Friday, September 24, 2010

Garton Family Reunion

We had our family reunion a couple of weekends ago at the farm where my cousins Susan and Tom live. It is a very cool place, with the main farmhouse originally built in the 1700's.

The Farmhouse


Across the street is a large Natural Lands Trust preserve.


My cousins each live in one of the out buildings of the farm. I'm quite envious.

The farm was guarded by beasts of stone ...



... and flesh. (Although the greyhound was rather friendly!)


And served as home for a variety of other creatures including frogs, chickens, snakes (more later) and birds, such as this great blue heron (no doubt here for the frogs):

Heron in a Tree Overlooking the Pond

We did the normal family reunion stuff, mostly. A modern touch was Skyping far away family members.

Away at College

But the favorite activity wasn't the badminton, nor the horseback riding, ...

Katie on Horse Ride Duty

Where's My Cowboy Hat?


...  nor even the eating (although the food was very good, thanks Linda!).

Nope the favorite had to be snake hunting. And we found plenty, on multiple expeditions.

Kelly Embarking on a Snake Hunt


My 15 year old cousin (second cousin one removed I think) Kelly started us off by finding the first few snakes. Including this one:


Kelly caught it, and I'm holding it.

On our second expedition, I turned over one big rock and there were at least six (!) snakes under it. Alas, by the time I was able to lower the rock, careful not to crush any snakes, and grab my camera they had all slithered away. (They are fast!)

Bummer.

I did get a couple of images, including this one. And this:


Here's a video Kelly took last year while snake hunting:




Pretty cool, huh?

What does your family do at reunions?

*****

Eventually the fun ended and it was time to go home. Even the heron left.



And the moon hung gorgeous in the twilight sky.


It was over all too soon and  I said goodbye to people I see way too infrequently.

*****

Us (the obligatory group picture):

A fairly small subset of the Garton Clan


Additional images from the day can be found here.

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