Category: Archeology of Home
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Apple a Day
Day’s end. Week’s end. A moment to reflect on the initiatives and accomplishments of the preceding days. Rain reprieve. Humidity normal. Productivity driven by deadlines approaching. A chair with a view of new lawn, old icehouse, reconfigured clay court, and an apple plucked from the orchard,… An apple a day, they say, keeps the doctor…
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Hammocking with Carley in 2020
Take me back to the spring a summer of 2020. Height of ‘rona. And hammocking with Carley! When memories drift back to that peculiar spring and summer of the Covid-29 pandemic, fear and paranoia come to mind. Manic masking, toilet paper shortages, spraying toxic clouds of disinfectant onto our groceries, and horrifying statistics mounting nationwide…
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Amber Morning
On Thursday Susan snapped several photographs in the front hallway and parlor. She was up early with me, and the crack-of-dawn sunlight mesmerized her. Amber morning light illuminating Rosslyn’s elegant entrance. She was surprised to hear that this front hallway — early in the morning, bathed in sunlight — had compelled me for years. Since…
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Morning Dew
After weeks of rain, we’ve enjoyed two glorious August days. Summertime splendor all the more apparent for the contrast with two months of incessant drizzle-to-downpour conditions. Sunny. Bluebird skies. Hot. Light breeze. Lower humidity. And morning dew on the decks and lawn when I take Carley out in the morning and when I wander up…
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Morning Dorying
I spent my morning dorying. It’s been far too long due to the incessant rains. Sooo many drizzly mornings this summer, but today was a sunny, bluebird morning, and the rowing conditions were spectacular.
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Rhyming Relics
I was just looking at a pair of glass artifacts, two Rosslyn relics among so many we’ve discovered and inherited since the summer of 2006 when this old house became our new home. Remember the ferry posters in my “Relics Rhymed” post? These are similar. And different. While the differences are apparent, perhaps the similarity…
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Gladioli
Garish gladioli. Or so I thought. Not sure why really. Nor how long. But, quietly to myself, for a long-long time I’ve written off glads. Too flamboyant. Or overly ostentatious. Or maybe just too vibrant… Or perhaps it’s none of these. Perhaps it’s the association with funerals. Gladioli fans typically adorn funeral settings, right? In…
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Gate & Aerial Atelier
Some days rays illuminate unfamiliar nooks and crannies rendering them familiar. Other days weather wobbles transform the familiar into the unfamiliar. When on both sorts of days we yield, make ourselves receptive, exchange judgment for wonder, then an aerial atelier opens up to us inviting us to experiment and play and create. Aerial Atelier Surly…
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Rain-Swollen Summer
For weeks we joked semi-superstitiously about forty days and forty nights. Drizzles. Downpours. Rain-swollen summer defying even the most cynical armchair forecasters. Lawns boggy; vegetable garden anemic; air thick with suspended moisture like wading through water; foliage flush, overgrown, greener than green; docks swallowed and gradually dismantled by higher, higher, higher lake levels. When forty…
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Lake Champlain Water Level
I’m guardedly optimistic that our Lake Champlain water level *MAY* have crested. Again. Currently registering just barely below 98 feet, the current lake level is about 4 feet above where it would normally be at this time of year. The scene above, Rosslyn’s boathouse and waterfront photographed from the Essex-Charlotte ferry two days ago, looks…
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Jumbo Blackberry
This evening, walking to the house before dinner, my niece handed me a blackberry she’d picked in the garden. it was enormous. The biggest I’ve ever seen. And, without thinking, I popped the jumbo blackberry into my mouth. It exploded in flavor, like a fistful of normal sized blackberries, warmed by the sun. An explosion…
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Yard Sale Postmortem
One week ago today we celebrated Essex Day with the mother of all yard sales. This recycling and reuse extravaganza was cohosted with several friends who were similarly interested in downsizing their possessions. If something’s not being used regularly, pass it on! Today it’s time for a quick yard sale postmortem. Prologue For prologue, this:…