A Webb ring.... (or, Camping on Lake Lila)

 

Where to begin? A couple of months back, in early July, I posted a few pictures from a visit to the Shelburne Museum which was the creation of Electra Havemeyer Webb. Her father in law was William Seward Webb, who was named in honor of New York State's onetime Governor, who was also Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of State. And the man who bought Alaska. He was a distant cousin of my family, a connection observed in the choice of my uncle's middle name.

William Seward Webb

Lila Osgood Vanderbilt

At any rate, William Seward Webb was from a wealthy land owning family. He married Lila Osgood Vanderbilt, the grand-daughter of railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt. After some trouble with one of their holdings, the Vanderbilts asked Mr.Webb to take over one of their railroads, which led to its expansion and the opening of upstate New York to commerce and travel. The general area includes Lake Placid and Saranac Lake, famous for its tuberculosis treatment. My great-grandfather had TB three times. He went to Saranac Lake back when. There is a family rumor of his having smiled at one of the nurses, causing a bit of a row with my great-grandmother. Part of the holdings Mr. Webb assembled included a 1,400 acre lake he renamed in honor of the missus. It was there he built what they used to call a "great camp" on the shore of the lake, part of his private 7,200 acre wilderness park. The family compound had its own private railroad station, which still exists in a state of splendid abandonment. The land was acquired by New York State in the late 1970's. Part of the deal called for the state to remove the lodge. The lake is now a wilderness camping area.


The Webb's family vacation home 'Forest Lodge' at Lake Lila - a vacation home away from their vacation home in Vermont.

Not long after I moved to New York City (November 1972) I became friends with a co-worker at a bookstore. We understood each other. It turned out that he had spent several of his growing up years in a town very near mine in the southern part of New Jersey. Rich has been trying to get me to go camping with him for about 20 years. Now that I'm retired, I was finally able to do it.

The area surrounding Lake Lila is still privately owned, mostly by the Whitney's from what I gather. Access is by a 6 mile plus dirt road posted with numerous 'Private Property' signs which also state a warning to travelers to not get out of their cars. One arrives at a parking lot with various other signs, a registration book, and a .3 of a mile portage to the lake. No motorboats are allowed.

A mutual friend gave Rich a huge tent, big enough for a family of 5. We've both (ahem) grown a bit over the years ("expanded" might be more appropriate); this tent promised plenty of room. Rich had studied the campsites using maps and online satellite images and settled on one as our goal as it seemed large enough to host the tent. We hugged the shoreline looking for it, which made the initial canoe trip a long one - it's a very big lake. As we were approaching our desired campsite, Rich pointed towards an old dead pine tree on our left. Sitting at the top was a bald eagle. We reached our site, and after checking it out decided campsite 16 was indeed suited to our needs. As we began to unload the canoe, I looked back at the eagle. Something else moved. "What's that?", I asked. At that moment, the something else lifted its head out of the water. It was a huge bull moose. In rutting season. I grabbed my little digital camera, wishing it was my trusty old 35mm with my telephoto lens attached. Here's a detail from the larger photo:

I can not express how wonderful it was to be out camping again, away form the noise of modern life. My little studio apartment is on a very busy road. Even in winter the sound of cars going by can drown out the tv or the radio. Speaking of which, there were no sounds of someone else's tv or radio. There were no drunks or drugged outs arguing with colorful terminology. There were occasional sounds of airplanes, and one day a park warden's helicopter. Otherwise, it was the sound of windblown waves lapping against the shore, the rustle of leaves, the crackle of the campfire, geese flying by, one lone loon (which I saw one evening at twilight), an occasional songbird, and a rather angry red squirrel.

I forget if that is Mount Frederic or Mount Frederica. We never got to hike to the top. I hope to go back and do that one day.

A visitor to our camp's shoreline

There were many gloriously misty mornings.

 



The strip of beach at our campsite.

Canoeing on Single Shanty Brook - accomplished somewhat warily, as this was where the moose headed.
Sadly, we were so busy scrambling over a number of beaver damns that I didn't take any pictures of them.

Moose tracks

That little sliver of beach just right of the center of the photo was the site of the moose tracks above.
This was a very short walk from our campsite. 

My shoes drying out after scrambling over beaver damns and the like.
This was at our campsite - look closely and you can see the ropes we used to hang food so bears wouldn't get at it.

I posted several of these photos on Facebook, where people can click on a "like" button.
Based on that informal poll, the above was the most popular picture of the series.

Rich's selection of Lake Lila for camping had two main purposes - both concerned identifying and judging portage sites used for what canoeists call "the Whitney Loop". One was a right of way around a privately owned (and blocked off) portion of Single Shanty book. A recently opened access to Harrington Brook (above - flows into or out of Lake Lila) was the other - but the portage to access it is still under development and too much of a hurdle for aging gentlemen.

Saturday it rained. A lot. Sometimes quite hard. Made for some good idle time picture taking, though.

On Sunday the rain stopped and the skies cleared. Rich used his radio to get the weather report. On Monday and Tuesday (the day we expected to leave) more storms were expected. Crossing Lake Lila back to the parking lot would be too dangerous, so we decided to break camp while we could. While we were hiking one day, we met a group of guys who had arrived for a few days of camping. They were leaving at the same time. After our first trip to the parking lot, we were on our way back to the put in when they came by carrying our canoe and most of our supplies. Thanks again guys. 

 

The return to our modern world has been a bit disconcerting as I find myself once again engulfed by the sounds and the noise of other people's living. Thanks, Rich, for keeping after me for all these years to do it, and Thanks for all the trouble you took as part of the process of including me. Next time we've got to get to the top of the mountain, and find that railroad station.

I look at these photos now, sitting at my computer, cars whizzing by in the rain, and they seem a remote dream. A dream I long to dream again.


    

An attempt to post my radio show

My goodness gracious, there is so much catching up to do. It's been a wonderful summer; early autumn started with a fantastic camping trip to Lake Lila in the Adirondack Park... but we'll get back to all that later. For now, an experiment: if I've done this right, clicking on the image should start a player which will stream the October 11th edition of my radio show (2 hours long). Keeping my fingers crossed....

(Oh, by the way, there are 6 seconds of silence at the beginning of the show - sorry about that.)
(Also, I see that I put an incorrect date on the file name. It should be 10-11-14. At the end of the show is a half hour episode of "Songs by Sinatra" from 10-10-45, and I was so obsessed with getting this to work that I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have. It seems to be working, so I am reluctant to change it.)



If you try this and you like it, or if it doesn't work, etc. please do let me know.
Thanks!

Steven

The return of Mme. Hardy

It's a lovely, rainy Sunday morning, 68 degrees fahrenheit, and I am suddenly feeling somewhat contentious. The spell check program has repeatedly auto corrected the temperature to read "Farenheit" and I have spent the last several minutes fighting with the robot to leave it the way I want it. I thought I had succeeded, only to glance up and notice the program had once again made the correction. I experience a little quiver, a shudder really, somewhere around my spine; a warning, or perhaps a recognition of the work of Karl Koch the First Universal Cybernetic Kynetic Ultramicro-Programmer, or that of EPICAC, Overmind, Neuromancer, Proteus IV. I like spell check; I tolerate auto correct, but I do not trust it.

I pause for a moment to listen to the sound of the rain spilling off the roof onto a cement walkway as counterpoint to the swoosh of tires on wet asphalt. I'd rather be in my garden listening as the rain drops from one leaf to another .

Yesterday I spent a pittance of the meager funds, I hope not unwisely, on a new daylily for my spot of refuge. It's taken a couple of weeks, but I finally talked a friend into making the reasonably short drive to a nearby village which may be called Williamsville, or South Newfane (which may be one and the same, neither of which really exist as both are just a part of Newfane). They are the sort of New England villages that aren't supposed to exist, relics of a bygone era found in Victorian novels; a few buildings along one road, being a general store/post office, a meetinghouse/place of worship, a covered bridge, and a run down farmhouse with a broken plastic sign growing out of a patch of weeds which declares in giant (but tasteful) red letters, "powertools". A stream, which may be related to the Rock River, meanders quietly along the roadside.

Just before the paving runs out in favor of a dirt road, there is a lovely little shabby farm stand, open 10am to 5pm. Their product is daylilies, which are in season. Just beyond the stand is a plot of daylilies. There is a little path of lawn to the right of it. Go up a gentle slope, and the farm is revealed.

I had it in mind that I need - I mean the garden needs - a red daylily. Daylilies these days have moved far beyond the tiger-lilly which seems to be a native plant in this area. It's not really; two varieties were brought here by early colonists, the orange having gone forth into the wilderness and multiplied.

Now, as it happens, I more or less abandoned my garden for several seasons. The perennials have fought the good fight against the goutweed; I have made occasional forays to assist in their defense. This year the skin condition, which made even walking painful, has come under control (so far - it regroups for new attacks). I have returned to the garden, and the garden knows it. The old roses have perked up and bloomed for the first time in years. A rain like this will result in almost instantaneous over growth of the gout weed, but I am determined to fight it.

For the first time in about 5 years, Madame Hardy spouted new canes,
followed by the promise of buds...

Mme. Hardy only looks like this for a day or two. The flowers flatten out and exhibit a green eye.
Here's what she looked like a few years back in 2005:



 

Königin von Dänemark also came back after years of dormancy. I'm delighted.

In the meantime, one of the owners of Solar Hill (where my garden lives) has decided that the sheep which graze on the front lawn should have more space - which will mean a loss of a portion of my garden, namely the weedy mess that used to be the shade path. Storms have taken their toll and one several years ago felled a large tree which took out many plants and made a general mess of things. It finally got removed last year. All that is a story for another time. For now it's a wonderfully rainy day, coffee is once again brewing, and my mind's eye is changing everything around to show off the new daylily. There is a corner that really does need another shade of red....



Yes, it's messy and untidy. Think Degas. Squint a little. See it in the mind's eye as it could be a couple of years from now after it fills back in and looks like a proper garden again.  Here's what it looked like several years ago. Eventually, the black eyed susans were moved out and the red and purple bee balm expanded. The purple is completely gone now, darn it.

In the meantime, Blogger is being difficult once more and my patience with it is at an end.  I'll have to get back to the tale of the garden later.

Just when did everything get so difficult #237, or, why I get so cranky...

It's another disgustingly beautiful morning here in the southern part of Vermont.

It could have easily been an enjoyable morning, but.... I made the mistake of checking Facebook. Specifically, I made the mistake of checking our Community Radio Station's Facebook page. (I'm one of the moderators.) It had been updated to a newer improved version. Which means that it is broken and isn't working.

Weeds in the garden

I check in on Geo's page, and decide to leave a comment.
Nope, won't do it.

I was using the browser everyone raves about. It was recently improved. Since the last update, I can't stop videos from automatically streaming. Videos that are stopped start by themselves. Videos that are stopped (and the few which never started) leak sound a few annoying bits at a time. I keep several pages open at once. Which page has the problem? I also have the page set so that it is magnified and easier to read. Since the update, that doesn't work properly either. The browser that is so much better doesn't have magnification ability - it is possible thanks to an add-on. Which doesn't work with the latest updated browser.

I thought I had 'joined' Geo's train ride - but that must have been on another browser, the one everyone says I shouldn't use, you know, the one I use most of the time. Simple matter, I'll just join his page. Except the browser won't do it. I receive instruction from the program. Cookies. Yeah, I like cookies. Oh, those. I check - the kind to which the instructions refer are enabled. Still no go. Check 'Privacy' settings - nope that wasn't it either. Maybe it isn't the browser, maybe it's a setting with the anti-virus anti-invasive threat anti-what-have-you-got program. Nope, not that one either. What about the program from the cable company that provides my high speed internet connection for a hefty fee? No, not that one. How about a setting in the Googlesphere?

bug on a Shasta daisy bud

After awhile I finally give up, and go to the browser I usually use. I don't see myself listed as a member of Geo's page on that browser either. So I join up. All I have to do is put in my password. I remember it, everything works fine. Until I see my old avatar and decide to update it. I upload a new one. It is rejected. I browse for a particular file folder with a picture I think might be fun to use. The "browse" function shows a file folder arrangement that was changed two years ago. That function used to work fine - until it was improved in an update.

the bindweed gets a visitor

A memory crosses my now grumpy brain. I bought an out of the box computer back around, oh, was it 2,000 or 2,001? It came with a lovely little program called EZ CD Creator. I could make a CD with such little effort. I could make CD covers and inserts that automatically listed all of the contents on the disc I'd just made. It had a great little graphics program that allowed text or other images to be superimposed over pictures. There were lots of fonts for the text, which could be tilted, placed in circular form, oh, there were all kinds of things that could be done. It was all so, so, well - - - so EZ. But then my Internet and Phone Service Provider made dsl available and I was sorely tempted by the newer, the faster, the improved. Which wouldn't work. The computer software refused to load the proper drivers. After months of frustrations, after months of paying for a service I couldn't use, I found the cause in an online forum. It was a peculiarity of the version of Windows which came loaded on the computer. I purchased the newer (expensive) Windows XP, and spent a portion of eternity in purgatory while the update took place. The dsl worked without my doing anything. I entered high speed Nirvana. I lived in a heightened state of awareness, a state of exultation, a state of delightenment. Until I tired to burn a CD. My great little free with the computer EZ CD Creator wouldn't work with the upgraded Windows XP. Okay.... I bought the new updated (pricey) EZ CD Creator. Except all it would do was burn the CD. It would no longer automatically list the contents of my newly burned CD. When I went to type it all out, I discovered that there was only one font I could use, an ugly one at that. The graphics part of the program was gone. It turned out that EZ CD Creator had been purchased by another company, and I had bought a "basic" version of the new improved EZ CD creator. The functions I loved were still available - if I purchased their expensive CD cover creation program. And their separate easy to use font pack. And for those to work I should probably purchase an upgraded version of their basic program. The only improvement I could detect was to the manufacturer's bottom line. Somewhere, Steve Jobs must have been smiling.

One of my old computers, cobbled together from spare parts in what a friend called "open architecture". 

I remember renting a run down little studio apartment in Greenwich Village in 1975. When I first saw it, I was happy enough - it was better than all the other average run down little hovels I had seen. The previous tenant had lived there for a very long, long time. The place was a mess and was being fixed up. It was basically a studio of about 11 feet in width, except that there was a squared archway between the main part of the room and a 9 feet in width section for the kitchen area and bathroom. Two large French doors hung in the archway; every single pane of glass broken. I went right back to the realtor and said I wanted to take it. She called the landlord. Another relator on the phone with the landlord also wanted the place. My realtor held up two fingers. I nodded. "Well, my client will put up two moths security." I got the place. I could have it as soon as they finished fixing it up. I asked that the French Doors be kept, offering to pay for the replacement of the glass sections myself. I waited and waited. They never seemed to finish fixing up the place. Weeks went by. Finally, all that remained was sweeping up from the fixing up. There was another week of waiting. I requested a change in my already paid rent due date, and said that I'd be happy to sweep the place out. I was given the go ahead to move in, which I did one night after work. The French Doors were gone. The old ceramic sink was gone, replaced with a cut down aluminum fish monger's sink barely propped up with a wooden structure of some sort. There was a new gas stove, and a new refrigerator. The place had been painted, and - what was the landlord's word?- "improved". I plugged everything in, and went to the nearby grocery store to get provisions. The store was in its last day of a really good sale on meat. I bought a fair amount of it, putting what I wasn't going to use for dinner into the freezer. Next morning I trooped off to work. When I got home after my 8 (+ lunchtime) hours of toiling in the fields of Mammon, I sat down and turned on the tv to watch the news. It blew up. I turned on the radio. It didn't work either. I opened the fridge - it wasn't working. Everything in it was spoiled. I pondered the situation. The lights worked, but nothing else would. The Village was one of the first areas in New York City to be wired for electricity. In those days, there was only direct current. Lights would work on direct current....  Sure enough, the place hadn't been updated to alternating current. It had, you see, been "improved".

'Japanese' beetles have arrived to destroy the roses.
 

One can almost hear the munching...

Post Script - There are a lot of graphic files on my computer, ordered in an arcane manner of my preference. I used to be able to just tell blogger the file name I wanted to upload. Older files had underlines or dashes so no blank spaces existed in the name, as that would confuse the programs. That got fixed. Except now if there is a dash or an underline in a file name, the upload programs can't seem to find the file - I have to go to the appropriate folder and click on the image. Blogger itself misbehaves; I added a caption to the above photo and it suddenly moved ahead of the previous picture and changed to a very large size. Because I have the page magnified, the options for managing the size and placement of the photo become hidden behind another button and are inaccessible until I go back to the size blogger seems to think is more appropriate. I "preview" the page so I can see how it will look when published. A banner appears to warn me that programs are in use which may be unsafe, so the program has thoughtfully blocked them for me. It has to be clicked off. It's been this way ever since they made a number of "improvements".

Those trees and etc.

Regarding yesterday's post, I wondered about the identity of a stand of trees on the Havemeyer Webb estate (the Shelburne Museum).  Those trees, by the way, line one side of Route 7 just outside of Burlington as it heads south towards the museum. We didn't find any of the gardening staff to ask about the identity of the trees. I'm sure they would know, but if they don't another short drive will get one to another part of the Webb family's estate which became the 1,500 acre Shelburne Farms, devoted to sustainable agricultural practices, which is also noted for its gardens.

As it happens, I took a few photos of the trees:

Geo may have identified the trees (Thank You, Geo!) They are possibly ligustrum japonicum. Whatever they are, I like them when they're in bloom.

Since I've gone this far, I might as well post a couple of the other pictures I took on the museum
grounds. As we entered the admissions building, it was impossible to ignore these haystacks which were standing outside. They aren't your everyday standard Vermont or New England haystack:

The reason for their appearance became evident a little later in the new exhibition gallery:

Monet - Haystacks in Winter




There are many gardens at the museum. This was one I walked by:

The following caught my eye. As I'll explain one day soon, I'm going to have to move some of my plants at Solar Hill to make more grazing area for the sheep. That includes moving my hostas. I used to have lady's mantle (with the chartreuse flowers) in my garden in Boston. I miss it and would like to have it again. I suspect I will copy this idea:

 

My heart goes out to those who volunteer:

 

 

The above garden was next to a building with an old wooden cellar entrance:

Which was (I think) across from this lovely old building, whose investigation is waiting for another time.

 

And that building was next to the giant chair. I suspect the chair came from nearby Gardner, Massachusetts - a mill town which turned out, you guessed it, chairs.





Well, Blogger is being a bit difficult again, the photos are either out of focus or I am (hey - it happens!) and I am way behind in the preparations for tonight's radio show. This seems to be the perfect place to leave off - a chair just waiting. I hope you get to sit in it one day.