Four hours in a kayak paddling (and drifting!) on the celebrated Housatonic River in the Berkshires, between the Decker boat launch on New Lenox Rd. and Wood’s Pond, is as good a way to spend four hours on the Fourth of July. Oliver Wendell Holmes is credited with coining the exclamation, There’s no tonic like the Housatonic. Our marvelously meandering stream also won the affection of the great Charles Ives, who composed a piece titled, The housatonic at Stockbridge. And today I learned that some Lily Pods are pink!