Tag: Spring
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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…
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Snack Attack
Hungry? Jonesing for noshes and nibbles? What?! Back to insipid blog prompts, I’m afraid. Today’s Bloganuary challenge isn’t horrible-horrible, but it certainly isn’t very inspiring. So, please forgive my snack attack post. What snack would you eat right now? Honestly, it seems to me that coming up with a months’ worth of inspirational, open-ended, push-you-out-of-your-comfort-zone,…
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Play Daily
From our first fanciful forays — pipe dreaming and what-iffing — Rosslyn represented for Susan and for me an opportunity to play more. Or so we imagined back in 2005 and 2006 as we slowly talked each other into a monumental life change. Although fantasy and reality haven’t overlapped exactly the way we conceived, most…
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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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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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Amish Adieu
I mentioned on Friday that our Amish gardeners have wrapped up for the season after six months of caretaking Rosslyn’s gardens, orchards, and grounds. Their cheerful demeanor and their diligent care will be missed, so I bid them a grateful Amish adieu until next spring. To our Amish friends with whom we would struggle to…
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Tom Duca’s Sunburst Gates
If Robert Frost was correct that “Good fences make good neighbors”, then experience has taught us that sunburst gates make neighbors into friends. And so today I doff my proverbial hat to neighbor, friend, and carpenter, Tom Duca. Tom was one of the first people we met when we moved to Essex in 2005, and…
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Ready for Radish Time?
Spring-into-summer is a celebratory parade of gastronomic gateways. Nettles, ramps, fiddleheads, asparagus, rhubarb,… So many seasonal ingredients and tastes. And now it’s radish time! These early French Breakfast Radishes are almost impossibly delicious. Crisp and spicy. Uniquely refreshing. The French Breakfast Radish (Raphanus sativus) is [an] early summer classic — and perennial staple of Rosslyn’s…
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Ready for Rhubarb Time?
Spring along the Adirondack Coast tempts us with plenty of enticing seasonal flavors, but a personal favorite is the sweet tart medley of local maple syrup and homegrown rhubarb. Although we’re still a little shy of rhubarb time, the maple syrup is standing by, and my imagination is conjuring up this springtime staple. It’s as…
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High Tunnel Hubris
Looks like my spring 2023 veggie garden exuberance (and perennially Pollyanna optimism) served me poorly. As we all well know from the time tempered tale of Daedalus and Icarus, the consequences of taking risks can send us plunging. Or, in the case of cheating the calendar by prematurely planting tomatoes, tomatillos, and other delicate spring…
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Green Eggs and Ham
As asparagus time begins yielding to rhubarb time (photo update soon!) I brainstorm asparagus recipes that I’ll lament overlooking once seasonality advances our homegrown ingredients. A vague recollection sends me filtering through old blog posts and then drafts of incomplete blog posts. I find notes started on May 14, 2014, and I know what my…
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Tulip Time 2023
Springtime is tulip time, a dramatic chapter in gardners’ succession blooming cycles. With snow drops, hyacinth, and daffodils fading, colorful tulip blooms take center stage. And this year’s tulip time does not disappoint. Signs of springtime are abundant lately. It’s asparagus time. Also ramps, apple blossoms, dandelions, fiddleheads, tulips, nettles,… And lily of the valley…