A Weekend of Adirondack Emersion

After our short 1/2 mile hike, the Adirondack Museum was our first stop. The museum was unique in that it was part inside and part outside with a plethora of exhibits on everything from history to logging to art. One of my favorite parts of the museum was exploring the art exhibit. The oil paintings are what really stood out to me, because having worked with oil paint before, I felt like I had a better appreciation for what the artists were able to produce with this sometimes difficult medium. In these couple pictures below, what really impressed me was the artists' ability to portray light with the oil paint. Especially in the first painting, I loved the way Richards was able to portray the patches of light running across the mountain tops. It almost was as if I was looking at a photograph! In looking at this painting close up in the museum, you could also see the amazing detail that went into creating the landscape on the mountains in the background. I also loved the way Martin was able to portray light in his painting.

William Trost Richards, Boquet Valley, 1864

source: http://www.questroyalfineart.com/blog/2014/05/adirondack-musuem-great-wilderness-great-expectations/

Homer Dodge Martin, Mountain View on the Saranac, 1868

source: http://www.adkmuseum.org/discover_and_learn/collections_highlights/detail/?q=&cat=1&id=18 

On the second day, we stopped at local goat dairy farm. One of the owners of Asgaard Farms said that the goats spent much of their time in their enclosed cart because they don't like sunlight, but as soon as we walked over, they started pouring out and running over to the fence edge! I had never seen such phenotypic variety in goats before! All different colors and patterns. However this wasn't the only part of Asgaard Farm that impressed me. After visiting this farm, it occurred to me that this is how every "local" farm should be run. This huge operation was run by a husband and wife, along with what seemed like a small group of employees that they had hired to help with tasks around the farm. You could just imagine how much each person on the farm was invested in its products and making it run smoothly, that somehow, it just worked. Despite its smooth flowing nature, the husband mentioned that in economics terms, it was one of the few businesses he knew that was supply limited (I think was the term he used for it) in that if they could physically produce twice the product to meet the high demand, they would. Even so, they were already talking about the potential of shipping their products in the future to be able to spread their business further geographically. 

Our last stop on the trip was to the Adirondack Wildlife Refuge. This was one of the stops that didn't impress me as much as I thought it would. I was a little confused as to the future these animals had. Were they eventually going to be let free? Were they currently rehabbing any of them at the refuge site. I noticed that all the enclosures seemed horribly small for the size of many of the animals housed there - especially the wolves. The fact that the wolves weren't even from NY state to begin with - the fact that they were bred for educational purposes - just didn't seem right to me. I snapped a picture of the wolf as the owner took it out to let us see it, and I felt like it looked at me and said, "Please, help me. Get me out. I'm not meant to be here." I couldn't help but feel sort of sad for the poor guy.