Tag: Daily Munge
-
Rifle & Eggs
“Mornin’,” Wes said as he pulled the pantry door shut behind him and greeted Griffin with a scratch behind the ears. “Good morning,” I called back from the kitchen where I was scrambling eggs. “You don’t want me to run that thing on the tennis court, do ya?” he asked, referring to the lawn aerator…
-
Rosslyn Roundup, May 4
It’s time for another Rosslyn Roundup to share everything Rosslyn-related that I didn’t get a chance to post over the last few weeks. Champlain Valleysprings are unpredictable and exciting, sometimes arriving early (this year) and other times hiding behind rain, rain, rain (last year). We’ve been celebrating our good fortune (quietly, with fingers crossed, while…
-
Timber Rattlesnake? Massasauga Rattlesnake?
Have you ever ever heard of an Eastern massasauga rattlesnake? Or a Sistrurus catenatus? Me either. Until recently. I’ve just come across notes that I scribbled almost three years ago on May 15, 2009 after seeing a large, unfamiliar snake behind the carriage barn. I tried to identify the exotic serpent but never solved the…
-
Orchard Rumination
Lately I’ve been reflecting on all the trees I wish I’d planted in the fall of 2006 and the spring of 2007. We’ve been adding new trees for a year now — a half dozen or so each spring and fall — and yet I can’t help but imagine what might be today if I’d…
-
Old Glory & Mud Season
I recently returned to Rosslyn after almost two months away. It was my single longest absence since buying the house in July 2006, and the extended hiatus was a bit surreal. I departed Essex in February and returned in April! For readers familiar with life in the Adirondacks, you’ll remember that we have the distinction…
-
Hawk Attacks Dove
Last Sunday my bride and I settled in for a post-lunch-tea-and-snooze in the parlor. The previous week’s unseasonably temperate spring-going-on-summer weather had yielded to cold and rain, so we weren’t feeling too guilty about playing hooky. No gardening or tidying up the waterfront for spring boating. No orchard pruning or apple tree grafting for us.…
-
Orchard Update: Apricots & Peaches
An early and mostly temperate spring has given us a jump start in Rosslyn’s gardens and meadows. The new orchard behind the carriage barn, already planted with plum trees and pear trees, has almost doubled in size over the last couple of weeks with the addition of apricots and peaches. Doug Decker, our carpenter-turned-jack-of-all-trades-handyman who…
-
Fox & Squirrel
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8vmPSvUNps] When I was in middle school my parents moved our family from a circa 1876 manse in Wadhams that they’d restored gradually over a decade, to a new home tucked into a tree-lined meadow near Lake Champlain. Formerly part of the Higginson farm, the homeowners association comprised a little over a half dozen camps…
-
Remembering and Recounting
“Life is not what one lives, but what one remembers and how one remembers it in order to recount it.” — Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Living to Tell the Tale As I organize multiple pieces of Rosslyn’s renovation, our littoral Adirondack existence, and my still-young marriage into some sort of coherent storyline I wrestle consciously with occasional…
-
Hickory Hill and Homeport
Rosslyn artifacts continue to emerge, and sometimes they’re not even even Rosslyn artifacts at all but Ross family artifacts. For example, I just discovered this antique postcard of the Ross Mansion (aka Hickory Hill) which was built in the early 1820s by the brother of W.D. Ross, the original owner of Rosslyn. Here’s the description provided…
-
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…
-
Gestation
In Letters To A Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke writes, “everything is gestation, then bringing forth”. My daily munge, what others might refer to as daily writing practice or a journal, is my place and process for gestation. It’s a place where I scribble and doodle and scrawl. Sometimes it’s five hours’ worth of writing;…