Tag: Seasons
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Rhododendron Haiku
Another serenade to seasonality this Saturday in late May. I offer you a rhododendron haiku to honor this temperate turn from spring to a precocious preview of summery days ahead. Rhodos invite optimism. An audacious pinkish-purply-red extravaganza floating above a sea of green. A swell of polished rhododendron leaves creating a sea of Lily-of-the-Valley leaves.…
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Shadblow Blossoms
Another harbinger of spring, the shadblow have blossomed, brightening still virtually leafless windbreaks and meadow margins.
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Ready for Wild Ramps
A ramp (wild leek) scramble is a hungry forager’s perfect springtime breakfast!
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Asparagus Sunup to Sundown
Eureka! Or, better yet… Spargelzeit! Join me in celebrating asparagus time, one of my favorite highlights of the seasonal culinary calendar. For a month or two our asparagus cravings are sated sunup to sundown. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. Why so obsessive? Because the season is short. Because these delicate shoots look like and taste like the quintessence of…
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Trillium Time
Are you familiar with one of our more exotic wild flora that dazzles Adirondack Coast woodlands this time of year?
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Crocus Time
Crocus are among the most notable and predictable harbingers of springtime, sometimes beginning to poke their delicate green shoots up in the late winter. Considered by some to be symbols of rebirth, youth, and happiness, crocus are the quintessence of the Adirondack shift from inhospitable winter growing conditions to more temperate times when cultivating blooms…
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Spring Grilling
An informal ode to the grill’s seasonal migration from carriage barn hibernation to deck celebration. Let’s eat!
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Spring Snow Today (and 10 Years Ago)
Spring has sprung. So say the celestial bodies. So says the calendar. So say the daffodils and the Canada Geese. But winter-into-spring is a mercurial transition, and spring snow today reminds us that winter has not yet fully retired. Nor can we assume that this almost Easter dump is a total fluke. This view from…
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Sugaring Season
I’m remembering the year my brother and gathered sap and boiled it down over an open fire to maple syrup more than a decade ago. Hour after hour, day after day, emptying buckets, hauling buckets, stoking the fire pit with logs to keep the syrup boiling, but not boiling over. Though more than once we…
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Mute Muse: Swan Song
Two years ago today the mute swan returned to Rosslyn’s reopened “duck pond” and — for an all too brief interlude — we celebrated. Many of us indulged a moment of optimism that the solitary bird, ill equipped for our harsh winter conditions, might manage to make it to spring. Let’s rewind just a little…
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Midwinter Champlaining
As I see it, we’re about 2/3 of the way through winter with one month to go until we round the corner into springtime. Despite the fact that today didn’t exactly offer perfect conditions to launch the dory for a frosty February row, I do have a bit of good news. Atypically high water levels…