A Weekend In The Country (with a bit of history)

"When I found the rental on VRBO, it looked like a nice place to stay, in the right location," Miriam told us.  She didn't learn until later that it was the country home of Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

Once or twice a year, we spend a weekend in rural New York, half way between the part of Connecticut where we (and our friends Miriam and Brett) live, and the part of the Finger Lakes where our friends Amy and Bill live.  Most of us know each other from law school 30 years ago.  We all like cooking and eating good food, and hiking.  After years of unevenly timed long-distance visits, we settled on the current more satisfactory arrangement of meeting in the middle.  Bill couldn't make this visit -- he works for New York State as a park ranger, and was on duty helping with logistics for downstate relief work after Hurricane Sandy.  But the rest of us arrived Friday (or in our case, early Saturday morning) at the Moynihan's former 500-acre country house near Oneonta, New York.

We woke the next morning to a view out the back window, of the pond and hills beyond.

The weekend was cold, and rained, sleeted and snowed in turns.  The view changed accordingly.

The house is wonderful.  It was put on the market and sold by the Moynihans when the Senator left the U.S. Senate, but the current owner has left the house largely as the Moynihans lived in it.  It's an old farmhouse, renovated beautifully under the watchful eye of Liz Moynihan.  The amount of love invested in the place is visible and palpable.

The book left by the Moynihans includes the Senator's notes about the purchase and renovation, and Liz' notes about the grounds, gardens, and their natural denizens.

We didn't spend much time in the formal parlor;

instead, we ate, talked, and played board games in the glassed-in porch

 which the natural denizens still visit.

We did go out each day, for long walks in the surrounding fields and woods.  But the weekend was imbued with the spirit of the Moynihan family, both in the innumerable books and memorabilia scattered throughout the house, and the livable and wonderfully laid-out rooms.

It was a long drive, and a perfect place to visit with friends.  We hope to return.