Granville Daily Photo

  Hildene, in the mountains above Manchester, Vermont, was the summer home of Robert Todd Lincoln, the eldest child of Abe and Mary Todd Lincoln. Robert discovered Manchester as an adult and chose to make it his second home. It includes over 400 acres, a good amount of it devoted to farming. It is run by a nonprofit today and continues to be an active farm. The house is in classic Georgian Revival. The portico in front is about the same size or larger than the log cabin Robert's father grew up in. The house has 24 rooms. Its last owner, Abe Lincoln's great-granddaughter Peggy Beckwith, was a Renaissance woman -- artist, pilot, farmer, and about ten other things. She sounds like the model for the character Rose in "Titanic." She took care of the house largely on her own. It eventually found its way into a nonprofit formed to preserve the estate. The farm in "The Dene" -- the valley below the house. Robert Lincoln became wealthy when he succeeded George Pullma...

I spent much of the weekend, plus Monday and Tuesday, in Vermont. I'll have a few more photos to share before returning to Granville as my subject.

Bentley House Bed & Breakfast I returned to this house after passing it for the first time a few days earlier. It's called the Bentley House and is operated as a bed & breakfast. Poultney, Vermont, which borders Granville to the north, is a town of about 3,000. Like Granville, its heyday in the second half of the 19th century was built on slate. Granville, Poultney, and a few other towns comprise the "Slate Valley." This well-designed duo of buildings are across the street from the Bentley House. The structure on the left looks like it would originally have been a carriage house. C.W. Humphrey House Perhaps the most beautiful and historic is this house on the opposite corner, originally called the C.W. Humphrey house after the person who built it. It is described as a Queen Anne/Colonial Revival style home. A distinctive feature is the roof made of purple slate. Twin Paladian windows are seen on the left and on the gable to the right. The house underwent a full re...

  "Oversized Gorilla Lifting Volkswagen" has become such a renowned Vermont landmark that out-of-state friends who were visiting put it on their itinerary to see. It's a good thing, because I had been meaning to photograph it for this blog. The building was once a Volkwagen dealership or repair shop, evidently. It is located on Route 7 about 20 minutes north of Rutland. Downtown Rutland has a lot more interesting (and serious) monuments and sculptures, which I will share in future posts. The sign on the gorilla is celegrating someone's birthday. It's not normally there.

  I noticed this house, for the first time, on my "purple" stroll around the village. It's nothing extraordinary, but in its modest way, it stands out with its mansard roof and intricate molding.  "Ghost houses" (my phrase for them) like these can be found in any town. Sometimes they are vacant, as this one appears to be, and sometimes not -- perhaps occupied by people without the means to keep the houses in shape, or even by squatters. We used to have one just a few houses down from our own home when I lived in Connecticut, where my kids grew up. We would walk by it with a quick glance. We could never be sure if anyone lived in it. Sometimes there would be a car parked in the back, or we thought we could see a light on inside. One time a drunken man came to our backyard and threw around some garbage cans. He caused a bit of a fright, but someone came to get him and bring him home -- and if my recollection serves me, I think we found out he came from that "...

  June is Alzheimer's & Brain Awareness Month in the United States, symbolized by the color purple. Granville has gone all-in: businesses throughout the village are decorated with signs, ribbons, and all manner of purple paraphernalia. It creates a nice sense of the community coming together for a cause. Concrete post by the Yarn Shop. Twisted Scissors salon. (I love the name; I think it's a play on "twisted sisters.") Veterans Memorial Park. Alzheimer's and religion. Pember Library and pinwheels. A creative variation on the theme. The offices of my wonderful financial advisor. (I had to get that in.) Purple and patriotism. Tasteful. Bedecked. I have a contrarian view of this celebratory "month." It turns out there are two months dedicated to Alzheimer's disease awareness -- June and November. And it so happens that June is also Pride Month, and has been for a lot longer than it has been Alzheimer's & Brain Awareness Month. I can't he...

Back from a weeklong absence (sorry). These photos are from farther afield -- Falls Village in northwest Connecticut, where I used to live and where my kids were raised. Gordon Hall, Music Mountain, Falls Village, Connecticut USA Specifically, this is Music Mountain, the oldest continuing summer chamber music festival in America (and possibly the world). Founded in 1930, Music Mountain was built from pre-fabricated houses from the Sears, Roebuck catalog, the parts shipped by rail and assembled on the mountaintop. Gordon Hall, shown here, was custom designed to be a concert hall for string quartets; it was even constructed to imitate a violin in architecture, all wood with a narrow neck and a hollow space under the floor like the resonant body of a stringed instrument. Whether by luck or premeditation, the acoustics are excellent. Today, Music Mountain has concerts for 16 weeks each summer from June through September -- chamber music on Sunday afternoons and jazz on Saturday evenings. I...

June is Pride Month in the USA -- one of the few times I'm proud to be an American!! Yesterday, in between rain storms, there was a Pride Festival in Glens Falls, New York. The turnout was fantastic and the vibe was delightful. These four queens were the featured performers in a drag show. 

Yesterday I took a ride down to the Cambridge Ballooon Festival in Cambridge, New York, about 40 minutes to the south. The weather did not cooperate. Forecasts of strong storms kept the pilots away. We will have to settle for photos I took at the previous festival, exactly one year ago today. It certainly is a photogenic event. Hopefully the conditions will be better next year.

Brattleboro, Vermont, is a city in southeastern Vermont about 1.5 hours from my home. It is renowned for being a very left, "hippie" kind of place with a lively music scene. I went there last night to meet my uncle, aunt, and their two daughters, my cousins Alyssa and Kelsey. We saw Kelsey (seated, center) perform with a school for traditional Celtic music. Kelsey is a remarkably talented young woman -- nutritionist, food services professional, baker of goods using flour derived from beans, and musician. 

In much of North America, along every roadside, in every field -- almost wherever you turn -- Dame's Rocket (Hesperis matronalis) is growing and shooting its colorful flowers. Introduced over many centuries from Europe and Asia, it is ubiquitous here, especially along roadsides, from May through August. It is hard to know how the "matronly" name was attached to it, but "rocket" is probably a corruption of "roquette," French for members of the Mustard family, to which this plant belongs. This modest assemblage was photographed on a noontime walk today. (I should probably stop apologizing for missing days, though I really hoped to keep up the "daily" in daily photo! Work deadlines, other projects, and some changes I am trying to make in my life are getting in my way this time of year.)