Not this house.

But. This structure standing in northeastern Connecticut evoked memories. Bubbled up. Going by pastures, cattle, dairies. Horses out grazing. Dirt roads and old burying grounds. Room to swing arms and get lost. Not so easy now.

Motivated by another quest, let’s go over to Coventry. Is it still there?

No. Views in passing from Silver Street. Memories of a woman way ahead of her time. Her habitat, shaped around ideas that grew became magnet and inspiration for others.

Caprilands exist now only in memories (and likely, herbs that have gone native). Books, booklets. Photographs taken from the heyday of this once-special destination

Shards of those visits: Parking in the small lot near an earthen berm/hill. Walk, look. Marvel. Pinch leaves and inhale the fragrances. Get ideas. Learn. Peruse the shops’s offerings, books.

The barn where items could be purchased. Cool, dark, scented by overhead hanging herbs.

Now the house is gone (see below). The land is purchased and has a new owner.

Thinking, thinking. What looked like (from a distance on the road as no trespassing signs are posted) a carcass of a great giant, a tree. A beached whale of sorts, on its side.

Is it dead? Was this the beloved huge tree? Very likely. The enormous entity (300 years old?) that grew in back of the house at Caprilands, the one we sat beneath long ago.

Where the ashes of the late Adelma Grenier Simmons were scattered.

Oh no.

It was/is an ash.

An excerpt from a gifted (unnamed) writer:

“Epilogue

One day in early August, I visited the ash tree. Funny how you never see what’s right in front of you.

It is a spectacular tree. Its branches reach up and out, seemingly grabbing for the air in the sky and the earth below at the same time. Some of the branches are missing; their only legacy is the scars they left behind in the massive trunk. The roots of the white ash travel far throughout the land; some pop up long after they should have burrowed safely underground.

I finally got it.”

–Hartford Courant (1998; no byline which is a shame).

And the house is gone–moved away, the property is posted No Trespassing.

From 2014 Hartford Courant, no byline:

“Walking around, I could still smell and pick the mint, thyme, lavender, lemon balm and artemisia, untouched for years. A huge ash tree, not in good health, is a sentry near the greenhouse.”

That was then, this is now.

Pondering the intelligence and determination, vision–that led to self-publishing her booklets, illustrating these herself. Capturing the life gleaned knowledge to preserve all. Ferry it to the future. Then, people caught on to her wisdom (maybe great marketing had something to do with this), and so a legend was launched.

You can still “visit” by reading her words: Search your local library for options. (Con all of her early self-published works be brought tohter in a new anthology, please?)

Imagining the detritus that shook out of the house, beams, floorboards and more being carefully taken apart and then moved.

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

–George Bernard Shaw

The year of the horse. Realizing many people may never see a live one, know the soft nuzzle, whiskers. The scent of leaning in to hug a horse (one you know). Wandering a meadow bareback, a halter on no bit–dogs running beside. The crunch crunch sounds of her grazing while you laze along on a summer day. (Not the same as all business mode and this horse knows the difference.)

Take a ride in Old Wethersfield in winter, with an accomplished driver behind draft horses. Slow down. Dip into a shop for something delicious to warm up. Walk around. If not up to a ride in a wagon, take a stroll–Old Wethersfield is very friendly to people (and leashed dogs). Children, strollers.

One more weekend, Feb. 14 and Feb. 15, for these horse-drawn excursions. Free.

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— Moo Dog Press (@moodogpress.com) January 11, 2026 at 7:14 PM

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”

― Thomas A. Edison