Back from Upstate...again

doesn't he look somehow regal despite his gobbles?

This weekend we went to my parents place upstate again. This time for four days instead of the usual three. So much more relaxing that way. The weather was beautiful on the way up, but fairly soggy once we were up there. Friday morning, before it started raining we went to the Farmer's Museum which was a lot of fun. I hadn't been there in years and Chris had never been. It's one of those recreated villages with historic buildings from around the county like Old Bethpage here on Long Island, but this one has much more going on. Almost every photo I took was either of the farm animals or of the architecture. I'll spare you most of the architecture shots. I think I took half a dozen shots of door hardware. Yikes!

I call it "Portrait of a Goat"

There was a childrens petting zoo, which of course we went to. There was a calf who had no interest in us, a few goats and a couple sheep who were very cute. They also had chickens that you could feed out of your hand. (see below) I don't recommend this, even though I had my hand completely flat, they still pecked the hell out of it. I don't even think they were eating half of the time, just pecking my hand for the fun of it. Ouch!

We did visit other parts of the museum, not just the childrens part. The photo below is from the vestible of the church. It had really nice light which I think I was able to capture in this shot. There's an apothocary, a doctor's office, a lawyer's office a broom shop, a blacksmith's shop (he was out to lunch) plus a tavern and a few houses. The main building, which I believe is the barn from the Fenimore Cooper Estate, has an exhibit about the history and animals of different regions of New York State, plus the Cardiff Giant- which is worth checking out if for no other reason that seeing how gullible people are.

Saturday was pretty much a wash out, but we did go visit the Farmer's Market (an awesome one by the way) and Hyde Hall. You cant take pictures inside of Hyde Hall (not sure why), but I did get a few of the outside. It's a neoclassical mansion from 1817-1834 and you feel like you are in a Jane Austen novel. The guy who built it was an Englishman and he had it designed with a particularly English look to it. It is still under restoration, many of the rooms still have plaster falling off the ceiling, but it's interesting to check out. Even though the builder of the house's name was Clarke, his grandmother was a Hyde and she was cousins with Queen Anne and another queen that I can't remember. Definitely the more prestigious name in the family - Clarke was merely a governor of New York province.

Isn't his window cool? They wanted the symmetrical look of the windows on either side of the house, but he wanted to use is as a door so his tenant farmers could pay their rent without coming in the front door. Never seen that before. They had the same detail upstairs over the front entrance. Pretty cool. The inside had some incredible rooms for impressing guests, and some more modest rooms for the family. There was a central courtyard which is unusual in this country, but allows the inner rooms to have some natural daylight. It's worth checking out if you're ever in the area. The admission is a bit steep ($10) but you're paying for the salary of the guy who is painstakingly restoring this house and there is a long way to go.