will be graced with a few more snowfalls before spring truly arrives. I hope I might have another opportunity or two to heed Henry's good advice before starting to think about mowing the lawn or planting the garden.

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*I explored this phenomenon quite a bit in an earlier post about the writing of Edward Howe Forbush.

The Thoreau quote comes from his journal of 21 February 1854. I found it in: Daily Observations: Thoreau on the Days of the Year, edited by Steve Grant, with engravings by Barry Moser. Published by University of Massachusetts Press, in cooperation with the Thoreau Society. 2005.

"Peter! Peter! Peter!"

After easing in like the meekest of lambs, March assumed a decidedly leonine nature a few days into the month. The almost freakishly warm weather we had for the closing days of February that took away much of the snow that hit around Valentine's Day, was replaced by days that started out with temps in the single digits and did not warm beyond the mid-teens. As I walked out to the end of the drive to retrieve our newspaper on the coldest of these mornings I was cheered, but not really surprised, to hear the sounds of "Peter! Peter! Peter!"¹ coming from the tangles of honeysuckle and bittersweet that fill the area between our driveway and the private road that parallels it. It was the song of a Tufted Titmouse, a somewhat larger cousin of the Black-capped Chickadee, our Maine state bird.

Titmice are always among the first birds to begin singing in the run-up to Spring. This was not even the first time I'd heard one this year. That had happened nearly a month earlier--on February 10, to be precise. On that occasion I was out shoveling newly-fallen snow from the network of paths that connect our several bird feeders in the yard on the side of the house. There was still some snow drifting down. I soon worked up a bit of a sweat--this had been a wet, heavy snowfall--and stopped to rest for a couple of minutes. As I leaned on my shovel, trying to catch my breath, I was delighted to be serenaded by the sweet sounds of a Titmouse, Petering away in the woods. That time I was surprised, as this was the earliest I'd ever heard one. My previous first-of-year (FOY) record of a song had been February 16, 2011, the date on which I recorded the sound file in the above link.

Titmice are ubiquitous, year-round denizens of our yard and the woods that surround our house here in southern Maine. Along with Chickadees, Mourning Doves, Blue Jays, Downy & Hairy Woodpeckers, White-breasted Nuthatches, and Goldfinches, they're one of the species of birds we can almost always count on seeing whenever we look outside, regardless of the time of year.² They're handsome, endearing little critters. With their round, black eyes, short beaks, rusty-orange flanks, and prominent crests, they can only be described as "perky." They are frequent patrons of our feeders. Like Chickadees, they customarily select a single seed with each visit to the feeder, and fly off with it to a nearby branch where they crack it open and eat the nutmeat. They then make a return trip and begin the process all over again. Rinse, repeat. They are perhaps a bit more suspicious of human presence than are Chickadees, but in general they seem quite comfortable sharing habitat with us large, invasive bipeds. And we are certainly happy to have them do so!

As common as Titmice are here now it's sometimes hard to remember that things were not always this way; they are a relatively recent addition to the avian biota in Maine. And in the rest of New England, for that matter. They were seen only rarely, if at all, in western Massachusetts when I was growing up in the 1950s and '60s. It was not until I moved to Tennessee in 1985 that I became acquainted with them.

They are absent from early 20th century books on birds in Maine. Olive Thorne Miller makes no mention of them in With the Birds in Maine (1904), nor does Bates College student Carrie Ella Miller in her Birds of Lewiston-Auburn and Vicinity (1918).³

If we turn to the work of other early ornithologists we can track the northward creep of the Tufted Titmouse. Edward Howe Forbush somewhat hesitantly gives them an entry in the third volume of Birds of Massachusetts and other New England States (1929). He characterizes them as a "very rare or casual visitor," and a "mere straggler in New England." In those bad old days when ornithologists insisted on having a "taken" specimen in hand, rather than a mere "sight record" to establish a bird's residency in a given area, Forbush explains that he has "not listed it as a Massachusetts bird because although several sight records have been given me we have no record of a specimen taken in the state."

He confesses that he'd never had a good opportunity to observe Titmice himself, so we are not treated to any of the lovely descriptive prose that enriches so many of his first-hand species accounts. Rather, he relies on the words of others, from other states, to supply notes about nesting and feeding habits. But Forbush goes on to indulge in a bit of prognostication: "I predict that it will be taken and listed eventually in every New England state, as these states are not very far from its normal range and individuals are prone to wander more or less." (vol. 3, pp. 365-366)  He notes only one confirmed specimen from Maine, taken possibly in 1890, near Orono.

"Crested Titmouse," John James Audubon

Similarly, Mabel Osgood Wright, in the 1936 edition of Birdcraft, comments that "The Tufted Titmouse is quite rare here [i.e. southern Connecticut, where she lived], but is a summer, and perhaps, winter resident in southern New York." In the 1947 edition of Field Guide to the Birds, Roger Tory Peterson gives northern New Jersey as the northernmost limit of the Titmouse's range. By the time of his 1980 revision, he included a range map (Map #249) that indicated Titmice had moved northward to occupy territory through all of Massachusetts, as well as southern Vermont and New Hampshire, and had even crept into southern York County in Maine. In a note on the map Peterson says that the bird is "Expanding range north (helped by feeders)."

In a study published in 1999, Colby College ornithologist W. Herbert Wilson found that Titmice had begun to establish nesting and breeding populations in Maine as far north as Waterville. By now they are common in many parts of the state, though perhaps not yet in the far northern reaches. They are beginning to move across the Canadian border into the Maritimes, but are still considered rare in New Brunswick. A birding friend in Halifax rues the fact that they have not yet gotten across the Bay of Fundy to Nova Scotia.

Titmice are just one of several bird species that are now common around us but whose residence this far north is a relatively recent development. Seeing a Northern Cardinal at our farm in western Massachusetts was an exceedingly rare treat when I was growing up, much to my father's dismay; they were one of his favorite birds. Now a pair frequently visits our place in Maine, though they are not as omnipresent as some of the other species I mentioned.

I'd never even heard of, much less seen, a Red-bellied Woodpecker until I moved to Tennessee. They are another species that was regarded as an "accidental" in Forbush's day and was termed "casual" in New England by Arthur Cleveland Bent in his Life Histories of North American Woodpeckers (1939). They are also another species that Peterson, in his 1980 edition, noted was expanding its range north. Now we have a pair around much of the time. In the summer of 2015 I located a nesting site in our woods. Later on that year we were tickled to have a couple of young ones show up at the house in company with their parents. Maine Audubon naturalist Doug Hitchcox has written about the expansion of their range into Maine and presents data from eBird to show where they are now occurring in our state.

So what is behind this gradual, but persistent, northward movement of our friend the Tufted Titmouse, the Red-bellied Woodpecker, and other species? We have seen that this trend has been going on for quite some time--recall Forbush's prediction in 1929 that Titmice would eventually take up residence throughout New England, and Peterson's 1980 comments about backyard feeding contributing to range expansion. Most current commentators, however, point to global climate change as a major factor. Whether or not this has been at work since the early 20th century and is only now being recognized as a force is not something I'm qualified to comment on.

If this is the case, we should perhaps look at the presence of new species in our neck of the world as something of a silver lining in the cloud of man-made climate change. As I write, the thermometer reads 12° F and there's a nasty wind gusting. Numerous Tufted Titmice are busy at the feeder outside my office window, competing for food with a larger group of Chickadees. Whatever factors brought them here, I am delighted with their presence! I must go now and refill the feeders.

¹ Sound file recorded February 16, 2011. This is actually a conversation between at least three individuals. 
² Titmice are such a commonplace around the house that apparently I've never exerted myself to get any photos of them! In the absence of any original images I use as the lead illustration for this post the Titmouse card from the Seventh Series of  "Useful Birds of America," issued in 1918 by the Church & Dwight company, makers of Arm & Hammer and Church brand baking sodas. This was one of ten series of trade/trading cards issued by the firm over the course of many years. Numerous other companies issued similar series of cards as part of a movement to educate people about the importance of birds. The Church & Dwight cards carry the slogan "For the good of all, do not destroy the birds." These cards will be the subject of a future post, or perhaps multiple posts. The painting of the Titmouse was done by Mary Emily Eaton, a British artist who lived in the U.S. from 1911-1932, and who was better known for her botanical illustrations. She did all the paintings for the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh series for Church & Dwight..
³ I am unaware of any familial relationship between the two women.