Post by Ella. Maple trivia: In Vermont, sugaring season begins sometime in February to mid-March. When temps dip below freezing (ideally 20°-30°), sap is pushed up from the roots, coursing through the veins of the tree. As the temperature rises during the day, the sap flows back down and conveniently some flows into the metal…
Southward: Our route today
Heading into the last days of our trip. Today, from Burlington, Vt. To Sunderland, Vt. Although we’ve mostly been staying off the Interstates in favor of the less traveled roads, today we wanted to make a detour to Sugarbush (Maple syrup and cheese farm) and Woodstock (historical buildings, traffic jam rivaling Stowe and maple creemees)…
Backwoods revolutionary
Post by Grubb. Dateline: Burlington, Vermont, late 18th century. Ethan Allen was a hometown hero before there was even a town. People settling in the area from New Hampshire claimed it was New Hampshire, people settling from New York claimed it was New York. Ethan joined with a bunch of investors and bought a whole…
The dark side of Albert
Post by Grubb. Collecting weathervanes is one thing, but amassing whirligigs as well, who else but Electra Havemeyer Webb would have the resources, much less know the difference? But before I could immerse myself in objets d’weather, I had to check out the Bierstadt that I heard was on exhibit in another building at the…
About that old printing press
Grubb wrote about the printing demo we saw at the Shelburne Museum where a cast iron platen was cranked down on a frame pressing paper onto a carved and inked wood block. Chinle, who lives in Silver City, NM sent a photo from the Southwest Print Fiesta held just last week. Here’s how they do…
Electra leaves an Impressionist
Post by Grubb. Electra Havemeyer Webb inherited a sugar fortune. Then she married a polo player whose mother was a Vanderbilt. With her wealth, Electra preserved thirty- eight 19th century buildings and then had them installed as a village on her 1,000 acre estate just off of Route 7 in Shelburne, Vermont. Electra had a…
The superhighway of swamp trails
Post by Ella. Yesterday, one of our stops was the Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge. When we saw that the Discovery Nature Trail was mowed grass leading to a raised bridge of planks leading to crushed gravel…who could resist such a cushy hike. More like a stroll on the superhighway of swamp trails. After the Discovery…
For my two favorite Vermonters
Post by Ella. Holly from Stowe and Mary from Burlington, now both residing in Albuquerque, both spent time at University of Vermont in Burlington. Today, we went to the Fleming Museum of Art on campus and then walked around getting the feel of the place. First the museum. It took us a minute to find…
A country drive
Post by Ella. Yesterday we took an old fashioned country drive through the islands of Lake Champlain. We pulled into Knight Point State Park for a gander at the shoreline. We gave consideration to taking a ferry over to Plattsburgh, NY but opted to continue through Lake Champlain. We stopped at a modern version of…
Transpo kings
Post by Grubb. The side-paddle-wheel passenger steamer moored on the grounds of the Shelburne Museum is one of two remaining in this country. For a boat that only ferried people across Lake Champlain it is quite impressive in an excessive Gilded Age sort of way. An ornate dining room and cushioned observation chairs for a…
A potpourri of photos
From the Shelburne Museum’s collection of old Americana with a little new thrown in. Children’s hankies Bandboxes Textiles Now that’s a cabin, not a cottage Covered bridge My favorite from the Webb Gallery
After sixty years, it comes together
Post by Grubb. One of the exhibits of 19th century life at the Shelburne was a demonstration of how an old printing press worked. This was fascinating to me because the press that was being used was exactly like the cast iron monstrosity that I grew up with in Chicago…except the one I remember taking…
Speaking of fear…
Post by Grubb. How about this bird’s eye view of a turkey buzzard ready to dive-bomb a farm? It’s an Andrew Wyeth painting from the early 1950s. I can imagine Miss Nancy Lawson looking at it while she puzzles over the mention of Wyeth’s anxiety over Cold War mutual destruction.
You don’t see many of these anymore
Post by Grubb. On this day of the unmentionable Italian explorer it’s only fitting that, in my Shelburne Museum ramble, I would find myself pausing to look at a collection of wooden figures that used to stand out front of 19th century cigar stores. The best, I thought, was the lighted action figure, a blatant…
1843
Post by Grubb. That’s the year it was all over for Miss Nancy Lawson. She was a follower of William Miller, an early 19th-century religious leader who believed the world would end at that time. There is a portrait of Miss Lawson painted by William Matthew Prior that hangs in the Webb Gallery at the…