The Shakers..Niskayuna - their home still a vision of the simple life!

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Waterveliet Shaker Village (Niskayuna)

Mother Ann Lee came here to find a new home for her "people".  The Shakers would indeed succeed and make many homes throughout the United States.

Ann is buried here and so are many of her followers, though each cemetery marker is the same.... and unless you read each stone you cannot find hers.

How simple and yet how fitting for those who treasured a simple life.  A life minus lust & temtations, simple and honest ...a life lived as a Gift to God!

Today we remember her and her followers....and perhaps today we need this simple lifestyle to come back and save the world from itself!

The Drillmaster's Cabin sits in the woods.....

They called Steuben the Drillmaster of the Revolution

His cabin so secluded and far from the people....so silent the trees...only footsteps in the leaves announce a visitors arrival.

The days of glory are gone...yet one wonders if the future will remember one such as he...

The birds are even silent as the wind suddenly lifts leaves  as if to warn of the storm ahead... 

Yet war storms come and go and never seem to end.

Men march to death as they did then ...and as they probably will forever......

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The Sadness of Oriskany...

The place where General Herkimer laid directing his troops

The sadness of that day seems to leap from the quiet air... the spot now holy in the annals of war.  But what of his comrades the Indian friends... whose presence is forgotten by local lore.

Arise dead soldiers unite as one 

to lift war's curse before the sun.

To mark a spot on sacred ground 

where fighting spoke words so profound.

Nothing solved, nothing gained, 

by war's red horror and blood red stain.

For ages and ages hence from now,

no spot will stand not even  bough!

Monticello Flowers - The tapestry of history.

Do the flowers embroidered by time remember days gone by?

Perhaps these flowers have sprung from the seeds of the same flowers that watched a Nation grow so many years ago!  

Do they remember the man Thomas Jefferson who watched them grow and recorded their story?  

Do they remember the touch of the slaves who cultivated them and worked his gardens for his pleasure?

As the sun beckons us to walk near them and smell their perfume do we appreciated the darkness that brought them to being. 

The threads of life's tapestry have been captured by time on the fabric of our Nation in places such as this.

Following the Darkness to the Light!

The sunset approaches for us all!

I see the sunset coming closer with every day of my life.  This spot on Wellesley Island has seen it set for more years than I can know.  I sit and wonder how many people have sat at this shore before...in the same place...at the same time of day...and wondered how their life will end also.

I gaze to the Canada of today, though it appears at dusk the same as the Canada of "yesteryear".  The water the same rough and smooth.  The river the same..moving...moving...waiting to carry us all to the "light".  The light that comes to beckon us into the dark abyss of the here-after.

Near Owasco in times gone by!

Near Owasco in times gone by!

No Native Americans are here now, only tourists.  Amusement Party has become part of only the silence of the ages!  The lake as taken its past and buried it deep within its depths.

Gone are the watercolor artists that sat in Sunday colors with brush in hand to capture its beauty.  The sound of the lapping water disturbed by the hum of and occasional motor powering a boat up its waterway.

So sad to think of in its quiet.  Indians gone and dispossessed, amusements gone to the scrape heap and only nature remains to remind us of times gone by!

Watkins Glen in the 1800's

We Walked the Glen!

We walked the Glen on that Sunday afternoon, such beauty to behold.  We wondered and whispered not wanting to disturb the scene of perfect peace.  The birds did not mind us as they chirped their songs.  The ages had done their magic to this pristine place of nature's.

The day's views are so beautiful that we linger far later than we should.  But to be late is a small price to pay for the day here amongst the landscape that God has created and that man can only dream of. Tread not heavy for we have joined the ages on this path!

Mr. Johnston is not Home!

Mr. Johnston is not Home!

I sit and wait for him to return, but he does not come.  I have grown tired over all these years, I have become lonely and I despair, for Mr. Johnston has left me alone to grieve for those happy days and loving nights.  There is no laughter to fill these walls, there is no joy.

The children have left for their future but alas, I have none. I can only listen to the vacant haunting sounds of the wind while I wait for Mr. Johnston to come home to me!  

The Silver Chain is Broken!

The sound of the drum has ceased to be!

The sound of our drum has ceased to be - like so many stories and promises made.  What was sealed with blood has bound no man or country.  I see the eagle above my head, I see the earth under foot, I see the blood and tears that have been shed.

The silver chain is broken..though each year we polish it bright.  The days of meaning have long since passed into time like the faces of our ancestors.  We call upon the spirits but they to lay sleeping in the bosom of the earth!

Arise and march for for us o'spirits...the time has come to renew your people and place them back as the keepers of your earth!

The Lady of Rose Hill

The Lady of Rose Hill

I can hear her petticoats rustle as she scurries across the lawn.  I wonder what she is searching for on this peaceful day.  Perhaps she is looking for the past and her place in time.  A time she can step into with little or no trouble, a place that has no future.

As I marvel at her house so beautiful and neat, a setting from a movie or perhaps or a setting from a time gone by.

Let summer's breath keep you lingering for my camera's eye, 

so that we can glimpse you in your time gone by, 

and catch your image at that ethereal portal,

to make you and your time immortal!

Stopping by the woods on a Snowy Sunday!

Lebanon Reservoir in Winter

The winter is such a long drawn out affair in my "neck of the woods."  

Today the same as yester-year our local Amish families are enjoying the age old sport of ice fishing.  Sundays just seem to be brighter when you can visit such a spot and think of the days of Courier & Ives paintings with the sky and scenery in its special winter hues. Think of the hours it took them to do what you can with your digital camera and computer in minutes.

Hats off to these hardy souls who live life without the harsh realities of media hype, loud and expensive machinery, children glued to computers, and families on the run here or there in their cars looking for a "better life!"

Maybe we have had it "all" all along and just need to take a step back and remember Sunday dinner with family, special picnics by the pond or cooking at home for your relatives who were stopping by after church because it was "the Sunday thing to do."

We changed our life style to make us richer....but perhaps we are poorer for the change!