Fine Old Homes In A North Country College Town - Part 1

Potsdam, New York is a cultural and educational hub for the north country. It was first settled in 1803 and is now home to three universities - State University of New York (SUNY) at Potsdam, Clarkson University, and St. Lawrence University. The village also has many fine, old homes in excellent condition. I had gone to the emergency room for a TIA (turned out to not be too serious), and decided to take some photos of the nearby homes after I was released. That's part of the hospital in the background of this photo:

The houses in this part of Potsdam are lovely, and almost all have porches. This one also had a turret:

Now this home certainly has a fine porch to come home to:

As you can see, L-shaped porches are popular here:

And most of these old homes are huge:

A brick home with no porch, though it might have had one in the rear:

A lovely home behind big trees and a picket fence:

This porch had been screened in for bug-free comfort in the summertime. Notice the carriage house in the back, another common feature of many of these homes:

I didn't know what this style home wass called, but houses in this style always remind me of Winslow Homer's "American Gothic:" I looked it up and learned the house style is properly called "Carpenter Gothic:"

A green home with a gracefully curved wrap-around porch:

I thought that was a big cat on the porch, but it turned out to be a dead potted plant:

A smaller house with a porch and carriage house:

This elegant home was almost hidden behind large trees. I was just getting started on my photo tour, though, and I'll post Part 2 tomorrow:

Winter On The Farm

The little hen grew all her feathers back but I had to wait for weather which was a bit more moderate before I could put her back outside. In the meantime, she began laying nice, pink eggs:

Finally the weather turned warm enough to put her back with her flock. Alas, one of her former Easter Egger hens did not recognize her anymore and attacked violently. I finally began putting the mean hen in the room with the pigeons each morning, then back in with the chickens in the evening. It took about eight days, but one morning I opened the door and both attacker and victim were side by side, friends once again. All has been well ever since:

The bale feeder has stayed on the east side of the barn to protect the herd from westerly winds. Occasionally, though, the winds come from another direction - but most of the time, they come from the west:

 Red morning sky in the southeast boded ill for the day's weather - but it sure was pretty:

At the bale feeder in the rosy glow of the morning sun:

 Icy dawn on the east side of the barn:

This has been a snowy, icy, frigid winter but the herd has persevered:

One day I saw a flock of turkeys at the far end of the north field. I had to use the zoom lens to photograph them:

But even that wasn't enough, so I extended the zoom lens even farther. These turkeys seemed bigger than most I see in the area:

We have had long stretches of time where everything was covered with dangerous, solid ice. This was the south field pasture:

Smooth, unnavigable ice adjacent to the cows and their bale feeder:

The driveway, between my house and barn. I could only get there by wearing crampons. Then a big snowstorm covered it all, making it even more hazardous in some places. This has been a most difficult winter so far: