Gardiner's Garden Basket - Part Three

Gardiner's Garden Basket

Part Three

            “Cook?  EAT?  Gardiner don’t invite me to EAT.”

            “You never?”

            “WHALE... NOPE”.

            “I did.  Right from the garden... RIGHT from that basket.”

            “WHALE THEN I know WHY I SKIPPED THAT”.

            “No donuts?”

            “WHALE...:  At the GAS STATION.  She (Gardiner’s wife) made them donuts for THERE.  I HAD THOSE.  But no veg-ah-TABLES ‘cept a BEAN maybe.”

            “He’d go inside with the basket.  He’d put it all out in a wash pan in the sink.  He’d wash all of it and set it on towels.  He’d put the BASKET back on the porch.  First he’d put the potatoes to boil; one extra for me.  Then he’d put three strips of bacon in the big skillet.  Cook that hard and then set the strips off.  Then hot as hell he’d have set up the rest of the vegetables from the basket; nipped the beans and all.  He’d dump it all into the smoking hot grease.  STIR FRY IT just like a WOK.  Then put the skillet  on the table.  DRAIN out the potatoes.  Set those on the plates with a bacon strip.  SLICE those potatoes and put the plate at your place.  With a slotted spoon you served yourself that STIR FRY on top of the potato slices with the bacon strip on the side.  ALL SUMMMER that’s what they ate.  PAST FROST too... “

            “Don’t seem a MEAL I’d WEASEL for.  Even SALT and PEPPER won’t FIX a veg-ah-TABLE.  WENT DOWN to the CHURCH FEED SATURDAY.

            “You WEASELED?”

            “WHALE.  SEE... I said I’D PAY:  SIX DOLLARS they SAID.  WHALE... I said OK Fetchy DO IT.  It’s a GOOD FEED.  SO I STAND INSIDE and ELIZABETH sees me at my STAND.  SHE comes over and says MR. KEELER wanted me to HAVE a ticket.  OH I said and she says I have it RIGHT HERE.  OH I said and sure she DID HAND me a TICKET.  So then I STAND with my ticket.”

            “SEE; you WEASELED”.

            “WHALE... NOT YET I say.  SEE that ELIZABETH says to EVERYONE HAS TO GO INTO the CHURCH for a SERVICE before the FEED.  WHALE... I don’t LIKE THAT.  BUT WE ALL START OVER to the CHURCH DOOR.  Then Elizabeth comes OVER AGAIN and says Fetchy you don’t have to go to THAT.  Go into the FEED and get yourself a plate of HOT ROLLS and eat those while you WAIT for the others.  She says if MR KEELER says something to tell him to SEE HER.   So I went RIGHT OVER THERE.”

            “And got the rolls”

            “WHALE:  COURSE.  HOT rolls TOO JUST out of the OVEN.  I didn’t make a FUSS.  SAT over by the PORCH DOOR where they brought the TABLES in from OUTSIDE.  SAT THERE... you know... let them OTHERS have the HALL TABLES”.

            “Very KIND OF YOU, Fetchy.”

            “WHALE I got the WEASEL too.  I can GET OUT that PORCH door with my doggie bags.  I parked the truck UNDER the TREES right there.  SEE THEY make me UP a doggie but OH I GET few DOGGIES myself.  THAT Mrs. Taylor watched me with some more ROLLS but Elizabeth told her it was just ME being FETCHY.  THAT Mrs. Taylor you know; she’s the one that got me OUT of that CHURCH service.”

            “Mrs. Taylor?”

            “WHALE... she:  WHALE THEY MADE ME GO ONCE and SHE SEEN ME SIT in there and THEY SAY SHE wouldn’t SIT IN THAT PEW AGAIN.  I guess it was suppose to be HERS but I didn’t see THAT.  SO that way SINCE THAT they don’t MAKE ME GO.  SHE done that GOOD FOR ME I say.

            “NOW Fetchy:  THEY SAID; Crazy Karen and her NEW MAN, that TUESDAY THEY SEEN YOU up there AT TAYLORS hauling a load of TRASH for her.”

            “WHALE I WAS up THERE but I weren’t hauling TRASH.  GOT ME a GOOD LOAD FULL of HER trash but it’s MY CASH.  WEASELED you’d SAY.”

            “You weaseled Mrs. Taylor?”

            “WHALE... SHE WEASELED HERSELF.”

            “Weaseled?”

            “She come; at the FEED, and said she had a DUMP LOAD needed HAULING.  FINE JERSEY I say.  She knows I know she LIVES in NEW JERSEY NOW.  So I go up.  This is at the NEW HOUSE.  So she has this PILED in that GARAGE.  So FINE I say but I can see I’m REALLY OK.  So I load all that quick in the truck.  She comes back out and says look at how all that truck is ALREADY IN THE TRUCK.  I say that’s the idea; whole truck full.  Well she looks at that and say Mr. Fetchy you done a good quick job for me how much do I owe you.  WHALE I say weasel to MYSELF but SHE don’t know that TRASH is TREASURE so I say TWENTY.  She says THERE YOU GO Mr. Fetchy.  Then we said about Mary ANNE but she don’t know where she is anymore.  But we said how long ago it is now isn’t IT.  WHALE it is.”

            “So what’s that LOAD?”

            “WHALE it’s HER TRASH”.

            “From the OLD HOUSE?”

            “WHALE NO!  SOME of it MUST BE that one HUSBAND’S.  SEVERAL BACK that one:  CADDIE.  The one that lived there in the WINTER.  Mr. Chickering right?  ‘Member HIM?”

            “Caddie?”

            “BACK TWO FELLAS (husbands) AT LEAST.  Maybe NOW THREE.  But she AIN’T married NOW is SHE?”

            “I don’t know.  Pretty nasty all that.  Too much for me.”

            “WHALE.  Them FOOLS throw out EACH OTHERS TRASH.

            “So anything GOOD?”

            “WHALE... I went down to the gas station with THIS SIGN that said TOWING”.

            “Sign?  Towing?”

            “BIG WOOD SIGN that was for TOWING.  CAME from THAT GAS STATION I figure.  WHALE... I SAY it did.  So they say HOW MUCH.  I say four gallons.  THEY SAY SOLD.  SO... WHALE... they put it over by the BAYS.  I start pumping but I SAY WHALE while I’m LOOKING at the SIGN.  WHALE FIVE I say and fill THAT.  So they sees THAT and SAY FETCHY you weaseled.  I SAY NO I PAY THEN and TAKE MY SIGN BACK.  THEY say GO ON OFF FETCHY then.”

            “Sounds like it could be a good sign Fetchy.”

            “It ain’t.  It come from the DUMP.  THAT CADDIE took it from the DUMP.  ALL I GOT was HIS from the DUMP.  Probably won’t go BACK to the DUMP.  Figure:  WHALE... FIGURE.  I figure I SELL most of it.  I had that TWENTY dollars from Mrs. TAYOR if they MADE ME take the sign back.  LUCKY THERE.  THEY weaseled me I KNOW IT.”

            “I’ll go down and look at the sign and let you know”.

            “WHALE ...you’ll SEE.  Who got WEASELED I think I know.”

            “Mrs. Taylor isn’t doing anything at the old house is she”.

            “No.  Drum TIGHT just the SAME.  I think she come back from New Jersey after she wears out this beau.  SHE WEASEL more than WE EVER WEASEL.  SHE and her fellas are the biggest WEASEL of US ALL.”

            “I did get a garden basket off of Mary Anne.  It come out of Mrs. Taylor’s old house; the one by the road.  Mary Anne used it at the new house.”
            “Mary Anne was Mrs. Taylor’s COOK they called her.  HIRED GIRL is what she WAS.”

            “You LOVED Mary Anne.”

            “WHALE... I DID love her.  She...  Whale...:  She’s a FINE woman”.

            “Coming from you Fetchy; she heard you say THAT and HEADED for the HILLS.”

            “Remember them cookies?  Oh DO I.  She knows to FEED A BOY cookies.  I did anything for HER.  ALL THAT FIREWOOD.  But she left.  HAVE A BABY.  THEY MARRIED.  AND THE BABY GREW UP; Paulie.  HE come here ONCE.  Come here.  I met him.  WHALE... time DOES GO BY.

            “I still have that basket.  It’s up on the shed floor.  HOT up there.  We can go up.”

            “WHALE Paulie... WHAT KIND OF NAME IS THAT.”
            “It’s PAUL”

            “I know that but they call him PAULIE”.

            “So they call you FETCHY”.

            “WHALE.”

Bee Balm

Bee Balm

            This morning I came out our front door and walked past a clump of bee balm (Monarda Didyma, Bartram’s Owego Tea).  I walked past the tomatoes ripening at the far end of one of the gardens.  I dumped the compost bucket on the compost heap.  I walked back to the front door past another clump of bee balm.  Clumps of bee balm are always around every Maine farm yard.  I have never lived anywhere that did not have clumps of bee balm in the yard.  I did not try to have this happen.  It is the way it is on old Maine farms.

            When I was first an antiques dealer I was allowed to vend my wares in the back of my grandmother’s barn.  I was in “junior high school” (middle school) at first.  Then in high school.  I was open “after school most days”.  Except in the summer.  During school summer vacation I was open all the time I wasn’t out “getting more stuff”.  Midway through summer vacation; Maine’s “High Summer”, the bee balm in my grandmother’s yard was in full bloom.  It was filled with bees and hummingbirds.

            I had a very strictly defined area in the barn for my “store”.  I went from …the wall by stairs to the second floor of the barn… along that wall toward the rear of the barn but stopping at the “door to the (horse and cow) stalls” with no allowance on the back wall past that… but here right angled out onto the open barn floor space to a barn post with… an old floor size electric lamp my grandmother …tied to the barn post and plugged in saying “You’re gonna need some light”.  The space then again right angled and went back up toward the front of the barn an equal length to match the stair-stall wall length.  Then it right angled a final time straight across to the stairs to form in total a large open rectangle. 

            As the space filled, the stair-stall door wall became “full of stuff” “for sale”.  This “full of stuff” went out to the light at the post with diminishing density along the back line of the space.  By the time the stuff got to the light it was sparse.  I had a small table and two chairs at the light as my business office; check out, lighted inspection area and …sit and talk.  This last rarely happened because I sold to adults who always paid up and left real quick.  The whole empty half of the space toward the front of the barn was my sorting area where all new acquisitions were placed, sorted, inspected …and often sold… before being placed in my “store stock”.  Quickly my customers made it clear by their actions that the stuff in THIS area of my store was of greatest interest to them because it was “fresh stuff” that I had “just found”.

            To announce to the world that MY store was open, I hung an old United States flag on a pole out a window on the second floor of the shed & summer kitchen between the main house and the barn.  Once the flag was out I would sit in an old blue metal porch chair in the shed doorway and look up the drive way toward the street.  There were several other old chairs there too for additional “customer” seating.  Before me and just outside the shed door was a large clump of bee balm, a lilac bush and another large clump of bee balm on the other side of the lilac.  At high summer I had to look through the bee balm to see the street.  The bee balm was always full of bees at work and frequently enhanced its interest to me with an equally busy hummingbird… or two.  I sat and waited for a “customer” watching the …birds and the bees in the bee balm.  The “customers” always came.

            The reason they always came was NOT because of ME.  They came because of my grandmother and HER store.  Her store was actually smaller than mine but… she had been an antiques dealer much longer than I so was “well known”.  Her store was at the far rear corner of the shed.  From where I sat at the shed door it was straight back from me in the “dark end” of the shed going back to “the cold table” and the stairs to the second floor crawl space.  Her “stuff for sale” was on a free standing table down the center of this space.  More “stuff for sale” was found down the left hand side of the space on top of and under a large and long table… with this region having more “stuff for sale” on the wall above that table and even more “stuff for sale” hanging or resting on the stair steps leading to the second floor.  On the right side she had more “stuff for sale” on a board placed on a table high wood pile.  By late fall this board table was gone and the wood pile was full to the ceiling with “stove wood”.  At the back of this space  was “the cold table”.  This was where my grandmother put recently prepared food like a whole roast chicken still in the roaster, fresh pies, bowls of eggs, picked garden vegetables and fresh baked bread.  This is because the space was cool and dark with a light breeze from the stairs; perfect for that day’s food “keeping”.  Often “customers” viewing my grandmother’s store had trouble recognizing that things on “the cold table” were NOT for sale.  Especially the pies.  They always asked “How much are the pies?”.  I’d say “That’s our food it’s not for sale”

            “Oh.  They LOOK really good”.

            “Yep.  My grandmother made ‘em”.

            This “the cold table” problem was enhanced by my grandmother hanging “stuff for sale” up above the table on the wall AND leaning up “stuff for sale” like old axes against the bottom of the table.  It confused “customers” on their first few visits but in the end it always worked out.

            The key note above is ME being the one selling from my grandmother’s store TOO; in addition to selling from MY store.  THAT, in hindsight was what my grandmother got out of this having me have a store in the barn.  Right off the upper end of HER store and behind the blue metal chair I sat in at the shed doorway was a door to the barn that stepped right down to present my store in full sight.  So… for me… when they first came, the “customers” would always shop all through my grandmother’s store first but when they got up to the doorway to the barn they’d say something like “Let’s go out and see what YOU’VE been finding” and walk right down into the barn and over to MY store.  Before they did that I’d help them with anything in my grandmother’s store including things like going way into the house and finding her to see if she’d “do better” on a price or a “could they pay but have a man fetch it?”.  I did all that all the time and my grandmother would never come out to the store.  Ever.

            As I said above, I “opened” my store by placing a flag attached to a pole out a shed crawl space window.  In the shed I would go back through my grandmother’s store, up the shed stairs, over to the third window that was always open on the bottom, slide the flag on the pole out that window, weight the pole down to the floor with an old iron farm bench vice and …look out the window.  Then I would look DOWN from the window right on to the top of the second clump of bee balm by the lilac bush by the shed door below.  The flag flapped above the clump.  The busy bees buzzed in the bee balm.  Any hummingbird flew off until the flag placement disturbance was over.  After the flag placement I’d go sit in the shed chair and wait for a “customer”.  No one ever talked about the bee balm even though they all walked right by it .  The only exception was that every now and then my grandmother would speak about it to herself or actually speak TO IT; address the bee balm.  On a hot day she’d say “You want it to rain too don’t you” and sometimes go get buckets of water from the barn corner rain barrel nearby and dump it at the bottom of the bee balms.  That included a third far clump down in the “hot corner” of the house’s ell.

            One day, late in my high school days, I found and bought a six foot long double swing leg country Hepplewhite “harvest” table …in perfect original condition and old surface… for one hundred and ten dollars.  It was a wonderful table and a wonderful find.  I was ecstatic.  Until I got home.

            I brought the table into the barn and put it front and center in my store space.  Then I went and got my mother and grandmother.  Both didn’t seem to want to be bothered but came along.  I showed them the table.  They showed no interest.  I told them how much I paid.  They both told me right away that I “had paid too much”, that the table was “not worth that much”.  I defended myself by pointing out it was a “LARGE” “harvest table”.  That did no good.  I actually went up to my grandmother’s store and carried a standard size Hepplewhite swing leg table from her stock down and put it on top of the harvest table to show “how much bigger it is”.  They didn’t care.  I’d “paid too much”.

            Although confused and discouraged by this, I still “opened” the next day.  I put the flag out, looked down at the bee balm and sat in the shed doorway.  Bees buzzed in the bee balm.  A hummingbird visited.  After a while a truck parked at the head of the driveway.  The truck had Vermont license plates on it.  A couple got out and walked up to me in the shed door.  “Is this the antiques store?” they asked.

            “Yes it is.” I said and pointed out my grandmother’s store to my left.  Into the shed they came and carefully browsed my grandmother’s “stuff for sale”.  They didn’t buy anything.  When they got to the door to the barn, the man said “Is there more out there?”.

            “Yep.  That’s my stuff; my store”.

            Out they went.  I got up and followed them.  When I got there they were already looking at the table.  It was still right where I’d left it the night before.  They looked at it.  Walked around it.  Looked at it.  Looked at me.  Looked at it.  Pulled one leaf up.  Looked at it up.  Put it down.  Did the same with the other leaf.  Looked at me again and then said “How much is the table?”

            I said “Would you pay one hundred and ten dollars?”

            “Yes we would.” the woman said right away.

            And that was that:  I got out of that fix by selling the best twenty-five hundred dollar country Hepplewhite harvest table I’d find for a decade by selling to the first people who showed up in the yard for cost just so my mother and grandmother wouldn’t be angry at me for “paid too much”.

            I was so happy to make the sale I even sold them a perfect original condition old red painted with yellow floral decoration comb back Windsor arm chair rocker that I’d bought the week before for twenty-five dollars out of a barn and been asking one hundred and twenty-five dollars… for forty dollars… too.  They paid me and we loaded the table  and the Windsor right into their truck and they drove away.  They never mentioned the bee balm either.

Trimming Grass and Weeds Around Old New England Property (Antique) Granite Landscape Fixtures - Part Seventeen - "On Page Nineteen"

Trimming Grass and Weeds Around

Old New England Property

(Antique) Granite Landscape Fixtures

Part Seventeen

"On Page Nineteen"

            Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal come, chirping and flitting, to my (bird) feeding station in the very gray dawn of each morning.  The chickadees follow me ‘down’ into the forest and... flit and dee in the sun upon the upper branches of the old spruce and hemlock while I, far below, carry-off their ‘standing dead’ brethren.  The mother phoebe has pushed her fat baby out of her moss walled homestead in the rafter corner above my ‘piling (fire) wood’ shed.  Her young Fatso is ensconced in a choke cherry bush and will not move.

             She; the gray fox, strips the ground below the (bird) feeding station of the half handful of raw peanuts that some fool tosses there... everyday.  “She wouldn’t come if you didn’t do that.” I’ve heard said.  Her mate, the male, curls puppy dog style past the (bird) feeding station by the zucchini plants.  He never hunts for peanuts.  Their kit has been told to ‘stay’ under the shed.  Mother’s glance causes the small nose at the crack of ‘under the shed’ to vanish.  When mother ‘does not’ anymore, the little nose returns to my view.  Exhausting the half handful of peanuts Mrs. Fox trots off... up... and over... the old stone wall between the farm yard and the forest.  Her kit scurries to be behind her and is off... up and over too.  Mr. Fox then follows... inclusive of the pause to look back... before he, too, is off, up and over... the old stone wall.  Is there anything in all of this, I’ve wondered... for decades... that Thoreau... missed? 

            What if... when the foxes are ‘off... up... and over’ the... old stone wall... Thoreau missed THAT; the off... up and over... the old stone wall.  This colonial era wall WAS there and WAS old when Thoreau was a “there” too... “then”. 

            Well... obviously... the foxes ‘see it’; do not ‘miss it’; the old stone wall is not missed by THEM.

            And what about the (good or bad aesthetic) TASTE of the old stone wall.  Is the old stone wall ‘in good taste’ to Thoreau...?   Or is it bad taste...?  Or is it of no taste at all; a... he ‘missed’ a ‘that’ about ‘it’? 

            What was (is) good taste for Thoreau?  I find his excavation and study of the burnt rocks in his bean patch at Walden Pond to be... superior good taste in... ‘old New England property... (antique) granite... field stone... landscape fixtures’.  Further... I find... Thoreau and Emerson’s practice of walking from their home(s) in Concord ‘into’ Harvard to attend or give a lecture even better astute... sound... good... taste.  Too...:  It is a ‘good judgment’ of one following one’s own traveler’s eye.  This traveler’s eye develops the ‘good taste’ it (that eye) sees.  This eye makes ever more choices... of choices... of ‘taste’.

            But... it is a long walk... today...; there and back; Concord and Cambridge... in one day... with the lecturing too.  OH I JUST CANNOT get anyone to even DRIVE that way... in and back out.  And it is the BEST way in and out of the village (Boston) TOO.  Slip in over Harvard bridge after all that “Concord - Lexington - Arlington” “business”.  Maybe if one is “GOOD” one will “GET” (have to stop at) every stop light on this old route so be... directly... benefited with the... task... of ‘looking around’.  It is well understood that both Thoreau and Emerson had the... good taste... to look around.

            I first affirmed Thoreau’s bad taste when I was brought to notice a ‘pile’ of ‘plaster’ dumped behind the hut at Walden pond.  The excavated plaster dump was used to further define that ‘this’ ‘was’ “THE SITE” of the... hut at Walden Pond.  As was the ‘pile’ of ‘rusted nails’ too... found dumped back there (behind the hut).  Too.  Dumping ‘behind’ has always been ‘in bad taste’.  If of good taste, one does NOT dump anything ‘behind’ anything... especially as a chosen aesthetic (?) effort to ‘get rid of it’.  This dumping at the hut at Walden Pond... is... in... “almost”... “inexplicable” ...bad taste... inclusive of this dumping truly coming back to a ‘haunt Thoreau’; a shadow cast.  If one is enticed by a trail of the aesthetic eye of ‘finding out’ Thoreau’s bad taste, the story of the archaeological romp at Walden Pond... is a fine start.  It takes Thoreau’s hut of the mind’s eye and... turns it upside down and dumps it... behind the site of the hut... for all to read... when one reads that story with THAT (‘bad taste’) critical eye.*

            And then ... I expressed my continuing quandary of ‘does Harvard have good taste too” (Part Sixteen near the end).  And that was after I’d tossed (Part Sixteen again) “the diorama book” (I call the book that from now on) into the examination of “Trimming Grass and Weeds Around Old New England (Antique) Granite Landscape Fixtures”.  I said I’d be coming back to the book.

            On the same page as the first quote I used then... page nineteen... in the text below the PHOTOGRAPH of the old New England forest with a babbling brook AND ...old stone wall... ON this page nineteen... I skip the next sentence and then I continue quoting:

            “How should we manage forests that are increasingly owned by more people in smaller units?  Should we continue to import wood from other parts of the country and world, some of which are being devastated by poor logging practices, while enjoying the growing forest around us as a largely aesthetic and recreational resource, or should we obtain more wood from our home forests.  These conservation issues and management questions emerge from the history of our land (old New England property)”*A.

            Ok... so before I highlight this ‘utterance of’... as a statement of ‘taste’... I must add some bibliographic clarity to the diorama book.  The first edition of THIS BOOK was titled “THE HARVARD FOREST MODELS and was published by Harvard in Cambridge in 1936.  It was reprinted, unchanged... several (?) times.  I have (and am using for this vignette chapter (blog post) a 1941 printing.  The original 1936 edition is reproduced in full on the Harvard Forest / Petersham web site.

            It is very useful to notice that... the text... and the very poor photographic illustrations of the dioramas... in the early editions/printings of the diorama book are exactly identical to the new 2000 (most recent) edition except that the photographs of the dioramas are newly done and are far, far, far superior to those in the earlier edition.  ONE OTHER CHANGE and ... only one other change... is the inclusion by unannounced placement at about the ‘one third of the way through’ is the ‘this’ ...page nineteen... lone photograph illustration (taken by David R. Foster) noticed above.  The quoted text and the following pages of commentary text, too, are here added... addressing ‘modern forest landscape... summary... ecological lessons... conservation issues... habitat... erosion... Then on to... fire... and ...quasi... current woodland management... so as to weave BACK into the original text.

            And thereafter (from fire onward) the text and diorama illustrations return to the original edition diorama book’s text and illustration format (with this textual return body being a considerable amount of the whole book) as a:

 Commercial resource management illustrated how-to history... of the history... OF cash cropping “TREES” on old New England property.

            I remind here that I earlier gave my stated disclaimer on I noticing “TREES” that said... I would not be treating “TREES” in this vignette (series of blog posts) for I am... ‘trimming grass and weeds around’ “granite” landscape fixtures  (Part Six at the end). “Trees” are another ‘landscape fixture’.

            Wading back to ‘taste’ and ‘the diorama book’ and GOOD-BAD TASTE “do they?” (Harvard have).  I... feel... the review of both editions supports that MOST ALL (three fourth) of the dioramas and their supporting text opt for commercial forest management of ‘old New England property’ FOREST landscape fixtures and otherwise bulldoze (in fact) through, right over, all around and ...into oblivion... the other ...old New England property (antique) landscape fixtures including homesteads, homes, barns, sheds, out buildings, wells, springs, mills... old field stone piles and ...old stone walls.  Et al.

            This is

            “Bad taste” I say.

            And that is supported by the historical sequence (history of history) presented by the actual dioramas and their support text... AND is actually pinpointed in the 2000 edition with the word choice query of “aesthetic” or “obtain more wood” found on page nineteen.  The diorama book’s choice of choices of this query is... ‘obtain more wood’ and (further) loose the original old New England property (antique) landscape fixtures. Those... too... found in their neglected states upon the property... are to be treated as minor impediments to obtain-more-wood directives in addition to being... not noticed... not treated... not cared of and...

            I say

            This is bad taste treatment... of ... the aesthetic... of... old New England...

And

            THIS... aesthetic is...

            VERY ACCURATELY SHOWN... by the dioramas (and supporting text)... in the first FIVE dioramas.  Old New England property and its (antique granite too) landscape fixtures ARE shown with their ‘history of the history’...TOO.

            So let’s us NOW delightedly look at those five dioramas for they are the beautiful representation of the “WHY” of old New England property (antique) granite landscape fixtures.  We find them, here in the dioramas... well trimmed ‘of grass and weeds around’.

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*A Foster, David R. and O’Keefe, John F.:  NEW ENGLAND FOREST THROUGH TIME.  INSIGHTS FROM THE HARVARD FOREST DIORAMAS. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2000., pg. 19

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* Donald W. Linebaugh; THE MAN WHO FOUND THOREAU.  ROLAND W. ROBBINS AND THE RISE OF HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY IN AMERICA, Univ. of New Hampshire Press, Durham, NH, 2005, pgs. 27-57.