Category: Archeology of Home
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Rosslyn & Reinvention
Reinvention is woven intricately, inextricably into Rosslyn’s DNA. This home, this property, this history endure some two hundred years (and more) after W.D. Ross first built his home on the Champlain Valley’s fertile shore in no small part because of this legacy of renewal. It’s as if Rosslyn, in addition to historic buildings and generous…
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Essex Railroad Station, circa 1907-8
I’m a fan of train travel, so I’m especially joy-filled now that Amtrak service between Manhattan and Montreal has been restored to service. No finer way to travel between New York City and the Adirondack Coast. Actually, let me amend that opinion. There’s plenty of pleasure arriving at the train station in Westport, our closest…
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Among the Amish
In keeping with the modesty of our Amish neighbors, this morning I would like to offer an understated but respectful nod to the family who have been helping us maintain and nurture Rosslyn’s grounds over the past year. No personal portraits and no names. No website and no Instagram handle. But plenty of respect and…
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Relics Rhymed
I’m verily inspired by potsherds and beach glass, coal fragments, and other detritus churned up on Rosslyn’s waterfront. Or disinterred from the yard while planting a garden or building a stone wall. I stall awhile and meditate on the process of fragmenting and the potential for reimagining artifacts. I wonder about dark or damaged backstories,…
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High Tunnel Hubris
Looks like my spring 2023 veggie garden exuberance (and perennially Pollyanna optimism) served me poorly. As we all well know from the time tempered tale of Daedalus and Icarus, the consequences of taking risks can send us plunging. Or, in the case of cheating the calendar by prematurely planting tomatoes, tomatillos, and other delicate spring…
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Green Eggs and Ham
As asparagus time begins yielding to rhubarb time (photo update soon!) I brainstorm asparagus recipes that I’ll lament overlooking once seasonality advances our homegrown ingredients. A vague recollection sends me filtering through old blog posts and then drafts of incomplete blog posts. I find notes started on May 14, 2014, and I know what my…
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Giebel Garden Flashback
I apologize in advance for bypassing several timely updates on the icehouse rehabilitation progress. Sorry. I promise that they are coming soon. But there’s something about springtime, about gardening, about the promise of colorful blooms and produce that I’m finding too tempting to resist. And so I share with you what I’ll call a “Giebel…
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Tulip Time 2023
Springtime is tulip time, a dramatic chapter in gardners’ succession blooming cycles. With snow drops, hyacinth, and daffodils fading, colorful tulip blooms take center stage. And this year’s tulip time does not disappoint. Signs of springtime are abundant lately. It’s asparagus time. Also ramps, apple blossoms, dandelions, fiddleheads, tulips, nettles,… And lily of the valley…
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Make this Place Your Home
Looking down from my United Airlines window shortly after takeoff from Burlington I’m able to discern Rosslyn’s waterfront and backland, recognizable despite distortion caused by the crazed, milky portal bless. My eye-in-the-sky perspective of Essex, New York (and our Adirondack Coast “home sweet home”) tickled a lyric into my mind, and before I knew it…
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Lily of the Valley Unfurling
Signs of springtime are abundant lately. It’s asparagus time. Also ramps, apple blossoms, dandelions, fiddleheads, tulips, nettles,… And lily of the valley unfurling dramatically. An entire army of terpsichorean twirlers synchronized, slowly unfurling, mesmerizing. Lily of the valley (Convallaria majalis)… is a woodland flowering plant with sweetly scented, pendent, bell-shaped white flowers borne in sprays…
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Spargelzeit: Asparagus Time!
Imagine for a moment enduring many, many months without fresh, homegrown produce. Tragic, right? Especially for a passionate gardener who loves to prepare and share garden-to-table fare for family and friends. Now you can stop imagining because this next part requires no imagination… It’s Spargelzeit! The word Spargel means asparagus and Zeit means time. The…
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Green Zebras 1st in High Tunnel
Green Zebra Tomatoes are first transplants of the season. Others to follow soon!