Thank you, Salix Tree, for introducing me to this! meeeeeyauw!
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Monday, March 12, 2007
Evolution of Dance
The most viewed video of all-time on YouTube: 44 million hits! Go to The Evolution of Dance website for more info!
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Sunday, March 11, 2007
Hate And The F Word
There are two F words at school which, if spoken, will cause our students to be suspended and I'm not going to tell you which ones because you know. Coulter doesn't know (I won't create a tag for her for my blog either).
Click HERE to see whether or not your newspaper still carries Coulter's column.
If your newspaper still carries her column, please write, politely, and ask them to stop. I have included the text of my request to the Caledonian Record in St. Johnsbury. I think it explains why her behaviors cannot be condoned.
Thank you.
Click HERE to see whether or not your newspaper still carries Coulter's column.
If your newspaper still carries her column, please write, politely, and ask them to stop. I have included the text of my request to the Caledonian Record in St. Johnsbury. I think it explains why her behaviors cannot be condoned.
Good afternoon.Please do this now. This country simply cannot cope with much more hate.
I am writing on behalf of family members and other Vermonters and as a regular reader of the Record.
Please discontinue Ann Coulter's column immediately. She is purposefully riling people up at the expense of our gay citizens. It is hostile behavior and uncalled for. We don't need any more ugly rhetoric from anyone about anyone anymore.
I would like people of all orientations/races/genders, etc. to feel safe and secure in Vermont. Unfortunately, language such as Coulter uses adds to an acceptance and an escalation of the use of this ugly language.
Please help break the cycle of this hostility.
Thank you so much for considering my request.
name
address (please do not be anonymous!)
Thank you.
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Kham's Thai Cuisine
Amy took me to my first Thai restaurant yesterday in St. Jay. It was OK. The best part was being with Amy. I can survive without Thai food. It seemed to be fancy Chinese food to me. With pineapple, salt and peanuts. I just don't understand the fascination with it. The Ethiopian food when we were in Washington I can also live without. Now Indian food I am willing to explore. I had some last summer that was terrific.
Next weekend the Freight House Restaurant in Lyndonville (already the site of one date I thought was wonderful but wasn't!) is having a St. Patrick's Day dinner from 11am-8pm. I wonder if I can find a date to go. Dating is not all that fun. I don't like being lied to. That seems to be the big problem: lying and misrepresentation. Since I began my quest last year for a lifelong love, I have been lied to and promised things by EVERY man. What's up with the truth anymore? Truth doesn't scare me. Lies scare the shit out of me.
Otherwise the weekend is lousy. It is in the thirties today but it is cloudy and damp so I cannot open up the porches to the sun. The snow is still too deep to go out in it. It may as well be below zero again.
I got a sauce recipe out of Andrew. I hope it is good because I am desperate for real spaghetti. Not Vermont style! I can order the tomatoes online (click the link to the recipe on Andrew's name. At the recipe, click the Marzano graphic at the top of the post for the importer). And tomorrow I can go back to work and be useful again.
Next weekend the Freight House Restaurant in Lyndonville (already the site of one date I thought was wonderful but wasn't!) is having a St. Patrick's Day dinner from 11am-8pm. I wonder if I can find a date to go. Dating is not all that fun. I don't like being lied to. That seems to be the big problem: lying and misrepresentation. Since I began my quest last year for a lifelong love, I have been lied to and promised things by EVERY man. What's up with the truth anymore? Truth doesn't scare me. Lies scare the shit out of me.
Otherwise the weekend is lousy. It is in the thirties today but it is cloudy and damp so I cannot open up the porches to the sun. The snow is still too deep to go out in it. It may as well be below zero again.
I got a sauce recipe out of Andrew. I hope it is good because I am desperate for real spaghetti. Not Vermont style! I can order the tomatoes online (click the link to the recipe on Andrew's name. At the recipe, click the Marzano graphic at the top of the post for the importer). And tomorrow I can go back to work and be useful again.
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Friday, March 09, 2007
Photo Hunters: Architecture
Hartford Municipal BuildingHartford, Connecticut
This building replaced the Old State House as the seat of city government when it opened in 1915. The design is of the Beaux-Art style, constructed of brick and faced with white Bethel, Conn. granite, with a copper and tile roof. All of the entrances are bronze. The 3-story central atrium is 25' wide by 150' long, decorated with panels depicting scenes from Hartford's history.I took these photos when I lived in Hartford. I love this building and many others in Hartford. Hartford was the center of great architecture in the Golden Age, when Mark Twain and Harriet Beecher Stowe lived there.
I made a movie of these shots which can be seen HERE.
Thank you for stopping by! I can't wait to see the other posts!
For more photos, click "Read More" below.
Hartford's Municipal Building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
http://hartford.omaxfield.com/munibldg.html
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Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Cats Tuesday: Charlie again!
Scout keeps a close eye on Charlie's wild-eyed antics.I have written before how difficult it is to live with Charlie. These photos illustrate more of his behaviors, which by themselves are benign enough. But dogs and other cats always are extra vigilante when Charlie is around.
Charlie has one habit that drives me mad. If he is out, he has a complicated procedure for coming back into the house. He won't come inside if I am outside. He has to wait until I enter the house. Then I have to close the door and knock on the window of the door. Then he will come to the door and sit. I have to knock again. And then he will pick himself up and walk in. But only if I stay behind the door. If I move in the wrong direction, he retreats back out and we have to follow the procedure all over again.
Charlie has one habit that drives me mad. If he is out, he has a complicated procedure for coming back into the house. He won't come inside if I am outside. He has to wait until I enter the house. Then I have to close the door and knock on the window of the door. Then he will come to the door and sit. I have to knock again. And then he will pick himself up and walk in. But only if I stay behind the door. If I move in the wrong direction, he retreats back out and we have to follow the procedure all over again.
Charlie watches Law & OrderOne summer night I came home from my algebra class at my normal time of 9PM. I drove into the garage, got out of the car, and started towards the house. On my way to the door, in the dark, I saw a white bushy tail. I bent over and grabbed for it, trying to circumvent Charlie's coming-in-dance so that I could relax as soon as possible.
I just missed that tail by no more than an inch! I growled, "Charlie! Get into the house! It's late and I'm tired of this game!" Of course, he ignored me and went the opposite way. I continued into the house. "That cat!" I told Amy and Wingnut (my grandson). "He can stay out all night as far as I'm concerned! I am so tired of this!" Amy looked up from the computer, Wingnut from the TV.
Amy said, "Mommy, I made sure all the cats were in early tonight. Charlie is asleep upstairs."
I stopped dead. If he was asleep, who was in the garage? Wingnut and I ran back through the house, turned on the outside light, and stared out the window. There was the biggest, fattest skunk I had ever seen in my life! Wingnut roared with laughter, and I was horrified at what I had nearly caught in the garage.
You notice here that Charlie doesn't even have white on his tail! And it certainly isn't bushy!
Last summer, Charlie, Buddy and Zorro made friends with the skunks and they all sleep and play in and under the barn together. While the skunks dig grubs out of the ground at night, the cats hunt. They are nearly side by side! You hear stories about cat and skunk friendships frequently here but I never thought my ornery, territorial boys would be their friends.
I just missed that tail by no more than an inch! I growled, "Charlie! Get into the house! It's late and I'm tired of this game!" Of course, he ignored me and went the opposite way. I continued into the house. "That cat!" I told Amy and Wingnut (my grandson). "He can stay out all night as far as I'm concerned! I am so tired of this!" Amy looked up from the computer, Wingnut from the TV.
Amy said, "Mommy, I made sure all the cats were in early tonight. Charlie is asleep upstairs."
I stopped dead. If he was asleep, who was in the garage? Wingnut and I ran back through the house, turned on the outside light, and stared out the window. There was the biggest, fattest skunk I had ever seen in my life! Wingnut roared with laughter, and I was horrified at what I had nearly caught in the garage.
You notice here that Charlie doesn't even have white on his tail! And it certainly isn't bushy!
Last summer, Charlie, Buddy and Zorro made friends with the skunks and they all sleep and play in and under the barn together. While the skunks dig grubs out of the ground at night, the cats hunt. They are nearly side by side! You hear stories about cat and skunk friendships frequently here but I never thought my ornery, territorial boys would be their friends.
Occasionally, Charlie sleeps.Thank you for visiting. Happy blogging!
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Monday, March 05, 2007
I'm Fed Up!
I took all these photos by sticking my arm out the back door after I broke the storm door by shoving it into five feet of snow piled up in back (no, I am NOT exaggerating and I wish I were!). So the photos are the same shots but I played with the little things on iPhoto to show off different things (like what? more WHITE? more FLAKES?). I'm worried about my barn roof but I can't get out there to do anything about it.The one garage window you see is only half covered. A window of the house to the left of that window is totally blocked by snow now from sill to top. The room is black without any light.
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Northland Journal
Click HERE to read real and fantastic stories of the Northeast Kingdom. Subscribe to the Journal and it'll be delivered to your house!
Articles from Vermont's Northland Journal
Vermont Through the Eyes of a Stranger
by Scott Wheeler
“What’s the temperature out there?” the trucker asked as we poured ourselves a cup of coffee at a mini mart just off Interstate 91 that doubles as a truck stop.
“About zero,” I said as I anxiously poured my first coffee of the day. “Well, to be exact, when I left home a few minutes ago, it was about one degree above zero, not that you’d care about that one degree.”
This was one of those simple questions that leads to one of those conversations where I walk away appreciating the beauty of the Kingdom even more than I did before. For that matter, sometimes I think it takes a visitor or a newcomer to the region to help us diehard, longtime Vermonters notice the beauty that many of us have stopped seeing long ago.
The trucker, a woman probably in her 40s with reddish brown hair down her back, was from Ontario, not far removed from Vermont’s wintry weather, but another trucker who joined in the conversation was from the sunshine state—Florida. Looking out the window over his cup of coffee, taking in the beauty of Vermont’s snowy landscape, the grandfatherly looking man, retired military, asked how the roads were that morning, noting that winter driving was new to him. He admitted he was still a bit unhinged by the driving conditions he had experienced the night before, before reaching the mini mart/truck stop.
The roads are “good” this morning I told the truckers who were obviously in as much of a hurry to hit the lonesome road as I was to get out on a windswept and bitterly cold Lake Willoughby in Westmore for my early morning ice fishing trip—and I surely wasn’t in a hurry that morning, the morning February, 2003, the morning of my 39 th birthday.
The idea of “good” roads in snow country is in the eyes of the beholder. Some folks who haven’t lived long in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom let winter roads bring their lives to a stop, whereas veterans of this snowy climate just regard the snow and ice covered roads as minor inconveniences.
“So, the ice is off the road?” the grandfatherly trucker asked in his southern drawl.
“Nah, I wouldn’t say that,” I told him. “What I mean is, although the roads are still covered in snow and ice, it’s a dry ice, not the wet slippery type that is anxious to send a vehicle, even a big rig like yours, into a skid. Drive carefully and you’ll get wherever you want to go today.”
While the three of us could debate the meaning of “good roads,” we surely couldn’t debate the beauty of Vermont’s wind-blown wintry countryside that morning. In my eyes, there really isn’t anything like the beauty of a cold, wintry morning in Vermont, with the exception of the warm March sun that heralds in sugaring season, spring, and the renewal of life in the Kingdom.
Articles from Vermont's Northland Journal
Vermont Through the Eyes of a Stranger
by Scott Wheeler
“What’s the temperature out there?” the trucker asked as we poured ourselves a cup of coffee at a mini mart just off Interstate 91 that doubles as a truck stop.
“About zero,” I said as I anxiously poured my first coffee of the day. “Well, to be exact, when I left home a few minutes ago, it was about one degree above zero, not that you’d care about that one degree.”
This was one of those simple questions that leads to one of those conversations where I walk away appreciating the beauty of the Kingdom even more than I did before. For that matter, sometimes I think it takes a visitor or a newcomer to the region to help us diehard, longtime Vermonters notice the beauty that many of us have stopped seeing long ago.
The trucker, a woman probably in her 40s with reddish brown hair down her back, was from Ontario, not far removed from Vermont’s wintry weather, but another trucker who joined in the conversation was from the sunshine state—Florida. Looking out the window over his cup of coffee, taking in the beauty of Vermont’s snowy landscape, the grandfatherly looking man, retired military, asked how the roads were that morning, noting that winter driving was new to him. He admitted he was still a bit unhinged by the driving conditions he had experienced the night before, before reaching the mini mart/truck stop.
The roads are “good” this morning I told the truckers who were obviously in as much of a hurry to hit the lonesome road as I was to get out on a windswept and bitterly cold Lake Willoughby in Westmore for my early morning ice fishing trip—and I surely wasn’t in a hurry that morning, the morning February, 2003, the morning of my 39 th birthday.
The idea of “good” roads in snow country is in the eyes of the beholder. Some folks who haven’t lived long in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom let winter roads bring their lives to a stop, whereas veterans of this snowy climate just regard the snow and ice covered roads as minor inconveniences.
“So, the ice is off the road?” the grandfatherly trucker asked in his southern drawl.
“Nah, I wouldn’t say that,” I told him. “What I mean is, although the roads are still covered in snow and ice, it’s a dry ice, not the wet slippery type that is anxious to send a vehicle, even a big rig like yours, into a skid. Drive carefully and you’ll get wherever you want to go today.”
While the three of us could debate the meaning of “good roads,” we surely couldn’t debate the beauty of Vermont’s wind-blown wintry countryside that morning. In my eyes, there really isn’t anything like the beauty of a cold, wintry morning in Vermont, with the exception of the warm March sun that heralds in sugaring season, spring, and the renewal of life in the Kingdom.
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Travel the Kingdom & National Geographic
I am going through my mail from the past week and Ridge Protectors has sent me another letter and photoshopped photo of the view from I-91 if the wind turbines are built. It was mentioned in the letter that Vermont is the "number one tourist destination in the nation and ninth in the world." That was a challenge: where were the sources of these figures? I can't find them.
But what was fascinating was the National Geographic link with the Northeast Kingdom.
Geotourism (tourism that sustains or enhances the geographical character of a place – its environment, culture, aesthetics, heritage, and the well-being of its residents. – National Geographic Geotourism Charter) is growing in the Kingdom.
Travel the Kingdom is a new website that promotes geotourism here in the area. You can send for information, guides and maps of the area too, just click here.
But what was fascinating was the National Geographic link with the Northeast Kingdom.
Geotourism (tourism that sustains or enhances the geographical character of a place – its environment, culture, aesthetics, heritage, and the well-being of its residents. – National Geographic Geotourism Charter) is growing in the Kingdom.
Travel the Kingdom is a new website that promotes geotourism here in the area. You can send for information, guides and maps of the area too, just click here.
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Newbury, Vermont
I love Newbury. Not only does Sue live here, but the Atkinson Retreat Center of the United Church of Christ (above) is here. I have attended only one retreat the year that I attended the Vermont Academy of Spiritual Training in St. Johnsbury. The weekend I spent there was wonderful and the food was just outstanding. It was so hot when I was there but they provided a fan. There were hymns, prayers, discussions, and community. It all made me feel loved and part of a community I had always wanted to be a part of. The section between the house and the barn is like a dormitory with small cell-like rooms that make me think of a monastery.I will be going to another retreat in April with the conference's Women's Fellowship. I can't wait! Perhaps this time I will see the ghost that they claim inhabits the house!
The Newbury store (above) is a great place for muffins, cookies, DVDs and gifts. It is one of the friendliest stores around.Newbury has a more colonial-era type of atmosphere which is so familiar to me from Connecticut. It was established in the mid-1700s. Barton, where I live now, is younger, poorer and more remote. Hall's Lake is also in Newbury. Sue, Wingnut, and I went swimming and canoeing there last summer.
Rt 5, Newbury, VT:
JACOB BAYLEYVeteran of the Indian wars, Bayley led a migration of settlers from Newbury, Mass. to the rich lands of the Coos here at the Great Ox-Bow. A staunch patriot, he bitterly opposed the "Haldimand Negotiations" carried on with Canada by Ethan & Ira Allen, during the Revolution.
Founder of Newbury and Revolutionary General
-•••-VERMONT HISTORIC SITES COMMISSION
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Sunday, March 04, 2007
The Beauty of Engineering
I-91 is a beautiful road. At least in Vermont. There are sections in Massachusetts that are lovely but not like here. In Connecticut, I-91 is just ugly. When I stopped today at the Commerford Dam scenic turnout in Barnet, VT I took these photos. The road cut is very impressive here.Below, you can see I-91 North to the left of the merging land from the scenic turnout.
Below: I-91 South is on the upper ledge. The car here is on I-91 North.
Someone traveling north:
Coaching Days and Road Engineers
Roads in Britain and the United States during the Canal Age
Roads in Britain and the United States during the Canal Age
Georgette Heyer gave fascinating vignettes of the days of stagecoaches, inns and road agents in her Regency novels. The Regency was the height of the Coaching Era, which extended only from about 1760 to 1840 (exactly contemporary with the Canal Age), from the accession of George III to the accession of Victoria, at the most generous assessment. In 1760 roads were poor, seasonally impassable, carrying mainly local traffic on the feet of men and animals. Land carriage of goods was by pack animal trains, negotiating narrow stony causeways. Only goods of high value could bear the cost of transport, and every inland town relied on the resources of its vicinity. Coaches were a luxury of London and the larger towns. The better-off travelled overland on horseback, even royalty, slowly with their own horses, or more rapidly with post horses. The majority simply walked. 1760 also marked the beginning of artificial navigations, and the rise of canals accompanied the Coaching Era. Before then, if firewood had been exhausted near a town, some of the poor froze to death every winter. Canals soon brought cheap coal. The Oxford Canal, as an example, piled several bargeloads at their Oxford wharf at the beginning of the season that was available to the indigent without charge. This time also marked the painful change from household manufacture of textiles to factory manufacture. The woollen industry, for example, was moved from the Cotswolds and Devon to Yorkshire. Disaster for the spinner and weaver meant good and warm clothes for the masses, previously clothed in coarse rags, and clean, remunerative work for miserable agricultural labourers, as well as the more remarked wealth to the capitalist.
The conditions of the roads and the nature of land transport to 1850 is excellently described in W. T. Jackman's The Development of Transportation in Modern England (Cambridge: C.U.P., 1916), which should be consulted by anyone interested in the subject. This is an economic, not a technical, history, but it gives a very good picture drawn from primary sources. From 1555 to 1835, roads in England were maintained by the system of parish statute labour. On the surface, the law was rigorous. Each landowner had to provide teams and labourers in proportion to the value of his holdings for the maintenance of parish roads under the supervision of a parish surveyor appointed to a term of one year. Those without land could satisfy the requirement by their personal labour for six days a year. However, efforts to enforce the letter of the law were largely unavailing, since no one wished to antagonise his neighbours when his turn as surveyor descended on him, and no one demanded vigour from the surveyor when he would have to occupy the post later. The landless labourer usually observed the six annual days as a kind of holiday from his regular employment. Therefore, the state of the roads depended very much on the whim of the parish, and the necessities of local travel. When long-distance roads crossed barren country with poor parishes, the roads virtually disappeared.
The turnpike system was a means of supplementing parish resources by charging tolls for use of the road. This innovation was by no means welcomed by the population. A parliamentary Act was required to establish a board of trustees for the stretch of road to be turnpiked, the powers of the trustees, the tolls to be charged, and powers to enforce the charges. The Act was for a fixed term, after which the powers would lapse. Erection of toll gates was sometimes the cause of a riot that destroyed and burned the toll booth and resulted in general public disorder. The trustees were local dignitaries, who paid themselves for their efforts from the proceeds of the tolls, and often provided the materials for road maintenance, as trustees buying it from themselves as suppliers at an agreeable price. Usually the tolls were farmed, that is, a person paid a lump sum to the trustees for the privilege of collecting the tolls for a certain period. This privilege was usually auctioned off annually at the local inn. Turnpike trusts could acquire debt if necessary, and many did so. After 1830, many were insolvent. It was generally somewhat easier to bring a turnpike trust to court for nonfeasance than it was a parish. Turnpike trusts were responsible only for short sections, so a long-distance road was likely to alternate good and bad stretches.
The first turnpike Act was in 1663, to improve sections of the Great North Road in Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire, and Huntingdonshire. The next was not until 1695, for portions of the London to Colchester road. The progress of turnpikes was very slow until after 1760. The very first stage coaches began around 1640, but on the bad roads were slow and infrequent. The Oxford Fly ran summers from 1669, making the journey in a day. The normal journey took two days, spending the night perhaps in Aylesbury. By foot, it was a three-day trip, showing that walking was a reasonable alternative.
The post had always existed, at least for official messengers and messages. Postmasters were appointed at all important towns, who supplied accommodation and horses for royal messengers. They also kept horses that could be hired by the public on a one-way basis. This, although expensive, was the most rapid way to travel, seventy miles or more in a day. Stage coaches depended on a chain of coaching inns where horses and drivers could be changed as necessary. The inns and the coaches were often under the same ownership, forming an important vested interest. Antedating stage coaches were stage wagons or caravans, large covered wagons for the carriage of goods, which also often took passengers. Stage coaches and stage wagons worked fixed routes, starting on advertised days of the week. They depended on good roads, and were able to operate only where roads had been raised to a certain standard, at first radially from large towns, then on the more important long-distance routes (London to York, Bristol, and Brighton). There was generally some danger from highwaymen, who often operated in collusion with innkeepers, in road journeys, and drivers and passengers went armed. There is a great deal of interesting material for writers of fiction in the coaching scene.
Post coaches were the most rapid, travelling by night as well as by day. Stage coaches and caravans travelled by day, stopping overnight to rest travellers and animals and provide profits for innkeepers. Four or six passengers were carried inside, four to eight on top and beside the driver. These accommodations were strictly for the well-to-do, since fares were far above what a common person could afford. In 1830 the inside fare from Liverpool to Manchester was 10s, a week's wages for a labourer. Think of it as �200 in today's money. The outside fare was 6s, so one can see that very few common people ever rode stagecoaches, and the well-to-do only when absolutely necessary. Coaches were heavily taxed, with a licence fee for the coach, additional assessments depending on the maximum number of passengers accommodated and number of horses used, turnpike tolls, and other exactions. They were not especially safe, when the drivers came under the influence of the drinks they consumed at every stop, drove rapidly, or raced with other coaches. When steamboats arrived shortly after 1800, they were much preferred to stage coaches, for example on the journeys from London to York or the Kent coast. They were not only more comfortable and as fast, but were also cheaper.
Most famous civil engineers, like Smeaton, Jessop and Rennie, built Eddystone Lights, Grand Junction Canals and London Bridges; common roads were too petty for them. The first road engineers usually came from humble origins, and were self-taught, as all original thinkers are. Three names stand out in the beginnings of scientific road design in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, who contributed the first improvements since Roman times: Metcalfe, Telford and MacAdam. There were others of merit, but there is time here only to note these three, who were at the top of their profession. Telford was a prominent engineer of canals and bridges who did not disdain road work,a s most did.
The first road engineer was the remarkable John Metcalfe of Knaresborough, Yorkshire (1717-1810). Although blinded by smallpox at the age of six, he got around on foot and horseback very well, doing better than many a sighted person. He realised the importance of good drainage, a strong foundation, and a convex surface that shed water, matters later made well-known by MacAdam. He also knew how to establish a road over marshy ground, the tradition of which aided George Stephenson to conquer Chat Moss.
The 1801 Union made it necessary for Irish MP's to travel from Dublin to London via Holyhead and Shrewsbury, but the road was primitive and very difficult. Piecemeal efforts to improve it by turnpike trusts proved unavailing, so the complete road was put under a unified administration in 1816 and Thomas Telford (1759-1834) was appointed its resident engineer. Telford's road design involved a sturdy stone foundation, like a Roman road's. His 69 miles of the 93-mile segment from Shrewsbury to Holyhead was probably the best road in England, Jackman says, with easy gradients, good bridges, and capable of bearing heavy wagons. Gradients were reduced from 1 in 6-1/2 to 1 in 20, and the road widened to 30 or 40 feet. There were 15 tollhouses in Telford's style. This road included Telford's famous Menai suspension bridge, finished in 1826, which is still standing, but with new chains and deck as replaced in 1938-41. this bridge, with a 579 ft main span, was a major achievement and the first large chain link suspension bridge. It was bedeviled by deck oscillations until a more rigid timber deck was installed in 1840, replaced in 1893 by a steel deck.
The traditional method of road-building was simply to spread a layer of broken rock and gravel on the cleared foundation of earth, which was often lower than the fields on either side. The narrow treads of the farmers' wagons cut ruts in the soft road, and the hooves of animals further disturbed it. At bad places, everyone took a route that seemed the best at the time, creating a wide disturbed mess. A last resort was to concentrate effort on a narrow, stony causeway that at least could carry pack animals. An enthusiasm for wide wheels arose, in the fond hope that the wide wheels would act as a roller to smooth the road. Four-inch treads were encouraged by a reduction in tolls in 1662, nine-inch in 1753, and even sixteen-inch treads were tried. The maximum distance between wheels was fixed at 5'6" in 1755. Wheels became conical, on axles that bent down at the ends, and these were certain road-destroyers because of the necessary slippage of one side of the wheel. Such wheels allowed a wider body within the regulations. As soon as wide treads were applied, heavy wagons became even heavier. Soon, weighing bridges appeared at tollgates, and legislation specified maximum loads (6 tons for wagons, 3 tons for carts) and numbers of horses (8 for a wagon with 9" treads). Farmers' narrow-wheeled wagons were always excepted, but they could be drawn by no more than five horses. It was formerly common to harness horses at length, but this was supposed to damage the road by concentrating the zone of contact, so harnessing in pairs was legally required.
John Loudon MacAdam (1756-1836), variously spelled McAdam and Macadam as well, was born in Ayrshire, but went to live with his uncle in New York in 1770 on the death of his father. He returned from the United States in 1783, becoming road trustee for his district of Sauhrie in Ayrshire, where he studied and experimented with roadmaking. By 1810 he was publishing plans for making better roads, and in 1815 became Surveyor-General of the Bristol roads. He had hit upon the central secret of road-making: drainage was everything, all else was merely detail. If the foundation was dry, and the road surface was impervious, then the road would be satisfactory. Otherwise, the road would be unsatisfactory no matter how massively constructed. MacAdam insisted on clean material of a small, uniform size. MacAdam's roads were as durable as those of Telford, but much cheaper and easier to construct. Some engineers depreciated his work because of this, but by 1823 his methods were thoroughly accepted and generally adopted. His principles, indeed, are valid in the construction of railways, and should be well-known to every railway civil engineer. A railway formation is best even slightly raised, and the ballast must be kept clean so that water is shed and does not collect to make soft spots. Railways have an additional advantage over common roads that the traffic is borne by the steel rails, and not by the road materials. Indeed, every problem can be traced back to bad drainage. The Southern Pacific Company in the United States oiled the ballast surface on its desert lines to shed cloudburst water better.
Another connection of early roads and railways was in the horse path of plateways, which was analogous to the causeway along many roads as a winter path for single horses or pack animals in line. The plateway simultaneously provided a wagon way on which one horse could do the work of eight on a common road. The existence of the good horse path between the rails was considered an advantage of tramways. Road surfaces in the days of horse traction were easiest on horses' hooves if made from fine gravel. Today's hard concrete or asphalt surfaces are very damaging and uncomfortable to animals, and would have been unsatisfactory. MacAdam's name is justly remembered, though it is often associated with just the road surface of fine gravel, as in tarmac, a mastic of gravel and asphalt commonly used for paving. Paving, strictly speaking, is a covering with stone or cobbles, intended for a footpath, as in the term pavement for the paved footpath beside a road or street. In America, pavement now generally means the hard surface of the street, possibly because this feature appeared historically only in large cities, combined with the pavement strictly speaking, and usually in brick. Until the 20th century, most American towns had dirt or gravel streets and (if any) raised wooden footpaths, called sidewalks because they were certainly not pavements. When paving finally came, the new name was retained out of familiarity, the old one forgotten.
Tramways and coal-carrying railways like the Stockton and Darlington that carried horse-drawn rail coaches were not distinctly superior to stagecoaches and canals, and certainly not to steamboats. The modern steam railway that was born in 1830 was a different matter, attracting all passenger and express goods traffic to itself as soon as opened, in view of the much lower fares and much faster and more punctual travel. It was also safer than coach travel, a fact not commonly appreciated. The rapid disappearance of the long-distance coaches was bemoaned, but all that was really lost was a convenience for the wealthy. Road traffic actually increased after railways were built, and more draymen, coachmen and horses were required, to collect and deliver traffic from railway stations, than were needed before. There was a large increase in traffic between 1760 and 1830 on roads and canals, but an even greater increase from 1830 to 1870 after the introduction of railways. Railways were a disaster for turnpike trusts, however. The burden of insolvent turnpike trusts was thrown onto the parishes, causing the Rebecca Riots of 1842-3. Fifteen turnpike trusts remained in 1887, only two in 1890, and in 1895 toll roads ceased to exist in England.
Conditions in the United States can only be briefly mentioned here. In general, the same characteristics are found as in England, except for the newness, sparse settlement, and lack of capital. American transport relied almost completely on coastal waters, lakes and rivers, to a greater extent even than in England, and all road travel was either very local, or else by foot, horseback or pack animal on primitive trails. What roads there were, were very poor, and in colonial times there were effectively none. The National Road from Cumberland, Maryland on the Potomac River to Wheeling, Virginia on the Ohio was the only long road built to the standards of an English post road, and it was completed only in the 1820's. Turnpikes were late and equally rare except for those radial to the large seaboard cities. Travel between Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Norfolk, Charleston, Savannah, Mobile and New Orleans was almost entirely by ship, and would be completed more quickly by sea than the same journey by wheeled vehicles, so bad and undeveloped were the roads. This was more true after the general introduction of the steamboat after 1810.
All roads except on the Atlantic coast were roads but in name, only ways cleared of brush by dragging a chain after the trees were cut. The stumps were left, since removing them created bottomless mudholes in their place, and wheeled traffic weaved between them. Stage wagons were dragged by oxen making ten miles a day in good weather. There were no bridges, simply fords or ferries, and no regular road maintenance. All goods transport was by pack animal, all post on horseback (that did no go by water). The coming of railways found no effective road system in the West and South. Railways formed the first effective mode of land transport in this region, usually reorienting trade in completely new largely east-west patterns independent of watercourses, and soon displacing even steamboats on the great rivers. Stagecoaches existed only as connections to railways. There were no stagecoaches from the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean (except for one or two late and difficult mail routes to California in teh 1850's) until the coming of railways, since there was no population until the coming of railways. As in England, coaches were expensive and slow, with a few additional problems due to the wildness of the country. When the Pacific Railroad was completed in 1869, stagecoach lines branched off of this trunk to both sides, for a hundred miles or more, and the Far West had a short Coaching Era of its own, long after the one in England, and rather unlike what is depicted by Hollywood. Actually, there was an earlier coaching era in New England between the coming of the steamboat and the coming of the railway, much like the one in England at the same time, but with certain interesting differences.
When Mrs Trollope sojourned in the United States around 1830 during her unsuccessful attempt to establish a department store in Cincinnati, she travelled West in a packet boat on the Erie Canal. This journey was so unpleasant that she preferred the jolting of the stagecoach on her return from Niagara Falls. Read about her travels in The Domestic Habits of the Americans.
A related curiosity that may be of interest is associated with the completion of the Pacific Telegraph in 1861 between St. Joseph and Sacramento under the pressure of war. The famous Pony Express was simply a publicity stunt by a stagecoach company, angling for a government contract, which relayed messages between the ends of the telegraph wires as they marched closer to one another. In a few months, the line was complete, and the Pony Express was no more. It was not part of the postal system, nor a typical feature of communication at any time or place. The closest excuse for a road that existed in the Far West (west of the Missouri) was the Santa Fe trail, but was suitable for wheels only in that it crossed dry, sandy ground for most of the distance and was more or less regularly used by trading caravans after the independence of Mexico, and for the military operations leading to the annexation of New Mexico in 1848. It was more or less a natural feature, not an artificial construction.
Composed by J. B. Calvert
Created 2 December 1999
Last revised 21 July 2000
From http://www.du.edu/~jcalvert/tech/coaching.htm
The conditions of the roads and the nature of land transport to 1850 is excellently described in W. T. Jackman's The Development of Transportation in Modern England (Cambridge: C.U.P., 1916), which should be consulted by anyone interested in the subject. This is an economic, not a technical, history, but it gives a very good picture drawn from primary sources. From 1555 to 1835, roads in England were maintained by the system of parish statute labour. On the surface, the law was rigorous. Each landowner had to provide teams and labourers in proportion to the value of his holdings for the maintenance of parish roads under the supervision of a parish surveyor appointed to a term of one year. Those without land could satisfy the requirement by their personal labour for six days a year. However, efforts to enforce the letter of the law were largely unavailing, since no one wished to antagonise his neighbours when his turn as surveyor descended on him, and no one demanded vigour from the surveyor when he would have to occupy the post later. The landless labourer usually observed the six annual days as a kind of holiday from his regular employment. Therefore, the state of the roads depended very much on the whim of the parish, and the necessities of local travel. When long-distance roads crossed barren country with poor parishes, the roads virtually disappeared.
The turnpike system was a means of supplementing parish resources by charging tolls for use of the road. This innovation was by no means welcomed by the population. A parliamentary Act was required to establish a board of trustees for the stretch of road to be turnpiked, the powers of the trustees, the tolls to be charged, and powers to enforce the charges. The Act was for a fixed term, after which the powers would lapse. Erection of toll gates was sometimes the cause of a riot that destroyed and burned the toll booth and resulted in general public disorder. The trustees were local dignitaries, who paid themselves for their efforts from the proceeds of the tolls, and often provided the materials for road maintenance, as trustees buying it from themselves as suppliers at an agreeable price. Usually the tolls were farmed, that is, a person paid a lump sum to the trustees for the privilege of collecting the tolls for a certain period. This privilege was usually auctioned off annually at the local inn. Turnpike trusts could acquire debt if necessary, and many did so. After 1830, many were insolvent. It was generally somewhat easier to bring a turnpike trust to court for nonfeasance than it was a parish. Turnpike trusts were responsible only for short sections, so a long-distance road was likely to alternate good and bad stretches.
The first turnpike Act was in 1663, to improve sections of the Great North Road in Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire, and Huntingdonshire. The next was not until 1695, for portions of the London to Colchester road. The progress of turnpikes was very slow until after 1760. The very first stage coaches began around 1640, but on the bad roads were slow and infrequent. The Oxford Fly ran summers from 1669, making the journey in a day. The normal journey took two days, spending the night perhaps in Aylesbury. By foot, it was a three-day trip, showing that walking was a reasonable alternative.
The post had always existed, at least for official messengers and messages. Postmasters were appointed at all important towns, who supplied accommodation and horses for royal messengers. They also kept horses that could be hired by the public on a one-way basis. This, although expensive, was the most rapid way to travel, seventy miles or more in a day. Stage coaches depended on a chain of coaching inns where horses and drivers could be changed as necessary. The inns and the coaches were often under the same ownership, forming an important vested interest. Antedating stage coaches were stage wagons or caravans, large covered wagons for the carriage of goods, which also often took passengers. Stage coaches and stage wagons worked fixed routes, starting on advertised days of the week. They depended on good roads, and were able to operate only where roads had been raised to a certain standard, at first radially from large towns, then on the more important long-distance routes (London to York, Bristol, and Brighton). There was generally some danger from highwaymen, who often operated in collusion with innkeepers, in road journeys, and drivers and passengers went armed. There is a great deal of interesting material for writers of fiction in the coaching scene.
Post coaches were the most rapid, travelling by night as well as by day. Stage coaches and caravans travelled by day, stopping overnight to rest travellers and animals and provide profits for innkeepers. Four or six passengers were carried inside, four to eight on top and beside the driver. These accommodations were strictly for the well-to-do, since fares were far above what a common person could afford. In 1830 the inside fare from Liverpool to Manchester was 10s, a week's wages for a labourer. Think of it as �200 in today's money. The outside fare was 6s, so one can see that very few common people ever rode stagecoaches, and the well-to-do only when absolutely necessary. Coaches were heavily taxed, with a licence fee for the coach, additional assessments depending on the maximum number of passengers accommodated and number of horses used, turnpike tolls, and other exactions. They were not especially safe, when the drivers came under the influence of the drinks they consumed at every stop, drove rapidly, or raced with other coaches. When steamboats arrived shortly after 1800, they were much preferred to stage coaches, for example on the journeys from London to York or the Kent coast. They were not only more comfortable and as fast, but were also cheaper.
Most famous civil engineers, like Smeaton, Jessop and Rennie, built Eddystone Lights, Grand Junction Canals and London Bridges; common roads were too petty for them. The first road engineers usually came from humble origins, and were self-taught, as all original thinkers are. Three names stand out in the beginnings of scientific road design in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, who contributed the first improvements since Roman times: Metcalfe, Telford and MacAdam. There were others of merit, but there is time here only to note these three, who were at the top of their profession. Telford was a prominent engineer of canals and bridges who did not disdain road work,a s most did.
The first road engineer was the remarkable John Metcalfe of Knaresborough, Yorkshire (1717-1810). Although blinded by smallpox at the age of six, he got around on foot and horseback very well, doing better than many a sighted person. He realised the importance of good drainage, a strong foundation, and a convex surface that shed water, matters later made well-known by MacAdam. He also knew how to establish a road over marshy ground, the tradition of which aided George Stephenson to conquer Chat Moss.
The 1801 Union made it necessary for Irish MP's to travel from Dublin to London via Holyhead and Shrewsbury, but the road was primitive and very difficult. Piecemeal efforts to improve it by turnpike trusts proved unavailing, so the complete road was put under a unified administration in 1816 and Thomas Telford (1759-1834) was appointed its resident engineer. Telford's road design involved a sturdy stone foundation, like a Roman road's. His 69 miles of the 93-mile segment from Shrewsbury to Holyhead was probably the best road in England, Jackman says, with easy gradients, good bridges, and capable of bearing heavy wagons. Gradients were reduced from 1 in 6-1/2 to 1 in 20, and the road widened to 30 or 40 feet. There were 15 tollhouses in Telford's style. This road included Telford's famous Menai suspension bridge, finished in 1826, which is still standing, but with new chains and deck as replaced in 1938-41. this bridge, with a 579 ft main span, was a major achievement and the first large chain link suspension bridge. It was bedeviled by deck oscillations until a more rigid timber deck was installed in 1840, replaced in 1893 by a steel deck.
The traditional method of road-building was simply to spread a layer of broken rock and gravel on the cleared foundation of earth, which was often lower than the fields on either side. The narrow treads of the farmers' wagons cut ruts in the soft road, and the hooves of animals further disturbed it. At bad places, everyone took a route that seemed the best at the time, creating a wide disturbed mess. A last resort was to concentrate effort on a narrow, stony causeway that at least could carry pack animals. An enthusiasm for wide wheels arose, in the fond hope that the wide wheels would act as a roller to smooth the road. Four-inch treads were encouraged by a reduction in tolls in 1662, nine-inch in 1753, and even sixteen-inch treads were tried. The maximum distance between wheels was fixed at 5'6" in 1755. Wheels became conical, on axles that bent down at the ends, and these were certain road-destroyers because of the necessary slippage of one side of the wheel. Such wheels allowed a wider body within the regulations. As soon as wide treads were applied, heavy wagons became even heavier. Soon, weighing bridges appeared at tollgates, and legislation specified maximum loads (6 tons for wagons, 3 tons for carts) and numbers of horses (8 for a wagon with 9" treads). Farmers' narrow-wheeled wagons were always excepted, but they could be drawn by no more than five horses. It was formerly common to harness horses at length, but this was supposed to damage the road by concentrating the zone of contact, so harnessing in pairs was legally required.
John Loudon MacAdam (1756-1836), variously spelled McAdam and Macadam as well, was born in Ayrshire, but went to live with his uncle in New York in 1770 on the death of his father. He returned from the United States in 1783, becoming road trustee for his district of Sauhrie in Ayrshire, where he studied and experimented with roadmaking. By 1810 he was publishing plans for making better roads, and in 1815 became Surveyor-General of the Bristol roads. He had hit upon the central secret of road-making: drainage was everything, all else was merely detail. If the foundation was dry, and the road surface was impervious, then the road would be satisfactory. Otherwise, the road would be unsatisfactory no matter how massively constructed. MacAdam insisted on clean material of a small, uniform size. MacAdam's roads were as durable as those of Telford, but much cheaper and easier to construct. Some engineers depreciated his work because of this, but by 1823 his methods were thoroughly accepted and generally adopted. His principles, indeed, are valid in the construction of railways, and should be well-known to every railway civil engineer. A railway formation is best even slightly raised, and the ballast must be kept clean so that water is shed and does not collect to make soft spots. Railways have an additional advantage over common roads that the traffic is borne by the steel rails, and not by the road materials. Indeed, every problem can be traced back to bad drainage. The Southern Pacific Company in the United States oiled the ballast surface on its desert lines to shed cloudburst water better.
Another connection of early roads and railways was in the horse path of plateways, which was analogous to the causeway along many roads as a winter path for single horses or pack animals in line. The plateway simultaneously provided a wagon way on which one horse could do the work of eight on a common road. The existence of the good horse path between the rails was considered an advantage of tramways. Road surfaces in the days of horse traction were easiest on horses' hooves if made from fine gravel. Today's hard concrete or asphalt surfaces are very damaging and uncomfortable to animals, and would have been unsatisfactory. MacAdam's name is justly remembered, though it is often associated with just the road surface of fine gravel, as in tarmac, a mastic of gravel and asphalt commonly used for paving. Paving, strictly speaking, is a covering with stone or cobbles, intended for a footpath, as in the term pavement for the paved footpath beside a road or street. In America, pavement now generally means the hard surface of the street, possibly because this feature appeared historically only in large cities, combined with the pavement strictly speaking, and usually in brick. Until the 20th century, most American towns had dirt or gravel streets and (if any) raised wooden footpaths, called sidewalks because they were certainly not pavements. When paving finally came, the new name was retained out of familiarity, the old one forgotten.
Tramways and coal-carrying railways like the Stockton and Darlington that carried horse-drawn rail coaches were not distinctly superior to stagecoaches and canals, and certainly not to steamboats. The modern steam railway that was born in 1830 was a different matter, attracting all passenger and express goods traffic to itself as soon as opened, in view of the much lower fares and much faster and more punctual travel. It was also safer than coach travel, a fact not commonly appreciated. The rapid disappearance of the long-distance coaches was bemoaned, but all that was really lost was a convenience for the wealthy. Road traffic actually increased after railways were built, and more draymen, coachmen and horses were required, to collect and deliver traffic from railway stations, than were needed before. There was a large increase in traffic between 1760 and 1830 on roads and canals, but an even greater increase from 1830 to 1870 after the introduction of railways. Railways were a disaster for turnpike trusts, however. The burden of insolvent turnpike trusts was thrown onto the parishes, causing the Rebecca Riots of 1842-3. Fifteen turnpike trusts remained in 1887, only two in 1890, and in 1895 toll roads ceased to exist in England.
Conditions in the United States can only be briefly mentioned here. In general, the same characteristics are found as in England, except for the newness, sparse settlement, and lack of capital. American transport relied almost completely on coastal waters, lakes and rivers, to a greater extent even than in England, and all road travel was either very local, or else by foot, horseback or pack animal on primitive trails. What roads there were, were very poor, and in colonial times there were effectively none. The National Road from Cumberland, Maryland on the Potomac River to Wheeling, Virginia on the Ohio was the only long road built to the standards of an English post road, and it was completed only in the 1820's. Turnpikes were late and equally rare except for those radial to the large seaboard cities. Travel between Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Norfolk, Charleston, Savannah, Mobile and New Orleans was almost entirely by ship, and would be completed more quickly by sea than the same journey by wheeled vehicles, so bad and undeveloped were the roads. This was more true after the general introduction of the steamboat after 1810.
All roads except on the Atlantic coast were roads but in name, only ways cleared of brush by dragging a chain after the trees were cut. The stumps were left, since removing them created bottomless mudholes in their place, and wheeled traffic weaved between them. Stage wagons were dragged by oxen making ten miles a day in good weather. There were no bridges, simply fords or ferries, and no regular road maintenance. All goods transport was by pack animal, all post on horseback (that did no go by water). The coming of railways found no effective road system in the West and South. Railways formed the first effective mode of land transport in this region, usually reorienting trade in completely new largely east-west patterns independent of watercourses, and soon displacing even steamboats on the great rivers. Stagecoaches existed only as connections to railways. There were no stagecoaches from the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean (except for one or two late and difficult mail routes to California in teh 1850's) until the coming of railways, since there was no population until the coming of railways. As in England, coaches were expensive and slow, with a few additional problems due to the wildness of the country. When the Pacific Railroad was completed in 1869, stagecoach lines branched off of this trunk to both sides, for a hundred miles or more, and the Far West had a short Coaching Era of its own, long after the one in England, and rather unlike what is depicted by Hollywood. Actually, there was an earlier coaching era in New England between the coming of the steamboat and the coming of the railway, much like the one in England at the same time, but with certain interesting differences.
When Mrs Trollope sojourned in the United States around 1830 during her unsuccessful attempt to establish a department store in Cincinnati, she travelled West in a packet boat on the Erie Canal. This journey was so unpleasant that she preferred the jolting of the stagecoach on her return from Niagara Falls. Read about her travels in The Domestic Habits of the Americans.
A related curiosity that may be of interest is associated with the completion of the Pacific Telegraph in 1861 between St. Joseph and Sacramento under the pressure of war. The famous Pony Express was simply a publicity stunt by a stagecoach company, angling for a government contract, which relayed messages between the ends of the telegraph wires as they marched closer to one another. In a few months, the line was complete, and the Pony Express was no more. It was not part of the postal system, nor a typical feature of communication at any time or place. The closest excuse for a road that existed in the Far West (west of the Missouri) was the Santa Fe trail, but was suitable for wheels only in that it crossed dry, sandy ground for most of the distance and was more or less regularly used by trading caravans after the independence of Mexico, and for the military operations leading to the annexation of New Mexico in 1848. It was more or less a natural feature, not an artificial construction.
Composed by J. B. Calvert
Created 2 December 1999
Last revised 21 July 2000
From http://www.du.edu/~jcalvert/tech/coaching.htm
_/\_/\_
Bradford, Vermont
Above: a 1927 postcard showing the Waits River Dam in Bradford during the Great Flood. Today the dam looks like this:
Another winter view of the dam taken by another photographer can be found here.The powerhouse today (Rt 5 in the background):
From the historic marker on Route 5:
BRADFORD
Home of Maker of 1st Globes and Birthplace of Adm. Clark-••-James Wilson, a Bradford farmer and self-taught engraver, in early 1800's made and sold the first geographical globes in the U.S. Adm. Chas. Clark, born here in 1843, was Captain of the "Oregon", which sailed around Cappe Horn to defeat Spanish at Santiago Bay in 1898.VERMONT HISTORIC SITES COMMISSION
From an historic marker at the Bradford Rest Stop, I-91 northbound (not photographed yet):
Between 1808 and 1810 Wilson made and sold the first terrestrial and celestial globes in North America. Wilson was a farmer and blacksmith b. 1736 in Londonderry N.H. who moved to Bradford in 1795. He taught himself astronomy and geography, studied with Amos Doolittle in CT to learn engraving, skills he needed to make globes. Wilson died in Bradford in 1855 at the age of 92.
_/\_/\_
Sue's Rabbits
I went to church in West Newbury again this week. But I was very late because of snow squalls. I-91 was reduced to two tracks. Not one lane: just two snowy tracks. It was Communion Sunday and for the first time in ages I felt part of a communion. Pastor Cindy Batten was so welcoming. I have enjoyed her Bible Study in the past and today I enjoyed her sermon and readings. A downer: no carrot cake! Coffee Hour is only on the last Sunday of the month.
After church Debbie, Bob, Sue, and I went to the Bradford Diner for lunch. Sue had to get her car at church, so I went on to her house taking photos along the way. At her place, I filled up Sue's iPod, she messed with Photo Booth, I took rabbit pictures and we had a nice time.
No serious snow problems on the way home. But now it is "blizzarding" outside again and all traffic is gone again. The rest of my vacation plans have just been scrapped because of this weather! Now that just isn't fair! And now we have thunder snow for goodness sakes! I hate thunder snow!
Honey Bunny (above) bites. Sue calls biting a "defensive posture."
Petey Petunia, above, is so black that without adjusting the brightness and contrast, all you would see would be a shiny black lump on the chair!
This is not all that rabbits do (although I joke with Sue that they are boring). Honey Bunny above again. One time we took them outside. But they were pretty skittish about the big birds that flew overhead. Sue and I know that hawks would not be too shy to grab a rabbit from next to us on the ground! Poor things! So much to be afraid of.
Petey Petunia's big feet. Lucky rabbit feet.
Here is Sue playing with Photo Booth on my MacBook:
And here is the finished product that she e-mailed to her neice (the solid blue tortoise is a bobble-head):
After church Debbie, Bob, Sue, and I went to the Bradford Diner for lunch. Sue had to get her car at church, so I went on to her house taking photos along the way. At her place, I filled up Sue's iPod, she messed with Photo Booth, I took rabbit pictures and we had a nice time.
No serious snow problems on the way home. But now it is "blizzarding" outside again and all traffic is gone again. The rest of my vacation plans have just been scrapped because of this weather! Now that just isn't fair! And now we have thunder snow for goodness sakes! I hate thunder snow!
Honey Bunny (above) bites. Sue calls biting a "defensive posture."
Petey Petunia, above, is so black that without adjusting the brightness and contrast, all you would see would be a shiny black lump on the chair!
This is not all that rabbits do (although I joke with Sue that they are boring). Honey Bunny above again. One time we took them outside. But they were pretty skittish about the big birds that flew overhead. Sue and I know that hawks would not be too shy to grab a rabbit from next to us on the ground! Poor things! So much to be afraid of.
Petey Petunia's big feet. Lucky rabbit feet.Here is Sue playing with Photo Booth on my MacBook:
And here is the finished product that she e-mailed to her neice (the solid blue tortoise is a bobble-head):
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