08-09 Vermont Wildflower Farm

From my frequent pictures of flowers you can tell we like gardens. So the first tour we made in Vermont was to the Vermont Wildflower Farm where they raise and sell wildflower seeds.

We always enjoy seeing wildflowers along the roadside and in the countryside fields. This year we particularly enjoyed all the orange daylilies along the roads in Pennsylvania. My Grandmother Rone had a lot of those in her yard. I never thought of them as wildflowers, but they were all along the roadside in Pennsylvania and a few places in southern NY.

We enjoyed walking through the field and lawn surrounding the main building of the Vermont Wildflower Farm. We bought a couple of pounds of seeds to share with friends and family. An ounce will cover about 10’ by 10’ or 100 sq ft. If you would like to try some, email me and I will send you some. Here are a few more photos:

On the way back, we stopped for the tour at the nearby Vermont Teddy Bear factory.

They make wonderful Teddy Bears, though they are a bit expensive. They have many different costumes and will even do a custom design for you.

The one on the left on the top shelf is in a bride’s dress to match the one worn by her new owner.

They guarantee them for life and will repair damage from almost any cause except putting them in the clothes dryer. Here is their “hospital ward”.

08-09 Ferry Crossing

The view out the window of “The S.S. Dutch Star”

On Tuesday August 18th, we moved a relatively short distance of about 120 miles from Lake George, NY to South Hero, Vermont. We are in a very nice campground, Apple Island Resort, on an island in Lake Champlain. We are way north, only 30 miles or so from Canada. We came looking for more cool or mild weather and to tour a bit of northern Vermont. It is a very pretty area. We have moved out of the mountains into the Champlain Valley. We can still see mountains not too far away. Across the lake in NY are the Adirondacks. To the east are Vermont’s Green Mountains.

The drive over was very pretty as we moved north through more of the Adirondacks. Then we had a neat ride across Lake Champlain on a ferry, as seen above and below.

I am down at the campground laundromat doing our wash as I write this. I do the laundry while Monique gets started cleaning the RV. It is starting to sprinkle. This has really been a wet year for us. It has usually rained a couple of times each week since we left SC in April. Right now I am not complaining because the rain has cooled things off. We finally hit some hot muggy weather the last week in Lake George and our first days here. It is especially muggy here being surrounded by the waters of Lake George. Fortunately the forecast is for clear and somewhat cooler weather the next few days.

08-09 Fort Ticonderoga

We drove north about an hour from Lake George to Fort Ticonderoga. This fort was built at the bottom end of Lake Champlain by the French to protect their interests in the early colonial days. It controlled the vital trading route up Lake Champlain and the 3 1/2 mile portage over to Lake George. You can learn more of the history at this link.

The key thing I remembered from American history was that a small force lead by Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold captured the fort in a surprise attack early in the American Revolution. Then a force lead by Henry Knox pulled the heavy cannon on sleds over land and over frozen Lake George in the dead of winter down to Boston. Those cannon were then installed in the heights over Boston and were instrumental in forcing the British to abandon Boston. This photo gives you a perspective of the size of some of the largest cannon similar to those moved by Henry Knox’s force.

We enjoyed watching the fife and drum corps perform on the fort’s parade ground.

Later the fife and drum members conducted a demonstration firing of one of the fort’s cannons.

Another reenactor demonstrated the loading and firing of a musket. He could fire and reload the musket in less than 20 seconds. In the Revolutionary War, soldiers could fire about 3 volley every minute.

He was a delightful young man and gave an entertaining lecture on the history of the fort.

There was a lovely garden associated with the fort. Naturally I had to take a few flower pictures.

It was a lovely day and we thoroughly enjoyed our visit to the fort.

08-09 Adirondack Museum

We traveled about an hour and 15 minutes from Lake George to the Adirondack Museum in Blue Lake, NY, which is near the center of the Adirondack Park. It is a wonderful museum with many buildings and excellent displays related to life in the Adirondacks.

We spent about a half a day but did not nearly cover the whole museum. The first stop was an exhibit about life in the woods hunting, camping or living in cabins. There were displays of old time camping and hunting tools. I enjoyed a display of old rifles and shotguns, especially the old Winchester rifles I saw in boyhood cowboy movies. I liked this skillful life-size carving of a famous hermit, Noah John Rondeau, who lived alone in the nearby mountains for many years.

Next door was a special exhibit of quilts from local quilt makers. We always love looking at quilts.

Another favorite was the building with displays of antique wagons, snow sleds, automobiles and a luxury train car. Here are a few:

A peddler’s wagon:

A stage coach:

I had always heard of buckboard wagons, but never thought about exactly what they were. There were several on display. We learned that the name came from early log wagons that had a board at the front to keep logs from sliding forward to “buck” the team of horses. A local preacher named Comstock noticed that the drivers appeared to have a smooth ride in an empty log wagon that essentially was just long boards connecting the two axles. So he made a wagon with a board between the axles with the seat on top of the board and kept the name used on the log wagons. The natural spring of the board gave a much smoother ride over rough roads. The design was quickly adopted and over time modified with helper springs. Here is what it looked like:

This building also had a neat collection of toys and miniature furniture carved by a local craftsman. They were amazing:

These tiny baby high chairs look like one I used as a child and is now in one of my niece’s kitchen.

Another building had a excellent display of regional boats including Adirondack guide boats. These are a bit larger than a canoe and are rowed with oars. Note the yoke in the middle of the center boat. That fit over the shoulder of the guide as he carried it across portages between lakes and rivers when he took his clients hunting or fishing.

Here is a reproduction being built in the museum’s workshop. I wish I had the skills, tools and patience to do something like this.

There were beautiful flowers outside and around the buildings. Here are some along a balcony overlook to Blue Lake:

Some close-ups of other flowers:

One of the outside displays showed the steps required to wash clothes in the old days. You had to soak them then agitate or pound them:

Wash them with the scrub board:

Rinse them using this manual agitator:

Wring them to remove as much water as possible:

Hang them to dry:

Husbands were told to expect a cold supper on wash days.

We really enjoyed this museum and wish it had not been such a long drive. Otherwise we would have gone back for another visit.