The Geology trail at the Nature Center! I found it! Yay me!!!
I have to get pics into Photobucket - but I am hereby posting my shortest input ever! I found the trail!
Friday, September 7, 2012
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Genesee Country Upstairs and Down
Yup, here I am and it's September! I know, I know...but look at it this way, think of all the neat pics I'll be able to post all fall and winter!
Anyway, yesterday, as is my wont when the whim takes me and the season is right, I went to Genesee Country Village and Museum. To anyone who remotely knows me, my instinct is to wax enthusiastic to a mind-numbing (for everyone else) point when I talk about the Village and what goes on there.
I actually had planned to find the (still) elusive Geology Trail in the Nature Center, which is part of the Museum. However, imagine my reaction when I found out at the admissions desk that a test tour of some of the basements and upstairses (? I also become somewhat non-grammatic) in the village was planned for 11:30!
In previous years, the Upstairs/Downstairs Tour was an evening event for members who made reservations. However, the plan currently is to try small group tours of visitors to the museum on certain days during the season. So I get to be a beta tester! YAY! I am happy to report I didn't break anything - much to my relief.
Usually you are forced to go from the beginning of things to the end of things with me. But I'm jumping to the last house on the tour: the Hyde Octagon House. Why? Because the Hyde Octagon House (built by Dr. Hyde - no relation to the Jekyll and Hyde story) has a cupola. And a cupola means views from above.
Normally the cupola is not open to visitors. BUT for the tour? We got to climb the very narrow stairs and stand at each of the 8 windows on top and take pictures! I messed up a couple (wrong exposure setting - I'm not good at this), but I got a few, as well. And here we go.
This is the Hyde Octagon House:
A little about the history in a bit.
The cupola is at the top (yeah, I'm being a smart aleck. It's my nature...)
And here we go for some views!!!!
The building in green is a pavilion restaurant that's open on special weekends and is also available for wedding receptions. Its style is Victorian and it's quite lovely. The white blotch you see directly behind it to the right is the town hallover on the village square. The large white building in the left background is the Livingston Backus house.The horizon is everywhere.
See what I mean about messing up my exposure settings? And this is after I got a lot of the blue out of the picture.
You're looking again at the Pavilion and in the center background, in additon to the Livingston Backus House, you are looking at the steeple of the Brooks Gtove Church.
This is slightly to the right of the first picture. You are looking down at the George Eastman Boyhood Home. This is the home he lived in until he was 6 years old. It's also where the wonderful ladies who work on quilts for the museum do their stitching. The light in the home is excellent.
This is another shot of the Eastman Home. Beyond it you can see a barn in a back field, and the Jones farmhouse.
We're now looking directly into the backyard of the Hyde House. The gardens are wearing their fall colors now, and seem to be muted, but they aren't, not really. The gazebo is a modern addition, although it may very well be something the Hydes would have had. The roof that looks so plain right now is actually solid copper and has developed a lovely patina with age.
Can you see the faint white lines in the back of the picture? They mark the outside boundary of the Baseball Diamond. There is a league that plays baseball according to the rules used in the 19th century (think no mitts, no face masks, and no cleats. Ties were optional, at least in the early, early years). And, yes, women played as well, although they were relegated to other fields than men. Pitching was underhand. Bats were wood although I don't think there was a standard for them. The baseball field used at the museum has the dimensions used in the 19th century. No pitcher's mound...it's really interesting to watch. If you like Baseball. Or history. Or sweating in the sun and drowning in the rain (boxes meant that the bleachers had a roof and were not for the ordinary man).
A bit farther to the right we cross onto the plot of land upon which sits the Hamilton House, a Victorian mansion, Italianate, I believe. We're looking at several of the outbuildings to the Hamilton House, as well as the back up bathroom for the Hyde Octagon. That little green building with the mini cupola on the roof? That's the outdoor plumbing. Dr. Hyde actually had a basic form of indoor toilet installed. The missus, however, remained a bit skeptical about the usefulness of something like that and insisted that a standard outhouse be built.
To your left in the back is the door to the carriage house for the Hamilton home. The windmill in the back operated the pump for the home's water. The building directly in front is either an outhouse, an icehouse, or a smokehouse. I've heard all three. Personal take? I'm thinking it's an ice house.
Then off to the right? The Hamilton Mansion. Oh, some reflections off the glass (the yellow squidge is an insect repellent I was wearing around my wrist). The flashing (the shiny line down this seam of the roof) is tin.
The final shot from the Hyde House cupola shows the front yard of the Hamilton House. The yews (those conically shaped green trees) are placed exactly as they were in a picture taken of the house in its original location. The iron fence (you can't see it, but it's there) was the original iron fence for the house and moved with the house to the museum.
There is ONE other way to see things from higher up than the cupola of the Octagon House, and here is a picture of it!
This is the faithful replica of one of the Observation Balloons used by the Army of the Potomac (Union Army under generals too numerous to list, for the most part, but ending with U.S. Grant) during the Civil War.
Yesterday was the last day for this season, I believe, that the balloon ascended carrying people in the basket you see hanging down.
This is a stationary balloon. It and its brothers were raised over battlefields and used to...er...observe what was happening. The balloon is the Intrepid. And the image on the side is the American Eagle (Civil War era) behind a picture of Gen. George Brinton McClellan. Not much of a general, but a great strategist who knew a good thing when it was presented to him. Indeed, he used information about enemy troop movements during at least one battle of the Seven Days, I think, although I could be wrong about which campaign it was.
I'm keeping this short tonight, because I promised not to word you to death. So I'm going to post this and start on a little more detail about the rest of the tour of the upstairs and downstairs in the village.
I hope you like this much! Thanks for stopping by!
Anyway, yesterday, as is my wont when the whim takes me and the season is right, I went to Genesee Country Village and Museum. To anyone who remotely knows me, my instinct is to wax enthusiastic to a mind-numbing (for everyone else) point when I talk about the Village and what goes on there.
I actually had planned to find the (still) elusive Geology Trail in the Nature Center, which is part of the Museum. However, imagine my reaction when I found out at the admissions desk that a test tour of some of the basements and upstairses (? I also become somewhat non-grammatic) in the village was planned for 11:30!
In previous years, the Upstairs/Downstairs Tour was an evening event for members who made reservations. However, the plan currently is to try small group tours of visitors to the museum on certain days during the season. So I get to be a beta tester! YAY! I am happy to report I didn't break anything - much to my relief.
Usually you are forced to go from the beginning of things to the end of things with me. But I'm jumping to the last house on the tour: the Hyde Octagon House. Why? Because the Hyde Octagon House (built by Dr. Hyde - no relation to the Jekyll and Hyde story) has a cupola. And a cupola means views from above.
Normally the cupola is not open to visitors. BUT for the tour? We got to climb the very narrow stairs and stand at each of the 8 windows on top and take pictures! I messed up a couple (wrong exposure setting - I'm not good at this), but I got a few, as well. And here we go.
This is the Hyde Octagon House:
A little about the history in a bit.
The cupola is at the top (yeah, I'm being a smart aleck. It's my nature...)
And here we go for some views!!!!
The building in green is a pavilion restaurant that's open on special weekends and is also available for wedding receptions. Its style is Victorian and it's quite lovely. The white blotch you see directly behind it to the right is the town hallover on the village square. The large white building in the left background is the Livingston Backus house.The horizon is everywhere.
See what I mean about messing up my exposure settings? And this is after I got a lot of the blue out of the picture.
You're looking again at the Pavilion and in the center background, in additon to the Livingston Backus House, you are looking at the steeple of the Brooks Gtove Church.
This is slightly to the right of the first picture. You are looking down at the George Eastman Boyhood Home. This is the home he lived in until he was 6 years old. It's also where the wonderful ladies who work on quilts for the museum do their stitching. The light in the home is excellent.
This is another shot of the Eastman Home. Beyond it you can see a barn in a back field, and the Jones farmhouse.
Can you see the faint white lines in the back of the picture? They mark the outside boundary of the Baseball Diamond. There is a league that plays baseball according to the rules used in the 19th century (think no mitts, no face masks, and no cleats. Ties were optional, at least in the early, early years). And, yes, women played as well, although they were relegated to other fields than men. Pitching was underhand. Bats were wood although I don't think there was a standard for them. The baseball field used at the museum has the dimensions used in the 19th century. No pitcher's mound...it's really interesting to watch. If you like Baseball. Or history. Or sweating in the sun and drowning in the rain (boxes meant that the bleachers had a roof and were not for the ordinary man).
A bit farther to the right we cross onto the plot of land upon which sits the Hamilton House, a Victorian mansion, Italianate, I believe. We're looking at several of the outbuildings to the Hamilton House, as well as the back up bathroom for the Hyde Octagon. That little green building with the mini cupola on the roof? That's the outdoor plumbing. Dr. Hyde actually had a basic form of indoor toilet installed. The missus, however, remained a bit skeptical about the usefulness of something like that and insisted that a standard outhouse be built.
To your left in the back is the door to the carriage house for the Hamilton home. The windmill in the back operated the pump for the home's water. The building directly in front is either an outhouse, an icehouse, or a smokehouse. I've heard all three. Personal take? I'm thinking it's an ice house.
Then off to the right? The Hamilton Mansion. Oh, some reflections off the glass (the yellow squidge is an insect repellent I was wearing around my wrist). The flashing (the shiny line down this seam of the roof) is tin.
The final shot from the Hyde House cupola shows the front yard of the Hamilton House. The yews (those conically shaped green trees) are placed exactly as they were in a picture taken of the house in its original location. The iron fence (you can't see it, but it's there) was the original iron fence for the house and moved with the house to the museum.
There is ONE other way to see things from higher up than the cupola of the Octagon House, and here is a picture of it!
This is the faithful replica of one of the Observation Balloons used by the Army of the Potomac (Union Army under generals too numerous to list, for the most part, but ending with U.S. Grant) during the Civil War.
Yesterday was the last day for this season, I believe, that the balloon ascended carrying people in the basket you see hanging down.
This is a stationary balloon. It and its brothers were raised over battlefields and used to...er...observe what was happening. The balloon is the Intrepid. And the image on the side is the American Eagle (Civil War era) behind a picture of Gen. George Brinton McClellan. Not much of a general, but a great strategist who knew a good thing when it was presented to him. Indeed, he used information about enemy troop movements during at least one battle of the Seven Days, I think, although I could be wrong about which campaign it was.
I'm keeping this short tonight, because I promised not to word you to death. So I'm going to post this and start on a little more detail about the rest of the tour of the upstairs and downstairs in the village.
I hope you like this much! Thanks for stopping by!
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