New bees

Sunday I went and picked up our second attempt at bees and as stated waited till Monday to put them in. Well, this was a mistake! Monday was rainy and chilly as a cold front moved in our way. Dan got home later than expected, so at 6pm we are out in the yard throwing all caution to the wind trying to get the bees into their new home. We didn't use any protective clothing, no smoke, and we didn't feed them first to calm them. Needless to say we both got a sting. Not too bad when considering how we put them in.

The bad part came with the shift of weather. I woke up at 4am Tuesday to an inch of snow! Oh no! Most of the bees hadn't had the time to make it into the hive (or figure out that they wanted to get into the hive) and here they are about half of them, cold, un-moving covered in snow. I got home at 2pm and scooped some back into the shipping container and brought them in. There were maybe a dozen moving. Low and behold within an hour 100 were moving. By this morning all but 100 were moving. Apparently bees are pretty resilient little buggers!

I put them back out today, not wanting to have them away from the queen any more than needed. Hopefully we do not loose them all!

A New Year

2014 is looking to be an amazing year. After such a cold winter, the bugs have all but disappeared for this gorgeous spring.

The daffodil are blooming in full force in the front yard right now, it is still amazing that I covered my whole front garden with them by breaking up two clumps when we bought the house. There are more clumps that I need to break up this fall.

The apple trees are both getting leaves which is good news. I was worried they may have been harmed in the hard winter. The raspberrys are spreading and after this year I will begin the process of keeping them thinned.

Two things stand out the most about this spring though. We got bees again, and a dozen new chicks. The chicks are two months old already, it's hard to believe. To my best guess it is 7 boys and 5 girls. We will be taking the boys to get done up for dinner in another month or two. I'm down to just two of my original 6 hens. Pat and Betty keep on trucking and they are being real troopers about the new chicks. Pat has started laying again, and fingers crossed it keeps up!

The bees I picked up today from Spille in Ky, but they are going to have to wait to go into their new home till Monday evening when Dan gets home from work. Hopefully we have more luck all around!

4 of the new chicks! 

Fruit!

All my fruit adventures seem to be doing excellent this year! Last year we planted two 3-in-1 apples trees (both have yellow delicious, gala, and fuji!) They both bloomed this year and we have mini apples growing on the trees! The one out front isn't doing quiet as well as the one in the back, mostly due, I think, to the fact that the deer ate a lot of the branches last summer before I put netting around it. Also looks like I need to get some tree straightener kits!

The raspberry patch is going absolutely crazy! I will need to prune it back pretty seriously this fall. All these plants are from about a dozen shoots that I took from my sisters garden last summer. They are doing great! Covered them with bird netting today because the fruit is starting to show. The bucket is next to my blueberry bush which I was sure I killed last summer (by not watering it often enough) It came back and is also showing fruit!

And last but not least! The strawberry patch! Got my first full sized strawberry today! Took some pictures and promptly ate it! It was amazing!!!! These are also starts from my sisters garden from two summers ago. This is the first year that they have done really well! I have so many ripening hopefully the birds and such don't find them- I need to drop some net over them as well.

Raspberries, Blueberries and Strawberries OH my!

It's been a While

It seems like part of blogging is to- well- stop blogging for a while. No matter! The hiatus is at an end!

It has been busy around the house preparing for spring and admiring just how far I have com in the three years we have owned this house. With time, patience, and care the gardens are looking good again. I'm not saying I'm finished with them by any means- but they are looking good.

The last few days have been devoted to two main projects for me- creating two 4'x4' raised beds and modifying our compost bin. These two projects went hand in hand. To modify my compost bin- it needed to be empty- to empty it I needed a place where nearly two years of compost could go.

The raised beds look great. Most of the lumber I was able to get on clearance at Home Depot for 51 cents a piece, score! I still need to get some stone pavers to go between the two beds. I left this gap to allow easy access to the hard to reach middle of the beds. You can also see the new split rail fence that my dad installed for us! The old one was falling apart. This one still needs to be stained- but then it is done! I have some seeds started in the house that I hope to transplant into the new raised beds in the next week or so.

And here is the modified compost bin clean, propped up and drying in the sun so it can get a coat of paint! This Pleascent Clean barrel came with the house- already modified to lack both a lid and a bottom. I've been composting in it since I got the chickens in Feb 2011. This is the first time it has been completely emptied. Talk about some rich compost! I've added the holes around the barrel to hopefully speed up the composting process by allowing a little more air into the mixture. 

Cookie

I returned home Thursday from a two week vacation to find Cookie in rough shape. Advanced case of sour crop. She died yesterday. 

The good news is that Cookie needed to go anyway. She hadn't laid an egg in nearly a year. She was loud and obnoxious. Even so, it was a blow to not be able to do anything for her. For me though, it was quick. She died Saturday afternoon. 

Reading information long into the night on sour crop, I am worried for my other hens. Sour crop is usually an indicator of an underlying infection or problem, not always, but usually.  Did Cookie just have something wrong with her, that manifested in her not laying- and the culminated in her death? Or was there something else that suddenly caused the infection. It's hard to say, but I am now worried about my remaining hens' very low egg production. Perhaps they are all ill with a mystery disease that I can't discover.

Another cause of sour crop is poor sanitary conditions. While I feel that my hen house is clean - I am going to make some changes to the food an water area. I'm going to put in planking so I can see the spilled food rather than it being buried in bedding. Moldy food is often associated with sour crop- perhaps there is an underlying problem there. 

Only time will tell if this was isolated or a serious problem. 

The Last two years

I have officially been a chicken keeper for two years today. It is hard to believe that on this day in 2011 I brought home 6 peeping chicks that I could easily hold in my hand. It is easy to say that any event changed one's life, but I feel very strongly that raising chickens has changed mine, and continues to change it. I feel that in the future I will be pressed with a hard decision- what do I do with my hens when they stop laying? Would I be able to eat them? If I can't eat these birds, what makes the ones at supermarkets any different? Any one of them could have been as smart as Betty, as soft as Pat, as brave as Nugget. (However, if they were all annoying like Cookie, maybe it wouldn't be so hard :) ) I feel that many of the changes have helped me become a better person. I feel more in touch with my food than I ever have. I pay attention to what is in what I am eating. What was the cost, not monetarily, of the production of it.

I hope to continue chicken keeping for the rest of my life and continue to see the changes that it makes on me.

1 year Anniversary!

It is official, I have been blogging for a year! My first post was on Sunday Nov 20th 2011.

"....I am hoping by writing some of my hopes and dreams I fully realize how important they really are to me and it encourages me to strive to continue to follow my ambitions. In the meantime I hope you will find some entertaining antic-dotes about raising chickens, traveling, reading, and coming to grips with who I am. I hope that by writing my story down, you may participate in it. In a world of instant gratification and instant information, it will encourage me to write when I remind myself that I will be able to slow down and, after time, look back on the experiences that I write about...."

 I hope that you have enjoyed checking out this site as much as I have enjoyed working on it. It definitely makes it easier for me to look back and see all the wonderful things that I have done over the last year as well as the trials.

As always, thanks for stopping by :)

Tea Shelf

A while back I started a project of building a rack for our massive tea collection we have. I proceeded to get super frustrated and left it alone for probably 3 or 4 months out of sheer aggravation  I have learned that poly shades is NOT for me.
Anyway, it is finally complete! I made it fit along an empty stretch of wall and tried to match the stain as best I could... It's not perfect, but it gets the job done :)

I made dado cuts in the support piece( the left side) and then just used wood glue (and sometimes a hammer) to set the shelves into place. It is attached to the wall with two screws on tiny L brackets at the top an bottom. Each shelf can hold one standard tea box facing at 180deg or two boxes at 90deg (second from the top shelf). Easy access and adds some color to the room!

Final Appointment

In all the excitement about Betty I forgot to mention my last Dr appointment for my ACL! The Dr seemed very happy with my outcome. But even more than that, I am happy with my outcome. There are still a few things I cannot do but I have high hopes that in time I will be able in time. The Dr encouraged me to make an appointment if I ever felt instability, but otherwise I was doing great. The physical therapist told me that swelling would be there for 9 months to a year since I wasn't having the surgery so I still have quite a while till the injury is healed. The more reading I do, the more convinced I am that I made the correct choice. While it may not be the right choice for everyone, I think it will work for me. So many of the reconstruction surgeries fail within ten years anyway, that if I do end up needing surgery down the road, I'm not paying for it twice. There is also a new front of medicine called the regenerative matrix that is making some headway in the nonsurgical repair of torn ACLs that maybe in ten or fifteen years may be a viable option for human patients. Here's to hoping for that!

Betty decorates for Halloween

So I walked out to the garage this morning, a little later than normal and as I approached the interior my initial thought was, "How many of the chickens are dead".

There was blood everywhere.

Blood all over the place in the nest box. 

This is their feeder. There is normally no red on it except for the very bottom.  The rest is blood. 

After a quick head count I discovered all 5 of my chickens were acting completely normal and very alive. Letting my heart rate drop down a little I started looking for what in the world was going on. Grabbing one at a time I checked each chicken over for a wound. Then I found where the blood was coming from. Of course it was Betty. Her white feathers were streaked crimson from a what was to be discover as a small (I mean SMALL) nick in one of the points of her comb. It was still bleeding everywhere. I set Betty down and ran inside to grab cornstarch and put on a darker colored jacket because I knew I was going to get bloody. Betty seemed completely unconcerned with the blood constantly dripping off her face. She would just shake her head flinging blood everywhere and move on. I picked her up and started to attempt to apply corn starch to the wound (which I couldn't find at the moment because her whole head was bleeding it seemed). Betty seemed mostly interested in trying to eat the cornstarch out of my hand and was not real thrilled about me throwing it in her face and eyes, but she was relatively cooperative. One hour, one can of tuna and 6 or 7 corn starch applications later the bleeding finally slowed. Betty was not to pleased with me keeping her separated for a few hours to let the blood dry so the other wouldn't pick at the new scab.

It was a good thing I did't have to work! The whole ordeal took about two hours.

Betty dressed up as Zombie Betty for Halloween.

The worst part was- chicken blood smells EXACTLY like raw chicken..... I take one step closer to never eating chicken again today.

Fall

This weekend was a blessing. My first two days off back to back since I tore my ACL August 30th. Yesterday Dan and I slept in and then went to the Renaissance festival. On our way there we stopped at a tiny antique store called Mary Ann's Antiques in Barn. After the festival we went to Caesars Creek lake and walked around for a bit and then stopped a a farmers stand where we bought our pumpkins, apple cider, and a 1/2 peck of apples. He also sold this stuff he called "slush" which was apple cider in slushie form. It was delicious. I think the name of the market was "Lamb's Appleberry Farms". We came home and had a wonderful fire and relaxed.

Today was just as awesome and a bit more productive. Slept in and then had the amazing beef and rosemary stew Dan made yesterday (stew tips, bacon seasons, potatoes, carrots, onion, cayenne peppers, rosemary, oregano, garlic, curry, salt, pepper, water) . Then we mowed the lawn and did some yard chores that included trimming back a lot of the rose of sharons. I also harvested a good amount of my herbs so I can preserve them for the winter. It's mostly stevia, chives, curry and oregano this year.

The chickens also got to hang out in the lawn all day today which is a treat for them since I've been home so little. Dan lit a fire in the pit and burned a lot of the downed wood that had accumulated over the summer and some of the stuff we had just cut during our yard work. Then we made smores :) We went for a walk back in the nature preserve and I slipped around a bit but my knee seemed to do just fine which is really exciting for me. For right now I think I made the right choice to go non surgical. I just need to keep up with the exercises and keep my strength up to support the knee.

Right now we are working on bottling our Christmas Ale!

A Torn ACL and a New Job

So I saw the orthopedic Dr again today and made clear to him my desire to take a non-surgical approach to my ACL injury. He seems impressed with my range of motion since I can straighten and bend my knee very well now, but he seems unsatisfied with my overall stability. The hard part for me comes with the fact that I am in the middle of a job change. I don't think I've mentioned it yet but I put in my notice at my old job and training for my new job has already begun. Last day at the full time job is Oct 4th!(I'm very excited about this). This makes things a bit more complicated because I lose real insurance on Oct 31st because the new job is only part time. That means I would have to have the surgery done in Early October. I just don't think I want to do that. It's been a rough few weeks since I tore the ACL. Since I am working both jobs now and I'm on my feet a lot. I'm not using the crutches anymore but I still can't lift a whole lot of weight. I feel really good with the progress I've made with my knee. I can't walk normally yet but it is getting closer every day. I can walk up and down steps now without stepping up one at a time. The more I read the more I think it is possible for me to return to a somewhat normal life without having the reconstruction surgery. It is hard to find examples or information on going the non-surgical route though. It seems like Dr tend to just have the surgery done and not really think twice about it. Either way I'm pretty much guaranteed to get osteoarthritis in that knee. Either way I'm in for a long recovery. I will never be able to play soccer again without the ACL. While this is a heart breaker for me, it seems easier than having the surgery at this point in my life. Even with insurance I would probably pay more than $3000 out of pocket. Recovery can take 6 months, and my wedding is in 6 months.

Here's to hoping I don't need the surgery. My next dr appointment isn't till Oct 31st but lots of therapy between now and then. I need to relearn how to walk.

Bad News

I received some devastating news today.

I guess it starts with the fact that I started playing indoor soccer again. Just recreational Thursday nights coed. Thursday a week ago I injured my knee. I thought I had dislocated the knee cap and went to an urgent care. They took an xray and saw no problems so instructed me to see an orthopedic. The orthopedic Dr then told me to go get an MRI (don't even get me started on our healthcare system). Today was the appointment with the orthopedic Dr to look at the MRI. I tore my ACL. Completely tore my ACL. The Dr thinks I'm going to need surgery to repair the damage. I can't even really think about it honestly. I made some appointments for physical therapy.


In other news..... My mom came over to help around the house since I'm on crutches and we used up all the peppers and tomatoes from my garden, her garden, and Dan's mom's garden that I had collected to make some hot salsa! It made 8 -8oz jars so I'm looking forward to trying that.

Also, at work the other day I caught a hummingbird. I caught a humming bird with my bare hand. It got into the shop around 11am and was zooming around in the warehouse. I tried everything I could think of to make it fly out of the building but it just wasn't getting it. (I even set up a light with pink gel in it to try to lure it lower so it would fly out). So around 6 pm it was time to go but we couldn't set the building alarm with it still flying around. I started to watch it, it definitely seemed to be getting tired. It landed on an Ethernet cable strung in the ceiling and just sat there cleaning itself and then was still. I grabbed a ball out of the desk and threw it up there. It hit the wire but the hummingbird didn't move. I found this curious. So I rolled the big ladder over and set my crutches down and climbed up the ladder so I was level with the hummingbird. It didn't move. I reached out and snatched it. It freaked out. It felt like a grasshopper trying to escape a clutching hand, but it made more racket than I thought possible for a bird that small. His face was all puffed up and his beak was open and he was just letting me know he was pissed off. Needless to say I hobbled back down the ladder and over to the open dock door where I let him go. He took right off so I have high hope he found some food and survived the ordeal.

Also tomorrow is one of my best friends wedding. I am super excited to be going. Incidentally she was one of the first people I called after I hurt myself. I wanted to let her know that I was going to be the girl on crutches at her wedding. Not just at the wedding I suppose. In it. The rehearsal was tonight and everyone kept asking what happened.

Lost the Colony

So I guess we didn't have beginners luck on this one. We just went out to our hive and found that the whole thing is basically gone. No brood, no signs of a queen. Lots and lots of wax moth larvae. There are a few bees but we suspect they are only robbers or the remnants of the hive coming back to salvage as much as possible. There is maybe two tablespoons of honey left. 3 weeks ago there were full frames of honey. It is definitely a blow to us. Right now just trying to learn from the mistakes we made and salvage as much equipment as we can for next year.

The chickens seem to be experts on digging out the wax moth larvae from the wax. I'm feeling vindictive and let them just gobble them up.

Heading Home- Vacation Part 8

After getting out of the hotel as quick as we could we headed for Johnstown Flood National Memorial. The Johnstown flood was caused by a dam failing after days of heavy rain and years of neglect to the dam. 20 million tons of water headed down the valley crushing small towns with its 40 foot high wall of surging water. By the time it reached Johnstown is was a colossal mess of debris and water. When it hit Johnstown it knocked down boilers that set the swirling litter of debris and bodies on fire. Over 2,200 people were killed. Many felt that the owners of the dam, the South Fork Fishing and Hinting Club and its wealthy members, were to blame for the catastrophic failure due to their failure to properly maintain and equip the dam. They were never found legally responsible.

A view of the valley near the town Saint Michael where the lake was in 1889, taken from the top of the remnants of the earthen dam that broke. 

Leaving Johnstown we set our sights on home. We made a pit stop at Cabellas in West Virginia and found an excellent two burner propane range to brew beer on and can on. After spending some time in the store we moved on again. We stopped in Columbus and ate skyline and then stopped again near the Ohio Renaissance fairgrounds to watch the Perseid Meteor shower. We pulled off on a small country road between two cornfields and laid on the back of my car and watched the hundreds of shooting stars crisscross the sky. It was a beautiful end to a great trip.

Scranton Sucks - Vacation Part 7

We were surprised again when we woke up at Lake St. George. Who knew that we would be able to see the lake from our close-to-the-highway site. We moved on pretty quickly (after enjoying there awesome shower houses) and headed to Lowell National Historic Park which is nestled just north of Boston in Lowell.   We only saw a small portion of this historic park and I look forward to going back when the weather is nicer and I have more energy. The park is spread out throughout the city highlighting different parts of the textile industries growth and decline in Lowell, the heart of the US textile industry in 1850. The only part of the large park that we visited was the Boott Cotton Mills Museum where we watched power looms do their work. It was cool to see 1800's machinery at work.

The video shows the machinery moving and you can hear the sound, but the feel of those machines in your ears and feet and lungs, I can't imagine working there everyday like many young women did.

We left Lowell and decided to head to Scranton, a middle ground between Boston and Pittsburgh  We also decided to just get a hotel since it was going to be pretty late when we got into Scranton. We headed to a Best Western and walked in to get a room. Sold out. We had the lady call a few other hotels. Sold out. We tried about 30 hotels and motels. Sold out. We had to drive another hour before we found a hotel with a room left. A king suite, smoking. At two in the morning it sounded fine. Stupid Scranton.

Canadaish - Vacation Part 6

Cobscook turned out to be an absolutely amazing campground. All the spots were really nice and there was water everywhere. Our site ended up being really close to the shower houses which was convenient  Going to take a shower resulted in some hilarious people watching of the women who were using their electric coffee pot in the bathroom because that was where the electric was. Not to mention the line of people trying to charge their iPhone. Apparently everyone with AT&T was on international roaming because we were so close to the Canadian border.

After we cleaned ourselves we headed to St Croix Island International Historic Site. There wasn't a whole lot to see here. The island is not visit-able because of its fragile nature. They had a short interpretive walk with some interesting statues that were covered in white furry caterpillars.   The story of St Croix is the story of some super stubborn Frenchmen. They found this island and were like 'yeah here looks good' and the native Passamaquoddys were like, 'um you probably shouldn't stay there this winter.' And the french were like, 'But it is defensible! what do you know!' Then 35 out of the 79 men died when the water around them froze and became impassable to the mainland... Which happened to be the only source of freshwater.

A view of St Croix Island at low tide. The near bank is USA the far bank is Canada. 

After St Croix we headed to one of the bridges that would allow us to enter Canada's Campobello Island so we could visit Roosevelt Campobello International Park. The park is interesting because it in Canada but dedicated to FDR and therefore the park talks a lot about the history of the relationship between the US and Canada. They have restored Roosevelt's summer cottage (all three stories and 34 rooms) and have many items that once belonged to the president and his family and tell his story in relation to Campobello. The most notable part of which was his contracting polio in 1921. Mostly it made me wish that I could have been around in the 1920's and had a lot of money so I could have bought a "cottage" on an island for a summer home.

We made it back through customs. And started heading south. We arrived out our campground, Lake St George State Park, just before it started to rain and set up camp in the headlights of our car in a light drizzle. The camp site we found was maybe 20 feet away from the highway, pretty different from Cobscook.

Words that start with Schoo - Vacation Part 5

Our camp ground at Lamoine State Park wasn't much but they did have a nice beach that we took advantage of with a nice walk in the morning. After that we headed on to the Schoodic Peninsula. This is part of Acadia National Park but is about an hour from the main part on Mt Desert Island. The Peninsula was much quieter. We took advice from a ranger to go there during low tide when you can walk to Moose Island and do some tide pooling. This was a lot of fun and I could have spent all day doing it. I found an anemone and a starfish! As well as thousands of snails and crabs!

We left in a bit of a hurry to head back to Bar Harbor, the town on Mount Desert Island. This was because we had made reservations on the historic 4 mast Schooner!

This is a picture of the Schooner we took a ride on. I took this the day before right when we arrived in Acadia!

 The boat ride was beautiful  We were able to cruse around a small Island without an engine running. What ended up being super cool was seeing a pod of porpoise feeding off the starboard side of the boat. I'm pretty sure the kayakers just thought we thought they were super freaking cool.

The small black dot below the kayaks is a porpoise surfacing!

After we got off the schooner and fought our way out of crazy busy Bar Harbor we headed to the quiet side of Mount Desert Island. The west side of the Island is far less traveled and touristy than the east side. On our way we stopped at the Atlantic Brewing Company and had a beer tasting and ate some amazing BBQ before continuing on. Again we took a rangers advice and climbed Beech Mountain up to the fire tower. It was a great hike with some beautiful achievements in trail workmanship. We were in a bit of a rush since sunset was approaching quickly. The view was worth it and we lingered here longer than we probably should have. It was pretty dark by time we found the parking lot again.

View from the top of Beech Mountain 

Pulling out of the parking lot we waved goodbye to beautiful Acadia and promised we would visit again. We began what turned out to be a very long and foggy drive north to Cobscook State Park. We pulled into the campground well after ten pm. There was no one to be found. No directions for the campground other than a list of how many bushels of clams you were aloud to take from the water. We drove in following signs. There was no one. Anywhere. Dan got out to look at a campsite. He disappeared for ten minutes. The campsite was set 100 yards off the road in a very wooded pine grove. We finally passed a site that was on the road. Still no people. I then told Dan that we were going to drive around the campground till we found people. If there were no people we weren't staying. Well eventually we found people and went back to the site on the road that we had found earlier. We set up camp and crawled exhausted into the tent. As I laid there, in the giant pine forest I noticed that there was not a sound in the park. No rustling leaves. No wind. No crickets. No engines. No people. I whispered to Dan, "There is no noise in this campground. It is creepy." On cue a nearby owl goes WHO-who-who. Dan replies, "There's an owl." I think this is by far his favorite part of the vacation.

Acadia- Vacation Part 4

Well we didn't quiet make it into Maine. We stopped at Moose Brook State Park in New Hampshire to pitch our tent and sleep for the night. After setting up in the now customary darkness we walked out to a field and put the picnic blanket down and watched hundreds of shooting stars cross the sky. Eventually, being in the mountains, we got cold and headed in for the night. The following morning we made a friend who was interested in Dan, and in what Dan was cooking .

And then we moved on to Maine. For real this time. We knew we were getting close to Acadia because the gas prices kept creeping up slowly. After some serious traffic we made it over the bridge to Mount Desert Island. We decided to go to the Hulls Cove Visitor Center to see about getting some lodging for the night at one of the two campgrounds. We waited in line for about 15 minutes before discovering that they were both booked. For the rest of the week. So we decided to go ahead and do the driving tour of the main, and very very busy, part of the Island and call around campgrounds in the area to see where we could sleep. The driving tour was very pretty and there was a lot to see but I do recommend not going during the peak week, like we did. For dinner we went to the Jordan Pond House and had popovers and soup out on the lawn. And then took a short walk to the pond to see the bubbles. Which are actually small mountains.

After that we made the drive up to Cadillac mountain for sunset. I guess it is a more popular place to watch sunrise as it is the first place the light falls on the United States. Sunset was quiet a spectacle however, our sunset even got a standing ovation from the massive crowd. No encore unfortunately.

After driving down Cadillac mountain we headed off the Island. We had reserved a "spot" at a campground called Lamoine State Park. It was about an hour long drive so once again we arrived after dark. I call it a "spot" because when we called to reserve it the kind ranger on the phone said " we have a spot left but it's really no good unless you really just need a place to sleep for the night". We were sold.

Welcome to the 20th Century- Vacation Part 3

After leaving Saratoga we continued North along the Hudson River. Along the way of Rt 4 we were hit by an exceptional storm. We pulled the car over to the side of the road near the bank of the Hudson and for nearly 20 minutes watched the storm rage around us. After that we decided that this would make a good first night in a hotel. We stopped at a Best Western just inside Vermont.
Our first stop the following day was the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historic Park. This is a park dedicated to three owners of one house. George Marsh, Frederick Billings and Laurence Rockefeller all at some point owned the house. Their common mission was land stewardship. We took a hike on one of the carriage roads up to what they called the Pouge. It was basically a good sized pond that supplied water to the house and other buildings and water troughs. Quick history lesson: Mr. Billings also held huge investments in the oil and railroad industries at the same time he was committing  himself to land stewardship. Conflict of interests? Anyway Laurence was widely known  as a philanthropist and helped create many of the national parks as we see them today by buying and donating land (most notably in the Grand Tetons). He donated the house at the national park in 1992 and he officially moved out and handed the keys to the national park service in 2001.

The Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller House. We took a tour but no photos inside are permitted.

Dan and I at the Pouge taken by two very nice ladies from New Hampshire who sat with us while we made a revolutionary lunch of spaghetti-o's and ravioli.

After returning from our hike and hopping in our car we sped out of Vermont and headed to New Hampshire (which wasn't far away). We drove over a covered wooden bridge to enter New Hampshire and once again arrived at the park almost at closing time. Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site proved more interesting than I originally thought. Augustus Saint-Gaudens was a sculptor and the historic site was where he did much of his work and lived for much of his life. There are many replicas and originals of his works scattered through out the grounds and buildings of the park. We rushed through many of the buildings because they closed at 4:30, but the grounds were open till dusk so we had plenty of time to explore them. History lesson: Mr Saint-Gaudens did many famous sculptures that you may recognize of President Lincoln and coin proofs like the $20 gold piece called the double eagle. He also happened to do the bronze face casting that we had seen a few days previously at the James Garfield NHS.

After leaving Saint-Gaudens (well after everyone else) we headed back the way that we came. And we saw that covered bridge. And our jaws dropped. Coming from the other direction it hadn't seemed all that interesting. Yes covered bridges are cool. However, this one was 449 feet long and built in 1866. After getting out of our car to take some pictures of this remarkable feat of 1866 engineering and throwing off the super excited and overly friendly bridge hunters (escaping them, not literally throwing them off the bridge)- we headed onward to Maine.

Notice the boater. And the fact that it didn't fit in the picture.