Tri-Town Summer Festival Parade - Part 1

I couldn't find it online so checked at the feed store and learned that the Tri-Town Summer Festival Parade would be on Saturday at 1:00. I drove to Brasher Falls New York, parked my car and found a shady spot with the sun at my back for taking pictures. The parade began (and ended) with a state trooper's car, lights flashing. Next in line was the VFW:

There was an antique car and about four local political hopefuls. I found it odd that anyone might think that being in a parade would garner someone's vote, but then I never did understand the ways of politicians:

There were several small wagons such as this, and apparently they were used to haul pamphlets and candy to hand out. Every parade entrant tossed handfuls of candy to the crowd:

There were numerous fire trucks from the three towns - Brasher, Stockholm and Lawrence. Brasher Falls, Winthrop and Lawrenceville are smaller settlements in those towns:

Brasher Falls and Winthrop are in different towns but adjacent, so they share a fire department:

The floats were by and large a mystery to me. The sign on this odd float, which had a fish woman and a mammal of some kind, read "TTVRS will ____ there at any sticky situation." I guessed that TTVRS was an animal control service and maybe the unknown word was "bee," though I couldn't read it. And what was the mammal holding? It looked a little bit like a ham to me, but what was the red on it? As you will see, I was left to guess about a number of floats.

Right behind it was this bear on a stretcher with a bee hive on its hand. The woman was carrying a giant EpiPen. I guessed that this was part of the former float and added credence to my guess about the unknown word being "bee:"

A local bar/restaurant on the banks of the St. Regis River. This one I understood:

Another mystery float, though I supposed this was a children's hockey team:

Cubby T. Clown appears in all the local parades and I am used to seeing the car. I was surprised, however, that this time there was no one inside the car dressed as a clown. By the way, notice the old gazebo in the yard across the road. Some of the old houses and yards were fascinating, and maybe I'll present a post about them some day:

Another mystery: A Volkswagen Beetle pulling a boy, wearing a gas mask, on a skateboard. Whatever statement they were making was lost on me. There was more to come, though, and I'll post Part 2 tomorrow:

Part 2 - County Route 54, Lawrence New York

I was traveling County Route 54 on my way to the town of Lawrence to refill my honey and taking photos along the way. I passed by Stauffer Farms, one of the largest in the area:

And this huge equipment shed and tarped pile of - well, some kind of silage:

A picturesque farm house with lots of vehicles:

I began to enter the village of Lawrenceville (in the town of Lawrence):

And I came into a pleasant residential area:

There were clean, comfortable homes here - places for folks who really like small town living:

This looked to me to be a former farm home with its barn now serving as a garage:

Comfortable, friendly homes:

And sprawling homes with wide porches:

Homes nearly hidden beneath trees:

I passed this old false front garage when I was just about at the intersection:

And next to it was this old, matching building which seemed to contain apartments. The front of this building faced the highway and appeared to once have been a store of some kind, perhaps the general store for the area. But I'd come to the end of County Route 54 and it was time for me to put my camera away and go buy some honey:

Lawrenceville, New York - Part 2

I'd entered Lawrenceville via small, country roads and was surprised to find it so much more populated than I'd imagined. When I got to Route 11, I arrived at the three or four buildings which I'd formerly thought was all of Lawrenceville. Now, I think I'll call it the center of the hamlet:

And, now back on the highway, I was still seeing old farm houses with barns and carriage houses out back:

This handsome old brick home was all dressed up for Christmas. This same house recently appeared on this blog all dressed up for Halloween. I'll bet these folks have kids:

A very old and formal looking brick home:

A major barn structure, apparently built in two stages:

And another rather stately home with both entrances protected from the winter weather:

A traditional white church with a steeple:

A small bungalow surrounded by massive farm fields under a big sky:

And a well built and well preserved barn of a rather different design, one which I thought looked like barns in the south:

This was a more common style of old barn, along with its silo and surrounding outbuildings:

A small onetime farm house. It no longer had a barn, but its owners sure had a big dump truck:

When I passed the Happy Cow Restaurant, I decided that I'd come to the end of Lawrenceville. The boundaries of these hamlets and villages are not always clear. The restaurant's sign said they were open, but it didn't look to me like it was. And speaking of food, I was getting hungry and anxious to get back to my awaiting dogs, so that's just what I did:

Lawrenceville, New York - Part 1

We arrived at the farm earlier than usual on Sunday. I ate lunch and got the dogs comfortable. Then I decided to take a driving tour of a nearby hamlet, Lawrenceville New York. Lawrenceville is located within the town of Lawrence, in St. Lawrence County. Do you see a common thread here?:

Most of Lawrenceville lies off of the major roads and I was surprised to find it was bigger than I'd expected. There were old stone farm houses:

And a little house on the prairie:

A magnificent barn of enormous size:

An Amish farm, everything neat as a pin, with a windmill:

Old, weather-beaten, sturdy and still functional - like me:

Um, I wondered what it might look like inside:

Now, this was a front porch I could live with. I'd sit out on it all day in my rocking chair and holler at the kids to stay off my lawn:

Perfect, small town charm, and don't fail to notice the adjacent carriage house which was part of the property:

Another old farm house with a nice front porch:

A more woodsy type of home:

And a nice, big home up on a hill. I was finding that there was more to Lawrenceville than I'd previously thought. I'll post more photos tomorrow:

Rural Roadside Halloween

Before posting any more about our waterfall hikes, I thought I'd insert this Halloween special, scenes from a drive along rural Route 11 in northern New York, between Lawrenceville and Malone. A farm stand with plenty of jack-o-lantern materials:

A smaller farm stand, but also with home grown pumpkins:

And the owners of this house appeared to have been good customers of the local pumpkin growers:

Tiny ghosts and a giant pumpkin, with a horse barn out back:

Fake spider webs all over the shrubbery, with lots of other Halloween decorations to mark the holiday. This house also was for sale, I noticed:

Lots of plastic gravestones out front, but the best decoration of all was their flaming red maple. It also appeared that their Christmas lights were in place and all ready to be plugged in when the season arrived:

Pumpkins and scarecrows galore:

A ghost among the pumpkins:


This house was not on Route 11 but on the county road just down from my place. It had a black cat with lighted eyes, a spider and a tower of pumpkins. From that tree on the left hung small ghosts and goblins which fluttered in the breeze (you can see one of the ghosts just above the mailbox). The afternoon fog added to the haunted scene:

And a whole field filled with scarecrows and gravestones. Happy haunted Halloween!: