Tag: Bob Kaleita
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Icehouse Landscaping Update, End of May
Sooo much progress as we hustle the icehouse rehab toward its conclusion in these final days of May…
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Old Year’s Day
Did you know that another name for New Year’s Eve Day is Old Year’s Day? Not used widely, in my experience, but logical. Retrospective. Emphasis on the year expiring rather than the year arriving. Despite a personal proclivity for forward-looking and possibility, a year-end review offers merits too. This day’s, this year’s minutes are too…
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Driveway Tuneup
For several years, I have been planning to make improvements on Rosslyn’s driveway. Not dramatic changes, nor a huge project. With 2023 swiftly vanishing, we have initiated our long overdue driveway tuneup, completing the brunt of the work with spring 2024 “fine tuning” slotted in once the new work has weathered in during an Adirondack…
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Evening Emanation
This evening emanation greeted me while inspecting progress of the driveway improvements being undertaken by Bob and Phil, or *endeavoring* to inspect their work in the darkness that descends earlier and earlier and earlier this time of year. A glowing beacon. A bucolic barnscape. An icehouse lighthouse… After a year and a half of creative…
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Why Helical Piles?
Today Bob Kaleita and Phil Valachovic installed helical piles for a small privacy fence that will conceal the propane tank, generator, mini split compressor, etc. behind Rosslyn’s carriage barn. I’d like to dilate today’s update with a more detailed explanation of the helical piles concept and utility as an alternative to precast or poured concrete…
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Hedging
This summer of rain our evergreen hedges have rioted, sprouting enthusiastically, reaching upward and outward, unruly, wayward. Time for hedging! So much water and months of temperate weather have invigorated our well-established yews and hemlocks. As we’re only a week and a half from flipping the calendar from summer to autumn, we decided it was…
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Hydroseeding Icehouse Environs
A quick post this evening to thank Bob and Eric for hydroseeding the soon-to-be-grass lawns around Rosslyn’s icehouse. It’s been a disruptive 10+ months during rehabilitation, and given the site work and construction staging, debris, etc. we’ve become accustomed to mud, mud, mud. But today — at looong last — we begin the regreening. Hydroseeding?…
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Gully Washer
Good golly, it’s a gully washer! Lately it seems that this slang term for a sudden cloudburst (and the inevitable inundation that follows) has come up in more conversations than not. Sooo many gulley washers… Here’s what this afternoon’s installment looked like from the screen porch as I watched, concerned that all of the site…
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Post-Construction Sitework Begins
Yes, the rainstorms continue to batter us. A nice day yesterday – a welcome reprieve that permitted us to squeeze in some boating during my niece’s visit — but by this afternoon the inundation had resumed. Not super helpful on the same day that post-construction sitework begins… It’s a welcome site to have Bob Kaleita…
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RIP Tennis Court
Once upon a time Rosslyn was the Sherwood Inn, an accommodation for vacationers, a restaurant, and a colonial taproom. As I understand, it there was a clay tennis court adjacent to the icehouse in those years. Perhaps the tennis court pre-dates the Sherwood Inn, dating back to Hyde Gate House? I will certainly update this…
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The Past Lives On
The past lives on in art and memory, but it is not static: it shifts and changes as the present throws its shadow backwards. — Margaret Drabble I return today to a recurring theme, a preoccupation perhaps, that wends its way through my Rosslyn ruminations and my collections of photographs and artifacts. While the past…
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Snow Falling on Homecoming
Today’s ferry ride from Charlotte to Essex — with snow falling on homecoming — tasted bittersweet if vaguely familiar. There was a wellspring of anticipation upon returning to inspect firsthand the team’s progress on the icehouse rehab, boathouse gangway, and some painting and tiling maintenance inside our home. There was also the poignant pique of…