Photo of the Day: Woodworking Shop, Hancock Shaker Village, MA

I took this photo in late August 2017, while on vacation in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts, when I spent an afternoon visiting Hancock Shaker Village. Among the 20 historic buildings left over from the religious community here was its woodworking shop.

Their religion required simplicity—clean lines, utility, and proportion—but did not preclude the community’s resort to innovative technology such as water turbines, and it has proven highly compatible with modern notions of sustainability and responsible land usage.

Massive workbenches served as specialized workbenches and storage spaces for tools. Wide surface areas allowed cabinetmakers to lay out all the parts of a cabinet. Large tool cupboards and smaller portable chests were useful in organizing the rest of the shop space. The products of this shop continue to be valued as the ultimate in beautiful craftsmen-built furniture.

Photo of the Day: ‘Queen of The Meadow,’ Hancock Shaker Village, MA

Hancock Shaker Village, as I noted previously, is an attraction worth visiting for its wide-ranging insights into the culture of one of the most unusual religious communities ever to take root on American soil.

Yet, for anyone drawn to all that is visually pleasing, this living history museum in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts is especially delightful through its function as a working farm, with vegetables, herbs and a barn full of livestock.

In prior posts, I discussed some of these products of the soil, including monkswood, lungwort, and creeping thyme.

But I also photographed the “Queen of the Meadow” herb. It was not coincidental that I spotted its lavender-purple flowers on purple stems in August, because this herbaceous perennial plant blooms in late summer and fall.

Photo of the Day: Monkswood, Hancock Shaker Village, MA

Monkswood, an herbaceous wildflowers, grows in mountain meadows in the Northern Hemisphere. Growing 2 to 4 feet tall and 1 to 2 feet wide, it sends up purple-blue flowers like this in late summer or early fall.

Come to think of it, that’s when I saw and photographed this particular plant—in late August 2017, to be exact, at Hancock Shaker Village in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts. 

This former experiment in communal living, established in 1790 and active until 1960, now functions as a living history museum of this fascinating sect. Though buildings cover much of the grounds, this remains a working farm, with vegetables, herbs and a barn full of livestock. A visitor can spend much of the day here, and it would be time well-spent.

Photo of the Day: Creeping Thyme, Hancock Shaker Village, MA

A year and a half ago, after several missed chances on previous trips to the Berkshires, I finally made it to Hancock Shaker Village. This 750-acre “living museum” in Western Massachusetts was as informative as I expected it to be in telling the story of the Shakers, an unusual American religious movement that gradually declined after the 19^th century.

What I hadn’t expected, though, was the exposure that this site would provide to so much information about botany. I shouldn’t have been surprised, really—after all, among the ways that the Shakers were able to subsist, through agriculture and commerce, was through knowledge of botany. But for anyone interested in knowing more about plants—or in photographing them, as I am—this was a welcome stop.

The photograph I took here is of creeping thyme, an easily grown, low-lying perennial. Growing creeping thyme ground cover is both deer-resistant and able to endure frequent foot traffic.

Photo of the Day: Lungwort, Hancock Shaker Village, MA

Lungwort is a hardy, versatile perennial used, among other things, to treat stomach and intestinal ailments. These were among the plants prized for their medical uses, I learned while visiting the Shaker village settlement in the Berkshires town of Hancock, MA, in late August.