Filed under: last green valley | Tags: 1940, Connecticut, costumes, cow, ghost, Halloween, historical, nurse, Pomfret, primary school, schoolhouse, snow white, witch
These images are from the Pratt Schoolhouse, once located across the street from where the Pomfret Center, Connecticut post office is today. A few of the children are ghosts and witches, there is a nurse, a cow, and a Snow White. The costumes are very unique, but I have no idea who or what many of the children intended to look like with their costumes. Help me out!
There are also a few clues around the classroom regarding what the students were studying. Nine years later the town’s new Pomfret Community School for grades K-12 was completed.
Filed under: last green valley | Tags: Connecticut, daffy, duck, politics, Pomfret, wetlands
Filed under: art, garden, last green valley | Tags: adelma simmons, caprilands, Connecticut, coventry, gardening, gardens, goats, herbs, knot garden, lamb's ear, peacock, silver, thyme
Adelma Simmons became interested in herbs while working for a department store. She was a distributor who saw that specialty stores were beginning to sell fresh herbs. She read many books on herbs and soon retired from retail and worked full time in her gardens. Goats were the first crop that Simmon’s raised on her famous property in Coventry, Connecticut, and herbs were well-suited for the site as well. She had over thirty gardens and just as many employees until her death in December of 1997.
Prior to her death she reintroduce the United States to herbs through her lectures, daily tours, and Sunday teas. She was known to have an imposing personality. Her home, where she taught cooking classes, was not up to fire code. She believed that changing the building to meet fire codes would be damaging to Caprilands charm. She eventually refused to allow fire inspectors inside her home.
I visited Caprilands last week. My mother took my sister and I as children. I can only remember having gone once, but my mother promises that we made several trips there. I think that it was probably these visits that caused me to love gardening.
I am not able to remember these gardens during their glory days (pre 1998). Although I have been able to find a few photographs of the gardens during their hayday, they are relatively undocumented online.
On my most recent visit I took nearly three-hundred photographs. Below are two dozen of them.
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- a path looking west
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- the Silver Garden
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- the Identification Garden
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- the Knot Garden in the Identification Garden
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- in the Garden of Old Roses
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- gable of Red Barn
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- near the White Border Garden
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- the Butterfly Garden
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- the Greenhouse
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- the White Ash
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- a birdhouse
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- the time, now a time
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- path looking north
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- in the White Border Garden
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- yarrow
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- possibly in the Medieval Garden
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- bees in the Garden of the Stars
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- path looking east
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- bricks in the Identification Garden
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- the Swedish Cross and the Red Barn
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- in the Saint’s Garden
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- clematis
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- the Saints Garden
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- bench and restrooms
Filed under: college, garden, last green valley | Tags: Bennington College, boston, bulls, cheever, Connecticut, deer, fruit, garden, hunting, lee reich, Michael Pollan, New York Times, pear, Pomfret, suburbia, summer, The Omnivore's Dilemma, uconn, vegan, vegetables, wall street, yellowstone
Ten years ago it was not necessary for our family to protect any of our plants. Now, however, no plant is safe. The hosta on the east side of the house has not survived a single season in five years, the holly gets a yearly pruning in winter, and the vegetable garden now requires a six-foot fortress. Perhaps our property has been established as a (Good Grazing Ground (GGG) by the Association of Hungry Deer (AHD).
The article above was published in the New York Times in September of 1905. The previous day an article was published on the impact of deer on Pomfret’s farms.
Vegan gardening. in order to make this Frittata? or possibly to grow lesser-known fruits?
The New York Times has an article on students and recent graduates who are performing internships at farms. The article did not mention any of the Bennington students who have interned at farms (Bennington once had its own farm), but the article did mention that the interns came armed with a Bennington graduate’s book.
Cheever living in CT.
Filed under: garden | Tags: arugula, asparagus, broccoli, chives, Connecticut, garden, lemon balm, lettuce, lovage, onion, parsley, peas, Pomfret, spinach
arugula, asparagus,* broccoli, chives,* lemon balm,* lettuce, lovage,* onions, parsley, peas, spinach
* denotes perennials planted prior to this year
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: abbott spring farm, alcohol, book sale, bottle bill, brayman hollow road, bread, Connecticut, connecticut route 244, dunkin donuts, garbage, garden, litter, long weekend, peas, Pomfret, ragged hill farm, redeemables, vineyard valley, vineyard valley golf course, water bottles, yogurt
It is long weekend. I am in Connecticut, at home. I have been cleaning up my yard, and I will soon be working in my garden. I planted peas the last weekend in March as I thought it was time to plant them, but I do not think that it was. Not a single pea has peaked above ground. Perhaps this was an especially cold March? Maybe they are taking their time. I don’t know.
I picked up litter on 6/10ths of a mile on my road. I did this six months ago as well. I collected:
Redeemables (67)
32 alcohol cans
18 alcohol bottles
9 non-alcohol cans
8 non-alcohol bottles
Things that were redeemable before their barcodes became unreadable (32)
22 alcohol containers
10 non-alcohol containers
Non-redeemables (46)
13 alcohol containers
19 water bottles
5 iced tea containers
4 juice containers
2 coffee containers
2 milk containers
1 tin can
Garbage (one medium-sized trash bag)
30 or so plastic and Styrofoam cups (most from Dunkin Donuts)
1 portable fan
If this rate is consistent along Route 244’s 3.6 miles in Pomfret (which it likely is; there are no major roads that intersect with 244 besides at its ends), there are 1740 recyclable containers thrown out of car windows onto my road every year. There are 28 houses on my street, one golf course, and two large farms. There are 56 containers for each of these! Every week an average of twenty alcohol containers are thrown out car windows onto this one stretch of road.
Because the expanded bottle bill passed fewer water containers will be thrown out of car windows as they have been given value. I am sad that the bottle bill did not include other possible additions such as coffee and tea containers. While the bill was being drawn up there was also talk of increasing deposits to 10 cents. There is other incentive to throw alcohol containers out of car windows. I don’t know how to solve that problem.
The town of Pomfret, Connecticut will be having a town-wide roadside clean up tomorrow, Saturday, April 18th. I will be participating!
There will be two book sales, a rummage sale and an auction on Saturday, May 2nd. I believe that both public libraries are currently accepting book donations at specific times.
I am starting to dream up my summer, and I decided that I am going to make non-stop yogurt and bread. OM NOM NOM
Filed under: last green valley | Tags: alliance ohio, bradley playhouse, Connecticut, ddt, food, fun and fancy free, grocery, mCcaskey register company, photography, Pomfret, pomfret arms, pyequick, red and white, red and white food stores, red cross, scripto, tobacco, treasure of sierra madre
I’ve been looking for information on the Red and White Grocery chain. I haven’t been able to find much information. I’ve gathered that it works a lot like today’s IGA, and several stores were eventually sold to Hannaford. A few stores remain in existence, but I am unsure about their current affiliation statuses. I’d love to have more information on this chain!
More photographs and information below the jump, including a very detailed description of the photograph above. (more…)
Filed under: last green valley | Tags: books, Connecticut, etiquette, farmhouse, faux pas, France, gender, google, hobby, human bodies floating, invitation, journalism, paris, river, sexes, spirlsman, telephone, truth, woodstock
Roughly one year ago there was an ad for several boxes of books on Freecycle. When I got to the location I found a porch full of books and folks eager to send them home with me. The books were from the attic of an old farmhouse in Woodstock, Connecticut. Many of the books were textbooks while many more were religious texts. One book is titled Twentieth Century Etiquette: A Ready Manuel for all Occasions. The book details the social graces of table manners and greetings as well as the social faux pas of invitation by telephone and the possession of hobbies by men (hobbies makes men most unbearable). It is probably my favorite book of the rather moldy collection. I will write about it later.
I found a rather curious newspaper clipping in one of the books (above). There was no explanation as to why the clipping was kept or where it came from. If you search for “spirlsman” on Google nothing comes up. I can’t think of any other time when this has happened. Luckily, when one searches for “spirlsman” now, one will find oneself here! I love the last line of the article. Everything is “valuable in proportion to its truth.” I don’t understand why more journalists do not include this disclaimer. While this article may not include very many facts regarding floating bodies, it does inform one that there were enough floating bodies in French rivers for Frenchmen to theorize about them.
Filed under: last green valley | Tags: Connecticut, historical, octagon, Pomfret, round house, syriac
While looking through the Pomfret historical archives I found a picture of my friend’s dad and their house.
Filed under: last green valley | Tags: california, civil union, Connecticut, connecticut constitutional convention, connecticut supreme court, ct vote no, ctvoteno, family institute of connecticut, gay, gay marriage, love makes a family, marriage, New York Times, november 4th, proposition 8, united states
This past Friday the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that civil unions, legalized in 2005, are not constitutional. They were found to be both separate and unequal. Connecticut was the first of the United States to give gay couples some of the rights of straight couples without judicial intervention. Connecticut will be the third state to legalize marriage for all eligible couples.
Although it was a day of joy for dozens of Connecticut couples, especially the eight couples who sued the state, many fear the ruling will have a negative effect on the status of California’s constitution. Many fear that it has further excited the opposition and has led to more funding for a “Yes” on Proposition 8 in California. Millions of Californians are expected to answer “yes,” “eliminate right.” Others fear that marriage equality is a “deathblow” to marriage by a series of cause-effect errors. These people are silly.
Connecticut voters will have the opportunity to call for or object to a “constitutional convention.” Although this sounds patriotic and/or progressive, the Break-Up Families Institute of Connecticut hopes to use the convention to put gay marriage on the ballot. The question will read, “Shall there be a Constitutional Convention to amend or revise the Constitution of the State?” Connecticut based Love Makes a Family and others urges you to VOTE NO ON ONE NOVEMBER 4TH.
