Christmas at The Paine: Nutcracker in the Castle

My mother is 78.  The last year or so has not been heart-warming for her.  My father likes to leave the farm less and less.  My mother, although not an avid traveler, is a big fan of day-trips.  She like to go places and see things.  She talks about tucking away these special memories and taking them out to look at when she is alone.

Realizing this a couple years ago, I made her my frequent travel partner.  We have gone to watch the whistling tundra swans when 17 percent of the entire world's flock descended on the marsh outside Hortonville for a couple days.   We have picked cherries in Door County.  One of her favorite day excursions was to the Garden Door  in Door County, a beautiful little garden managed by the Master Gardener group there and filled with theme gardens, clematis, and flowering shrubs.

And then I fell.

More From the Paine: Secret Gardens and Hidden Views

Wowza, baby! That hair!



On this Cristmas Day, some beautiful late summer pictures from Oshkosh's "castle", home of "The Nutcracker Suite".




From the oh, so elegant Paine...

The Paine sits on less than a half a city block. It has no parking lot and depends on on-street parking for its visitors. Most of the Paine has 8' iron gating or a stucco wall around the perimeter. This limits the intrusion of any of Oshkosh's city elements; noise, traffic, other buildings, to all but one corner where the view of a second floor Tudor style house is evident over the rose garden.

Merry Holidays to all!

Paine Art Center and Museum in Oshkosh

The Paine (along with the Oshkosh Museum) are Oshkosh's castles. It was built as a huge stone residences of one of Oshkosh's lumber barons. Located just on the Fox River and lived in a scant few years, it was then donated to the city. Walled and gated it has retained it elegance.

It houses the small permanent collection of the Paine family's art, along with being the venue for small intimate performances of scenes from the Nutcracker Suite each Christmas (along with a Nutcracker exhibition and story display). It also serves as a rental venue for weddings, elegant parties, and occasionally hosts traveling art exhibitions as it is now doing for the Ansel Adams display.

The Ansel Adams were very nice, although I have been watching the photographic talent of an artist to my north here in Wisconsin and I have to say how similar in style and depth is her work.

Even a urn on a pedestal, properly placed, is picture-worthy. Nothing particularly exciting about the planted material!

There were several plants that point up that Oshkosh, 30 miles away is about a half a zone warmer than here and that the city asphalt is goosing them for two to three degrees. This is one, this well-grown Harry Lauder Walking Stick, filbert contortus. The others included a tri-color beech, Japanese silver grass, and oak leaf hydrangea.







There were lots of hidden views, elegant plants, and the front border of bedded annuals extending across the entire front view.