On the Yellow Brick Road over the Normanskill

I was back today at Normanskill Farm with my friend Flo. We walked on what the locals call the Yellow Brick Road – part of the old Delaware Turnpike that originated in the early 1800s. The Old Normans Kill Bridge was built over the Normans Kill river in 1884 that was paved with yellow bricks (they are still there today).

Edgar Allen Poe wrote of the bridge and the bricks and the legend grew that Poe’s friend, L. Frank Baum of Wizard of Oz fame, appropriated the notion. I used to ride over the bridge as a short-cut from Albany to Delmar. Alas, the bridge was permanently closed to traffic in about 1984.

Normansville

We walked across the bridge to the little hamlet of Normansville which is home to perhaps a dozen hardy souls. There are a few homes and a church located along the river.

Along the other side of the river are the remains of the Pappalu ice house which was abandoned in the early 1900s.

Motor traffic on Delaware Avenue flows above our heads on a 1994-built bridge which replaced the previous bridge (or Normanskill Viaduct).

Remains of the Ice House

The Normansville Farm has several buildings dating from the mid-1800s. The blacksmith house is the only one in use with demonstrations there periodically. We were fortunate to meet the current blacksmith who was cleaning up the place after yesterday’s event.

We concluded our photoshoot by walking through the section of the “farm” that contains buildings used by the Albany Police Department to house their horses (you read correctly).

Police Draft Horses

Inside the Blacksmith House

We made our way to an important (if not well known) little bridge: the Whipple Truss Bridge (on the federal registry of historic places). The bridge was built in 1867 in Syracuse and designed by a local resident who was the first to determine the stresses of such a bridge. It is the only one of about 100 still remaining that was constructed primarily for use over the Erie Canal.

More photos of the area are in my photo gallery at http://bit.ly/nAWALW. Most images are HDR and post-processed with Nik software and Lightroom. A couple were enhanced using Topaz Adjust.

The Whipple Bridge

Finally, a warm and sunny day after the waters of Irene and the remnants of other storms have passed. The torrent of the Normanskill still rages on my forage for photos of the area. I have trouble getting to the river from the trails on the Normanskill East and West so I go down the other side of the river from the Normanskill Farm.

Here it is easier to gain access to the shore and to see the bridge and the buildings of the Normanskill Farm. They are still and unused, but look nice in the contrasty dappled sunlight of the later afternoon.

I am determined to get some good HDR images and shlep my tripod along for the journey armed only with the 17-50 Tammy on my Canon 40D. I have my Canon 70-200L f4 in the car but do not need it today.

Here are a few of the results of my efforts: the small wooden bridge on the Normanskill West trail; a fine bunch of brightly colored mushrooms on the Normanskill East trail; a view of the old stone bridge over the swiftly moving Normanskill taken from the west bank; and a view of one of the Normanskill Farm buildings. Click on the photos to see a full size version.

All images were post-processed in Lightroom 3 and the Nik plugins: Color Efex Pro, HDR Efex Pro and Silver Efex Pro. I just learned that Nik will issue a greatly upgraded Color Efex Pro – version 4 and I can’t wait to get it.