I Love New York Travel

Taken from the old Joseph Smith homestead (yes, THAT Joseph Smith) in Palmyra, NY. We passed by the place and we stopped so I could snap a few photos. This is the upper floor ceiling. That’s how they held the roof rafters together, with wooden pegs. My own home, while not made of logs, also has roof rafters held together with wooden pegs. Here’s hoping they hold for a good, loooong time.

I do wonder, however, how often the settlers had to replace things like this. Honestly, the logs seemed rather slender and this wooden peg seems rather small… Palmyra is very close to Lake Ontario, home of the lake effect snow. I used to live east of here— some snowstorms would dump 5 to 7 feet all at once. Yikes, it would take a lot of custom challenge coins to rebuild a whole house after a roof collapse. Were these kinds of roofs secure, I wonder?

Oh she is SO DURN CUTE when she does this.

But she’s being cute on purpose.

She’s kneading out little hearts with her cuteness, because she wants to go outside. Livvy is an adventurous sort– she loves to explore and loves to go where the rest of the family goes. She gets frustrated because she does not understand why she cannot be with us outside. But the world is a big, bad, cruel place. I cannot allow my precious Siamese baby outside to roam freely.

We were putting her on a leash, but had to stop, because she was expecting to go out all the time. Spring air is like lovely air purifiers, intoxicating with fresh earth smells. Poor Livvy. Standing by the open window, she’s going bananas. But in the house she must stay.

They’re trying! They’re coming! They’re pushing and stretching and trying to wiggle around the autumn leaves still cluttering my gardens. I give them a lot of credit for such young things.

They are my tulips.

Oh, how I love tulips. Such brilliant colors, such luscious, waxy petals. I have a few groups of them alongside my stepping stone paths in the secret garden. They usually have to wend their way around the rocks and the winding path. They look so forlorn at first, because they seem to need a roadside assistance plan to make it through the rocky roads…. but in a matter of weeks, the tulips will burst forth with huge, bright pink bulbs. They are Darwin tulips, and I love them because they grow so large and so pink. They are usually the first of all my perennials to bloom. Here’s a photo of them from last May.

*sigh* I can’t wait to see my old friends again.

We visited the Finger Lakes and western New York region recently. Hill Cumorah, near Palmyra, is a very steep hill and labored trek. It was horribly windy that day, almost blew the camera out of my hands!

The site is owned (I think) by the Mormons. They hold their Easter pageants there every spring. I attended one of the pageants when I was a girl. My parents were seeking meaning to their life. I’m glad they did not become Mormons. I have little regard for the religion.

I don’t know if was the biting cold or the vicious wind, but my camera battery was languishing about this time. I had to get a new one– I used my GPS for the first time, and located a Rite Aid in town. Oh, I love GPS!! I was able to find a car charger amongst all the adapexin-p and band-aids. lol

More photos to come. I also tried to get a video of the torrential winds with my iPhone; it didn’t come out very well. OH that wind!

Photo was taken at the Montezuma Winery near Seneca Falls, NY. I wrote about our visit to the winery at NewYorkTraveler.net. The place is loaded with stuff, all relating to Montezuma or the Adirondacks. Adirondacks stuff is very “hot” right now. I’ve seen Adirondacks candies, mugs, natural skin care soaps, etc etc. I guess there’s a big, fat market for it.

Soon spring will be springing. Right now, it’s another cool and cloudy day. I don’t mind the prolonged wait– I actually prefer a *real* spring, where temperatures and weather gradually warms, than instant 80 degree weather.

I have a lot of outside work to do soon…. *sigh* All in good time.