Vermont - Woodstock, Quechee Gorge, Brookfield, Barre and a quick trip to Cornish, New Hampshire

September 8, 2019 - September 12, 2019

Woodstock, VT: Billings Farm Museum

OMG - such big nostrils - all the better to slime you with!

Jersey cows are what it's all about at the Billings Farm.

Laura demonstrates that all cows love to have their ears rubbed.

The cow barn.

Love the little calves - check out the length of those eyelashes.
They birth about 40 calves every year at the farm.

The technical end of the milking business.

The business end of the milking business.

Getting down to business.

Let's face it - some cows are just more beautiful than others!

Belgian Draft Horses on the farm.  

These horses are really really big!

Sheep and goats and chickens are also around the farm.

The farm's purpose was the production of butter which is why they choose to raise Jersey cows which are renowned for the high butterfat content of their milk.  The pictures below show the type of  equipment used to produce butter from cows milk in the latter part of the 1800's.

 

Quechee Gorge, VT:

Looking down river from the bridge over the gorge.

Looking almost straight down from the bridge.

 Brookfield, VT: Vermont's floating bridge

Spotted this as we drove to the floating bridge.  Just had to get a picture.

Hate to say it but I think this person is right on the mark.

It's no match for Washington State's SR 520 floating bridge but it does the job.

Barre, VT: Rock of Ages granite quarry

Looking up from the bottom (this is a site only the quarry-men get to see). 

View from the top.  The current quarrying is going on over on the left side of the picture.
Our tour director told us if we were to touch the aqua water it would feel like paste because it is so loaded with granite dust.

This is the Rock of Ages Production facility. 
Virtually all the granite from this quarry goes into making memorials.

You can see some of the memorials currently being created laid out below.

A quick run across the VT/NH border to Cornish, NH to see the home of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, one of America's most famous sculptors.  He was born in Ireland to a French father and an Irish mother.  His parents emigrated to the U.S. when he was less than a year old and settled in New York City.

Augustus Saint-Gaudens

Sorry this is such a terrible picture but I'm using it only to indicate that Saint-Gaudens was apprenticed to a Cameo cutter at the age of 13.  His apprenticeship ended when he was 18.  The work served him well as he became an expert at bas relief sculpture which is one of the more difficult types of sculpture work.

Two examples of bas relief work done by Saint-Gaudens.
Marion Reed (above) and Robert Louis Stevenson (below)

Saint-Gauden's home in Cornish, NH.  

Saint-Gauden's workshop from the porch of his home.

A sampling of copies of Saint-Gauden's larger sculptures.

Abraham Lincoln (original is in Lincoln Park, Chicago, IL)

Admiral David G. Farragut (original is in Madison Square Park, NYC, NY)

The Puritan (original is in Merrick Park, Springfield, MA)

Robert Gould Shaw Memorial (original is in Boston Common, Boston, MA)

In about 1905 Saint-Gaudens was asked by Teddy Roosevelt to design a new $20 gold piece and a new $10 gold piece.  They are considered to be the most beautiful coins ever issued by the United States.  Sorry about the blurry pictures but at least you'll have some idea of what the coins looked like.