Here is a picture of a couple Lady Slippers growing in my back yard. There were a whole bunch of them growing out behind the barn; all around where I'd stored some excess steel a few years ago and around where I park my race trailer. Lady Slippers are a rare wild plant in NH. It's illegal to pick or attempt to transplant them. Transplanting never works, anyway. You can't grow them. They just come up wherever they feel like it. I've never seen them before where they came up and next year, they'll most likely come up somewhere else. It is not at all predictable. When you do see them in the woods, it's usually just one or two. I had about a dozen growing out there, so it was very cool. They are lovely to see at this time of year. They are a member of the orchid family. Click on pic for a large version. Also, see my turkeys page for pics of the local turkeys in mating season.
If you are
looking for an easy traditional
turkey recipe, check out this page that tells you
how long to cook a whole turkey in the oven.
The "Upper Valley", as this area is called, is the upper Connecticut River valley of the border towns of New Hampshire and Vermont. It's borders are rather vague, depending on who is describing it, but it generally runs from Bradford, VT/Orford, NH in the north, to Brattleboro, VT/Keene, NH in the south, and a few towns to the east and west of the river, centered around Lebanon/Claremont, NH and White River Junction/Windsor, VT. The area is also sometimes called the Twin State Valley, and the Windsor, VT to Springfield, VT area (the birthplace of the machine tool industry) is often called the Precision Valley.
The New Hampshire government has broken the state up into several tourist regions, such as "Seacoast" and "Lakes". This area is called the "Dartmouth-Lake Sunapee Region". For more info on the region, see HERE, HERE, and HERE.
I'm an Upper Valley (Plainfield) native, dismayed at the flood, especially since the early 70s, of newcomers from the cities, with their City ways, City values, City attitudes, City politics, and City expectations. NH used to be a solid conservative Republican state (and so did Vermont, which has become even more liberalized than NH, with a flood of New Yorkers and the like). Now, New Hampshire has not only turned into a "Blue State" (with numbnuts Bush's help), it's so bad no one even bothered to try to run as a Republican in the last couple elections for Cornish/Plainfield/Grantham State Representative. Sad, sad situation. Plainfield is worse than Cornish (which is why I moved back to Cornish, not Plainfield), and Grantham is even worse.
Did you know that, in the 1936 election, the only states to not vote for FDR were Vermont & Maine? That's how conservative northern New England was up into the 1950s, until the flatlanders started pouring in. Now, Vermont is one of the most "blue" states in the country, and NH is heading that way more every year.
Several years ago, the NH State Legislature finally succumbed
to outside pressure and whining liberals, and changed our Civil Rights Day to
Martin Luther King Day. We no longer have a holiday for George
Washington's birthday or Abraham Lincoln's birthday or any other individual's
birthday, but we now appease the blacks and the fawning liberals, who are so eager to
demonstrate their "progressive, enlightened thinking", by creating a Martin
Luther King holiday. MLK didn't do it alone; he had lots of help from both
blacks and whites, including people who died in the struggle. For the MLK
holiday dispute, NH certainly wasn't the "racist state", and wasn't
even just the
usual "obstinate state"; it was the only "correct state". But the liberal
newcomers killed that. For 2007, NH has even passed a gay marriage bill,
which our liberal Democrat Governor is eager to sign. The
legislature also passed two pro-Second Amendment bills (just before the Democrats took
over the NH Legislature), which the governor was eager to veto. Our new
liberal Democrat Congressman is a New York Jew, just like Vermont's Bernie
Sanders. For 2008, thanks in part to Bush's colossal blunders, the
wretched ultra-liberal Jeanne Shaheen is now our US Senator. It's all enough to make me
vomit.
The only benefit to the flood of flatlander liberals is that we finally got smoking banned in
restaurants in NH. It's about time! We might even get a can/bottle deposit law to cut down on all the
littering. I'm quite leery of the newcomers beginning attacks on our Second
Amendment rights, though. Self-infatuated, ultra-liberal State Senator Peter Burling tried it March, 2007, although he got shot down big time.
I've also been known to say "There IS something to said for flatlanders". They
"get it" on conservation and modernization matters more than the locals, and
they are more open to change and improvements. The locals don't want to change
ANYTHING and the flatlanders want to change EVERYTHING. There must be a
reasonable middle ground.
I find it especially ironic that the liberals wail (and liberals are constantly
wailing about something) about the
Free State Project
and how terrible and "unfair" it is, but even if every one of the Free State people
actually moves here, it will be a drop in the bucket compared to the ongoing
flood of liberals from the cities. The Free State Project goal is to get
20,000 libertarian-minded people to move to New Hampshire. But the Upper
Valley alone has increased in population by probably that much in the last decade
or two; and the increase has been mostly city liberals.
Southern NH, especially southeastern NH, is even worse; it's become nothing more than an extension of ultra-liberal Massachussetts (think fruitcakes like Ted Kennedy & John Kerry, extremist anti-gun politics, gay marriage, and "the only state to vote for McGovern"). When I was growing up here, the word "Massachusetts" in a sentence was usually followed by either "bastards" or "assholes". When I was a boy, I thought "Massachussettsbastards" was a word. "Massholes" is another common term in NH. Now, everything south of Concord might as well be MA, NY, CT, NJ or some other equally awful place, as people flood in from those places and try to recreate NH in the image of the nasty craphole they just left. It's just like how the people of Oregon a decade or two ago, and now Nevada, refer to the "Californication" of their state by the flood of Californians pouring into their state to liberalize and corrupt it. People in rural areas don't like city people, with their warped city values, moving into their nice country area and then setting out to "citify" it.
Here are some links about the local area:
CORNISH:
Cornish, NH new official town web page
7/06
Cornish, NH
State of NH web page for Cornish
Cornish
details and statistics - extensive & fascinating
Cornish
neighborhood profile - from realestate.yahoo.com - a brief overview
Cornish
DES profile - Cornish profile on NH Employment Security site
Cornish
Fair - since 1949 - I've been going to it since the mid-1950s. It's
kept a lot of its original local small-town flavor
Cornish-Windsor
covered bridge
Cornish Arts
Colony - extensive information about the art colony that formed in 1885 in
Cornish and Plainfield around sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens and his
contemporaries
Saint-Gaudens
National Historic site
Cornish
area Bed & Breakfast Inns
Corbin Park - there is a surprising amount of
interest in this local private game preserve, from all over the country. Nearly every day, this page
gets hits, often multiple hits, usually from people using search engines.
It amazes me and my family that people have even heard of it enough to search
for it.
Cornish Tour - take
a tour of Cornish
History of the Town of Cornish - history and genealogy of
Cornish, New Hampshire 1763-1910; 2 volumes by William Henry Child -
Volume 1 and
Volume 2
postcards - click
HERE
or
HERE to see old postcards featuring Cornish
LOCAL TOWNS AND HIGHLIGHTS:
Plainfield,
NH - Cornish's neighboring town, where I grew up - this is the web site for
Plainfield's Philip Read Memorial Library
Plainfield -
another Plainfield home page
Plainfield -
yet another Plainfield home page - I think this is the "official" one
Plainfield
details and statistics -
like the Cornish entry above, fascinating details & statistics of each town
Claremont,
NH - the area's largest city within 60+ miles (see
HERE for info on what it's like to deal with Claremont bureaucrats)
Read the SULLIVAN REPORT
and
Claremont Comments for
more details about how Claremont officials operate.
Local Weather/Forecast
- at Lebanon, NH airport
Trail 6 on the Connecticut River Heritage Trail
-
Take a tour of the area where I grew up and currently live.
Newport and area towns' history
-
very interesting info, if you're into local history. Lots of period info about
Corbin Park.
Croydon, NH
- all about Croydon, a small town abutting Cornish. Over 50% of Croydon is
in Corbin's Park
Grantham, NH -
Grantham's history
Lake Sunapee
- the area's largest lake
The Fells - Historic
Estate and Gardens on Lake Sunapee
Upper Valley Quest - Treasure hunt site that introduces you to special spots
in the Upper Valley. If you're into quests and seeking sites, also check
out GEOCACHING.
There are many local spots to find with your GPS. Use 03745 as your search
criteria for hidden sites in Cornish.
American Precision
Museum - located across the Connecticut River from Cornish, in
Windsor, the
birthplace of Vermont
LOCAL MEDIA:
It's Classified
free local ads paper, based in Bradford, VT
Weekly Flea
another free local ads paper, not nearly as good as It's Classified, based in
Claremont, NH - BANKRUPT JULY, 2009 - RESURRECTED W/NEW OWNERS ~SEPT, 2009
Valley News Lebanon, NH area newspaper
Eagle Times Claremont, NH area newspaper
- BANKRUPT JULY, 2009 - RESURRECTED W/NEW OWNERS ~SEPT, 2009
WMUR New Hampshire's TV station
Manchester Union Leader New Hampshire's
statewide newspaper
Vermont Public TV people living
near the CT River get this, rather than NH Public TV. I hear it's better
than NH's, anyway.
New Hampshire Public TV
based in Durham, NH; a long way from the Upper Valley
Valley Net the Upper
Valley's first ISP and a non-profit
STATE INFO:
The Official New Hampshire Guidebook
WEBSTER NH State Government Online Information Center
General Court NH State
Legislature web site
New
Hampshire information site
more New
Hampshire info
New
Hampshire outdoor activities info
MISC LOCAL:
New Hampshire's Past
interesting stories from the good ole days
New Hampshire International Speedway my
summer home
New Hampshire Insider
blog
news items from around the state
Free New Hampshire
blog A blog about life, politics and lots of other stuff in the Live
Free or Die state. Written by a liberty loving resident of New Hampshire,
dedicated to the preservation of freedom and individual choice.
Plaistow, New Hampshire
Town Crier mostly local Plaistow, but also statewide issues,
especially about liberty
Free Keene - Liberty issues
and local government intrigue in Keene, NH
Claremont's Nefarious Bureaucrats
- reports of bureaucratic incompetence and intrigue in Claremont, NH
See HERE for the
Ridley Report, where Dave Ridley from
NHfree.com takes you to the front lines of the peaceful battle for liberty
in New Hampshire.
Read here
about the Free State Project
Here are some old pictures of Cornish, from the early 20th Century:
taken from the old Blow Me Down Bridge, looking north
taken from just south of the old Blow Me Down Bridge, looking north
taken from just north of the old Blow Me Down Bridge, looking north, showing old
NH Route 12A and the mill pond. In the 1950s, Route 12A between Windsor,
Vermont and Plainfield, New Hampshire received a major overhaul to widen the
road and re-route it to eliminate sharp curves. The road now goes right up
through the left 1/3 of the pond shown here. The part of the pond to the
west (left) of the new road dried up completely, and despite at least one
dredging, Blow Me Down Pond (AKA Beaman's Pond) is now mostly filled with silt,
has trees growing in it, and is more of a marsh than a pond.
Here's an old view of Mount Ascutney, Vermont from the veranda of Harlakenden
House, a house in Cornish designed by Charles Platt and built for author Winston
Churchill. Harlakenden House was also the rented Summer White House
for Woodrow Wilson.
An
old postcard image of Harlakenden House on Platt Road.
and a modern photo of the Cornish-Windsor covered bridge, the longest covered
bridge in the US, looking northeast from Windsor, Vermont into the hills of
Cornish.
this page last revised Oct 4, 2010 (removed link to defunct UVScene site) and Nov 1, 2010 (added old Cornish pics)
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