Setts

A long time ago, in my stained glass class, I made a beautiful rose but I haven't seen it in almost 30 years. Where is it? I went back to the old house tearing things apart trying to find it. No luck. Too bad, because it would look nice in the other pane of my breakfast nook

Fireplace of setts or Big Dig Cobblestones. New rug which looks better in person than in this photo. Some of these photos against the fireplace will be hung up as soon as I get a bit more energy

I googled Big Dig Cobblestones. Turns out there is a place that still sells them in several different sizes. The ones I have would be characterized as 'medium'. The seller's father was involved in the Big Dig project of putting an elevated freeway underground through the downtown area. Lots of streets were ripped up and the cobblestones reclaimed. Technically these are not cobblestones at all, which are naturally round and not chiseled to fit. There are a few streets in Boston that have real cobblestones like in the Beacon Hill area but the streets made later on in the 19th century were made with sets or Belgian Blocks.

Some of the original cobblestones were ballast from England.

The prettiest setts we found in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Back to Spain, the sailors used gold ore as ballast. On the way back, the Spanish used these bricks formed in the smelting process which were shiny blue. These were used to pave the streets.

When we were in Desenzano, we passed a street on our way to the waterfront that was being repaved with tiny setts . Workers were sitting on the street setting these small pieces of granite into sand. It looked very labor intensive. So some places still use setts instead of asphalt or concrete. But they were trying to preserve the historic character of the place.

I think  is kind of cool to have a bit of Boston history in the house. Massachusetts granite though is not as pretty as Michigan granite, which is pinker.

Still busy making this place a home. It will take a while. Steve was with me yesterday at the old house which I dreaded. Every time I would put something in a box to bring back, he grimaced. Meanwhile he brought back a bag of yellowed New York Posts with headlines like Yankees Win Another!

No time to run yesterday but today, in the snow I got a fairly long run in. I can't wait for the dirt roads to be ice free enough to run. It will be much more peaceful than having cars whizzing by at 60 mph too close to me. We went out to dinner with Josh and Julie and Allie at the only restaurant for miles somewhat near here. It was nice. Julie had Yak.