Tag: North Country
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Home Away
Two days ago I shared a scrapbook post that mentioned our “home away from home” and that subsequently referenced Curtain Bluff in Antigua (aka Wadadli). Immediate context was this welcome letter. That welcome letter and the sea urchin test (ie. shell) featured in that post. A fragile artifact from our home away from home… […]…
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Christmas Countdown
If the 12 days of Christmas refer to the interval between Christmas and Epiphany, then the same duration beforehand — the 12 days *prior* to Christmas, — are the Christmas countdown. And they’ve now begun… We’re already several days into this beautiful tree from Karen and Jim Thew, owners of the Spruce Mill Brook Christmas…
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Gray Day
What a persistent stretch of rainy gray days. It seems to me that February or March of this year marked a transition from *typical* North Country winter to rain-dominant weather. Then a rainy spring followed by a rainy summer. When autumn arrived, everyone was in agreement that the rain was behind us. Certainly September and…
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Undocking 2023
Were back at that bittersweet bookend to summer: undocking. And it’s in especially poignant threshold this year. We pulled the docks, boatlift, and both powerboats on Friday, September 22, 2023. The last day of summer, literally and metaphorically. At Rosslyn we… use the term [undocking] to describe the annual autumn removal of docks (and boat…
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Winter Solstice: Longer Days Ahead
Welcome to day one of the Adirondack Coast‘s coldest season. Today is the winter solstice, the first official day of winter, and — more importantly for the likes of my mother and others who favor longer days and shorter nights — the threshold between the briefest day and the most prolonged night and imperceptibly-but-steadily lengthening…
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Connection with Place
I was recently accused, tenderly but definitively, of being obsessed with locale, and more precisely, with my connection to place. As a lifelong wanderer, this struck me as slightly ironic. And accurate. By now my fixation on hyperlocality and placeness (aka the poetics of place) have become inextricably woven into the entirety of Rosslyn Redux, the robust and…
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Spring Meditation 2018
Welcome to springtime in the Champlain Valley, a glorious but slightly schizophrenic transition — sun, rain, wind, hot, snow, sleet, etc. — when springtails make way for dandelions. This visual meditation captures the haltingly springlike transformation of a small corner of Rosslyn’s back acreage over the last three months. A meadow’s margin. A fallen tree.…
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Steamboat Landing at Westport, NY circa 1907
Perhaps some of my North Country readers recognize this sylvan scene along the Adirondack shore of Lake Champlain? It is the site of present day Westport Marina in Westport, NY. Seen here in an earlier incarnation as a steamboat landing circa 1907, there are several notable differences with more contemporary photographs of this same waterfront. Most…
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How to Apply Tanglefoot to Trees
It’s Tanglefoot time again. Actually, we’re late — really late! — due to this rainy, soggy summer. But better late than never, especially since I’ve begun to spy the first tent caterpillars of the 2017 season. First a quick refresher. A little over a year ago I explained how to use Tanglefoot and I explained why…
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Holistic Orcharding: How to Apply Tanglefoot to Trees
It’s Tanglefoot time again. Actually, we’re late — really late! — due to this rainy, soggy summer. But better late than never, especially since I’ve begun to spy the first tent caterpillars of the 2017 season. First a quick refresher. A little over a year ago I explained how to use Tanglefoot and I explained why…
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How to Use Tanglefoot (And Why Fruit Trees Need It)
It’s time for a follow-up to my Organic Orcharding post, specifically a detailed look at how to use Tanglefoot for non-toxic pest control in a holistic fruit tree orchard. For readers wondering about zone compatibility and looking for a regional reference to help you evaluate the relevance of this post to your individual growing conditions,…
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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…