Life in the Woods

A picnic in the rain starts off our trip to Concord.  We plan to walk around Walden Pond, made famous by Henry Thoreau in his book Life in the Woods.  

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.

— Henry David Thoreau

We start our walk at a replica of his cabin in the woods.

Incredible to think of all those famous writers, scientists and artists crowding into the room.  Not quite the world of solitude I imagined when I first read the book.

At the beginning of our walk we passed these stone sculptures.   There were so many of them...How on earth had people managed to get them to balance?   I made a very small 3 stone sculpture - even that wasn't easy to balance. 

The walk around the lake was gorgeous - calm waters, birds and wildlife.

Of course travelling with Roger there is no time to dally... onwards to Tanglewood, via Emily Dickinson's House!

Sadly it was closed but it was interesting to walk around the garden who were excavating the garden in the hope of finding some Dickinson treasure.  On this day they spent most of their time covering up and ducking from the rain.

And so to Tanglewood...