An Outing with Bob

Bob's sister, Verna, and her husband, Tom, invited Bob and me to join them for a slow train ride to see the fall colors. Since it was nearing the end of October and the best colors had faded, we decided to add to the trip by making a stop at Vermont's Montshire Museum.

It was a sunny day. We met at White River Junction and climbed aboard an old Green Mountain Railroad dining car which meant we had a table to sit at...

I found out that while Verna was in the Army she had earned a train engineer's license! She and her brother share an affinity for trains.

This is a scenic train. It doesn't go very fast. Thank goodness, because it gently rocked from side to side as it traveled forward.

Most of the time we followed beside the Connecticut River...

The engine car was never moved so for the return trip it was pushing the train. We got off at the Montshire Museum and had a few hours before the train would be coming by again to pick us up.

It was after noon. Snacks were sold on the train, but I assumed a museum would have a cafeteria where we could get lunch. I should never make assumptions! There were only a couple of vending machines!

The fish tank was interesting. These were fish that actually live in the rivers and lakes of Vermont.

There was an explanation for why turtle shells are built differently. Both snapping and painted turtles live in slow moving water, but the bottom shells of the painted turtles are streamlined because they swim after their prey. Snapping turtles have relatively small bottom shells to give them better mobility for snatching prey that swims past them. 

The directions say to set up 12 matchsticks to look like this and then to move 4 of the sticks to create 3 squares instead of the 4 squares. Give it a try. I haven't figured it out yet...but I will.

These metal bars and the rubber hammer were for making music outdoors. Little kids were having a great time with this...and I just had to try it out as well!

The pipes in the picture below had several small hammers so real musicians could create harmony. The rest of us would just have fun with weird melodies.

There was a huge enclosed environment for leaf cutter ants and a magnifier that could be moved to keep track of the queen...the monster in the middle...and project what was happening onto the overhead screen.


There was another machine that showed happenings in slow motion. It was really neat to see the splash of a dropped glass of milk.



A Vermont museum would not be complete without a moose... 

Back on the train we ended up on the same side of the car so there really weren't different pictures to take.

The banjo player was still entertaining our crowd.


And then we were back where we started from. Bob climbed onto the platform to get a better look at this old-timer!

An Outing with Mary

Mary had heard that the Carillon cruise on Lake Champlain was really interesting and so one October Sunday after swimming we headed north together instead of going our separate ways.  

We were early. Just before reaching the lake we saw the OPEN sign at a wood carving place and decided to check it out.

There was a large bed of Autumn Joy in the front yard...flowers I depend upon for the school vases.

Our first chuckle came when we found this fellow holding up one end of a bench.

I can also picture him as a mailbox with his tongue on a hinge so that his upper lip would drop down for mail to be placed inside.

If he was in France, he'd be a pass-through box and also have an opening in the back for retrieving the mail. Imagine him sticking his head through someone's stone wall...


As we approached the front door we were greeted by a bevy of birds...

And then we stepped inside!

The largest dalmatian sells for $2500.00...a little out of our price range.

There were plenty of dogs to choose from, but we learned that, except for his $20 red cardinals, the carvings don't hold up well outdoors.

If I bought the dalmatian, I'd also have to buy a bigger house!

I didn't bother to ask the price of the elephants...

 To have a living room big enough for one of these guys just boggles my mind.

I think it would be a giggle to have one in the garden, but not indoors!

How's this for an Easter bunny?

I like the green praying mantis (I think it's a praying mantis)...

but again, I'd rather see it hanging out in my garden than hiding behind my rocking chair. Couldn't even put it in a greenhouse because sunlight damages these critters.

 

Here are the vegetables I didn't grow!

Every kid should have a chipmunk in his/her bedroom...

Actually, I think the real ones are cuter than this guy.

It's the red squirrels I try to keep at bay. They're the ones who try to eat their way into houses.

Years ago I had to put a long sheet of metal under the shingles at the back of the house. It was a desperate attempt to stay the invasion. Fortunately, it worked.

The artist, Norton Latourelle, joined us. He was a little late arriving because, as he explained,  he had stopped to read my car.

He was expecting another group of people and soon other cars were pulling into his driveway. We noticed people taking pictures of my bumper stickers!

It was time for Mary and me to be on our way, but first we had to pass through the crowd outside. One fellow explained that he came from West Virginia and down there they would run my car off the road. His wife said she kept her Obama sticker on a magnet so she could remove it when in a parking lot to keep people from "keying" (scratching with keys) her car. And this is a country with freedom of speech...yeah, right.

Before we drove away, another fellow called out that he just had to hug the owner of my car. I never turn down a hug! They are good for the soul...

At the boat dock we realized that Norton might not recommend his critters be placed outdoors, but this fellow was doing just fine as he watches over Lake Champlain.

This is right across the lake from Ticonderoga. Our summer cottage is 14 miles south on the New York side. The bird is in Vermont.

And there was one of Norton's dalmatians...he gets to cruise Lake Champlain in rain or sun. Our day was a wee bit chilly.

Captain Paul Saenger has apparently been a history professor at the University of Vermont. It was his patter that made the cruise interesting. The section of lake that the boat traveled really doesn't have much to look at besides Fort Ticonderoga, built by the French, and Mount Defiance which looks down upon the fort.

The fort was the site of America's first successful venture in our Revolutionary War. Ethan Allen was a Vermont redneck with a batch of friends called the Green Mountain Boys. They rowed across the lake with a youngster who had often visited the fort to play with other kids who lived there. It was the youngster who knew where the outside sentry gate was located...and the sentry was snoozing. We took the fort from the British without firing a shot.

What was more important at that time was the capture of all the cannon at the fort. These were needed to fight against the British in the Boston area.

Later on the British took the fort back from the Americans, again without a shot being fired! They managed to drag a cannon up Mount Defiance. The Americans took one look and left.

Mount Defiance

On the cruise boat was a computer screen so the captain could illustrate his talk. Above is a picture of one of his pictures! I was surprised that it actually came out okay.

It shows just how close the northern end of Lake George (in the background) is to the southern area of Lake Champlain.

Lake George is higher than Champlain. The captain suggested that if we had an earthquake and that hill, otherwise known as Mount Defiance, split open, we'd have a great ride north to Canada!

Below is another picture of a computer screen picture...
the wooden pylons for this bridge can still be seen below the waters of Lake Champlain.

The Americans ran across the bridge they had built between the fort and Mount Independence, a hill on the Vermont side of the lake.

The guys who were supposed to blow up the bridge when the British tried to cross took a nap instead and the British were able to catch up to the Americans in Hubbardton, Vermont (where Bob lives).

It was the only battle fought in Vermont. 

We lost the battle, but it slowed the British so that we were able to gather our forces and defeat them later at Saratoga...and that was the turning point in the Revolutionary War.


The Amtrak train went by while we were on the lake. Francis and Marie-Annick will be surprised to learn that it was actually on time!

Vermont was never a British colony. It was a Republic before it joined the United States.

According to the captain, a fellow named Putnam was elected to Congress from Vermont. He didn't always go along with the way things were run in Congress, so they passed the Alien and Sedition Act. That let them throw him in jail the next time he bellyached about the government.

While he sat in jail, those darn Vermonters re-elected him!

After our cruise Mary and I crossed the lake on the ferry so we could stop where I knew there were a lot of cattails. I wanted them to go with the teasel Margery and I had picked at the end of our grape adventure.

This was the view across from where the cattails were growing. I just liked the row of hay bales.

Above is the dirt road leading to my house. The fall colors faded so quickly this year that I didn't get pictures while the trees were at their best.

Here are the last vases I created for school. The Autumn Joy grew in my front yard...

I sprayed the cattails with hair spray to prevent them from popping and sending seed fuzz around the classrooms.

   

Grapes

Margery arrived at my house with boxes early in the morning. I grabbed my cup of coffee and we piled into my car.

The Tom Tom (GPS unit) was already on the dashboard and set for Watkins Glen. We were heading for Lake Seneca, largest of the Finger Lakes (5 of them, more or less parallel to each other as are fingers), and wine country in New York State. It would be a six hour drive to get there.

We had each brought a second set of clothing because it was supposed to rain all day and our goal was to pick grapes, an outdoor adventure for sure.

Near Watkins Glen there are a number of waterfalls by the roadside. This was the first one we passed.

Then we reached the southern end of Lake Seneca. This is a salt mine. If Francis is reading this post, he may recognize some of the places in these pictures from the time he went with me to Elmira, NY.

As we traveled northward, this was the next waterfalls. It actually ran under the road and into the lake. Weather travels from west to east and today's rain was heading for Vermont. We seemed to have driven through it, heading in the opposite direction and never needed all that extra clothing we had packed.

Margery was concerned because at the end of the day at the U-Pick-It vineyard she had been to the previous week, the machine picking tractors (les enjambeurs) had arrived. 

Any grapes in here?

We found the vineyard and drove past the rows of grapevines. In the picture above, between me and the hills in the distance would be Lake Seneca.

Halfway up the hill Margery got out of the car to look around while I drove further until I could turn the car around.

She managed to get out at the only row of vines that somehow hadn't been machine picked! We found grapes...

Next year we will take some taller boxes, still only put 1 layer of grapes in them, but use the higher sides to hold up a second level of grapes. That way we should be able to bring home twice as many!

I picked a little over 30 pounds at 49 cents a pound.

We never saw another person, but there was a scale and a box in which to leave money.

Our next stop was at the Hazlitt cave. We certainly weren't going to leave wine country without bringing some of it home with us!

My sister's family loves the Red Cat wine which is made from the Catawba grapes. Last year we had picked half Concord and half Catawba and used both for jelly. The Catawba jelly had a zing to its grape flavor.

I like their rosé wine, Cabin Fever.

We had one more chore...pick teasel. Thank goodness Margery has tough skin because these are the prickliest plants! She did the picking while I held a bag open. I'll be wearing gloves when I use them in the teachers' vases along with cattails and Autumn Joy, the last flower of our season.

I won't mention the speed with which I drove on our way home. At dark we stopped for dinner. Once night fell, I drove at a normal pace, but we were still able to reach my house by a little after 11 PM and Margery was home before midnight.

The next two days were devoted to canning. Here's Margery picking the washed grapes off their stems. There were worker bees all around her, but they don't sting.
 

Margery had previously been canning her tomato crop. That's her spaghetti sauce and tomato juice on the table.

You can also see the cone we use to squeeze the juice out of the grapes.

Mush that is left is in the bowl in the forefront. It ended up being fed to some chickens. 

The canner is on the stove.

We made jelly first. Then we made a grape nectar. We brought the juice to a boil, put it into pint jars, and then processed it in the canner for 15 minutes.

When a jar gets opened, water is added to the nectar either in a 2:1 or 1:1 ratio. Some people also add honey, but we think it is plenty sweet all by itself.

This was our first year to make the nectar and it's the reason we want to have more grapes next year.

We use a lot of dish cloths when we can!

The only reason things look so clean in the picture above this, is that it's the first jar and I haven't actually begun to fill it yet!

Margery gets a lot of tomatoes because she plants them inside her "grow shed" which is a small greenhouse.

I'll never get to eat all the tomatoes my bushes produced because tons of the green tomatoes will never get to ripen.

Some year I may get ambitious enough to make green tomato relish. Meanwhile, you can see just how ambitious Margery's husband Gary is...

Ahh, retirement...