Ready For Spring

Many of the early spring flowers head into winter with their flower buds already formed.  To me this seems to be a huge contradiction.  One quite naturally assumes that flowers are frail and tender so how can their buds endure an entire cold and snow filled season?  On the other hand open early blossoms need a head start to complete their development.

Arbutus has held me in its spell for years.  Writings far more than a century old proclaim this plant's absolute resistance to being transplanted but pictured is a moved plant that has lived here for many years.  Two different bud clusters are growing from the point where the stem end sends out leaves.  Also in plain sight is a nearly totally dead leaf.  Evergreen does not mean forever and the mystery of the life cycle of Arbutus leaves remains unknown.

Magnolia suggests a flowering tree that might be expected to grow in Georgia rather than New York.  Miller Nurseries, now gone, ran a great business that provided me with plants for a very long time.  This Magnolia is one of their special plants.  Those fuzzy gray buds will open into beautiful early white and pink flowers.  Here again the buds must survive winter.  They handle our cold but the deer eat them when most of their food is buried under snow.  A four foot high fence surrounds the tree but the deer simply eat higher buds.  Lower cages are spread out next to the fence to deny the deer a close approach.  We hope that this new twist will save more buds because the early blossoms are truly spirit lifting.

Pinxter is a native plant here as is Arbutus.  This bush has been here for many years but yearly trimming by the deer has kept it rather small.  Here again wire cages are piled to keep the deer away.  Some may find this combination of cold stone near mostly bare branches unworthy of a second look but it is one of our treasures.  When the air turns bitter cold and snow covers the ground, we will tramp about to check on our early flower buds.

More Abandonment Coming

With a lifetime of interest in New York State railroads, a model of the New York Ontario & Western became the one that I wanted to build.  The pictures on the wall show the actual bridge that crossed the valley approaching Sidney Center.  Maywood was the railroad name for this bustling  town to avoid shipping confusion with nearby Sidney.  Fourteen towers were needed to support the rails high above the valley floor.  My model had room for only seven towers.  This was the first part of the layout completed.  Even the dust of moving coal is part of this train.

This picture is included here because of the photograph of the actual Hawk Mountain tunnel.  Construction of the four lane route 17 obliterated all traces of this tunnel.  When I drive the highway the nearby bridge abutments used to cross the Delaware River can still be seen and the end of the short trestle that approached the tunnel are in view.  That is all that remains of this structure.

This model of the Hawk Mountain tunnel was the second section on the model to be completed.  No information can be found to identify which end of the tunnel was photographed making finding the precise location of the real tunnel more impossible.

The real fieldstone foundation near the box car is all that remains of a freight house.  There is also actual stone in two places at the tunnel entrance.  The other stone and the tunnel portal are castings although the keystone above the arch was carved by hand.  The trees were built using Autumn Joy sedum flowers grown on site.

The Lehigh Valley Railroad figured prominently in my youth.  A tale repeated many times describes my first exposure to railroads.  On the trip home from the hospital following my birth, we were stopped at a railroad crossing.  My Father held me up so that I could see my first train.  In later years  memories of my Father driving out of the usual way home so that he could race the Black Diamond to Newfield Station are easily remembered.

The caboose pictured is the best of the train cars that I built from scratch.  Plans taken from the prototype were drawn as the first step in building the model.  Milled basswood shapes and sheathing were custom cut to build the model.  Wire was bent to form handrails and bracing.  Tiny bolt heads secured the diagonal braces at each end.  Most of this stuff is being boxed and inventoried for the coming auction but this piece will stay with me after the rest is sold or trashed.