Started off the day on a hot note. At breakfast I was sitting by the gas fireplace in the dining room when suddenly my tail was on fire!!! The guest sitting closest to be quickly put out the blaze, and I am just fine. My tail is tad shorter but no big deal.

Fortunately the day got better. It was a picture-perfect Berkshire day, sunny, in the sixties. Instead of grocery shopping, we drove on the newly opened road to the top of Mount Greylock, the highest peak in Massachusetts (not the Matterhorn!), from the south end, north of Pittsfield,  and meandered down to the north end, just outside of Williamstown. It is past peak but many of the leaves are brilliant golden and the red maples and Japanese red maples are outrageously scarlet. The muted rust tones have their own special beauty. There won’t be many more days like this this year, I’m afraid. See it now!

I  love chipmunks and squirrels! Thankfully, there are lots of them at Birchwood. For more than nine years, I have spent many afternoons barking and chasing the little critters, but I’ve never been able to catch one. Not one! They love to hide in the stone fences. I know they are there but, alas, they know I’m there, too. Nuts!

Since it is quite well known among my friends that I love bushy tails, my friend Amy gave me a stuffed squirrel. It was so realistic that guests often did a double-take!

Once I took the squirrel with me to an innkeeping conference, but in all of the excitement, I left it behind. No problem, Jim, the inn’s assistant innkeeper at the time, called the hotel. “Mrs. Chenaux seems to have left a squirrel in her room,” said Jim with a straight face. The hotel employee at the other end did not miss a beat and asked, “Sir, could you please describe the squirrel?”

Maybe we’re nuts but the squirrel did make it home eventually.