Evening in Paris

I’m apologizing immediately. I’m really really sorry if you came here solely because of the post title. (We’d all like to spend an evening in Paris, wouldn’t we?)

However, this is just a post with photos of a border collie, with the lights of the city in the background. I don’t know if I’d even call it a city. It’s just the lights along the main route.

I only wrote the title because of the lights, and that’s the truth.

I went outside late this afternoon with camera in hand, and took some photos of George in the waning light. And it wasn’t long until I could hear the sound of

“SQUIRRELS!!”

I am not kidding. I heard them crashing from branch to branch.

Soaring through the canopy of leafless tree limbs . . . and running along the ground.

It’s distracting, I tell you. And I love the bokeh in this last shot.

And the border collie in it, as well.

Until tomorrow, my friends . . .

Bokeh is pronounced bow-kay or bow-keh and it refers to that lovely out-of-focus light and all the different shapes and colors you see in the background of photos taken with a digital camera. It is created by light and and the glass in your lens and distance and wind and focus. It's a Japanese term for the subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of a photographic image.

A sunset, a border collie, a barracuda and a good movie

Does that sound like a good recipe for a lovely evening, or what? Well, except for the barracuda, that is.

First, the sunset.

My husband took all of these photos early this evening while I was sitting inside relaxing and reading blogs. This is the hickory tree out front.

Next, the border collie. He’s on the front porch basking in the last rays of the day.

Yes you are, you beautiful dog.

This is the barracuda. You can see it, can’t you? My husband really liked this one.

And last but not least, the movie. Last night my sister came out in order to take me for a procedure at the hospital today. (All is well and hopefully the whole gallbladder thing is but a memory). I thought it would be fun to watch a movie with her, and when I was at the local WalMart yesterday afternoon getting some supplies, I saw the Disney-Pixar movie “Up”. And it didn’t take long to decide whether or not to buy it. I’ve been wanting to see this movie since it came out.

We watched it after Survivor last night and I wasn’t surprised at how much I enjoyed it after all the wonderful things I’ve heard about this film. My favorite character is Dug the dog, who does a perfect impression of our George when he sees a squirrel.

Hope you have a wonderful day, my friends. It’s always good to have you stop by and I’m grateful for your visits.

The final leg of our journey

I’m so glad you could all come with me on my tour of the old village of Hopewell Furnace in southeastern Pennsylvania. This is the fourth leg of our journey and if you’re interested, you are welcome to read the three previous posts on the subject, explaining how this village came to be.

After a hot cup of coffee for my husband at the NPS office, we headed over to where the charcoal was made.

If’s off to the right, down this path behind the ironmaster’s home.

In the center left of this photo, just to the left of the fence, you will see the remnants of an old anthracite furnace. This furnace turned out to be a failed attempt at hotblast technology. The charcoal area is just to the left now.

This gives us a good idea of where we are. With Valley Forge only 25 miles away, you can understand why General Washington had the Continental Army camped there. It was to protect the furnaces along the route that were supplying much needed ammunition to the army and navy.

Here we have another endeavor that went south. This is all that’s left of the charcoal kilns that were built in the mid 1800’s in an attempt to modernize the charcoal making process. Below is a photo of what it looked like when it was in operation.

Hundreds of hearths were located up on this hill, where workers turned 5,000 to 6,000 cords of wood a year into charcoal to heat the furnace. They sort of looked like small teepees made of thatch.

The stream is directed to the water wheel which drove the blast machinery.

We continue on down the hill, passing the cast house and the blacksmith shop (seen in previous posts), traveling along the Horseshoe Trail which cuts off to the right here where the tenant houses are located. I didn’t get any photos here because there were a few families who were exploring in the houses. I waited until they were all inside to shoot the photo below.

We’re going to take a right here, and head back into the woods, traveling along Hopewell Lake through French Creek State Park and eventually to our parking spot.

But before we enter the woods, I take one last look at Hopewell Village and my favorite Robert Frost poem comes to mind.

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village, though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

 

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sounds the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

 

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

~ Robert Frost

Thanks for coming along on the journey with me. I loved walking on this historic property with you and hope you’ll come with me for future hikes.

Until tomorrow, my friends . . .

Our tour continues. Let’s take a walk on historic ground.

We’re back to our tour of Hopewell Village and Furnace in Pennsylvania, and this is the third installment. If you’re interested, the other two posts are below.

I liked the colors of this wagon that’s housed in the barn, but first I’d like to give you a brief history of this place:

Hopewell Furnace was built in 1771 by Mark Bird, who was already an important figure in the quickly growing iron business in the colonies. When the American Revolution came about in 1775, the furnace turned from casting stove plates to supplying cannon and shot to the Continental Army and Navy.

The Hopewell Plantation was sold at a sheriff’s sale in 1788 after Bird suffered financial setbacks that occurred after the war.

The new owners suffered natural disasters, national recession and in the end, litigation closed the furnace in 1808.

It reopened in 1816 and from then until 1831, Hopewell enjoyed its best years under the leadership of Clement Brooke, the furnace’s resident manager, supplying iron products up and down the East Coast. The furnace went out of blast for the last time in June of 1883 after the steel industry began to flourish.

The property remained a summer home for the descendants of the Brooke family until 1935 when it was sold to the federal government and its 214 acres of historic land was set aside as a national historic site in 1938.

Are you taking notes? I hope so.

After we left the cast house, we headed up towards the barn. At each location, the park service has installed audio background on the building, where you can listen to people describe their position on the plantation, facts about their daily life and even what the weather was like.

We met this handsome rooster who showed us who was boss.

George has never seen chickens before and seemed a little interested.

After leaving the barn, we headed towards the springhouse where I pressed the audio button and listened as a woman described her life. She was in charge of housekeeping in the ironmaster’s house and she and her crew of unmarried girls kept the house shipshape, which was quite a job due to the dust created by the furnace.

I’m coming up the little set of steps now that leads down into the springhouse. According to the audio and the sign I read, this is where the girls did the wash and in the fall, made cider and apple butter in the kettle on the big stove. The hogs and cattle were also butchered down here, and their meat and fat was boiled for scrapple, liver pudding and sausage.

When I was growing up, scrapple was one of my favorite things to eat at my house. I loved how my mother cooked it, and served with ketchup, it was the best thing about breakfast.

When I grew up however, and found out what exactly was in scrapple, I stopped eating it.

Ok. Where were we? Oh yes, the house.

The ironmaster’s house was built in three stages as the plantation grew. There are a few rooms that are open downstairs, but someone was getting very impatient with me. Someone had already been in the house and out again and was waiting for me to get on with it now.

So I quickly went inside and shot this photo in what looks like the dining room. I think the kitchen is through that door and if I’m not mistaken, that’s a dog bowl on the floor by the door. I’m just saying.

We’re now on the side of the hill and behind us, the NPS has built a visitor’s station. There are also restrooms and much to my husband’s delight, a coffee machine. Tomorrow, if you are still with me, we’ll walk around to the side of the hill where the charcoal was made, and then head back down to the road that will lead us to our path through the woods.

If you’re still with me, that is.

Respectfully submitted,

Squirrel Warrior

I interrupt our historic tour of Hopewell Village and Furnace to bring you a post about a dog that one of my readers has dubbed ‘Squirrel Warrior’.

You all know George by now, but for those who are new to the scene, he’s the resident border collie in our lives.

And he spends quite a bit of his time lately doing this.

And this.

I call it his squirrel point.

Border collies do this very well. It’s a stare down between them and the squirrel.

Above him, dozens of squirrels cavort, running up and down trunks and leaping from tree to tree. Oh, they taunt him so.

This is George’s territory and he’s done well with keeping the little varmints at bay.

It’s his job.

Self-appointed by him and him alone.

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The tour through Hopewell Village continues tomorrow. I just wanted to share this with you today. All photos were taken by my husband and discovered by me in the camera disk yesterday. I found about 20 pictures, all of George looking up into the trees!

Tour of Hopewell Furnace continues

I was surprised at the number of people who expressed an interest in this historic site, based on yesterday’s comments. I’m happy to share it with you, so let’s continue our walk through Historic Hopewell Furnace, located just outside of Elverson, Pennsylvania.

As you remember from yesterday’s post, we’d just come out of the woods, and are traveling on the Horseshoe Trail which takes us directly through the village. Here’s the view approaching the buildings from the trail. Behind us are the tenant buildings.

The mist continues to swirl as we walk up the road. You can see the bell tower on the top of the cast house on the left. First, however, we come to the blacksmith shop.

The blacksmith shop provided hardware and horseshoes and was also an informal gathering place for the men who labored here at Hopewell.

The cast house awaits us and it looks really dark in there. There aren’t any lights, but the windows provide enough and I’ve set my camera’s ISO to 1000 to help matters out.

Clockwise from top left: I saw this hook and figured it was made in the blacksmith shop. Hopewell Furnace produced cast iron stove plates and many of them are on display here. Some of the implements used in “flask casking” included wooden frames and sand as well as the items shown here.

The furnace inside the cast house.

The founder was boss, technician, and trouble-shooter. He directed the ceaseless round of activity at Hopewell furnace. Raw materials – iron ore, limestone, and charcoal – were supplied by miners, woodcutters, and colliers and transported by teamsters. Fillers carted materials from the charcoal house area to the bridge house and dumped them at the tunnel head. Guttermen and moulders stood ready below to skim off the slag and cart the molten iron when it was tapped by the founder.

~ From National Park literature

The water wheel has always fascinated me. This is the first time since we’ve been coming here that we’ve actually seen it at work.

American forests were so vast – and bringing in coal so expensive before railroads were built – that early iron plantations like Hopewell made their own fuel. They slowly burned carefully built piles of wood to make charcoal, an almost purely carbon fuel that burns with intense heat. The great demand for charcoal meant that early furnaces were sited on woodlands. One other ingredient was needed: air. It was directed into the hearth under pressure by the water-powered blast machinery, raising the fire in the furnace to smelting temperature.

~ From National Park literature

Let’s head outside now. I think I need some air after all this knowledge. How about we head on over to the barn now? We'll just follow these two guys.

At one time, this barn sheltered 36 draft horses and held a year’s worth of food. Hopewell was both a rural Pennsylvania community and an iron plantation, turning out products for a growing nation and has been beautifully preserved by the National Park Service.

Tomorrow, we’ll check out things up near the iron master’s home. I mean, if you’re still walking with me. You are, aren’t you? We can sit and rest for awhile if you need to!

Until tomorrow then, my friends . . .