Massachusetts • Home • Conservation • Adventure
A home in the woods, ponds and trails close by, and years spent helping protect the landscapes that made this town so special.
I lived in Ashburnham, Massachusetts, for 19 years, and those years became one of the most important chapters of my life. It was a place where home, outdoor adventure, community service, ecology, and conservation all came together.
Ashburnham gave me immediate access to woods, ponds, old roads, trails, hills, wildlife, and four very different New England seasons. It was a perfect place for hiking, mountain biking, paddling, fishing, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, and simply wandering outside to see what was happening in the natural world.
It was also where I became deeply involved in local conservation—serving for years on the Conservation Commission and helping establish the Ashburnham Conservation Trust. We worked to protect the places that made the town worth living in, not only for ourselves but for everyone who would come after us.
The A-frame was more than a house. It was a home surrounded by the landscape I loved—trees, changing light, snow, birds, and the quiet rhythm of a small New England town.
The steep roof and compact shape fit the setting perfectly. It felt connected to the woods rather than imposed upon them. The driveway, the yard, and the house itself became the starting point for countless days outdoors.
Long after moving away, the sight of the property still brings back the feeling of those years. Houses change hands and landscapes evolve, but the experiences attached to a place remain.
Every approach up the driveway, every storm, every fall foliage season, and every winter morning became part of the story.
A real-estate listing reduces a home to square footage, rooms, and features. Living there was something else entirely. The real value was the way the house connected to the surrounding town, ponds, trails, people, and seasons.
The property was a base camp for a life that was spent outdoors whenever possible.
Ashburnham is a town of ponds, wetlands, forests, and small waterways. Boats were never just stored equipment; they represented another afternoon or evening waiting to happen.
Paddling gave me a different view of the landscape. From the water, the shoreline, wetlands, birds, and changing weather all became part of the experience.
Having boats close at hand made it easy to take advantage of a calm evening, good weather, or a free afternoon. Outdoor life did not require a complicated expedition. Sometimes the best adventure was only a few minutes from home.
That access was one of Ashburnham's great gifts.
Some of my favorite Ashburnham views were not grand vistas. They were glimpses—a pond appearing through the trees, a wetland opening beside an old road, sunlight moving across the forest floor, or fresh snow outlining every branch.
Living there encouraged me to notice small changes in the land from one season to the next.
Old roads, wells, stone walls, cellar holes, and town landmarks are scattered throughout the New England woods. They are reminders that these forests have long human histories layered beneath the trees.
Exploring those places made every walk feel like a combination of ecology, geology, and local history.
An old well in the woods can tell a story without saying a word. It marks a place where someone once lived, worked, or depended on the land in a very direct way.
Places like this remind us that conservation is not about freezing land in time. It is about protecting the natural and cultural history together.
Even an ordinary roadside sand barrel can bring back winter in north-central Massachusetts—the icy roads, snowbanks, frozen mornings, and the practical traditions that helped people get through the season.
The harshness of winter was part of the place, and also part of what made spring feel so good when it finally arrived.
Ashburnham sits in an excellent part of New England for hiking. The Wapack Trail, Mount Watatic, the Midstate Trail, and many local woods roads and conservation paths were close enough for frequent use.
These trails connected local adventures to the larger mountain landscape of northern Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire.
I served for about five years as chairman of the Ashburnham Conservation Commission. We reviewed projects, strengthened local protections, and worked to make sure development respected wetlands, waterways, groundwater, wildlife habitat, and neighboring properties.
One of the principles I pushed strongly was keeping stormwater on site through low-impact design rather than simply sending runoff downhill to someone else.
I helped co-found the Ashburnham Conservation Trust, and over the years the amount of protected land grew to roughly 6,000 acres. Each parcel mattered, but the larger goal was connectivity—linking forests, wetlands, trails, wildlife corridors, and watersheds into a functioning landscape.
Maps make it possible to see the cumulative result of many separate projects, donations, negotiations, town decisions, and years of volunteer work.
The lasting value of a local land trust is that its work continues beyond the people who first started it. New volunteers take over, new projects emerge, and the original mission keeps growing.
Seeing the Conservation Trust continue its work is one of the most satisfying parts of looking back at my years in Ashburnham.
Returning to the A-frame area with Kym connected two different parts of my life. The place was filled with old memories, but the visit created new ones too.
A former home is never exactly the same when you return, because you are not exactly the same. Still, the land, the house, and the feeling of the place can bring everything back in an instant.
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