Category: Archeology of Home
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November Windsurfing
Watersports were one of the lifestyle passions that lured us to full time, year round Champlaining. And windsurfing, even late November windsurfing, was one of our favorites. We could… windsurf for half the year instead of just two or three months, starting in May with drysuits and finishing in the end of October. (Source: Almost…
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Porosity & Permeability
Porosity and permeability. Words. Ideas. Aesthetics. Biases. So many opportunities to mis-listen. Misinterpret. Assume… We volley language and visions without ever knowing whether or not we perceive the same boundaries. The same winning. And losing. Sometimes an image, less answer than visual poem, is the only way. Other times a poem-poem, less answer than question,…
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Happy Thanksgiving
We wish you a wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) day! From our early days at Rosslyn (“2007 Thanksgiving Remembered”) through recent, more peripatetic “Thanksgiving Thanks”, this holiday has resonated more than others for us. We’ve never lost sight of how many people have invested their time and energy and hope in our quest to revitalize this…
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Thank You, Tony!
Preparing for tomorrow’s family feast, my mind meanders to the good fortune we enjoy in large part due to the amazing people with whom we live and work. Today I offer a follow up to Tuesday’s salute to Pam with an overdue salute to another indispensable member of our team. Thank you, Tony Foster! Thanksgiving…
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Thank You, Pam!
As we approach the fourth Thursday of November we’re provisioning for an indulgent holiday banquet with family. Thanksgiving is all about family and feasting, for sure. But it’s first and foremost a ritualized reminder to pause and reflect on everyone for whom we’re grateful and everything for which we’re grateful. In both cases, Pam Murphy…
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Crescent Moon Haiku
Sometimes it’s the little things. Often, actually. Like this slender sliver of a crescent moon tipped sideways, a celestial smile. Like this volute capital — atop one of two ionic columns flanking Rosslyn’s front entrance — glowing warmly from the pendant light hanging above the stone landing. Like that improbable glow silhouetting the trees despite…
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Apple Crisp
When autumn’s wintry turn coincides with apples passing their prime, it’s time to make an apple crisp! And so I did. A dairy free, gluten free, maple syrupy apple crisp. Join me? First I peeled, cored, wedged all of the softening fruit. The compost received this ready-to-ferment contribution with a just barely detectable, “Hurrah!” Lots…
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Artifacts & Ephemera: Essex Memento Medley
As we wrap-up the week before the week of Thanksgiving, appreciation burbles on the back burner like a slow cooked crock of beans wafting autumn aromas through the house. Comforting. It would be appropriate to jumpstart gratitude-giving with especial emphasis on Pam, Tony, Glen, Aaron, Calvin, and Steve for juggling carpentry and tree work and…
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Mary Wade Rock Art
Mary Wade’s Essex renderings are legendary. Her rock painting of Rosslyn’s boathouse depicts Rosslyn’s boathouse as viewed from the Essex-Charlotte ferry dock, an enterprise originally owned by her grandfather, if memory serves. This gift from Mary immediately became a favorite in our collection of her Rosslyn inspired creations. This certainly isn’t my first Mary Wade…
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Floorboards Lost & Found
Rosslyn’s rolling rehabilitation — intermittent, to be sure, but ongoing since 2006 — is one way to account for the fact that the carriage barn floorboards have been mostly invisible for much of the last decade and a half. One project or another, and plenty of equipment and materials, have occupied virtually every usable square…
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Griffin & Gator
Thirteen years ago, on November 14, 2010, I snapped a few blurry Blackberry photographs (remember those?) of Susan and our Labrador retriever, Griffin. The snapshots were taken beyond the barns, looking west over the meadows we were recovering after decades forgotten, feral, and overgrown. Griffin thoroughly enjoyed jumping into the small bed for a cruise…
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Fallen Giant
Timber felling continues. Bittersweet benchmark after bittersweet benchmark; five ash trees succumbing to the chainsaw. This afternoon we honor a fallen giant, the imposing 3-stem behemoth that stood just northeast of Rosslyn’s icehouse. It’s a poignant passing and sentimental benchmark when towering trees that helped define Rosslyn’s environs over the years must be culled. (Source:…