Morning Coffee On The Stone Patio.

It's 4 am in Washington state but I'm not in Washington anymore, I'm in Plainfield, Massachusetts where it's 7.

Our sleeping space

Our sleeping space again

Bathed in morning sun, I lie in bed surrounded by treetops and a million birds while mentally organizing my day.   I recognize hermit thrushes and 'warblers'.  (there are there are way too many types of warblers for me to keep track of so I just lump them all together).  The hermit thrush owns my favorite song...even more favorite than Blues Traveler 'Runaround'.



I'm up.   Morning coffee on Vince's judiciously laid stone patio followed by a walk down the road to the other house.

Vince constructing the stone patio

Max watching Vince constructing the stone patio

The next 5 photos are of the 'country estate' I was telling you about.  Recently sold, it is the nearest neighbor to the blog's featured home

wide shot of from the south east

eastern sun on the entry deck

front yard from the west

view of carriage house from the deck

view from front yard

I turned into the winding driveway lined with rhododendrons in full bloom while the bicycle tire tracks I'd been following continued to the state forest a mile down the road. The extensive trail network in   Kenneth Dubuque State Forest (some call it Hawley State Forest) is well known throughout New England for being a mountain biker's paradise.


Standing solidly before me were the buildings that had housed the business we sold 5 years ago.   Like the other house, other than needing the thick, green lawn mowed and some weeds pulled, the place looked exactly like it did when we left a year ago.


The eighteen months of well-executed construction had transformed the complex into a country estate.


We designed it to feel like a home since we knew we'd spending so much of our life, at the time, there.  We wanted it to be welcoming.  Traditional New England architecture with good windows, slate roof, large comfortable spaces, efficient heating systems and insulation.  Here we'd spent each day with our family of employees designing and constructing cycling and ski apparel IN AMERICA.  Our groomed cross-country ski trail kept us sane when 60 hour work weeks were inevitable.  Abutting the state forest was a convenience we appreciated on nearly a daily basis (hiking, running, cycling and skiing).