Trip 19 - Marshfield And Irasburg

I'm stretching the concept of The Trip Singularity a bit since today's post is about 2 towns on 2 separate days, but this is the inaugural 251 Club event with Ericka (sans Neptune this one time) and it's during one of her visits from PDX, so what the hell.

We visited Marshfield yesterday and had a little difficulty getting the Dogz back in the 251 groove what with the excitement of meeting Olive, our Guest Star.

We meandered down from The Fortress of Solitude through places like Peacham and Groton...

Water is pretty high in a lot of places around the state, including this spot on Rt 232 south of Groton State Forest.

After that, we headed up to our quasi-goal (history, demographics):

The story of this town's origins is buried in the early records of the Vermont Governor and Council. In the 1780's, when Vermont was trying to strengthen her bargaining position with the Congress, she established "unions" with towns in New York and New Hampshire, areas in the two states that Vermont attempted to annex. Vermont's claims to territory west of Lake Champlain and east of the Connecticut River were spurious, but they did accomplish the young republic's objective: being noticed by the other states. At one point someone suggested that it might not be a bad idea to have the Natives on Vermont's side, so a grant of land, located in the Western, or New York, Union, was made to the Stockbridge tribe of the Mohawks.

The Stockbridge Mohawks had been converted to Christianity in the 1600's by John Eliot, and their community in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, was one of the earliest of what were referred to as "praying towns." Having been persuaded that they should forswear their old ways of life and stop making war on the white man, they were dispossessed from their Massachusetts lands rather early. The tribe had scattered through New York state and for many years had tried to get another grant of land for a permanent home.

On the other hand, Vermont's grant to the Stockbridge tribe in 1782 was as illegal as it was peculiar. The grant covered territory which was entirely within New York. In addition, the grant stipulated that the land could not be sold under any circumstances. However, they did sell and, furthermore, they found a buyer who was able to convince the Vermont Governor and Council to switch the grant to cover land that was within Vermont's boundaries.

So here's our official shot for Marshfield.  Close enough for gummint work. 

Olive was a cute little girl who was intimidated at first by the Dogz, but then grabbed a stick and taunted them--Mex sucks at Takeaway and Kayla was more interested in sniffing around the flooding river, but I played Fetch a little while. 

After Marshfield we decided to head over to the Dog Chapel in St Jay since the weather continued to be unexpectedly nice...

The Dogz totally thought these sculptures were real canines at first, getting their hackles up, sniffing butts, etc. 

Mex then decided to leave a message for future visitors. 

The Chapel is almost totally full of remembrances now--I have yet to put up any for Saffy or Rinnie, but I should probably hurry before there's no more room. 

I got E this Stephen Huneck print at the gift shop because it reminded me of how we'll have 3 dogz in a few months.  Neppy likes the water while Mex and Kayla don't, so this was a perfect representation of the expanded Pack.  She's got a good place to display it in her apt on the Left Coast for now and then she'll bring it home to Vermont in July when we're all together. 

Speaking of Neptune, he's a bit jealous that he's stuck in Oregon and missing all the fun this weekend. 

So today we're having some coffee at a bookstore/cafe in St Jay and E saw a neat article in Vermont Magazine:

(photo by Peter Miller)

Butterworks Farm. Organic to its roots: small but big. Placid, yet zinging with energy. Tractors coming and going, trucks loading, combines gushing out grain—20 varieties—to be ground and sacked; rotary cultivators working the land, pummeling, kneading, turning over the dirt and stubble, aerating it so it bursts with nitrogen and nutrients; seeding and harvesting, a regiment of white-shrouded hay bales lie at ease next to the barn, a reserve for winter energy. Jersey cows placidly walk in line to the barn from pasture, where their butterfat-laden milk is processed into yogurt andcream. The new barn and granary, grown like an organism over the older barn and silo, built in 1983, reaches skyward like a totem, supplicating the heavens to bless this land with ample sunshine, enough rain, a steady wind and blankets of snow. To the west stands a 75-foot windmill, breathing power into this farm building-granary- factory that turns out 7,000 quarts of the best yogurt in America (well, according to one survey, it’s tied with another farm in Pennsylvania).

Butterworks Farm (they originally made butter, which they don’t anymore — “making butter is a pain in the butt,” says Jack) sits on a high plateau sucked into the Green Mountains in northern Vermont, in the town of Westfield. There are 225 acres (another 100 acres of grain fields are in a neighboring town), which in 1976, when Jack and Anne Lazor purchased the farm, turned up every spring a substantial quantity of rocks. A rock farm, for God’s sakes, morphed into one of America’s leading organic farms; Anne and Jack started out as hippie farmers, but they endured. They were the second organic farm in the state. Now there are 200.

Spur of the moment we chucked our plans to go to the Fairbanks Planetarium and decided to get back to The Fortress to retrieve the Dogz and my camera, then make a jaunt to Westfield.

I didn't like the lighting up there because of the clouds and snow flurries, and really didn't think I could do any better than the Peter Miller shot, so I settled for a picture of Kayla introducing herself to the farm dogz.

We didn't do Westfield as a 251 trip--will return this summer to Butterworks Farm--but did travel back home via Lowell and Irasburg...

American Highland Cattle along Rt 100.

Yup, it's mud season.

Wooja.  Wooja.  Wooja.

Then we thought we might as well stop in Irasburg for a club visit (history, demographics):

One of two towns (Ira in Rutland County being the other) named for Ira Allen, the principal grantee. Also named as grantees are General Roger Enos, Sr.; his wife, Jerusha, Sr.; son Roger, Jr., and daughter Jerusha, Jr., who later became Allen's wife. This charter is one of the few places in Vermont where women are listed as grantees in their own right; unique also is the use of Sr. and Jr. to designate mother and daughter of the same name.

Fairly soon after the charter, Allen acquired all of the other grantees' lands. Stories that Allen had filled up the required number of grantees with false names and that he had "bought" the claims from himself are simply not true: most of the names listed in the charter are people well known to be friends of either the Enos or Allen familes or later listed in the 1790 census as living in other Vermont towns. 

Didn't have my full-sized tripod (left at home) or my Slik Mini (I did yesterday) so I just propped the cam on a paperbag atop my car hood.

Dogz and Humanz are tired from two days of fun.

ntodd

Comments

[may (and may the younger)]

So let us know when you plan to make it all the way to Fairlee or Thetford and we'll cross the CT River or just wave from the "live free or duh" side.

There's a great strawberry festival in Thetford in June:
http://www.cedarcirclefarm.org/
the date TBA

Also you could cross the river for the great goose egg auction May 17th:
http://www.openfields.org/cgi-bin/Eggs2008.cgi?eggType=page&eggID=X

Stella and Odd Ball would love new friends to play with....

[GeorgeM]

That shot with the chair covered by the water is pretty funny. Bet that would have been a cold sit.

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