Wordless Wednesday: Sunflower

Jody's sunflower at church

Wordless at
Comedy Plus

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Happy Tuesday: A Good Weekend

Maple Hill Road, Barton, Vermont
Sunday, September 25, 2022
The mountain in the background is Owl's Head in Québec
The farm raises beefalo. 

This is the road I take to Orleans Village to see Jody and to go to church. On Saturday, I did both: the Women's Fellowship had its Fall Fling and Jody went with me. The church is across from her house. We entered the raffles and we each won! I got my Pioneer Woman Mini Dutch Ovens (which are stainless, not cast iron), and Jody won a peanut butter bird feeder. I got a bag of doughnuts, also.

Jody's bird feeder

My mini Dutch ovens

After the fair, and after Jody had tended to the potatoes in the church garden that she created and manages, we went across the road to her home gardens to photograph insects in the beautiful weather. Those bugs will be in another post, but just to show you how good an iPhone bug photographer Jody is, here is a long-jawed spider that she found. It is unedited. I love the piped icing framing its abdomen. I'm an amateur, but it looks as if this species has its abdomen mimic a head so that predators don't bite its head off! That is common is butterflies and moths.

Long-jawed Spider
Genus Tetragnatha

As for me, I got my own Lifer bee, among many other bugs: 

Orange-tipped Wood-Digger (Anthophora terminalis)

We ate our doughnuts with water in the garden as we watched the wasps and bees.

Orleans Federated Church
Orleans Village, Barton, Vermont

Sunday was busy, too. First, to church back in Orleans. Then Amelia and Dori came to help me with housework, and I began cooking: macaroni and cheese, chili, bread, and brownies. We all ended the weekend trading our newest family photos of the grandpuppies.

Amelia's Dori in Orleans

Anna's Stewie and Milo (the Devil Dogs)
in New Haven

I have not had such a normal, brilliant weekend in years.

I hope your weekend was as happy!

Happy Tuesday at
Comedy Plus

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Orleans County Quests: Orleans Village Quest

The quest began at Orleans Elementary School

The Dana Carbonneau Memorial Garden

Dana Carbonneau, the principal of Orleans Elementary School, was estimated to be the eleventh person ever killed in Vermont because of a collision with a moose after he hit one in Woodbury on June 13, 2003. The first human fatality was in the early 1980s, said Mr. Hamelin.

For an excellent article on moose safety, reprinted from the Barton Chronicle, click here.

The photo above is by Wingnut. He was very interested in this because it is so different than the ones in Connecticut.


The first log cabin in Orleans, built by Paul and David McNeal in 1827. It is only 15 square feet. There was no sugarhouse vent then, of course. Seen on Cottage St, Orleans in somebody's backyard.

Orleans Post Office

The first church of Orleans and the Orleans Brickyard
were originally on this site of the post office.

Jones Memorial Library, Orleans
which is where I first saw this sign
(click the sign to read more about this Vermont phenomenon):

Barton River; taken on the Rt. 58 bridge in Orleans Village

Orleans Mural Project, 1996
Randi left me a comment at Flickr that she helped paint this in school!

The first blacksmith shop in Orleans. Now this is the Senior Center (the Orleans Mural is on the left side as seen in this photo).

Site of the railroad staton. The factory is Ethan Allen Furniture. The station was in the area of the grass and trees.

Orleans General Store

Cole's Market, formerly Orleans's second school, built in 1855. The back of this building still contains part of the original school.

Metal footbridge over the Barton River.
For more photos of this footbridge, click here.

Another view of Ethan Allen from the footbridge.

A house built in 1855.

Two dalmatians across the road from the 1855 house.

Orleans Federated Church, on the site of Orleans's second school.
You can view this church in winter here.

The original bell from the Orleans Church. The bell is engraved:
"McShane Bell Foundry, Baltimore, Maryland, 1891"

The quest returned us to the school where we began. The treasure box was supposed to be near the cornerstone but was not there. Please see my Flickr Orleans Village Quest Set for a few more photos and to view these photos full size.

Technorati Tags: Orleans County Quests, Orleans Village Quest, Vermont, Orleans Federated Church, McShane Bell Foundry, Jones Memorial Library, Dana Carbonneau, Ethan Allen Furniture, Orleans General Store, Orleans Mural Project
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