Roscoe, New York: The Town the 21st Century Is Beginning To Remember

For Thanksgiving, my family and I went to Roscoe once more. This time, there was actual snow on the ground. It was beautiful. As Zach and I walked around town, we stopped in front of the school to look at the art deco architecture around the face of the building. They don't even use the original main entrance any more. It's a shame.



The stone patio in front of my grandfather's house.





In town, there was a stenciled spray-painted image of our President-Elect on the wall of one of the buildings. It was a show that some people in this town are aware that the 21st century has come. I don't always like the common era, and I like the anonymity of time in that place. It was interesting to see, none-the-less.



Down by the river, the ice and the coldness of the water interacted with the sand and the light to create some fascinating effects.

Looking out over the snow-covered athletic field to the cemetery across the river.

More Fun Stuff....

Hello there again. It seems mother nature wants to join in the excitement in our lives. Here's the backyard.....

We have two willow trees in our back yard. They were trimmed back twenty-some-odd years ago the wrong way and they grew back really weak. Every year-or-so decent-sized bough and branches fall, but this is one of the once-every-five-years breakage that causes more damage than to the tree itself. There is an evergreen tree uprooted and buried underneath the pile of branches. There was also a split-rail fence that has been smashed.

Needless-to-say, the two trees are coming down soon. It was originally going to be only one of the two, but the one that lost this bough is the other one, the one we were going to save.







The playhouse is around 12-15 feet high at the peek. That means that bough on top of it is somewhere around 25 feet long, if not 30. This bough is from the tree that was set to be cut down.

In the above shot, you can see on the left-hand tree the spike of the major bough that fell from the tree that was not slated to be cut.

Fire Spirits.....

Well....

To make a long story short, a fire in my mother's fireplace kindled a larger, uncontrolled fire in the chimney which spread down into my brother's room (the chimney runs up through his closet). Most of the house was saved from the damage of the fire, but was touched by smoke and/or water. The demolition of the damaged sections of the house has begun today, and reconstruction will begin as soon as that is finished. I spent this weekend and two weekends ago cleaning out not only my room and my possessions, but also those in my brother's room because he is in Buffalo and hasn't even been in the house in months, years since he's spent the night. I worked on cleaning out all of the burnt insulation and scattered/burned items. It wasn't as difficult as going through my room, even though nearly nothing of mine was damaged. I think the anticipaton, not knowing what was damaged and what wasn't, was the hard part: i.e. my artwork. This was around a month ago now, and it looks like my part in this dance is mostly done.

Before we had my brother's room completely done, I took some photographs of the objects that I thoughts were interestingly damaged, such as melted stereo equipment and street signs. My brother asked that I post them for him to see. I don't have any photographs of his damaged artwork, save for pottery on a shelf, but our mother has some images I captured on her camera.

Here you go Matt.... I hope you handle it well. I tried to show things well, even though this is going to be hard for you..... It's kind of a good thing you weren't there before we began to clean things up. I don't think you would have been able to handle it. It was difficult for me. I hope my photos help paint a clearer picture for you....

Wedding!!!!

Wow.... I didn't know how exciting and wonderful weddings could be! Last weekend, Patrick and Jen VanSuydam were married. They didn't have a Photographer and I was asked to do so. I was home for the weekend anyway and knew it would be terrible to only have "mom-pictures' as I call them, when they photograph weddings professionally in a journalistic style. I knew they would like something similar and I wanted to help. I had a smile on my face the whole time. It was so amazing and happy.

It was held on the Battlements of Fort Ontario overlooking the lighthouse. The rain held off until the ceremony was over, then everyone except the bride and groom scurried off to get intoxicated at the reception. It was slightly amusing how scared people were of a little drizzle.... okay, it became more than a drizzle by the time I was leaving....

But, over all, the day was wonderful. Thank you, Patrick and Jen, for letting me be a part of your beautiful day. Congratulations....

(see a link to their blog at right)
(see their website at http://www.vansuydam.com/)

The Bride (Jen)... Just before the ceremony.
The Bride and her Father, walking up the isle....
The vows.... and Patrick almost forgetting to repeat the Priest.
The rings.... they are so beautifully simple....

Before the ceremony, Patrick and his friend, and fellow trumpeter, Chris...
Matt (my brother), Craig, and Mike, trying to act all cool and such....
Patrick and the two Best Men (Matt and Mike)
The guys... what more can I say?

The Fesival of Steam

Last weekend, Zach and I camped at the Festival of Steam in Canandegua, New York. This is a place where, once a year, stationary steam engines that used to power cities and mills are now run to show how things were done before the advent of the internal combustion engine. But along with this show, are hundreds of antique tractors that pull in competition. I couldn't give a good explanation on how tractor pulls work, so look it up on YouTube or something to see how it's done... Trust me, there are plenty of videos for your viewing pleasure.

There are also a few antique construction and destruction equipment out in the field, as well as plows and hit-and-miss engines. They work by coasting, and not firing for every time the engine revolves, saving fuel. When the engine goes below a certain number of RPM's, the engine fires again, and waits, everything revolving and moving. If there is a load on the engine, it will fire more often, but if there isn't, it could coast for quite a while before firing again. One of these was running a saw used to make cedar shakes for roofing and siding.

They also have steam tractors that look like miniature steam locomotives. They use these to run the separator (look for the straw pile) and also to bail the straw, powering clutches with long belts, around fifty to seventy-five feet long. One was used in a lumber mill right next to the separator. The blade is around four feet in diameter, maybe bigger, and spins fast enough to cut you in half without batting an eye.... Watching the guys work so close to that blade makes you wonder how they feel, getting so close..... I wouldn't want to be there when a mistake happens....

It rained only at night, which made the show nice and unspoiled during the day, but made the entire grounds a mud-hole and impossible to get out of is you didn't have good tires, or four wheel drive. Luckily, we had both.




Bailing the stalks to use as straw...

Zach is around 5'8". His arms add around another foot and a half... Just for reference of size.


They weren't posing, I swear.

....So that means the wheel here is around seven feet tall, not including the traction spikes....


These buses were getting stuck left and right... and getting pulled out by tractors that had been pulling in competition the night before.... (and we think these two John Deere guys are twins or brothers or something...)




Apparently, there were only ~130 of these tractors made, only two survive to this day, and this is the only one of the two that still runs... A living piece of history.



Separating the wheat from the chaff...