Blue Slope Farm

Sue's Daycare had their annual fall family day today.  It was this event last year that was sort of my first event with everyone at the daycare and I've felt so welcomed into their little family ever since :) This year the afternoon was spent at Blue Slope Farm right here in Franklin.  It's been many years (about 15, I figured out) since I had been there with my youth group, and it was just what I remembered :) The family who run the farm are such wonderful hosts!! They hitched up a team of horses to take everyone on a ride around the farm.  We got to see the fields and barns, they took us by some of the cows, and we got to enjoy the amazing view from atop the hill (we could see all the way to Foxwoods in Preston!!). They even took us in one of the barns so the kids could learn about and pet some of the animals.
Normally after a daycare shoot I post a few pics of the kids, but today I decided to post some shots of the farm instead (don't worry I'll have the other pics posted soon!!)

Thanks so much to everyone at Blue Slope for such a fun afternoon, and to Sue's daycare for letting me tag along again!!

Cheers :)

Gillette's Castle . . . Part 2

I managed to get myself down to Gillette's Castle again last week to tour the inside of the castle.  I believe I did it once when I was young but don't really remember it.  It is such a beautiful place and William Gillette was just brilliant!! The carvings and details and ingenuity throughout the place was just amazing!! It's taken me quite a while to go through all the pictures I took and narrow it down to a few (and to be honest there are still quite a few, but I did try!!)

 There are guides throughout the house pointing out little details and telling you about the house and Mr. Gillette. They said that all the furnishings came with the house and belonged to Mr. Gillette.  Yup, from the little cat figurines and ceramic frogs to the books in the library, they were all his.

 Notice anything about the desk chair? He put the chair and some of the other furniture, like the dining room table, on tracks so they could slide in and out without scuffing the floors.  And I've decided I watch the History Channel too much because once I saw that fan on the desk all I could think of was the pickers!!

Most everything in the house was hand made and designed by Mr. Gillette, the handles on the doors were very intricate and all unique, and the systems he had on the windows, though simple when you really think about it, just amazed me, I think it was one of my favorite parts of the whole place.

There are lots of documents up on the third floor, some are blue prints from when he was designing different parts of the house, some are letters. There's one letter that I thought was funny, it was from Mr. Gillette to his brother when he was around 11 years old, it just made me smile :)

Of course the view from the third floor was just amazing!! Wish the terrace on the roof was open to the public that would be fantastic!!

When I was done touring the house I had to take a walk down to the river and put my feet in the sand!! I really don't know where the summer went, but I started my summer with my feet in the sand here and I got to finish it the same way!! The castle closes again Columbus Day weekend, but they told me it opens in December all decorated for Christmas.  I wanted to shoot it last winter in the snow, but we didn't get much, maybe I'll have to try when it's decked out for the holidays instead :)

Cheers

Bozrah Day . . . Outtakes?

So the gym went down to the Bozrah Family Day today.  We brought some equipment and a bunch of the team kids and set up a little circuit for kids to play around on.  Everyone seemed to have a great time, and I had my camera along to capture the fun.  Though 'outtakes' seemed to be the right word to describe these few shots, they're not 'outtakes' like 'mess ups' more the funny faces and crazy antics that went on :)

It really is a great bunch of kids that we get to work with :)

Cheers!!