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Since the first image of this garden was made on July 10 (http://www.gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=28793), my efforts here have been applied mostly to weeding, mulching, and eating. Normally we would be entering the most delightful three month season of fresh produce, but this year the late blight (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/dining/29toma.html) has killed all of the tomatoes (32 plants of 4 varieties), so it will be an impoverished season. The blight is the same one that caused the Great Famine in Ireland (1845-1852), although I am not yet contemplating starvation or emigration. My potatoes appear to be mostly unaffected, but the fungus-like pathogen might rot the tubers in storage.
Notes: Autofocus was called for, so I monitored the imager and intervened when autofocus failed and a photo was not taken in time (My attention waned and I had to recreate one missed photo.). Also, the kid does not have a twin, or two basketballs. |
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From the college organic vegetable garden, the science building (McCardell Bicentennial Hall) dominates the view. Occupied in 1999 after six years of planning and four years of design and construction, it cost $47.3 million. About 40% of students have at least one class scheduled in the building each term. At its center can be seen the largest window in Vermont. |
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Twenty percent of the town of Salisbury, Vermont is federal property within the Green Mountain National Forest, and that includes most of the land in this view. The Forest Service ensures that trees on this land never get large enough to frighten people or damage wildlife. Mount Moosalamoo, to the left of center, is the highest point in Salisbury at 2625 feet asl (800 m), more than 2000 feet higher than Lake Dunmore.
This GigaPan can be viewed in its geographic context here: http://conservation.townofsalisbury.org/panoramas/lakedunmore/index.htm |
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This north end of the lake has the nicest beaches where glacial rivers built deltas 13,600 years ago. The northernmost part of the lake, to the right, is surrounded by a low sandy plain which is the largest delta complex. This plain is the location of Camp Keewaydin, Camp Songadeewin, and some of the older summer cottages.
I was waiting for a clearer day to retake this panorama from August 1, but it never happened. The distant landscape is so hazy that the stitcher added an extra ridge of hills. Now I realize that I am the only one who would ever notice that. This GigaPan can be viewed in its geographic context here: http://conservation.townofsalisbury.org/panoramas/lakedunmore/index.htm |
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The first sawmill was built on these falls in 1774, and power from Otter Creek has been a cohesive force in Middlebury Village ever since. On the other side of the row of buildings above the falls is a 19th century Main Street which today includes the mix of progressive, utilitarian, and quaint businesses you would expect in a Vermont town.
Elevation: 107 m (350 ft), Camera location from GPS: N43 57.188 W73 59.550 Notes: I used a Nikon D40 with Nikkor 300mm f/4.5 AI-s lens at f/8, 1/125 (bottom rows) to 1/200 (top rows), ISO 200, NEF. 35mm equiv is 450mm, and field of view was set to 3.1 degrees. Two second shutter delay was initiated by wireless remote. Lightroom was used to remove vignetting and increase exposure and saturation before outputting jpegs for stitching. |
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This vegetable garden is in the well-drained sandy loam of a 13,000 year old ice-contact alluvial fan. Soil fertility is enhanced by tilling under 30 cm of tree leaves each autumn, and several cm of composted cow manure each spring. During the growing season, beds are mulched with compost and old hay. Most of the produce is eaten fresh, but potatoes, onions, and garlic are stored, and 2 dozen quarts of tomatoes are preserved.
Notes: This panorama required variable focus, but some areas confounded the autofocus, so the imager was monitored and paused if the camera failed to take a shot in time. The shot was then completed manually before the imager was resumed. |
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The ancient delta in the center foreground was farmland in the late 19th century, and became Branbury State Park in 1945. The sandy sediments have been worked into the best beach on the lake.
The vantage point is an outcrop of Cheshire quartzite surrounded by one of Vermont’s rarest forest communities. The thin soil supports a sparse forest of pitch pines (Pinus rigida) with white and red pine (P. strobus, P. resinosa), and white, red, and chestnut oak (Quercus alba, Q. rubra, Q. prinus). This GigaPan can be viewed in its geographic context here: http://conservation.townofsalisbury.org/panoramas/lakedunmore/index.htm |
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The property and yellow buildings of the Bread Loaf Campus were bequeathed to Middlebury College by Joseph Battell in 1915 (the white buildings are more recent). Since 1920, this campus has been home to the Bread Loaf School of English, which offers summer graduate courses and an MA degree. In 1926, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference began operation here. Most of the buildings are vacant except in the summer months.
Elevation: 440 m (1440 ft), Camera location from GPS: N43 57.188 W73 59.550 Notes: I used a Nikon D40 with a Nikkor 300mm f/4.5 AI-s lens at f/11, 1/320 second, ISO 200, NEF. 35mm equiv is 450mm, and field of view was set to 3.1 degrees. Focus was manually adjusted many times. Two second shutter delay was initiated by wireless remote. Lightroom was used to remove vignetting before outputting jpegs for stitching. |
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The town of Addison is the flattest and the most fertile part of Vermont. The plain extending west to Lake Champlain was the bottom of a glacial lake and post-glacial estuary from 14,000 to 11,000 years ago. The clayey sediments are more than 30m deep in places. The soils are slow to dry and require powerful equipment to work, but the high cation exchange capacity of the clays allows great natural fertility. About 90% of the field crops here are corn and hay for dairy feed -- this is where Ben and Jerry's ice cream starts.
I counted about 180 silos in the scene. |
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In 1861, Joseph Battell remodeled a farmhouse into an inn (in distance left of center) which became a successful summer getaway and was incrementally enlarged during his lifetime. Today the inn and surrounding buildings are part of Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf Campus where the Bread Loaf School of English and Bread Loaf Writers' Conference take place each summer. During his life, Battell bought 40,000 acres in Vermont, and left much of it to Middlebury College in 1915. Most of this land was subsequently transferred to the Green Mountain National Forest and to the state of Vermont. The college still owns the land used for its Nordic and alpine ski areas and the Bread Loaf Campus.
Elevation: 440 m (1440 ft), Camera location from GPS: N43 57.199 W72 59.570 Notes: I used a Nikon D40 with a Nikkor 300mm f/4.5 AI-s lens at f/11, 1/400 second (lowest rows at 1/320 sec), ISO 200, NEF. 35mm equiv is 450mm, and field of view was set to 3.4 degrees. Focus was manually adjusted many times. Two second shutter delay was initiated by wireless remote. Lightroom was used to remove vignetting before outputting jpegs for stitching. Abundant misalignment errors may be due to insufficient overlap among photos, and/or to manually adjusting the focus. |