All I have to say on the weather. So instead of gardening, house cleaning!
I finally got the Old Hall cleaned yesterday, and everything in it, aside from the rug which will have to go to the cleaners. The floor in the hallway was covered with linoleum at some point, at least over seventy years ago. It might have been closer to a century plus, if it was redone when the parlor was done at the turn of the century. It has stood up to traffic quite well, there are only a few points of failure: the bottom of the stairs where people turn on it, and the point in the middle where one of the c.1800 floorboards bounces up and down to the tune of an inch and a half.
It has an elegant small mosaic pattern of what might best be described as diamonds and crosses with flourishes. Cream, brown, dark red, a dark blue, and a light blue. It has darkened over time.
Antique linoleum is actually quite cleanable, if one is willing to be careful with the amount of water used. Copious amounts of water do nothing good to it because the jute backing will swell at a different rate than the linoleum if it gets too wet. This causes it to curl, which you really don’t want, though it will uncurl. Obviously, this is not something would have happened originally; but since old linoleum is almost guaranteed to have a million fine cracks, the jute will be exposed to moisture.
The most important thing is to make sure that you have linoleum cleaner. TRUE linoleum cleaner. Most floor cleaners for ‘linoleum’ flooring will dissolve true linoleum. Some of them in a matter of minutes. As will things like bleach. This is bad. Consequently, like so many things for this house, we get our linoleum cleaner from a specialty store. If I can’t get it someday, well straight ivory soap works…
Too Hot Wednesday, Jul 17 2013
Esperanza and Uncategorized historic houses 10:27
On education and reading Friday, Jul 12 2013
Esperanza and Genealogy family history, genealogy 21:27
From Fanny Morris Smith’s recollection of her grandmother Charlotte Calkins (Julie’s mother), born 1804-died 1874 in the mid 1860’s.
“There was no regular schooling on the frontier, but grandmother educated herself. She used to amuse herself learning poetry by heart as she lay waiting to die. I heard her repeat Pope’s poem on death to herself. Her beautiful voice and grandfather’s flute were a source of constant pleasure to the two throughout their long married life. One by one every good novel as it appeared in the golden Victorian Age, was bought and read aloud in the evening, by the light of an oil lamp, at first; then as the years went on a very expensive liquid known as ‘fluid’ and finally kerosene.”
Somehow, I just don’t see many people memorizing Pope’s poetry while ill. Charlotte died after a long illness, probably a series of strokes. She spent most of her life in upstate New York.
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From the Guestbook: 1878 Tuesday, Jun 18 2013
Esperanza and Historical Events history 13:22
I am not sure exactly who ‘Zenobia’ and ‘La Belle Peppermint’ are, but I do know that the latter was derived from a summer dress, striped red and white, at least judging by another cartoon of ‘La Belle’ showing a tall, slender woman dressed in a most remarkable dress of big diagonal stripes. Our clothes are very boring these days!
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From the guestbook Thursday, Jun 13 2013
Esperanza and Genealogy and Uncategorized Helen Ellsworth van Loben Sels, poetry 15:17
“An Acrostic To a Young Lady on the day her wedding to Maurits C.C. van Loben Sels:
Helen Ellsworth – lovely name!
Echo of thy strength and sweetness
Love, that’s made of flowers and flame,
Envies thee thy rare completeness.
Name like music on our life
Earnest, mellow, gentle, singing
Let us, ere its long eclipse,
Linger on its bell-like ringing
Seven names though thou shalt wear,
Worthy, noble and complete,
On them thinking now I swear
(Rose by any name so sweet)
Thou, when memory fails, shalt be
Helen Ellsworth still to me.”
by Robert Underwood Johnson, May 31, 1905
Not a bad acrostic. Line 3-4 rises above the rest, quite the turn of phrase there.
I ought to add: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Underwood_Johnson for information on the author!
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21st Century! Tuesday, Jun 11 2013
Esperanza 12:19
Your random trivia for the day.
Who knew…. the wireless connection can be accessed by my computer upstairs in the house, with the doors shut, on a rainy day!
It is a bit spotty, and not exactly fast. But still. Given the size of the house in question, and the number of plaster walls, in between me and the modem right now… Plaster is bad for the wireless signal, though even worse is the new metal lathe. We inadvertently turned the kitchen into a Farraday cage when it was re-plastered and we used metal lathe instead of the wood. The kitchen is close to the modem, but unless you can get just the right angle through the doors, forget it, you will not get a signal. Though Why one needs the internet in the kitchen?
The house’s internet connectivity is notoriously bad, I usually use a hardwire connection; but the chimney sweeps are at work and I need to get some writing done. Apparently upgrades in the computing power and the modem have made a difference. Now if we could just get rid of the static on the phone line. But that is a problem way down in the town. I keep expecting the phone company to tell us we ought to just drop it, they don’t want to repair it again. Which would annoy me.
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Chores Friday, Jun 7 2013
Esperanza and gardening gardening, history 10:07
Keeping up with a landscape of this nature requires a fair bit of work. This is made easier these days with an ever increasing armada of power equipment. And a modification to the types of gardening/landscaping. (I like shrubs for a reason)
In the 1870/1880’s it was a bit different. At that time there were a number of children around during the summer, usually six or seven.*
In addition to summer schooling and exploring all of the surrounding area, going as far as several towns away and hitching a ride back on a train, they were kept busy.
“There were chores which we were expected to do, and so we did them….On Saturday we were also required to rake the driveways and the many winding paths so as to have them look neatly cared for when Papa came up from New York on the evening train. We earned very good wages for that. Ten cents a week. And we had an extra privilege of earning more by digging dandelions from the lawn at ten cents a hundred, and nice long roots mind! Grandfather made us this offer and we were tremendously busy at it at every spare moment. But one day Wallace, who was the busiest digger of all of us, presented Grandfather with a heaping bushel basket full of thousands of dandelions. That was the end…as the suspicion that Wallace had gone far afield for those flourishing dandelions was strong…”
*The Ellsworth children: Helen Adelaide, Lucy, Bradford, Elizabeth; their cousin, Carl Davis; and the two Rood children, Wallace and Nan. The Roods were the family in charge of the farm.
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Things that work Monday, Jun 3 2013
Esperanza architecture 15:35
or the beauty of double-hung windows.
We are slowly opening Esperanza’s windows for summer. That sounds distinctly peculiar, but it is the best way of doing it here. First a few doors, here and there, get the storms taken off the rest of the doors, then a few windows, then a few things in the attic, then a few more windows. By mid-June most everything that can be opened will be opened.
Remember this is a house with 17 doors (and two french doors) to the outside.* We are talking about A Lot of doors/windows, and every one is unique.
In any case, double-hungs, are my preferred window. There are problems: the biggest drawback is that, unless you have storms (which we do) you cannot have weather tight windows. I had an office with unsealed double-hungs, newspaper was useful. They also require carpenters with an actual grasp of…you know…Carpentry. However, the configurations of the storms, double-hungs, and screens are numerous. It is quite possible to have an open window that does not ship water, or a window that creates a constant, subtle breeze, or a truly open window. Furthermore, some of those configurations are, while not ultra-secure- very close to it; especially in double-hungs that are opened by means of interior catches in the casement. You can have an open window that is still as secure as an unopened window in that case. Which is rather nice.
It is a Project, of course, I just wrestled open a double-hung that has neither catches nor weights. It will stay open all summer. So five minutes now and five minutes in the fall. I think that is manageable…
*do I have that right? You’d think I’d remember.
Visitors Wednesday, May 29 2013
Esperanza 10:54
The house gets few visitors. So it was rather fun last night to host a very brief choir rehearsal. For a little while the Keeping Room sprang into life. The old ghosts of the many formal and impromptu concerts given around the grand piano were there, whether it was in Chopin or in the Whiffenpoof songs of Yale. Outside, the lush green of summer rises, and inside, the golden room echoes with voices and laughter. The Keeping Room is large, ample space for a Steinway and eight people to stand and sing in the north bay, leaving the rest of the room open for the audience. Rather good acoustics too.
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Nice place to have a cup of coffee… Thursday, May 16 2013
Esperanza and gardening and Landscapes and Modern Photos gardening, photography 10:37
View from the south porch, showing the little kitchen and pergola…now if I could just get the clematis to grow along the top bar rather than curling up in a bunch…
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Green worlds Friday, May 10 2013
Esperanza 09:35
There always comes a day in spring when the world goes green. Suddenly, the forest fills in, trees that seemed distant are suddenly right in front of one. This effect can happen in a matter of hours. Go out in the morning and the roads seem wide and bare; come back in the evening and they are tree-lined alleys. A lot of people find it claustrophobic. It certainly does take a readjustment every spring.
It also changes the color of things entirely. The big Keeping room and library of the house have a set of windows that, in the winter, look out at a large expanse of open trees and garden areas. In the spring, this is transformed to Green, much brighter than the late summer greens. The colors of the rooms change as well; mercifully, they are painted/plastered in shades that tolerate green light. It is, however, a subtly different effect; especially in the Keeping room where the tinted plaster contains minute mica flecks. These don’t sparkle, but they do react to the light. In the winter the room is several shades lighter and brighter; in the spring it is a darker brown.
Of course currently the dining room and kitchen have a pink cast: a massive redbud fills the eastern windows, what isn’t filled by this is taken over by a Japanese maple slips, and a Wolf River apple is in full bloom on the west. It is a good thing that blue, rose, and gold play well with pink flowers!
Acair Fearann 