Bloomin' in Nashua

It took quite a long time for spring to arrive in Nashua, NH, and it wasn't until late May and early June that flowers were seen in outdoor areas of Clocktower Place (CTP), our mill apartment residence.

This display is at the main entry as people drive into the apartment parking area. The mill apartment has two main entrances referred to as CTP 1 and CTP 1

This is the large flower pot that leads up to CTP1, which is our entry.

There isn't an entry ramp at CTP2. These flowers are placed in pots close to the main door.

These flower pots of colorful blooms are also at two of the side entrances.

Downtown Nashua has a lot of colorful blooms, like these at pedestrian crossings on Main Street. Most of the Main Street restaurants that offer outdoor dining have various floral arrangements.

Martha's Exchange is a popular restaurant and brewery serving lunch and dinner daily.

Surf Restaurant is a few doors down from Martha's, and specializes in seafood dining. It has been regularly named as the Best Seafood in New Hampshire. This restaurant also benefits from its location adjacent to the Nashua Center for the Arts and on show nights, there's usually a lengthy wait time to be seated.

Nearly all of the Main Street restaurants that offer outdoor dining have various flowers.

Red, white and nearly blue flowers are popular colors in many of the arrangements.

The city's Department of Public Works does a great job of regularly watering all of these flowers so that residents and visitors can enjoy them all summer.

Speaking of enjoyment, we celebrated 🎉 a special occasion yesterday — Patrick's 🎂.

His lunch time choice was to go to the Big One, a local family-owned ice cream stand for the lunch time special of two hot dogs, soda and chips capped off with a hot fudge sundae for dessert. This local visit is a once-a year treat, usually around the time of his birthday, this year, it was a timely one as well. 

That's because today, July 16, is National Hot 🌭 Dog Day, which is celebrated on the third Wednesday in July. The earliest known Hot Dog Day began in Alfred, NY, in 1972 started by two Alfred University students as a fundraiser for local charities and community organizations.

The National Hot Dog and Sausage Council (NHDSC) is an American trade association that promotes the hot dog and sausage industry. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., it was founded in 1994 by the American Meat Institute, which promotes July as National Hot Dog Month and October as National Sausage Month. During the pandemic, the council designated the third July Wednesday as cause for a national celebration. According to council statistics, Americans eat about 7 billion hot dogs during hot dog season, or some 818 each second. 

That's a lot of  🌭. Patrick helped this week but won't be entering any eating contests !

What's Happening Here

Posting about places we've gone to on road trips is fun, but here's what's been happening at home in Nashua, NH. (There will be a few more posts about our recent anniversary road trip.)

On Monday, there was a parade down Main Street in observance of Memorial Day. It's never a long parade and participants included high school and middle school marching bands, boy scouts, veterans groups, and (of course) politicians. Attendance was surprisingly larger than in previous years spoken from our experience in attending the annual Memorial and Veterans Day parades.

The nearby town of Hudson, NH, has its annual flag display on the town square which we passed by several times last week. It will stay up through the July 4 holiday, hopefully escaping any gusty winds.

Nashua is the only city in the U.S. that hosts an annual international sculpture symposium. This year, sculptors are representing the U.S., Israel, Poland, and Iran.

Work is continuing on four sculptures that will be placed in and around the city with completion set for this weekend. The materials in use are marble and granite. Onlookers are invited to watch the sculptors. They are working outdoors at the Picker Artists studios, an artisan cooperative of nine artists in 12 studios that's within walking distance of the mill apartments. (Spoiler Alert: A future post will have more information on the Nashua symposium.)

It seems that spring took quite a while getting to Nashua, NH, however, within the past few weeks, flowers have been blooming in the garden at Le Parc de Notre Renaissance Française (informally called the French Park or Renaissance Park) near the mill apartments.

This public garden is tended to by neighbors on our apt floor. Their gardening efforts are appreciated by everyone who spends time here. More flowers will be in bloom in a few weeks.

These beauties were in bloom around the mill apartment grounds within the past few weeks.

A definite sign of warmer weather is the increase in Canada Goose on the Nashua River. This week, there were several families with 3 to 6 goslings in each. Watching them is entertaining as the young ones practice flight maneuvers on the river. However, the presence of so many often makes walking an exercise in dodging substantial droppings along the river walk. 

Unfortunately, many people toss bread products, as unhealthy for goose as for humans. Geese consistently fed bread become malnourished, filling up on junk food and neglecting natural food sources. Extreme cases can lead to a condition known as angel wing which can leave the birds unable to fly. For anyone tempted to offer food, better choices are birdseed, lettuce or other greens, foods just as nutritious for humans.

An evening of severe downpours resulted in this colorful sunset across the Nashua River. The building is Lofts 34 another apartment building that's not connected with the mill apartments. 

Flowers at Home

How does your garden grow?

Flower arrangements at entry to Clocktower Place Apts and the entry to our building

Over the past few weeks, many bloggers have posted photos showing flowers either in their yards or seen on walks around their area. In this post, I'm reciprocating and showing flowers in and around our home locale.

When we owned homes in NJ and later VA, we always had flowers in the yard, whether potted or in the ground. It's quite different living in a mill apartment complex, which was formerly an industrial area. 

Large displays like these are seen throughout the mill apt grounds

But that doesn't mean, that there's a scarcity of blooms around  the mill apt grounds. The management company hires outside an landscape company which always installs seasonal plantings that are plentiful and colorful. The company also maintains the blooms as there’s no full-time gardeners on staff, only maintenance personnel.

A landscaping firm tend the flowers weekly

There are potted flowers near all the building entrances and exits. It's always uplifting to see these bright colors on a daily basis.

Our garden pansy arrangements were never this bountiful

There's also the benefits of not needing to care for them on a daily basis as we did when we owned a home. Instead, our homeowner friends, here and elsewhere, freely share their gardening tales, which includes mention of all the work involved. When they ask if we miss it, there's no hesitation in saying that we do not. Maybe one day, we'll reconsider our living options, but less work suits us now.

Examples of plantings in the City of Nashua, NH, downtown area

The City of Nashua has numerous seasonal plantings, both potted displays and ground displays along Main Street. Above is a sample of some that were seen on a recent walk. A future post will feature more of these blooms.

Nashua, NH, is Blooming

Flowers in bloom in Nashua, NH

Early last month a blog post featured Nashua NH's Canadian ties largely due to the many mill workers who labored in the city's textile mills, including the re-purposed mill we call home, formerly Nashua Manufacturing Corporation and now Clocktower Place.

Clocktower Place Apartments, formerly the Nashua Manufacturing Company, Nashua, NH

That post highlighted a pocket park, Le Parc de Notre Renaissance Francaise (Renaissance Park) most often called the French Park. This park, alongside the Nashua River, is where we've been spending many afternoons. It's a great location to read, watch the river and talk to folks.

La Dame de Notre Renaissance Francaise (The Lady of Our French Renaissance)

The park's centerpiece is this bronze statue of a millworker and her son. Up until a couple of weeks ago, the area around the sculpture was barren looking. Since then the city has started adding flowers and other plantings and it's looking colorful. This is how it looked this week.

As noted earlier, the park also includes a flower garden that's maintained jointly by the city and some of our apartment neighbors. It's tended to regularly and is currently hosting a large number of mostly purple irises in bloom now. It's so nice to see my favorite color every day.

There's other colorful blooms, in addition to purple ones, and these are just as lovely.

This rhododendron plant while not actually in the French Park is very close to it near the we use daily to access the park. Its flowers are in various stages of buds and/or full colorful blooms. 

But the French Park isn't the only place that flowers are finally blooming in Nashua, NH, after a late start to spring. On our walks around the city, here's more blooms we've seen.

It's been a great way to unwind from the current world stressors. The past few months have been filled with corona news virus of deaths, illnesses, and shut-downs. The past week, has brought much racial tension, unrest and rioting in the U.S. and abroad. Let's not forget the political arena, as well. Such events are will not be ongoing blog topics herein. They will not be dismissed, but included as effecting ourselves and/or to our city.

Other bloggers have commented on these events in detailed posts. That's certainly their prerogative and they should do what feels right for them. However, as most people are fully aware of events happening now, my decision to post/comment on them has been far less. The news media has been, and continues to be, relentless even repetitive in its coverage, perhaps to excess. Do we really need to be reminded all the time, every hour? As always, different views are welcome and appreciated in your comments.

Seeing nature's beauty offers an escape and a way for us to truly appreciate and be thankful that we are doing well as are family, friends, and neighbors. We hope the same is true for all of you and yours.

To answer a blogger's question, collages in this post were created with the PhotoScapeX photo editor downloaded from the app store (Apple). I've been using the free version for a two months; this program and others were listed in a mid-March post. A paid upgrade ($40 USD) is available and offers even more features.

Last, but certainly not least, we remain grateful and appreciative for all comments from fellow bloggers. My husband, Patrick/Grenville appreciated the condolences many posted on the passing of his beloved Aunt Anita. Our deepest thanks to everyone.

Bridge of Flowers

If you want to see a beautiful and very colorful re-use of a former transportation route, look no further than the Bridge of Flowers.

This 400-foot-long former trolley line bridge has been converted into a garden pathway. Open from April 1 to October 31, the bridge spans the Deerfield River between Shelburne Falls and Buckland, MA. The bridge is covered includes over 500 varieties of continuously blooming flowers from April through October. Luckily, our recent visit was in late August.

The bridge was built in 1908 at a cost of $20,000 by the Shelburne Falls and Colrain Street Railway, so that freight could be picked up and dropped off directly with the railroad. 

By 1927, the street railway company went bankrupt. Automobile usage was increasing and freight began to be transported by trucks. By 1929, the bridge was abandoned and weed covered, when a local resident (Antoinette Burnham) had an idea to transform it into a garden. It wasn't needed as a footbridge, yet couldn't be torn down as it carried a water main between Shelburne Falls and the adjoining Buckland, MA.

The Shelburne Women's Club sponsored the flower project in 1928 and the following year, 80 loads of loam and several loads of fertilizer were brought to the bridge as women's clubs around town raised $1,000 for planting.

By 1975, the bridge structure was deteriorating. Funds were raised for a study that found it required nearly $600,000 in repairs which included replacing a water line. The monies were raised by various local organizations. During the restoration, every plant was removed and cared for privately.

Then, in 1983, the bridge was completely renovated, at a cost of $500,0000 and under the expertise of a local horticulturalist. Today, its upkeep relies on a paid gardener as well as volunteer help from the Shelburne Falls Women’s Club.

The history of the railway is preserved in the Shelburne Falls Trolley Museum which maintains Trolley No. 10. This trolley crossed the bridge for 30 years hauling passengers, apples, mail, milk and other freight. It was restored after being used as a shed and chicken coop. Unfortunately, the museum was closed on the day of our visit, which means we'll take a future road trip there.

Blooms & Flutterbys

On a recent outing along the river walk here in Nashua, NH, so called as it's a paved path along part of the Nashua River near the mill apartments we live in now, these were some, of the colorful blooms.

There was also a fritillary butterfly which only on this flower alone. This butterfly is sometimes mistaken for its more famous distant cousin, the monarch butterfly, although they seem very different to me. 

Most fritillaries are orange and black like monarchs, but with a different pattern. However, some are about the same size. There are 14 species of the so-called greater fritillaries (genus Speyeria) and 16 lesser fritillaries (genus Bolloria). Their names refer to their sizes. 



The common name comes from the Latin, fritillus, meaning chessboard or dice box.  Another name for these butterflies is silverspots because of metallic markings on their wing's undersides. It's possible that this pattern serves as a camouflage too.

Like many butterflies, the fritillary caterpillar is selective about what it eats. It doesn't favor milkweed like monarchs. It prefers violets and without violets, there would be no fritillary butterflies. Adults go for nectar of native flowers, such as butterfly weed, common milkweed, Joe-pye-weed and others. They also visit non-native flowers such as lilacs, butterfly bush and some thistles.

Soon two fritillaries were on the same bloom and didn't seem to mind sharing.

I don't know the name of this flower, but it was certainly attractive as a third fritillary landed on the same flower despite other blooms nearby.

Whatever reason these blooms were the attractive to this trio, it provided a great photo opportunity during my late afternoon walk.