Mine Kill Falls

The weather being fine, we decided to have a drive out and find something new, so we headed out in to Schoharie County and found Mine Kill Falls. Located in the scenic Schoharie Valley, Mine Kill State Park overlooks the NY Power Authority's Blenheim-Gilboa Pumped Storage Power Project. Providing excellent fishing opportunities, the lower reservoir is stocked with an assortment of trout, bass, walleye, carp and pan fish and is ideal for motor boating, kayaking and water skiing. Cascading 80 feet through a narrow gorge is the picturesque Mine Kill Falls for which the park is named.  The Long Path hiking trail passes through the gorge and provides access to the lower falls and beyond. In winter, visitors enjoy snowshoeing, cross-country skiing and snowmobiling.
A separate parking area, 1/4 miles south of the parks' main entrance, provides access to the overlook viewing platforms, From the parking lot, the falls are a gentle downhill stroll taking about 15 minutes,  For anyone who cannot make the trail the path to the outlook with it's fenced platform is suitable for disabled access about 100 yards from the parking lot.


Mine Kill Falls Location

Curry and chips

Having returned from Boston in the aftermath of St Patrick's Day, I found that my favourite pub was still serving the usual faire. The Roisin dubh or Black Rose just 2 minutes walk from Quincy Market serves a feast of Irish and English dishes. I knew that going there on St Patrick's Day was a non starter… I learnt later that the lines were about a hour and a half wait long, that having been said, it would have been worth the wait.

Scanning the menu, there was corned beef and cabbage (no Irish pub is complete without it, even though it is an American dish)… bangers & mash, Fish and chips, Cottage pie (beef), Shepards pie (lamb), meat pies and Irish stew amongst many other menus items.. but then right at the bottom was one that caught my eye….. curry and chips. This dish is popular across Ireland and the UK, almost every fish and chip shop offers it, it's now a sort of a national dish.

The curry is a mix special and no matter where you go, England, Ireland, Scotland or Wales, it's tastes very similar. The Roisin dubh's curry, which I just had to have, was… well if I didn't know where I was, I would have said I was back in England. 

It's served just on top of steak fries (as near as you get to chips) as the full meal just like a gravy or chili on fries in American cuisine….. several friends thought it sounded revolting until they tried it and now they are hooked – I knew there was a purpose for me coming over here !!!!

Well if you want to try it, this is a pretty standard recipe --

Serves: 4

Ingredients

1 Medium Onion

1 Medium Apple

1 Tablespoon Curry powder

2 Tablespoon Oil

2 Tablespoon Plain flour

600 ml Water (1 pint)

1 Tablespoon Tomato purée

 Lemon juice

 Salt and pepper

Method

Chop the onion and apple and fry with the curry powder in the oil until tender. Stir in the flour, cook for 2 minutes and then remove from the heat and add the water, tomato purée, salt, pepper and lemon juice to taste. Simmer for 15 minutes, then pour over the chips and serve


http://www.blackroseboston.com/

Leprechauns

As far as I am aware, unlike fairies no supposed photographs of real leprechauns exist, however since it's St Patricks day, some background to them is worth sharing.

A leprechaun (Irish: leipreachán) is a type of fairy in Irish folklore, usually taking the form of an old man, clad in a red or green coat, who enjoys partaking in mischief. Like other fairy creatures, leprechauns have been linked to the Tuatha Dé Danann (mound-dwellers) of Irish mythology.

In Irish folklore, were they originally supposed to be scary or cute?   A little of both.

According to legend, however, leprechauns usually won't trouble you if you leave them alone.

Engraving of a leprechaun circa 1900

The name leprechaun is derived from the Irish word leipreachán, defined by Patrick Dinneen as "a pigmy, a sprite, or leprechaun". A further derivation is less certain; according to most sources, the word is thought to be a corruption of Middle Irish luchrupán, from the Old Irish luchorpán, a compound of the roots lú (small) and corp (body). The root corp, which was borrowed from the Latin corpus, attests to the early influence of Ecclesiastical Latin on the Irish language. The alternative spelling leithbrágan stems from a folk etymology deriving the word from leith (half) and bróg (brogue), because of the frequent portrayal of the leprechaun working as a cobbler

The earliest known reference to the leprechaun appears in the medieval tale known as the Echtra Fergus mac Léti (English: Adventure of Fergus son of Léti). The text contains an episode in which Fergus mac Léti, King of Ulster, falls asleep on the beach and wakes to find himself being dragged into the sea by three lúchorpáin. He captures his abductors, who grant him three wishes in exchange for release.

Popular depiction shows the leprechaun as being a solitary creature no taller than a small child, with a beard and hat, however while the depictions of leprechauns in Irish oral tradition have varied most accounts had them as humanoid figures, about the size of a mouse, with big feet and perceived as the tallest of the Tuatha Dé Danann, 

The leprechaun’s principal occupation is making and mending shoes, and they enjoy practical jokes. According to William Butler Yeats, the great wealth of these fairies comes from the "treasure-crocks, buried of old in war-time", which they have uncovered and appropriated. According to McAnally the leprechaun is the son of an "evil spirit" and a "degenerate fairy" and is "not wholly good nor wholly evil"

 If ever captured by a human, the leprechaun has the magical power to grant three wishes in exchange for their release and then he’d trick you into making a fourth wish thereby undoing the first three. Or he may show you the location of a buried pot of gold by tying a ribbon around a tree, for example, but when you came back the next day, he’d have put ribbons around all the trees to prevent you from finding it.

From  Leprechaun  

The idea of the leprechaun as a jolly, itinerant elf is a product of mid-20th-century American popular culture. Leprechauns first entered the American cultural consciousness after the publication of two popular books shortly after the turn of the 20th century: Herminie Templeton Kavanagh’s short-story collection Darby O’Gill and the Good People and James Stephens’ novel The Crock of Gold.

In popular culture, Leprechauns made a resurgence with the 1947 Broadway debut of Finian’s Rainbow, a musical in which a leprechaun and his magical pot of gold teach a racist Southern senator a lesson about tolerance. (Francis Ford Coppola later turned this into a movie starring Fred Astaire.) Leprechauns played similarly mischievous but goodhearted parts in a few films over the next two decades, including a Disney adaptation of Kavanagh’s book in 1959. In the 1993 horror film Leprechaun, a 1000-year-old Leprechaun, is portrayed as nastier and evil in his search for his stolen pot of gold; the Leprechaun leaves a bloody trail wherever he goes. A sequel shot in 1994 continues the horror theme with him trying to find a bride. A gentler Leprechaun is portrayed on the Lucky Charms breakfast cereal, which featured a leprechaun named Lucky as its official spokescreature. It first appeared on store shelves in the early 1960s.

The association between leprechauns and luck may have to do with the traditional belief that leprechauns could prevent farmers from experiencing misfortune in fact some farmers used to make leprechauns offerings of whiskey with the hope of ensuring a good harvest and healthy livestock but chasing after a leprechaun to steal its food  or gold would more likely enrage the creature than bring good luck.

Slainte!

Sharon Springs, New York

With the weather being bright and sunny I decided to head out east on Route 20 and visit the old spa town of Sharon Springs. Sharon Springs is a village in Schoharie County, New York, United States. It is a small town with a population of only 547 (2000 census). Its name derives from the hometown of the first Colonial settlers, Sharon, Connecticut, and the important springs in the village

The Adler Hotel

Thanks to its sulfur, magnesium, and chalybeate mineral springs, Sharon Springs grew into a highly fashionable spa during the 19th century. At the peak of its popularity, Sharon Springs hosted 10,000 visitors each summer, including members of the Vanderbilt family, Oscar Wilde, the ambassadors of Chile, Portugal, Belgium, and Peru, and multimillionaire Cuban sugar planter Tomas Terry. Direct ferry-to-stagecoach lines connected New York City to Sharon Springs, later rail connected the village to New York City and Boston via Albany and Cobleskill.

Sharon Spring's development as a mineral water spa reputedly began when David Eldredge established a boarding house near the springs in 1825. By 1841, the village had become world famous as the social elite came to take the waters. Magnificent large hotels and forest-like parks graced the village landscape. During the second half of the 19th Century, Sharon Springs was home to over sixty hotels and rooming houses accommodating over 10,000 visitors each summer. By the early 1900s, Sharon's indigenous Christian mix had become distanced from the summer clientele with the influx of European visitors, primarily from Judaic tradition.

The Imperial Baths

The spas that led to success also contributed to its demise. The turnover owners, owing to age, financial troubles, and a series of disastrous fires, meant the new proprietors were not as tied to the town. Other  national factors led to a decline, Prohibition was introduced in the 1920s and the Bank Moratorium brought financial ruin to many local residents during the early years of the Depression. Since then Sharon Springs has been declining year after year. Today despite attempts to rehabilitate some of the buildings, the many hotels and bath house slowly riot away a legacy of a once glorious past.

Abandoned Hotel

Another abandoned hotel 

Sign of spring - Red Tailed Kite

Heard a racket outside and went on the porch to find a red tail kite had taken down a squirrel for lunch.... a little gruesome but what a beautiful bird. What amazed me was that he perched on the weather beaten old bird table not more than 15 feet away and was happy to pose for the camera.... he stayed about 3/4 hour and flew off taking the remains with him. Wondering now if he is nesting nearby.

This kite (Buteo jamaicensis) is probably the most common hawk in North America. If you’ve got sharp eyes you’ll see several individuals on almost any long car ride, anywhere. Red-tailed Hawks soar above open fields, slowly turning circles on their broad, rounded wings. Other times you’ll see them atop telephone poles, eyes fixed on the ground to catch the movements of a vole or a rabbit, or simply waiting out cold weather before climbing a thermal updraft into the sky.
 
Most Red-tailed Hawks are rich brown above and pale below, with a streaked belly and, on the wing underside, a dark bar between shoulder and wrist. The tail is usually pale below and cinnamon-red above, though in young birds it’s brown and banded. “Dark-phase” birds are all chocolate-brown with a warm red tail. “Rufous-phase” birds are reddish-brown on the chest with a dark belly.

You’ll most likely see Red-tailed Hawks soaring in wide circles high over a field. When flapping, their wingbeats are heavy. In high winds they may face into the wind and hover without flapping, eyes fixed on the ground. They attack in a slow, controlled dive with legs outstretched – much different from a falcon’s stoop.

Adirondack Fall

Having travelled up to Vermont to see the fall foliage, it was now the turn of New York State. The plan was to head north up the I87 Northway and then pick up Route 28 just north of Lake George and follow it and the Hudson River across through North Creek to Indian Lake and then turn south on Route 30 to return following the Sacandaga River to Sacandaga Lake then Amsterdam and back to home. The route is designated as one of New York’s scenic byways. The weather started out very overcast with a few drops of rain now and then but later it cleared and the fall colours showed their beauty. Heading back the light started to go and gave a nice shot of the Sacandaga River thought the trees. 

Banks of the Hudson River

Unknown Lake on Route 28

Sun going down on the Sacandaga River

North Creek is a small town north of Lake George and it's claim to fame is that it is the home of the Saratoga & North Creek Railway. North Creek Railroad Station is a historic railroad station built in 1874. It was built as the northern terminus of the Adirondack Railway. It is the place where Theodore Roosevelt learned of the assassination of President William McKinley and of his accession to the Presidency of the United States. During World War II, magnetite, ilmenite, and titanium were shipped by rail from Tahawus by the Delaware and Hudson Railway who acquired the Adirondack Line from William West Durant in 1889. It ran through this region until September 1989 when the mine at Tahawus closed. The rocks in the area are also known for their garnets.


In 1998, the line was purchased by Warren County with plans to operate an excursion train to improve tourism and economic development in the area. In 1999, the Upper Hudson River Railroad began operating excursion trains south from North Creek to Riverside Station in Riparius. The Upper Hudson River Railroad lost their contract with Warren County on December 31, 2010, ending 11 years of operation. On April 8, 2011, it was announced that Iowa Pacific Holdings would take over operation of the route effective July 1, 2011. As part of the agreement, the Iowa Pacific agreed to operate a minimum of 182 tourist-oriented passenger trains over the line. Iowa Pacific began operating trains on July 14, 2011 as the Saratoga and North Creek Railroad. Unlike the Upper Hudson River Railroad, which ran the short distance to Riparius, the Saratoga and North Creek now operates over the entire 57-mile between Saratoga Springs and North Creek. North of North Creek the line is still abandoned and over grown as it runs along route 28 and the Hudson River.

North Creek Station

Saratoga & North Creek Railroad
http://www.sncrr.com

Fairies, photos and folk music

Sitting here touching up some wedding photos from the other weekend, made me thing how easy it is to alter things in this day and age. When I first started in photography techniques like burning and dodging as well as sandwiching negatives were common and to some, altering a photo and then re-taking it. All these required skill in the darkroom or a good eye as an artist. They say the camera cannot lie (although with some modern cameras that is not true today) but Photoshop can. Even so, I thought about one of the best camera tricks known, the Cottingley Fairies.

The Cottingley Fairies

In 1917, two Yorkshire girls, Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths even managed to fool Sir Arthur Conan Doyle creator of super sleuth Sherlock Holmes, into believing they had photographed fairies at the bottom of their garden. Frances explained, "The first time I ever saw anything was when a willow leaf started shaking violently, even though there was no wind, I saw a small man standing on a branch, with the stem of the leaf in his hand, which he seemed to be shaking at something. He was dressed all in green..... They were real fairies. Some had wings and some not…. They were once sitting in a patch of sunlight on a low bank…. It all seemed so peaceful and friendly…. Sometimes they came up, only inches away, but I never wanted to join in their lives." The hoax wasn’t explained until 1982, when the pair finally admitted to photographing paper cut-outs supported by hat-pins. The Cottingley Fairies photographs fetched £6,000 at auction earlier this year, surely an indication that people still wish to believe in them. These days with Photoshop and similar software the creation of these abstract possibly believable images is easy if not something for experienced users.

Photoshop fairy

Even J R R Tolkien, author of Lord of the Rings, had a love affair with fairies and in his paper “On Fairy Stories” he wrote:

Supernatural is a dangerous and difficult word in any of its senses, looser or stricter. But to fairies it can hardly be applied, unless super is taken merely as a superlative prefix. For it is man who is, in contrast to fairies, supernatural (and often of diminutive stature); whereas they are natural, far more natural than he. Such is their doom. The road to fairyland is not the road to Heaven; nor even to Hell, I believe, though some have held that it may lead thither indirectly by the Devil's tithe.

O see ye not yon narrow road

So thick beset wi' thorns and briers?

That is the path of Righteousness,

Though after it but few inquires.

And see ye not yon braid, braid road

That lies across the lily leven?

That is the path of Wickedness,

Though some call it the Road to Heaven.

And see ye not yon bonny road

That winds about yon fernie brae?

That is the road to fair Elfland,

Where thou and I this night maun gae.

I recognized these as the words used by the English folk rock group Steeleye Span in their song Thomas the Rhymer recorded in 1974, so looking a little deeper I found that it was Child Ballad 37 - The Child Ballads are a collection of 305 ballads from England and Scotland collected by Francis James Child in the late nineteenth century. The collection was published as The English and Scottish Popular Ballads between 1882 and 1898 by Houghton Mifflin in 10 volumes.

Thomas himself was born Thomas Learmonth (c. 1220 – c. 1298) better known as Thomas the Rhymer or True Thomas and was a 13th century Scottish laird and reputed prophet from Earlston (then called "Erceldoune"). He is the protagonist of the ballad. He is also the probable source of the legend of Tam Lin. Popular esteem of Thomas lived on for centuries after his death, to the extent that several people have fabricated Thomas' "prophecies" in order to further the cause of Scottish independence. His reputation for supernatural powers for a time rivalled that of Merlin.

Thomas meets the Queen of the Fairies

All this might have been if  Sir Thomas of Erceldoune had been no more historical than Merlin. But the name is known to have belonged to a real person. Thomas Rymor de Ercildune is witness to a deed whereby one Petrus de Haga obliges himself to make payment to the Abbey of Melrose. Petrus de Haga is, in turn, witness to a charter made by Richard de Moreville. Unluckily, neither of these deeds is dated. But Moreville was constable of Scotland from 1162 to 1189. If we suppose Moreville's charter to have been given towards 1189, and Haga to have been then about twenty years old, and so born about 1170, and further suppose Haga to have made his grant to Melrose towards the end of a life of threescore, or three score and ten, the time of Thomas Rymer's signature would be about 1230 or 1240. If Thomas Rymer was then twenty years of age, his birth would have been at 1210 or 1220.

It never ceases to amaze me how one can jump from Photoshop and wedding photographs to folk music and the mystical worlds of fairies and elves, as some say everything is intertwined and the circle becomes complete.

J R R Tolkien – On Fairy Stories

http://brainstorm-services.com/wcu-2004/fairystories-tolkien.pdf

Credit for the Photoshop Image

http://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/tutorials/?FeatureID=1604

Credit for Thomas picture

http://www.scotclans.com/bletherskite/?p=909