Have you looked up at the sky recently?

Sometimes we have to remind ourselves to look up!

Photo by MarashGirl©2021

TO MAYOR OF NEWTON RUTHANN FULLER: Please Use An Alternative Approach to Protect Historic Bullough's Pond Dam and the Laundry Brook Forest

          Dear Mayor Fuller, 

          I am writing to you as a long time resident of Newton, Massachusetts.  

As a little girl, I learned to skate on Bullough’s Pond.  

As an adult, I learned to appreciate the beauty of Bullough’s Pond and the Laundry Brook Forest. 

As a former voting member of Newton Parks and Recreation, I am writing to ask the powers that be to consider using an alternative approach that will protect Bullough’s Pond Dam and the Laundry Brook Forest. 

PLEASE DO NOT clear cut the banks of Bullough’s Pond  and put in gravel on the side of Dexter Road!!! '

          Sincerely,

          Bethel Bilezikian Charkoudian 

Happy Birthday, Marash Boy!!!!

Marash Boy stoking the fire at his favorite fireplace, at the top of Wilbraham Mountain,                           before the tornado...

Marash Girl remembers the first day she met you, Marash Boy!!! You were wearing the same beard that you are wearing today.  She loved you from that first day, beard and all, right through to this very moment, beard and all!!!!  Happy Birthday, Levon, my love!!!!

MASSACRE OF THE WHITE BIRCHES

Ridge Road, Wilbraham, Massachusetts, not so long ago, had the most beautiful stand of white birches in the town, white birches on privately owned property, but the town came out with an ordinance (a good twenty or more years ago) stating that owners of property needed town permission to cut trees on their own land  . . . the ordinance to take effect in one month.  The owner of the most beautiful stand of white birches in Wilbraham, Massachusetts, cut off his nose to spite his face . . . whoops, Marash Girl meant to write, cut down his trees to spite the town.  Now there is scrub where there was once a beautiful stand of white birches.  Marash Girl grieves for the lost beauty every time she walks by the property.

Nature's Art in Underwood Park

                                                  A Child's View Of Autumn                      Photo by Marash Girl

Johnny Acorn in Newton, Massachusetts

Apparently there's a man in Newton, Massachusetts, who is going around planting trees on public land,  which (and who knew) is against public policy!  I wonder if his name is Johnny Acorn!

Park Land to Parking Lots?

Perhaps folks are confused.  Perhaps, in all good faith, folks think that park land is meant to park automobiles on . . . (Yes, Marash Girl knows she's not supposed to end a sentence with  a  . . . what are those things called? prepositions?)  As the meaning of the word "park" has changed over the years, perhaps only God can save us from paving over the tiny parcels of open space that still exist!

The Bee Haven

The Bee Haven -- no, not the bee hive, The Bee Haven!  Yes, that's what it says on the front of this little house that Marash Girl found in a church thrift shop on Cape Cod.  Marash Girl thought it was cute and put it up on her front porch as decoration, but yesterday, a honey bee (who apparently can read) went right inside and took up residence!

The Cardinal on the Last Day of the Year

The cardinal peers in through the kitchen window on the last day of the year.

Monarch Butterfly Celebrates Halloween!

Monarch Butterfly (lower left) along Surf Drive, Falmouth, Massachusetts.  Photo by Marash Girl, October 30, 2014

Such a gift to see a Monarch Butterfly, albeit on the day before Halloween, in Falmouth, Massachusetts . . . the first Monarch Butterfly that Marash Girl had seen since her days roaming the hills of Wilbraham, Massachusetts. . . There must be milkweed growing along the coast in Falmouth's Salt Pond Bird (and, shall we say, Butterfly) Sanctuary!

Mushrooms in the Sand Dunes of Provincetown

Red Cap Boletus Mushrooms at Race Point in Provincetown?

Yes, insisted the handsome older gentleman with bright blue eyes and a heavy Russian accent. It's the last week in October, right? I'm heading to the dunes of Provincetown now (probably along with all the other Polish and Russian emigrees in Massachusetts) to gather Podosinovik  Mushrooms.  I parboil them and freeze them, then enjoy them all winter long.  I serve the red cap mushrooms with vodka to any guests who come calling.  In Russian these mushrooms are called Podosinovik because the  white-stemmed mushrooms have round red caps that are the color and shape of the leaves of the Osina Tree (the aspen tree).  I'd better hurry or the gatherers will have gathered all there is to gather!

N.B. Days later, Marash Girl was walking along the Bike Trail (the former railroad track) that runs along the Atlantic Ocean in Falmouth, Massachusetts, when she spied the mushroom pictured below.  

Could this be the mushroom the fellow from Russia was talking about? Or is it the poisonous variety? This mushroom does not look edible to Marash Girl!

Go South, young man!

A furry caterpillar heads south on Newtonville Avenue, as the temperatures drop precipitously!

The Patience of the Blue Heron

A Blue Heron patiently awaits lunch at the base of the Watertown Dam on the
Charles River in Watertown, Massachusetts
Photo by Marash Girl

Walking along the Charles River on a Sunny Afternoon.

Two  for the price of one -- Bridge over the Charles River late on a summer's afternoon - Photo  credit: Marash Girl; photo suggested by Marash Boy as we passed the bridge:  "Look -- there's a picture for you!"

Night Heron fishing in the afternoon on the Newton side of the Charles River

Hail the Sun Shower!

How often is it in our adult lives that we experience a natural phenomenon that we have never before experienced?

In September, Marash Girl wrote about the Sun Shower and the Armenians
(http://marashgirl.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-sun-shower-and-armenians.html)
but yesterday afternoon she experienced something she had never before heard of, much less experienced . . . she walked home through a sun shower of hail . . . hail pelting down around her while the sun continued to shine brightly above . . .  
Have any of you, dear readers, ever walked through a sun shower of hail?

The Sun Shower and the Armenians

Saturday, at a conference on Armenian Folklore and Mythology held at the National Association of Studies and Research in Belmont, Massachusetts, Prof. Bert Vaux of Cambridge University discussed the geography of folkloric motifs, specifically "The Sun Shower -- in Armenia and Beyond".  Although Marash Girl will not attempt to recap the lecture, she will use it as a jumping off point . . .

Now if any of you have ever experienced a sun shower, it is a moment to be cherished --  to stand in the rain and have the sun shining down on you at one and the same time.  And Marash Girl does remember such a moment -- standing in her back yard on Lowell Avenue in Newtonville, many years ago, on her right hand the rain did fall while on her left the sun shone.  Imagine that -- it was actually raining on half of her and her back yard, and shining on the other half of her and her back yard.

Discussing this with Marash Boy after hearing the presentation "The Sun Shower -- in Armenia and Beyond", Marash Boy commented that he had never heard the term, "sun shower". Whenever the sun was shining through the rain, his mother would tell him, "Look up and you'll see a rainbow!"  Marash Girl had never heard that (nor had she heard, as Professor Vaux brought to the fore, that the sun shower in Armenia signals the fact that a wolf is giving birth in the mountains).  But that very next day, Sunday -- yesterday, in fact -- Marash Girl went out for her early morning walk and as she crossed the bridge over the Massachusetts Turnpike in Newton Corner (granted, not Armenia, nor a very rural or romantic setting), gentle drops of rain blessed her as the sun, rising in the east, shone on her -- she was amazed -- here after all these years, she was experiencing a sun shower, and not even 24 hours after Professor Vaux had been discussing the phenomenon.  Remembering Marash Boy's words, she looked up, and sure enough, there in the western sky was the rainbow Marash Boy had promised.

Whether or not the wolf was giving birth in the mountains, she cannot say.

Cutler Park, Needham, Massachusetts: No peace for the city-weary!

Cutler Park, Needham, MA  Photo by Marash Girl

Cutler Park, Needham, MA - - As deafening as the cacophony from Route 128 (heard but not seen) 

Cutler Park, Needham, MA  Photo by Marash Girl

is the intimidation of the illegally off leash dogs romping the trails, their masters heedless of the signs.

                          Above, an abandoned well in Cutler Park -- an accident waiting to happen?

                                                                         Photo by Marash Girl

                              Is this the direction in which all of our public parks are headed?

Anchors Aweigh!

                                                                                              Photo credit: Marash Girl

Walking along Indian Hill Road in Chatham, Massachusetts, you may notice a heavy iron anchor propped up against a pine tree . . . an anchor that looks as if it should be on the bottom of the ocean rather than on the side of the road . . . how the heck did that ever get there?  Was this (as in North Texas) once the bottom of an ocean?  Or a very large kettle pond?  But in those days of course, there were no anchors, much less folks to lift them aweigh!

More Mulberries along the Charles -- A feast for the birds, a feast for a king

If you have been sauntering along the walkway that borders the Charles River in Watertown, Massachusetts, (and, by the way, only on the Watertown side, not on the Newton side), you may have noticed the walks stained with purple.  Were you to look above you, among the green leaves of the tree shading the walkway, you may have spied shiny white berries or perhaps luminous red berries.  White berries, red berries -- You may have asked yourself, "Are they poisonous?" and walked on by -- But if you were truly sensitive to the ecology of the area, you would have asked yourself, "What are they and how did they get here?"  Marash Boy knew what they were and stopped to feast on the lusciously ripe mulberries that bordered the Charles River on that June day. Who would have planted mulberries along the Charles?  He thought that mulberries were the special property of the Armenians from Marash -- he had grown up with the mulberry tree on the top of Wilbraham Mountain.  [See http://marashgirl.blogspot.com/2012/07/mulberries-along-charles.html]  But here they were in his own back yard, as it were. . . How so?  Did the Armenians from Watertown plant them when they arrived in the 1920's?  Did the Italians from Newton plant them?

Butterflies . . . Are they going the way of the honeybee?

Are we relegated to the plight of the "moron" in the old politically incorrect joke?  Will we have to throw butter out of the window every time we want to see a butterfly?            Photo Credit: Marash Girl