Pottersville

Bob loves trains. I enjoy miniatures. Bob found a museum that fit both our interests.

Bob came over the border to visit me at the cottage. It takes me an hour and 45 minutes to get from my house in Vermont to the cottage in New York...a distance of about 80 miles. Bob lives in Hubbardton, which is about halfway between. He actually likes meeting me at the cottage because he gets to take the Ticonderoga ferry across a narrow area of Lake Champlain.

He came for dinner on Wednesday and on Thursday morning we traveled along Route 8 out of Hague, heading towards Pottersville. I once thought this stretch of road had more curves than anyplace else. I now know better! But it does have one thing that's missing from the road between Cluny and Blanot, France...

Fortunately, this elephant just watches the traffic go by.

 
We passed some beautiful small lakes along the way. I checked that there was access for a kayak so I can return another day for a different type of adventure.

If someone had described this house to me, I wouldn't have believed them.

Here a picture really is worth a thousand words. I wonder if the inside is as wild as the outside?

 Then we reached Pottersville. From the outside we could tell the museum building had once upon a time been a restaurant. Now it is 5000 square feet of scenes with all kinds of trains going in all directions.

This picture illustrates the first problem I encountered. Moving trains photograph as a blur.

Solution? Don't take pictures of moving trains. There were too many to avoid, but many of them would pause briefly and then continue on.

Americans proclaim a reverence for their flag, but we seem to use the flag as decoration for places or events, no matter how trivial.

Even that piece of culture showed up in some of the museum scenes. 

There were a lot of figures, yet I never had the feeling that a was seeing the same person even for a second time.

The scenes were set up geographically, moving from the 1939-1940 World's Fair on Long Island, NY across the Hudson into New Jersey and then back into New York as they moved northward.

The Catskill Mountains are south of the Adirondack Mountains.

Scenes also depicted all of the seasons. These colors will be showing up soon in the real world.

It was also interesting to watch the lighting for each scene change from day to night and back again. During the "day" the train lights were off. As night approached, not only were the trains lit, but house lights would turn on and become brighter.

They also worked to have perspective. Buildings, trees, trains, and even people were larger in the foreground.

You could spend hours checking out the details.

There's a real house that Alfred Hitchcock had reconstructed on the Hollywood set for the movie Psycho.It became known as "Mother's house" and it now also exists in one of the train scenes. As in the movie, there's a light on in a second floor window!

The ice skaters glided hither and yon. We really don't have the big open squares with nothing but cobblestones that seem to be in every European city. 

The bulldozer rumbled back and forth. The house wall was constantly being raised. One fellow never stopped sawing a piece of wood while another hammered the same nail forever.

The man who designed these scenes had a career designing theatre sets for Broadway. Apparently 55 people had a hand in putting all of this together. The museum opened its doors for the first time last August.

The hay is being lifted into the barn. Somehow the wagon never gets empty.

Nearby was a fisherman in a rowboat on a small pond. He had caught a fish and his fishing pole would raise the fish out of the "water" and then let the fish disappear again. I took at least 5 photographs, but I couldn't get the timing right in order to "catch" that fish in the picture!

I got a chuckle out of seeing legs and arms moving to make a snow angel. Do kids make snow angels in France?

One large display was of Prince Edward Island up in Canada...really good waterfront details...

this is only a portion of the Prince Edward Island display

This would be an enjoyable place to visit for those who like antique cars. There were a slew of them in some of the other scenes.

Bob enjoyed seeing the construction and farm machinery in the displays...he managed to find a green John Deere tractor, his favorite.

The train museum was a pleasant morning's excursion.

We returned to the cottage for lunch, a nap, and then had time for a swim before Bob left for his home.

I spent the evening playing Rummykub with Mimi and getting ready to leave for Belmont, VT the next day. I had to be home on Friday in time to usher for Fiddler on the Roof at the Weston Playhouse. While collecting tickets in the balcony for that performance, I got to see Margery and Gary. They came to see the show the evening I happened to be ushering!

Jasper

This sweet, crazy cat now sleeps forever. While I was at the cottage, Griff called to tell me that Jasper was dead. The dogs weren't home to keep critters out of the yard, though they might not have made a difference even if they had been around. Annie tends to stay in the house and William spends more time in the front yard than in the back by the woods. From the fur that still clings to the grass, Jasper, 22 pounds of solid cat, was attacked near the back of the house. He was then carried to the edge of the back lawn and eaten. Only fur and entrails are left to tell the tale. At least we know he isn't sick or injured somewhere in the woods. 

Jasper was the official greeter, meeting us as we got out of our cars. If I took a walk down the road, Jasper followed along. If I went further than he wanted to go, he'd yowl at me until I turned around and headed home. At my desk, his tail would drape itself over my keyboard. If I sat down to read in my stuffed chair, Jasper would balance on the chair arm to keep me company. Just because Griff's rooms are on the second floor ("first" floor in France) and we have a door at the top of the inside stairs to keep the pets downstairs, Jasper wasn't going to be kept away from Griff. He'd climb the outside stairs to Griff's deck and scratch on the window to be let in up there. Jasper ruled the house.    We miss him.

Irene

This is the Irene who cuts my hair. (That's my buddy Mary in the mirror...her interesting idea, but we should have undone the flash.)

This is also the week that in 2011 the hurricane named Irene struck Vermont.

Reminders of that Irene are all around us. The brown water in lakes that filled with silt is beginning to clear. I assume the silt is settling to the bottom of those lakes. 

This isn't the most spectacular view, but it's a place I drive by near Margery's home.

The water shown in this picture is the normal size of this creek. The rocks were under dirt and grass and brush before Irene. The dirt and vegetation was washed away leaving the rocks as reminders of just how much this stream expanded. And a lot of that dirt ended up suspended in lake water, turning that water brown.

This is the same stream, just a little further up the road. When the water from Irene couldn't spread out, it moved upwards. What is brown dirt now, was green forest before Irene.

This year we could use some of Irene's water. The ground is dry. We haven't seen much rain, certainly not the long gentle soaking rains...

And still so many people with political  power believe we can continue to take from Mother Nature without taking care of her as well.

Perennial Pleasures

East Hardwick is waaaaaaay up in northern Vermont. Several years ago Margery found Perennial Pleasures, a nursery for plants that offers informative garden tours, combined with a place to enjoy a "British" tea including cucumber sandwiches, scones, and clotted cream. We know we will come home with plants, but we also enjoy a luncheon in the tea garden. It has become a once-a-year destination.

This past Sunday I was on the road by 8:30 to reach Margery's house by 9 AM. Then we were off to our first stop in Randolph for breakfast where Margery always has eggs Benedict and I have whatever....

Back on the road heading north. As we got closer to East Hardwick Margery was convinced that she knew the way better than her GPS. She ignored it's direction to turn off the main road and kept on going. I didn't mind; the scenery was pleasant. Meanwhile, the GPS wouldn't recalculate. It kept insisting that she turn around.

Eventually Margery pulled over and got out an old-fashioned paper map. I located East Hardwick back where the GPS had wanted her to turn off the main road. Margery was willing to argue with a machine, but not with a printed map, and so she turned us around.We arrived just before the garden tour was to begin... It was perfect timing.

And the predicted rain held off. Around 3 PM we were enjoying our British tea. I came home with 2 kinds of heather, 2 kinds of lavender (to remind me of the lavender that grew by the gite in Blanot), European ginger, lambia, Cinderella phlox, and a euphorbia. I hope the latter will grow to hide the cement base for one rack of solar panels as well as provide a flower I can use in the fall teacher vases.

Pictured at the right is a bed of heather...

Last year we purchased the apple mint that Perennial Pleasures uses in their cucumber sandwiches. Both our plants are doing well. Next year I hope I'll remember to grow cucumbers.

Margery and I are now plotting a trip to grape country near the Finger Lakes in New York State. That will probably take place in a few weeks because this summer's weather is ripening fruit earlier than usual.

One tip I learned on our garden tour was to mimic dear in early summer. Dear nibble the tender budding shoots of phlox which forces the plant to set out another set of flower buds that bloom later than the first set would have. This will help me produce more fall flowers for the vases I take into school.

Trees Coming Down

Before repairing the damage one tree did to the cottage porch, we decided that it would be smart to remove two other trees that were over 100 feet tall and in a similar position as the one that had fallen on its own.

Thus tree-felling became an evening's entertainment.

Here the tree cutter, Danne, is working his way up the pine, lopping off one branch at a time.


Below is Keith, the fellow who runs the tree removal company, and my sister, Nancy, watching from the porch.

On the ground are Carol Ann, her adopted son Eli, and Ursula in between them. All are watching Danne in the pine tree using his chain saw to lop off branches.

 

Watching...

          watching...

                     watching...

                                waiting...

because the very top is about to be cut loose...

                                                                 
Danne, of course, was strapped to the branchless section of the tree trunk. When the top fell, the standing trunk vibrated as if there was a magnitude 10 earthquake!

I thought for sure the roots would lift out of the ground and the trunk would fall with Danne getting crushed. I'd never seen a tree move that much, that fast, but after what seemed like an eternity it stopped being a rodeo bucking bronco. Danne loosened his ropes and calmly began to descend.

Amazing.

             

Ursula and Luke, Carol Ann and Mike's other adopted son, continued to watch...

Folk from my cousins' cottage next door came over as well. The show certainly wasn't over...

The next section of tree trunk was about to fall, but first there was plenty of sawdust in the air.

Notice how Danne's feet don't appear to be resting on anything. He was wearing a tree-climbing version of stirrups that acted like cats' claws.

     

And the next section came down...


That time the standing section of tree trunk didn't vibrate.

After the last section of the pine was on the ground, Danne began working on the oak tree. Most of the time we couldn't see him...

                                      but Eli was sure trying to peek under the branches...

 Most of the oak tree has now become our wood pile. We hadn't been using the fireplace because no one wanted to buy firewood...that won't be a problem for the next few years!

 

Around the House

Tucked into a corner of the living room is an inexpensive bookcase that I turned into a dollhouse for my petite fille, Ursula.

To create a garden I glued plastic greenery to the sides and put a white picket fence in front of it. The grass is a piece of green felt with wooden circles to make a path to the living room door.

For the bathroom and kitchen I found scrapbook paper that looked like tiles and then laminated it with clear plastic. The other rooms are carpeted. I had some dollhouse wallpaper and leftover paint from the attic bedroom to do walls. I made the bathroom fixtures and living room furniture from kits...the rest has been picked up here and there over the years.

Things get rearranged a bit every time Ursula visits. When she isn't around I drape the dollhouse with the shawl that's resting on its roof to keep the sun from bleaching the fabric colors.

Jenny cat has claimed the porch as her territory.

Meanwhile, her brother Jasper claims my bed so I keep a sheet thrown over the beautiful quilt...that way I'm not wearing out the quilt in the washing machine.
 

The bedroom windows are 7 1/2 feet by 5 1/2 feet.  Many years ago they were in the town's one room schoolhouse. When William and I built this house, I had to turn them on their sides. Since this bedroom is on the main floor, when the shades are up, it's like standing in the garden.

Here's Jasper...

He weighs about 22 pounds while his sister is only a couple of pounds lighter. When I bring them to the cottage, they travel in dog carriers. Fortunately, the dogs don't need to travel in cages or I'd never get all of us into my small red Honda Fit!

Many afternoons my neighbor Liz comes over for Rummykub and tea. One guess as to which of us drinks our tea from a Blanot bowl!

 This picture also proves that I don't check on the courgettes often enough.

Recently I split one of these monsters and scooped out the center. Then I refilled it with a layer of Ricotta cheese and a mixture of cooked sausage meat, onion, green pepper, and some of the scooped out zucchini. I covered it and baked it at 350 F until the squash was done. At the end I topped it with shredded mozzarella cheese and popped it back in the oven uncovered until that cheese melted.

Unrelated

So far this summer I have been making quick trips to the cottage...only staying for a night or 2 at the most. Last week I was there for Sunday evening because I spent the afternoon at a dulcimer festival just north of Albany, NY. That was an eye-opener.

Old-fashioned drip coffee pot we use at the cottage

Jeremy had told me about the festival...he was going to be there as a vendor. I figured I could at least take the 2 Friday afternoon workshop classes and then scoot north to see everyone at the cottage before returning home. The festival was being held in a huge Methodist church which I located easily using Jeremy's directions. My Tom Tom, the actual name of my GPS unit, wanted to take a different route and kept telling me to turn around, but I blithely continued and made it recalculate all along the way.

road-side view...the "back" of the cottage

This post is titled "Unrelated" because I don't have pictures for the written story so I've tucked in pictures that are related to the cottage...


When I arrived at the dulcimer festival, it became obvious that most people were there for the whole weekend. The registration folk had to find out what attending two workshops should cost...$15 and I was in. I headed for the chapel and "Music Theory as it Relates to the Dulcimer."

Annie & William on our daily walk

The class had just begun, papers were being handed out, and I finally had a chance to read an actual description of the workshop. Everyone was supposed to be tuned to DAD. My dulcimer is tuned to DDG and has strings to match my voice, not the usual dulcimer strings. Oh, well, give it a try...

I was slowly tuning the middle string to A when it suddenly protested...the sproing could be heard all over the room. I tried to look nonchalant, figuring for music theory I could just take notes.

Another Adirondack cottage along our road

The class ended and I had 15 minutes before the next workshop titled "Orchestra." I was going to need 3 strings and that DAD tuning! I raced downstairs to the vendors area and located Jeremy setting up his table. He solved my problems by giving me one of his gorgeous dulcimers for the next hour.

Back to the chapel where music was being handed out...  Not knowing what I was getting myself into, I hadn't brought a music stand. Obviously, everyone else had. While I was pondering what to do with the music so I could see it and still have 2 hands free for playing, the gal next to me introduced herself as Gail and asked if I'd like to share her stand. Saved again!

And another typical Adirondack-style cottage

And Gail turned out to be an angel! At that point I had a chance to look at the music and I was totally confused. Traditional dulcimer plays on the melody string and strums the rest. They were going to play on all three strings...first fret on the melody string, then fifth fret on the bass string, followed by third fret on the middle string, followed by... Oh, good grief. I gave it a gallant try and was completely lost in a matter of seconds!

They practiced it again, and again I couldn't get past the second note!

I meet Mimi during my walk

It was turning into an absolute disaster when Gail began to circle the first note of each bar and said we could play just the first notes which would give me 3 notes worth of time to figure out the next first note! Genius! And she even counted 1, 2, 3, 4 throughout the entire page of music. I survived, playing one out of every four notes!  We did a high five and repeated the process with the next sheet of music.

When the hour ended, a gal stopped to say she had been sitting on the other side of the room and had had trouble concentrating on the music because she had been fascinated by watching my face and hearing my laugh at the end of each piece!

Walk finished...Mimi & I stop for a few hands of Rummykub

Gail said she would send me a book explaining how they were playing. She lives in Kentucky and was going home the next day.

I said my goodbyes, found Jeremy again to swap dulcimers...he had replaced my broken string in the interim...and headed for an evening at the cottage.

Below is Mike multi-tasking...on the computer and playing Uno with his adopted sons, Luke and Eli.