Category: Wanderlust to Houselust
-
Coeur de Boeuf Haiku
Coeur de Boeuf, Cuore di Bue, Ox Heart, Oxheart,… A bevy of bovine bywords for a bountiful, flavorful, and 100% practical heirloom tomato variety that we’ve been cultivating in Rosslyn’s vegetable gardens for over a decade. And since it’s seed sourcing season again — time to reflect on last summer’s vegetable garden and plan what…
-
Mulberry Meditation
There is much to admire in a mulberry tree.The handsome habit and height. The luxurious leaves. The shady canopy.The concentrated blackberry-esque burst of inky sweetness. While you may have a fuzzy notion about mulberry wine,…
-
Winter Wonderland 2019
Sometimes meteorologists get it right. And Rosslyn’s winter wonderland 2019 just might become Exhibit A in the Meteo Defense column. Thank you, snow gods! Winter storm warnings wander across our radar often enough this time of year that we become a little meteorology skeptical. Not cynical. Just suspicious that promised snowstorms won’t quite measure up…
-
Why Are My Cucumbers Orange?
Why are my cucumbers orange? They’re turning yellow-orange, to be precise… This summer we have enjoyed more productive cucumber plants than ever before, but recently the enormous fruit are discoloring from green to yellow to orange before we can eat them. Here’s the reason why. Cucumbers turn orange when they grow excessively ripe before harvesting,…
-
Essex Ferry to Vermont
Great photograph! That “Essex Ferry to Vermont” sign is posted at the entrance to the Essex-Charlotte ferry dock located two houses and one library south of Rosslyn. That’s our boathouse in the center of the image. I came across this charming Essex image on the Essex Shipyard’s website, so it was most likely photographed by Linda or…
-
La Vie en Rose
Je vois la vie en rose I see life through rose-colored glasses — Édith Piaf Édith Piaf’s “La Vie En Rose” – usually translated as “Life Through Rose-Colored Glasses” – inevitably, joyfully came to mind when this sexy photograph was shared with me on Facebook by an Essex friend and neighbor, Janice Koenig. It turns out…
-
Adirondack Autumn 2012: Part II
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Geo Davis (@virtualdavis) It’s time for another installment of the Adirondack Autumn retrospective I launched last week. I’ll change gears from Rosslyn boathouse and waterfront snapshots to a few garden harvest memories. We had enormous luck with melons this season despite a slow start. Actually, our luck…
-
Paris, Rome, New York City and Essex
Early in the millennium I lived in Paris and Rome for a little while. Twin hardship posts! I shuffled back and forth on a roughly two week cycle with frequent detours to New York City to visit my then-girlfriend-now-bride. I lived out of a suitcase and a briefcase. I collected frequent flyer miles and passport…
-
Serene, Patinaed Fantasy
Accustomed to living out of a suitcase, I pendulumed back and forth between Manhattan where Susan was wrapping up a degree in interior design following a decade-long career in video production, and Westport, New York, where both of our parents owned homes and where we’d met a couple of years prior. Susan had recently refinished…
-
Paris Renovation Bug
Starting in about 2003 I initiated an unfocused real estate hunt for a “fixer-upper” in the Adirondacks’ Champlain Valley. I’d returned from four years in Europe with enough savings to justify some idle time, a reprieve I hoped to plough into a long languishing novel while tinkering with the vestiges of a web-based business I’d…
-
Totally, unabashedly, irreversibly seduced
Today’s question from Al Katkowsky‘s Question of the Day book was the perfect invitation to reflect on Rosslyn Redux, the “big picture”! What should you definitely not have done that turned out okay anyway? In the summer of 2006 I definitely should not have purchased a dilapidated, almost two hundred year old house in Essex,…
-
Hyde Gate For Sale or Rent
Rosslyn artifacts pop up all over the place! And they’re not always Rosslyn artifacts; sometimes they’re Hyde Gate artifacts or Sherwood Inn artifacts… Honestly one of the most enjoyable aspects of owning and renovating our home is stumbling across interesting relics of its almost 200 year history. I originally came across the advertisement above on…