My very first My Town Monday post was on the Stauffer Mansion here in Lancaster. That post ranks #3 in Google for the search term Stauffer Mansion (just below my Squidoo lens on it).

Those pictures were all about the mansion itself, and were taken just before dark at the end of winter. Now, we’re in summer, and what a difference a bit of green makes in Stauffer Park.

My last MTM post was on Cibo’s, and those pictures were taken the same day as these.

As soon as hubby and I approached the mansion, I noticed a difference between the seasons. Of course, the big construction areas where they’re working on the mansion was part of it, but the other part was all the flowers!

Hubby and I walked around the back of the mansion and towards the formerly creepy tree, which was now lush and green.

As you can see just to the left of the tree, there’s a fence. We’d never noticed this before, and were very pleased to find a new area of the mansion/park to explore. So, we walked through the now-open fence into a courtyard of sorts.

How cool was this? And I fell madly in love with that tree in the background. I never managed to get a good picture of it, but I thought this photo turned out rather nice.

While I was drooling over the tree, my husband was flipping out over “is that a beaver? No, it’s an eagle! Wow!”. I, of course, had no idea what he was talking about and couldn’t figure out how he could mistake an eagle for a beaver, and what the heck was an eagle doing in Stauffer Park anyway?

Until I stepped around a particularly bushy tree and saw that awesome carving. Totally in love. And it’s in the middle of no where! A garden-y area that I think Jane Austen would have referred to as a small wilderness.

Nearly right across from the eagle was this great little sitting area. Isn’t it charming?

If you’re facing the benches, just turn to your right and look straight on to see the top of the mansion through the trees. While I ran around taking pictures of everything I saw, hubby was standing stock still and simply staring at this scene.

After we’d looked at everything in the wilderness, we followed the walking trails as is our usual. Since they’ve been clearing up the shrubbery, and we’ve had decent sun and rain, this spot looked particularly picturesque.

This is actually part of the wilderness area, where it opens up into a small meadow area. I just thought it ended the pictures nicely.