Saturday, March 28, 2009

Old Home Place

[Ed Note: This has absolutely nothing to do with sports, so feel free to take a pass. I'm taking the weekend off from blogging since I'm upstate but figured (something > nothing)]

It was about 65 today, so I decided to cue up a playlist of relatively obscure Bob Marley songs, and take a walk in my development's common land and snap some pictures. Despite what the musical selection might lead you to believe, no illegal activities occurred during the process of producing this post. Well, actually, there was about 45 seconds worth of trespassing.

I mentioned it in the Snow Day post, but here is little more about the common land, if you are so inclined: The company that developed this neighborhood had the foresight to set aside 50 of the 130 acres it is set on for the shared usage of the homeowners. Those fifty acres border on the Mohawk River and would be absolutely prime if they weren't located directly across from Knolls Atomic Power Lab and a GE Research and Development facility.

It's probably not the greatest time of year to be taking pictures back there. Actually, scratch that, it's the worst possible time. The snow is gone, aside from a few frozen waterfalls on the South side of the river, and nothing has started to come to life yet. It's gray and drab, but I think it's still incredibly beautiful in it's own way. It makes the things that are colorful stand out even more.

It was a somewhat bittersweet photo safari, as many of the trails that Sampson and I used to mosey along are totally grown over. No one really goes down there anymore, so the homeowners association has really let the place go. In a way, that's better though, because it's a lot cooler feeling like the only person to take advantage of it. It also makes the song choice even more appropriate. It's a version of The Dillard's Old Home Place performed by Phish on 06/11/98 at the Worcester Centrum.

If you watch closely, you can see Llenroc peeking through the trees in one of the pictures.