Polly in Aruba

The Vitello's kindly invited Polly to join them in Aruba this summer.

Polly and Gabrielle had a wonderful time as you can see from the pictures.



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Squam 2007

We had a lovely time at Squam this year. The weather was cold...frost in the valleys.

John and Carrie hiked Mt Washington this year. Polly was at soccer camp in Maine and missed a few days.


John and Carrie atop Mt Washington.


Carrie in the new whaler and Polly on the barge.

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Braefield Summer & Winter

These pictures were taken from the front terrace.




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Carrie at the Dunes

Carrie went camping at the Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado last year. These are the largest sand dunes in North America, see links for more information.

From the Great Sand Dunes National Park website:
"Visitors may slide, ski, or sled on any unvegetated areas of the sand. Please note: cardboard does not work."



That's Carrie in the first picture and the second photo is Carrie with her friends.


Click picture to enlarge

Polly Skiing

Polly had a great season last winter. She finished second overall in the Mac Cup (the top race series in NH) and qualified for the Eastern Championships at Sugarloaf. Polly also won the slalom race at the New England Prep School Championships last winter. Results and standings at the links.

Here is a photo of Polly on a slalom course from Mount Hood last summer.

Click on photo to enlarge

Two videos of Polly last season at Mac Cup races. Polly in yellow scored 67 at the Dartmouth race and 73 at Proctor. These videos only show the bottom of the course.

Polly first and second run in yellow.

Click on the video to get to Youtube, then use the button in lower right corner to see full screen video.



Polly is the fourth racer in this video from the Dartmouth Race

Click on the video to get to Youtube, then use the button in lower right corner to see full screen video.



Here is a great picture from the Dartmouth Race kindness of Frank Wilich.

Click on photo to enlarge



There are 7 additional videos of Polly racing this season on Youtube, here is the link. Most of these videos have quite a few racers, look at the list to find Polly.

The Horses

Hear are a few pictures from last year of the horses

Jean had this one of Pat and Buddy.



Here are Pat, Buddy, Spanky, and Sailor last winter.



Polly with Pat before the barn was painted



Jean and Janet at Valley Forge with Pat and Buddy.

Click any picture to enlarge

Old Pictures of Braefield Farm

Sally March kindly sent me some family photographs of Braefield Farm. Sally's father grew up here in the 20's and 30's. Click on any picture to enlarge, you can find the album of these photos at this link to flickr.

Here is the painting of Braefield Farm shown at the top of the website for comparision. Click at this link to see a larger version, then select original.



In the first picture you can see the door into the livingroom, the door and the exterior trim are still there. Note how different the grade is in this first picture, the stone wall that terraces the side yard must have been built after these photos were taken.

The second and third picture show the front porch. It's interesting, there is stone on the side of the porch, but lattice on the front. The stone wall currently at the front of the house was constructed after this picture was taken (probably when the other stone wall terracing the side yard was built). The porch is Victorian and must have been changed at some point from what would have been an earlier porch. The timbers that supported the porch roof still remain and were likely there from when the house was originally built.



I think the boy on the sled is Sally's father, Orville March. Look carefully at his shoulder in the enlarged picture. The springhouse is visible in the first picture, but the vault into the hill must have been built sometime after this picture was taken. The tree behind the springhouse must have been ancient. We can't figure out where the steps shown in this first picture would lead.

In the second picture, a corner of the house is visible and if you look on the left just above the car you can see another building with the wash drying in front. This is likely that log cabin shown in the painting at the top of the website.




I don't think this is our barn. This picture of the barn does resemble the barn shown in the painting of Braefield Farm, but the silo seems to be in the wrong place and the addition seen in the photo has a different roof line than shown in the painting.

Dodgeball

I'm back.

This past weekend, we hosted our first dodgeball contest of the year, with over 150 students and faculty crammed into Gallop Gymnasium for an evening.

I spotted this picture of Polly with her team on the Holderness website.

The Silo

The barn is being painted and I decided to have the silo painted as well. Marty's guys power washed it saturday evening.

This is not paint...this is what came off the silo in the power wash.





Click either picture to enlarge

Barn Painting

Marty's guys have been painting the barn, here are a few photo's of the sections they have completed. It looks wonderful.






Click any picture to enlarge


You can see before pictures of the barn here.

Flood

I heard yesterday that we have had 6-10 inches of rain since saturday. They were forcasting another 3-4 inches last night.

Jim took the night pictures at 5:30 and the daylight pictures were taken at 7:00 this morning as the water was receding. I got a great picture of a heron as well.

Here is what Jim said in an email to me this morning.

Couldn't believe this morning. Creek was over its beds, tree that fell the other day was under water, stream was running down the old road and the corner of Braefield and Yellow Springs was a raging river. The Bridge was completely covered. Saw a number of water rescue trucks headed down 113 toward 401. Wild night in Chester County. Photos not all that great, too dark at 5:30am

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Walnut Tree

We lost the large Walnut by Lower Pine Creek at the end of the driveway today. We have had very stormy weather with a Flash Flood Watch in effect since Friday night.

The ground is saturated and when the wind picked up today, down went the tree...or as Jim noted when he sent along these pictures:

Water 1 Tree 0



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Planter

Jack constructed and painted this fabulous planter for me. It is exactly what I wanted for the the terrace. Jack and Noreen drove down from Maine on Sunday to bring the planter, we were lucky to find the lovely geraniums this late in the season.

I absolutely love it!










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Carrie goes to Jersey

Carrie spent last weekend with Jason and his cousin in New Jersey. Carrie drove to the train station in Paoli and then took the train from there to Trenton where Jason picked her up.

I thought she looked very pretty in Polly's skirt going out the door so I made her stand in front of the garden and took a picture.


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Note: Polly wrote this entry

Gardening

The girls and I laid 500 square feet of sod yesterday and the day before. The area where we laid the sod was planted with ivy and mulched last fall, but the deer ate the ivy. So I unplanted what was left of the ivy, removed the mulch, and reweeded the area.

Polly and Carrie loosened the soil and raked and we all installed the sod, I hope it takes...it looks great.






Here is a picture of the new garden and one of the 12 Katherine Azaleas along the back of the addition.



Click any picture to enlarge