Monday, April 06, 2009

Sticks and Stones

It is another gray day. Lately we have had a rather checkerboard weather pattern; pleasant and sunny one day, soggy and cold the next. Due to all the rain, we once more own "waterfront" property as Teal Lake comes and goes with the precipitation. Maybe Troy will get a chance to float boats after all.
I have lately taken a fleeting fancy to cobblestone houses. If the Three Little Pigs had lived near Lake Ontario this is the type of house the Third Little Pig would have built. No wolf can blow one down. They are strong, sturdy, have thick walls and usually a good chimney or two in case a wolf gets angry enough to try and sneak in like Santa Claus.
All long the lake shore are smooth, round stones in abundance At one time they were collected, sorted and used as building material. They make a very pretty and unique building form. Nicer, I think, than bricks.
In the eighteen-hundreds everything from houses, churches, and stores, to barns and outbuildings might be made of cobblestones. My great grandfather once used them to line the edge of his driveway and build both a lamp post and a miniature lighthouse.
Most area cobblestone buildings are well kept, treasured by both their owners and historical societies, but here and there I find one sadly neglected. The owner of this property is not interested in selling and so this treasure is left to the mercy of vandals and the elements of nature. So sad.

7 comments:

  1. I love cobblestone house too, they're so pretty.

    Now why would someone own a house and just let it rot away rather than sell it?

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  2. The same reason they would leave a dead cat laying on the trunk of an old car for over a year?

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  3. Nice photos of blue skies (and houses) ... we have two inches of the white stuff today!! Oh well....this too shall pass!

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  4. What a shame about that last house. I'm sure so many people would love to take care of it. I've always loved cobblestone houses too. They are so charming. We've had the same weather pattern here too.

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  5. When my mom was in school she went on a field trip on a bus to tour all the local cobblestone houses. She happened to live in one of them but no one believed her :(. My aunt and uncle live there now, just the front is cobblestone, and where they added on to the house they left the cobblestone wall that is now a wall in the office. Very neat!

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  6. Sherri, that reminds me of my trip to the Dayton Corners Schoolhouse where my grandpa had carved his initials in a beam that supports the roof. It's still there to this day but I never told my friends because I figured they wouldn't believe it either.

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