If there is one advantage to jetlag when you go back to the States, it sure makes for long days. This year I arose around six on the first day, which is pretty late. Most years I am up and about by 4 a.m. America is rises early too so that worked well with the household. As it got lighter the woods beyond the backyard began to appear. You can look as far as you can and not see another house, at least in that direction. It’s all protected by the Town’s wetlands department. Many Spanish have a colorful amalgam of New York, Iowa and Las Vegas in their heads when they think of America, and this can lead to a a great deal of confusion and disappointment when they see lower New England and find themselves engulfed in endless wooded terrain. It didn’t used to be that way. Well, actually it did.
When the first settlers arrived, the must have encountered a fairly similar landscape, barring the million-dollar homes scattered throughout, but as more people came, so were the trees felled to make room for pastures and fields for agriculture. Back in the 19th Century, the immense majority of this area was farmland, which partly explains why there are miles and miles of knee-high stone walls carving out acres of forest. As the town’s economy transferred from farming to residential living, the woodlands returned. You Greenwich, wasn’t always the preppy rich town many know it to be.
