I’ve signed up for this year’s Will Bike 4 Food, the cycling fundraiser held by the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts.  This is the 6th year the Food Bank has held the event, and it will be my fourth time participating (I wasn’t able to do it in 2014 or 2015 because of travel and … Read more

In mid-October, a new hiking trail on newly conserved land was opened here in Hadley.  The Trustees of Reservations, a private non-profit, purchased the property to protect it from development, and are now making it available for the public to enjoy.  Mount Warner (a reasonably-sized hill in the north part of Hadley) is the location … Read more

We’ve had a bit of a snowstorm come through today – the first snow to stick this season.  Here’s how things looked when we were starting to shovel: Things were otherwise fine until I was defrosting some soup for dinner (to feed us and guests who were about to arrive to stay a few days), … Read more

In September, I went on my very first overseas trip.  I had left the US many times before this year, but always on trips to Canada.  In this case, I headed off for a 2-week vacation to Iceland and England. The motivation for this trip was an event announced back in March.  Kate Bush, one … Read more

This post officially announces that I’m signed up to ride in the 2013 Will Bike 4 Food event.  As mentioned in my last post, I couldn’t do last year’s ride because of pain in my knee.  However, I have taken steps to prevent that from happening again.  There is now less than a week to … Read more

Last year I participated in the inaugural Will Bike 4 Food ride, put on by the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts.  The Food Bank obviously considered that event a success, as they’re doing it again this year (it did raise more than $35,000 for their efforts in 2011).  I’m going to be riding in the … Read more

So I cleaned the oven last night. You might wonder why this warrants a blog post.  It’s true that I done plenty of oven cleaning before in my life, but this time I used the oven’s self-cleaning feature. And yes, if you’re wondering, I have never used the self-clean feature before.  Not on this or … Read more

[Just to note, this is my 200th blog post.] So, last Saturday, in the midst of the snowstorm (which I wrote about in my last post), I headed out to an event at a church in another town.  The event was a piano concert given by a friend of mine, preceded by a supper.  I … Read more

This year, I’m making another attempt at fulfilling the NaBloPoMo challenge.  That is, November is National Blog Posting Month, so I’ll be trying to post something here each day in the month of November.  30 posts in 30 days, and here goes with the first. If you live in the same area as me, you’re … Read more

As I’ve done on two previous occasions, I’m doing a fundraising bike ride for charity.  There are a couple of differences this time, though.  Instead of the MS Society, I’m riding in an event being held for the first time by the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts.  It’s a local organization that collects and distributes … Read more