Why sooo many artifacts? Well, what started out as urban flight (Goodbye, Manhattan!) and Adirondack Coast escapism (Hello, Essex!) soon morphed into an all-consuming avocation: resuscitating Rosslyn (an endless, painstaking historic rehabilitation I’ve dubbed “rehab ad infinitum“). A bit like amateur archeologists poking through ancient midden heaps, we’ve tried to decipher the relevance and context of rotting lineament bottles, wallpaper shards, yellowing postcards, vintage photographs, and all manner of miscellaneous relics/esoterica. Our burgeoning collection of Rosslyn, Essex, Lake Champlain, and Adirondack artifacts comprises a veritable “digital museum” of curated collectibles all directly or indirectly related to the historic William Daniel Ross home in Essex, New York.
Our first full workweek is in the rearview mirror, so Rosslyn’s icehouse rehabilitation is officially underway. No gold plated spade plunged into the earth, no glossy speeches, and no hoopla aside from a collective sigh of relief, some well earned rest today, and an antique ice hook. A what?!?! More about the ice hook in a moment.
Let the photo above be proof that clean-out and demo are now complete. It’s time to commemorate the ceremonial starting point for our long anticipated quest to rehabilitate Rosslyn’s historic utility building into a functionally relevant utility building for the 21st century. In the weeks ahead we’ll share the vision, introduce the team transforming this vision into reality, and invite you into the collaborative creative process.
Week 01 Recap
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CjcS50UA2nu/
The short videos above and below offer the best insight into progress and present conditions.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cjgl6ABAGcU/
Although last week was the first *official* foray into this project, it was made possible by several weeks of preliminary work completed by Pam and Tony (emptying the contents of the building, inventorying the architectural salvage and building materials that will be repurposed in this project, transporting and storing everything into the carriage barn and a rented storage container parked west of the barns for the duration of the project.) There’s always a lot more to launching a new construction project than expected, and ample credit is due to everyone — Pam, Hroth, Tony, Eric, Andrew, Justin — who successfully tackled the site prep. And behind the scenes, Tiho Dimitrov spent the week fine-tuning construction plans in conjunction with Thomas Weber who’s responsible for engineering the structural plan. All of these committed collaborators have gotten us to the starting gate.
The Ice Hook
I mentioned above an antique ice hook, and the photograph below illustrates exactly what I was referring to. Disinterred by Tony while cleaning out and grading the dirt floor of the icehouse, this badly corroded artifact bears an uncanny resemblsnce to a common tool of yesteryear: the handheld hook. This implement was most often used for 1) grabbing and hauling ice blocks and/or 2) carrying hay bales. The location where this relic was discovered (as well as plenty of examples uncovered by quick research online) strongly suggest that this is an antique ice hook. What do you think?
Rosslyn Boathouse and Hammock Reflections (Photo: Eve Ticknor)
Every once in a while I get lucky. A dramatic sunrise falling on mist. Gluten free, dairy free chocolate desert on a restaurant menu. A quick smile or pleasantries from a stranger. A dogeared but otherwise forgotten poem resurfacing, reconnecting, re-enchanting after many years…
Many of Eve Ticknor’s (aquavisions.me) watery photographs — especially when hinting of Essex, Lake Champlain, and even Rosslyn — belong in my ever burgeoning catalog of lucky experiences. I have shared Ticknor’s photographs before (Hammock Days of Indian Summer on September 18, 2013 and Eve Ticknor’s Boathouse Photos on June 23, 2014)
Eve’s photographs capture dreamy abstractions that don’t easily reveal their source. (Source: Rosslyn Redux)
The photograph above is a perfect example. It moves before your eyes like a mirage. What is it? A second photograph of the same scene helps demystify the subject.
Rosslyn Boathouse and Hammock Reflections (Photo: Eve Ticknor)
Still stumped? That hypnotic labyrinth of squiggly lines is the key, but the two vertical, shaded columns are helpful too. If you’re still stumped, here’s a third photograph that will decipher the abstract beauty in the previous two photographs.
Rosslyn Boathouse and Hammock Reflections (Photo: Eve Ticknor)
Eve explores refracted and reflected images on the surface of water, never using Photoshop or filters to alter her images. What we see is what she saw. And yet she succeeds in capturing all sorts of whimsical illusions on the water surface. (Rosslyn Redux)
In addition to the mysteries woven into Eve Ticknor’s photographs, I’m also drawn to her “earthy” palette. She often captures rich, nuanced colors in her work, but there’s a muted, organic hue that I find refreshing in today’s super-saturated world of digital photography and pumped up filters. That third image above is especially rich in color and tone, so many putties and heavy contrasts. It strikes me as painterly and meditative in a way that so many crisp, high definition, copies of reality are not.
I’ll conclude with one last hauntingly beautiful images from friend and photographer Eve Ticknor. It is a glimpse over the shoulder of Rosslyn’s boathouse toward the Essex ferry docks pilings, the entire scene veiled in gossamer moodiness. Thank you, Eve!
Rosslyn Boathouse and Essex Ferry Dock Pilings (Photo: Eve Ticknor)
I’ve just received a lovely email from local artist and friend Eve Ticknor (aquavisions.me) with four soothing images of our boathouse. Eve’s dreamy boathouse photos last appeared in “Hammock Days of Indian Summer” last September.
Her new series offers a seasonal bookend to the last set. “Spring!” the photos sing soothingly. “Springing into summer. Soon. But for now, still spring…”
What your boathouse porch looks like in my world. (Photo: Eve Ticknor)
You can see your boathouse better here now. (Photo: Eve Ticknor)
Your boathouse on a more glassy day. (Photo: Eve Ticknor)
It’s an incredible gift when I receive artwork inspired by Rosslyn, and I offer my deepest thanks to Eve (and all of the other generous artists who’ve shared their creative visions with me) for allowing Rosslyn to a-muse you.
While I was waiting for the ferry! (Photo: Eve Ticknor)
In addition to the boathouse photos, Eve included this enchanting image of a duckling family paddling along between the Essex ferry dock and the boathouse. They seem to have swum directly out of a patina’ed storybook!
Before I even realize it I’ve counted the ducklings. Today there are twelve remaining, twelve significantly larger and less fluffy adolescent ducks. I imagine a few ducklings fell prey to eagles or snapping turtles. Or perhaps they swapped momma ducks to join a smaller brood? My mind wanders to the the many perils ducklings face on their sprint to duckdom.
A vintage Sherwood Inn postcard received from a Crater Club neighbor.
Without a doubt, one of the greatest rewards of living at Rosslyn is the parade of people I’ve met (and the stories they tell) simply because this house and boathouse have touched so many over the years.
[pullquote]”Everyone’s so busy nowadays,” Lila said.[/pullquote]A couple days ago I answered the front door midday. A smiling, well dressed lady introduced yourself. Lila and I had met a couple of winters ago at the Essex Inn, and she reminded me that she had spent many enjoyable afternoons and evenings at the Sherwood Inn a half century or so ago.
She presented me with a color copy of a Sherwood Inn postcard she had received from a friend long ago. The rear side of the postcard said, “My summer home for June – September 1953. Old looking, eh?” Lila explained that she had been meaning to bring this postcard to me ever since we first met.
Lila’s Sherwood Inn Memories
Lila told me stories about the glory days of the Sherwood Inn, a once popular place for a drink and lakeside lodging in the property where I now live. She named several of the friends with whom she’d wiled away pleasant afternoons in the tavern and on the porch, and several were names that were familiar to me.
Lila also told me about playing tennis at the Crater Club where she still spends the warm part of the year. She lamented the fact that younger generations in her family (and all families perhaps?) seem to spend less and less time relaxing on Lake Champlain during summer vacation. “Everyone’s so busy nowadays,” she explained.
When she shook my hand to greet me and then again when she left I was amazed with her firm grip.
“Tennis,” Lila reminded me. “I played lots of tennis for many years.”
I hope I’ll have another chance to catch up with Lila this fall, another chance to hear about slower times in Essex when friends stopped for drinks at the Sherwood Inn and played endless tennis and vacationed all summer long on Lake Champlain…
At first I thought it was a mushroom. So many have covered Rosslyn’s lawns in recent weeks. Small, delicate, off-white mushrooms that look as if they escaped from a fantasy story. Or droopy, brown capped mushrooms like you might’ve drawn as a child. And sometimes these round globe mushrooms emerge overnight. Some are small, lacrosse ball small, and others grow nearly as large as volleyballs. The day before there was nothing but soggy, green grass. And then, magically, a lily white ghost fungus appears. Or an armada of lily white ghosts…
This morning, while inspecting our young orchard with Griffin, I spied what I initially expected to be a newborn lacrosse ball mushroom.
My spirits (and vision) were inevitably soggy. It’s been raining for weeks. In fact, with a few rare exceptions it seems to have rained ever since we returned from the desert southwest in late May. I’ve shared with you the emotional roller coaster of the Lake Champlain lake level which after weeks of rising now [crossing fingers, arms, legs and eyes] appears to have crested.
I’ll save the water drama details for another post. The broken boat lift. The sunken dock. Our ski boat tethered to submerged docks at the marina. A vegetable garden better suited to rice farming. And I haven’t told you about the fact that Rosslyn’s basement flooded several weeks ago. And then again a week later. I may. In time. For now I’m cultivating amnesia. It’s been that bad, especially when the weekly weather forecasts promise more of the same. Rain, rain, rain.
So this morning, after feeding Griffin, I headed out to the meadow behind the carriage barn to check and see how the vegetable garden and orchard were surviving in the rain.
Short answer? Not well!
The garden is a swamp, eutrophying with thigh high weeds. It’s difficult to distingish eggplants and peppers and tomatoes from weeds. A swampy jungle. A miniature rain forest. For some reason the corn seems to be the least weed infested area, but the cucumbers and zucchini and melons and leeks are totally obscured in unwelcome and uninvited but thriving invasive foliage. The almost insurmountable task of weeding out the entire bed is trumped only by the fact that another 10 days of rain if forecasted before we’ll be able to get in and do much of anything. Enticing scenario.
Apple tree browsed by deer
And if that’s not discouraging enough, there are other surprises to be had in the orchard. I recently opted to remove all of the deer cages around the fruit trees. Several of the trees have literally outgrown their cages, but the main reason I removed them was to make ongoing weeding and pruning easier. I hadn’t detected any deer in the backyard since winter, and Griffin has been undertaking a twice daily (each morning and evening) urinary tour of the orchard and vegetable garden.
But it turns out I was overly optimistic.
The deer, too wise to fool, took advantage. A half-dozen young apple trees have been browsed. I’m optimistic that they will recover, but the damage is severe. They’ve eaten not only most of the foliage, but almost all of the new growth, and even most of the young scaffold branches.
Mysterious speckled egg upon closer inspection, shell broken.
So, with a heavy heart and frenzied fingers I begin to “stroll” through Amazon via my iPhone app, looking for organic deer deterrents. Distracted. Wandering. Then I discovered the mysterious speckled egg. That’s right, what at first eluded me as a mushroom born of too much rain, turned out to be a large eggshell. I say large, but in truth it’s only large for the sort of eggshells I usually see around the yard in the spring. Songbirds, robins, etc. I did see several beautiful sky blue robin eggs this spring, but this speckled eggshell was slightly larger then a chicken egg. The coloring is relatively accurate in the photograph: slightly off-white, maybe closer to café au lait than the white of a puffball, and speckled. Small brown markings dapple the surface. I assume the mystery bird had already hatched as the shell was empty, though only a small area of the underside of the egg was broken away. It was sitting in the middle of the grass, in the middle of the orchard.
What sort of bird hatched from it? Where had it gone. Was it safe and sound and dry? Or perhaps the shell was dropped here by a crow after a protein-rich brunch…
It occurs to me that it might be the egg of a duck, one of the many mallard families which congregate along our waterfront. Or a member of the family of mallard ducklings I photographed in our years earlier this spring. Or a merganser…
I don’t know, but something about this fragile symbol of beginning countered my damp spirits. And for that I am exceptionally grateful.
Wild Turkey Egg?
Guinea Egge, Turkey Eggs & Peafowl Egg
Many thanks to Katie Shepard for her sleuthing. She lead me to this comparison of eggs image which shows an egg that looks suspiciously similar to the shell I found. In the photograph, the brownish egg on the far left is from a guinea hen, and the egg on the far right if from a peafowl. But those two middle eggs are from turkeys. The larger turkey egg with well pronounced brown speckles is a ringer!
And given our high population of wild turkeys, even after the kamikaze turkey episode, it makes plenty of sense that this egg hatched a baby wild turkey. Just yesterday morning I startled four large turkey that were right next to our back deck, looking for breakfast among the zinnias.
When I stumble upon artifacts specific to Rosslyn or Essex or Lake Champlain or the Adirondacks I’m usually unable to resist collecting and showcasing them for others to enjoy. Often I can explain precisely why the artifact is of interest, but other times I’m unable to explain clearly, succinctly the appeal. Today’s discovery is fated to this latter purgatory I’m afraid.
1882 Harper’s Weekly: Children’s Excursion to Lake Champlain
This antique print appeared at auction but its purchase eluded me. It would have been nice to get a closer look, and to properly decipher the artist’s name (not 100% ineligible in this digital facsimile).
According to the auction listing, the page was pulled from the July 1882 issue of Harper’s Weekly, and the title offers a glimpse into the narrative it was illustrating.
THE “TRIBUNE” FRESH-AIR FUND—CHILDREN’S EXCURSION TO LAKE CHAMPLAIN
Harper’s Weekly, July 1882
This evocative antique drawing captures the hope and energy of a children’s book illustration, inviting daydreams of carefree country living along the shores of Lake Champlain.
There’s plenty to appreciate in this drawing. My eye is especially drawn to the vignette subtitled “At a bee swarming” and located near the center of the image. While the drama of finding and trapping a bee swarm (presumably to populate a bee hive) is the clear focus of this freeze-frame, it’s the background which leaps out at me. Do you see building boasting a sunburst ornamented pediment? The architectural illustration may or may not have been inspired by a visit to Essex on Lake Champlain, but it certainly appears likely!
Detail from Steamer Vermont Stereoview, photographed by S.R. Stoddard c. 1870
In the thirteen years since arriving in Essex (or perhaps it’s only the twelve years since purchasing Rosslyn?) I’ve succumbed to a romantic-if-frivolous obsession with local and regional artifacts. Sometimes I’m fortunate enough to document firsthand relics from Essex yesteryear or Lake Champlain yesteryear. Other times I’m afforded a mere glimpse.
That cinematic snapshot above, as moody as it is patinated, falls into the latter category. Like a still from a crumbling film no longer visible. A phantom. A memory. Men aboard the steamship Vermont. Serious, contemplative, well dressed gentlemen (and likely a few imposters) recline or stand solemn on the forward, upper deck as they sail across Lake Champlain.
Who are they? Where are they headed? What is their occupation, their task, their conversation? Who is their haberdasher?!?!
We know only that the photograph, a detail from two images arranged in the stereoview below, was captured by S.R. Stoddard (circa 1870s according to the auction listing). Fading mementos of forgotten travelers. Worn edges and sepia-tinged souvenirs. Formal calligraphy on bright orange cardboard.
Sadly another bidder beat me to this treasure. But others will surface in due course…
Here’s the original stereoview.
Steamer Vermont Stereoview, photographed by S.R. Stoddard c. 1870
Sometimes a trifle is all we need to smile inwardly and lift our spirits. A chuckle. The wink of wonder.
This auction item offered no specific insight into Rosslyn’s yesteryears, nor did it illuminate in any meaningful way our fair village or its environs. But the photo, auction title, and description beguiled me nonetheless. Smile, chuckle, wonder.
Essex Cottage
Let’s start with the title.
Vintage Snapshot Photo 1946 Buick Special Eight & Cottage Lake Champlain Essex NY
Perhaps as early as the late 1940s or maybe the 1950s a snapshot was inspired by a car and cottage in Essex. No people. No lake view or Adirondack panorama. Just a portrait of travel conveyance and travel accommodation.
Before dilating slightly why this otherwise mundane memento intrigued / enchanted / captivated me, let’s read the auction description.
Vintage 1940’s deckle edge snapshot photograph of a Buick Special Eight sedan parked next to a little vacation house or cabin, identified as being at Lake Champlain in Essex, New York.
If the missing deckle edge disappoints you, sorry. I cropped the image and lost the deckle. But if you share my curiosity about the period when Essex was a popular destination for “motor touring” (car travel), then you’ll understand Why this quirky photograph caught my attention.
Nostalgia
There’s an elusive longing that I feel when I look at this photograph. I am 50 years old, so the nostalgia is not firsthand. If the heyday of “motor touring” (and the motor courts and cabin/cottage communities that proliferated during that time) preceded my birth by a decade and more, then what exactly is it that tugs poignantly as if personally relevant and familiar, as if similar a reference point exists in my own younger years?
I’m not certain. On the one hand, I do think that the 30s and 40s and 50s and even the 60s are often romanticized in music and film and art and books. So maybe there’s a sort of inherited nostalgia by way of influences that I’ve experienced through pop culture, etc. even having lived a generation removed from the actual phenomena.
On the other hand there is a small sliver of overlap between my own personal lived experience and the vignette documented in this vintage photograph. It’s this overlap, I suspect, that compels my curiosity about Hillcrest Station & Cabins and Camp-of-the-Pines.
As Susan and I took Rosslyn’s reins in 2006 I found myself inexplicably, irresistibly fascinated with earlier chapters in this property’s history. An almost childlike curiosity kindled my questions and my investigation.
I learned early on that there had been several guest cottages on the property during the days of the Sherwood Inn, possibly located beyond the carriage barn and icehouse. These diminutive guest accommodations had long since vanished, but this only increased my wonder. Where exactly had the Sherwood Inn Cottages been located? Did cars have the ability to pull up to the cottages? Or did they park in a central park area and walk across the lawn? Fix they have running water (i.e. toilets and baths/showers)? Did they have electricity? What sort of design and architectural style? Did they complement or contrast with the home, boathouse, carriage barn, and icehouse? When were they removed? We’re the demo’ed or transported elsewhere?
I suppose my interest is more romantic than nostalgic…
1946 Buick
Let’s parse this nostalgia versus romance distinction.
The cottage in the image above resonated in the same way that the Hillcrest Cabins and Camp-of-the-Pines did for me. All of them harken back to a time when our home was an inn that included a few similar cottages nestled somewhere on the property. To date I’ve been unable to locate photographs of these cottages though I have searched.
While I do have a bit of an obsession with the various narratives and artifacts left behind by those who have come before us, I’m not obsessed with history per se. I love the details. The stories. The patina. The aged and neglected and forgotten detritus of life lived. I’m guardedly optimistic that I will find photographs, maybe vintage postcards, or maybe even a brochure, that will show me what the cabins at the Sherwood Inn looked like. Perhaps the cottage in this photograph stood at the Sherwood Inn? I can’t quite figure out how the perspective might align, but as my interest is largely romantic, it’s not a big leap to conjure this building into a corner of our property. Of course, that doesn’t make it true.
But there is another romantic element at work here as well. I could not have told you the make or model of the car in the photograph, and, frankly, I’m taking it on good faith that the person who listed this auction item titled it incorrectly. But the visual of a 1946 Buick Special Eight inevitably overlaps in my romantic imagination with our 1949 Riley RMB (photos below). I’ve mentioned this handsome automobile in the past, and it’s recently been front of mine again as I evaluate whether or not I should be matching it up with a new owner more passionately committed to its restoration and maintenance.
I’ll close by saying that I did initially bid on this auction, but I bowed out early. My early offer was immediately overshadowed by another. Separating nostalgic from romantic inclinations proved helpful. This distinction has become increasingly important to me as I disentangle the many motives that braided my life and Susan’s life together with Rosslyn’s life over the last 16 years. But I’m wandering afield, teasing a tangent, so I’d best abbreviate this thought for another post. Stay tuned!
In Letters To A Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke writes, “everything is gestation, then bringing forth”. My daily munge, what others might refer to as daily writing practice or a journal, is my place and process for gestation. It’s a place where I scribble and doodle and scrawl.
Sometimes it’s five hours’ worth of writing; sometimes it’s five minutes.
Anything is fair game for the daily munge, any quotidian artifact that even fleetingly piques my interest. There’s no referee, no editor, no judgment. Not at first.
Like a sculptor’s studio where I can explore an idea that may or may not evolve into a finished work, the daily munge let’s me experiment and carve away and mash the rejects only to pick them up again later to try again. Sometimes a poem or a story or an essay is born; more often I create, curate and then abandon my words.
Very little ever comes out of the daily munge in the short term, and yet most of my completed storytelling and writing had its inception there. Gestation is critical. As is patience and perseverance. I’ve learned these lessons many times, and yet I’m forced to relearn them each time I initiate and complete a new creative project.
Although renovating Rosslyn involved more woodwork and plaster and masonry and paint than the average poem or story, it too was gestation. It too demanded patience and perseverance, more sometimes than my bride and I could muster. Or so it seemed, until at last we were able to bring forth a home, a revitalized historic artifact, a font of memories and stories and lives.
A time capsule, the daily munge preserved the highs and lows of three, almost four years spent renovating Rosslyn. A mosaic of artifacts and memories. A sometimes euphoric, sometimes angry and frequently confused or frustrated tangle of interconnected narratives. This is the material I’ve been exploring and sculpting into Rosslyn Redux. This is the clunky, unedited avalanche of dreams and disappointments and triumphs and compromises that sometimes sweeps me up and plunges me—gasping for air, somersaulting blindly—downward.
Today has been one of those days. I’m trying to remind myself, “everything is gestation, then bringing forth”. I am so damned ready for the bringing forth! Patience. Perseverance. Thank you.
Intriguing artifacts tend to pop up in unlikely places. Rosslyn’s carriage barn, for example.
We’re currently undertaking structural improvements to the larger of the two outbuildings west of our home. In anticipation of a re-roofing project that will include stripping the old leaking asphalt shingles and installing a new standing seam roof next spring, we’re a little over a week into jacking the eastern-most interior bent in order to reduce the deviation of a sagging cross beam. In time all three interior bents will be rehabilitated and fortified to ensure that the circa 1820s building is structurally sound once again.
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Sounds technical? It is. But elegant in its simplicity. I’ll save the engineering details for a later post when I can prove a visual illustration of what we’re doing. I don’t want to tempt fate into where little bit further along the process…
For now I’d like to share with you three totally unrelated artifacts that we discovered in the large second-story hay mow while tidying up for the contractors.
When we purchased Rosslyn, the carriage barn was still quite full of architectural salvage, stored lumber and miscellanea inherited from the previous owner who had use the space for almost four decades to store anything and everything that he couldn’t fit into the house. During the first few months after closing on Rosslyn we disposed of anything in the carriage barn and ice house that we didn’t anticipate needing. Any materials that we thought might prove useful later on we’re saved. Over 3-1/2 years of renovation, we added plenty of additional lumber and building materials.
When it came time to repair the too long neglected church barn roof, We knew that an engineer was needed to assess the structural integrity of the building. Although the overall geometry of the walls and roofline were pretty good for building of its age, it was clear that at least one of the bents was beginning to fail. Removing all of the excess weight from the second floor which was contributing to the sag in the floor was obviously necessary, but I needed an engineer to assess the current structural risks and devise a plan for stabilizing and safeguarding the building.
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I’ll tell you the story about a clever Vermonter who calculated the alarming possibilities resulting from a heavy snowfall and who eventually engineered a minimalist and rather elegant solution to the problem.
But for now let’s take a look at these three artifacts which emerged during the cleanup process. I apologize for the poor quality and perspective of all three shots. I shot them quickly with my iPhone without stopping to figure out the best angle so that you can help me decipher the probable function of each artifact.
Of the three, the first is the easiest to recognize. It is a rudder from a sailboat probably in the 15 to 25 foot range, and I suspect that it originally helmed a sailboat belonging to Rosslyn’s previous owner. That story also for another day, but I’ll leave you with the hypothesis that this as well as other miscellaneous nautical parts found in the hay mow once belonged to a sailboat that sank in front of Rosslyn’s boathouse some years ago.
The second artifact is more puzzling. While the sailboat rudder is for all practical purposes intact, this mysterious artifact is but a fragment of some larger mechanism. Combining carefully worked wood with intricate joinery and what appears to be cast-iron gears of some sort, the utility of this artifact has long since expired. I am fascinated with the elaborate cast-iron fabrication and joinery. It seems surprisingly elaborate for what otherwise gives the impression of being some for some sort of farm machinery. Perhaps you have some insight? It would be pleased to sort out the former use of these artifacts.
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The last of the three artifacts looks vaguely as if it may have been part of a small sleigh. Perhaps a miniature sleigh that would have been used by a child? Although it does not seem to be equipped with full runners along the bottom which would allow it to slide effortlessly over snow or ice, it does have short runners that curve up at the front with small metal eyes, as if they might be used for a rope to pull the sleigh along.
Of course, I may be totally off target. This could be a piece of interior furniture or some agricultural implement with which I have no familiarity. In any case, like the previous artifact, I suspect this is missing essential parts.
What do you think? Could this be a snow slay for a young child? Possibly pulled by a pony rather than full-size horse? I invite you to wonder and speculate, and perhaps we will move a little bit closer to identifying all three items. And then, it might be possible to locate someone who has a need for these items. Certainly that would be the most rewarding update for this blog post, finding meaningful homes for all three Rosslyn artifacts. Let me know what you think!
“Life is not what one lives, but what one remembers and how one remembers it in order to recount it.” — Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Living to Tell the Tale
As I organize multiple pieces of Rosslyn’s renovation, our littoral Adirondack existence, and my still-young marriage into some sort of coherent storyline I wrestle consciously with occasional incongruities between my story and my life.
The narrative landscape is vast. Too vast, it often seems, to fit into a tidy memoir beginning with the crisp crack of a book spine opening for the first time, and the contented-sigh closure compelling stories demand.
Day after day, week after week I reread and rewrite, sort and distill and sort again, hunting for the essential story lurking amidst a mosaic of daily munge entries; four year’s worth of to-do lists; over fifteen thousand photographs; boxes of technical drawings and hasty sketches; hours of dictation; recorded meetings; and emails. Properly assembled, these miscellaneous artifacts form a multidimensional map of what took place between the spring of 2006 and the present, but they fail to tell the story, they fail to recount the adventure lived.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Image via Wikipedia)
In fact, I am startled to discover that these precise, unambiguous reference points frequently contradict my recollection. Dramatic events indelibly etched into my brain at the time have already blurred despite the brief lapse of time.
I curse my mischievous mind and then accept that 100% accuracy will inevitably elude me. My mind’s imperfect cataloging at once humbles and liberates me. Though an unreliable historian, I am a chronicler and curator of stories, not facts.
Even when my data is unequivocal, I inevitably distort history, omitting and abbreviating and emphasizing, distilling the vast landscape of data into vignettes. These accrete gradually, revealing the narrative design of my story.
I am unlike my father and my brother who posses iron vaulted minds where information is deposited, preserved and safeguarded for later use. When the time comes to retrieve the information, they withdraw it from their vaults unaltered, uncontaminated, reliable, accurate. Or so it has always seemed to me.
I believe that there are different kinds of accuracy. I am a storyteller, not an historian, and though I strive for verisimilitude, some truths are more effectively preserved and conveyed through stories than history or vaults.
Some days I toil like an archeologist amidst a midden heap of artifacts, rewinding time’s mysteries, deciphering the prior summer’s garden vegetables from this season’s rich, dark compost.
Other days I seduce and charm and coerce the artifacts to share longer forgotten truths. I plant French Breakfast Radishes and bush beans in the compost-enriched garden and several unlikely seedlings emerge among the radish and bean sprouts. I skip them while weeding, and soon enough I am rewarded with yellow cherry tomatoes, wart covered gourds and a curly garlic scape! Although I’ve grown yellow cherry tomatoes in the past, I’ve never grown gourds or garlic.
I remember that we were given several multicolored gourds to decorate my bride’s annual Halloween birthday party last year. But they were smooth skinned. Perhaps they were discarded in the compost, and a recessive wart gene found its way into the germination process resulting in the exotic adaptation growing amidst the fattening radishes.
And the garlic? We eat plenty from Full and By Farm, our local CSA, but to date I have never planted garlic. I vaguely remember several bulbs that we left out while traveling last winter. When we returned home, the kitchen was ripe with the pungent odor of rotten garlic. The bulbs were discolored, sitting in a pool of their own brown fluid. Several garlic cloves had begun to germinate, pale green shoots emerging from the cloves and arching upward.
I imagine planting them in a terra-cotta pot and placing it on a windowsill in my study. Each morning I inspect their progress. One shoot yellows and grows limp, then wrinkles across the moist soil. The other three grow taller quickly, changing from pale to dark green. Soon they will twist into elegant scapes which I can cut just above the soil level. I will chop them up and sauté them with olive oil, salt and pepper. I will serve them to my bride as a dinner side with mashed potatoes and swordfish, and she’ll smile ear-to-ear, marveling that something so succulent could have grown by accident.
According to Garcia Marquez life is not only the experiences, the moments lived. Life is also the rendering of those experiences into stories, the recollecting, the filtering, the imagining, the sharing. To fully live we must share our stories. That’s an interesting notion in a world that more often favors accuracy, facts, history.
Perhaps even with history we become overconfident that the facts are irrefutable. Only in recent decades have scholars we begun to look critically at history’s biases, often tainted by ideology, objectives or favoring the victors to the vanquished.
Absent an omnipresent video camera that documents my life as I bump along, capturing every minute detail precisely, permanently, Garcia Marquez’s perspective offers reassuring guidance. Though I frequently daydream about a collaborative memoir comprised of the recollections of everyone who participated in the rebirth of Rosslyn, my story is an eclectic nexus of personal experiences, filtered, aggregated and cobbled into narrative cohesion by me.
I write these affirmative lines now, and yet I struggle with it each time my bride asks if she can participate more actively in the revising and editing. Yes, I tell her; when I am done. Which is not to say that I have neglected her input. I have sought it again and again. But her story is different from my own, as are the still unwritten memoirs of many creative and hardworking people who invested their time and energy into renovating our home. I hope to showcase many of their impressions and memories on the Rosslyn Redux blog. And I am optimistic that my memoir will serve as an invitation to dig into their memories and to recount their own versions of Rosslyn Redux.
Thank you, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, for your guidance.
Fiery Green Mountains through wavy glass… (Photo: virtualDavis)
It’s impossible to frown your way into the day with this magnificent view smiling back at you. Even the dreamy distortions of wavy glass don’t spoil the effect. In fact, like so many other old home enthusiasts, I love the wavy the glass!
Homes built before the turn of the 20th century have a very distinct characterization that many homeowners may not completely understand: a wavy appearance that can distort the images behind it… There is a certain charm about wavy glass that gives your home an antique, historical value that many homeowners find appealing. Many… appreciate the authenticity and originality of the wavy windows as contributing elements to the overall style of the home. (Angies List)
Rosslyn has greeted spectacular sunrises for almost two centuries, so the least we can offer as her current custodians is respect for her antique quirks. But preserving (and occasionally replacing) Rosslyn’s wavy glass goes beyond respect for history.
One of the things I absolutely love about old houses and antiques is the minor but striking detail and character that wavy glass brings. It’s one of those little things that screams “I came from a simpler time, where things were still hand made, imperfect, and unique!” (Old Town Home)
What is Wavy Glass?
Another wavy glass vision: The Essex ferry bound for Charlotte, Vermont (Photo: virtualDavis)
So what exactly is the story with the wavy glass you see in old houses?
Apparently one of the best explanations comes from an article that appeared some time ago in Old House Journal. Although I haven’t successfully laid my hands on the original article yet, the following explanation is ostensibly quoted from the original. It offers as good an explanation as any I’ve seen, and breaks out the two different varieties of wavy glass.
Crown Glass
For centuries, the best quality window glass was crown glass. To make panes with this method, a glass blower gathered a clump of molten glass on the end of a hollow pipe and blew it into a bubble much like a bottle. As a helper attached a pontil rod to the other side of the bubble, the glassworker broke off the blowpipe creating a hole. Then, by heating the glass and coaxing it with a wood paddle, he quickly enlarged this hole into a rough plate.
Working in front of a furnace to keep the glass hot and fluid, the worker then spun he rod with his hands, often on a supporting bench, so that centrifugal force stretched the glass out into a thin disc – a process nearly identical to a baker spinning fresh pizza dough for a pie. When the blower severed the rod, he had a disc of thin glass, up to 4 feet in diameter.
After annealing this table in another oven to equalize stresses, the glass was carefully cut into panes according to grade and size. The central “bull’s-eye” – the thickest and most malformed part where the rods touched – was usually unsalable and returned to the furnace… (Fairview Glass)
Creating crown glass must have been incredibly time consuming and labor intensive. Suddenly the luxury of early glass panes comes into focus. So nostalgia (and that dreamy filter which subtly distorts the view) and historic authenticity are trumped by a third important reason to value and preserve wavy glass. It retains the intimate contact and hard work of a human being. As old home owners we should feel obligated to honor that enduring investment of human labor.
Cylinder Glass
Learning about crown wavy glass offers an almost romantic glimpse into window’s patina’ed to past. And yet the inefficiency is obvious, and innovation was inevitable.
Though crown glass was made up to the 1850s, it could not supply the need for bigger panes created by a growing population. The glass that could was cylinder glass (also called broad glass or sheet glass), and it dominated this industry for the rest of the century.
To make cylinder glass, the glassworker blew a large tube of glass. After cracking off the blowpipe, the glassworker cut off the ends and slit the tube down one side. From here these shawls were transferred to a special oven where they could wilt and unfold into a flat sheet.
By the 1870s, glass manufacturers were adding pits dug deep in the floor of the glass factory to allow blowers to swing the glass as they blew. The resulting cylinders were up to 18 inches in diameter and a remarkable 7 feet in length.
Two decades later, some manufacturers had mechanized the steps with cranes and compressed air. These cylinders made possible by the Lubbers process – the last before the switch to drawn-sheet glass manufacturing in this century – were several feet in diameter. (Fairview Glass)
Cranes and compressed air?!?! My commitment has been renewed to preserve and enjoy the nuances of Rosslyn’s wavy glass… And you? What’s your take on wavy glass?
