Tag: Spring
-
Lake Champlain is Rising, Rising, Rising
I’ve been back in the Adirondacks for a week after a six week “walkabout” with my bride and beast (Griffin, a 5 year old Labrador Retriever). And today is the first day that it hasn’t rained since we our return. The sky is blue. The sun is warm. Robins are plucking worms from the soggy…
-
Kamikaze Wild Turkey: The Gallopavo Imbroglio
“George, uh, when you get a chance, can you give me a call? A, uh, a turkey hit your door last night and, um, it knocked the door off its hinges…” A turkey? What? The voicemail had popped up on my mobile while I was riding to the airport in Antigua following ten days of…
-
Rosslyn Unplugged
Yesterday, Thursday, May 15, 2009 was windier than a subway median at rush hour. Lake Champlain wind blasts reached 50 mph. The forecast had threatened gusts up to 90 mph. The rain drizzled off and on all day, but the fellow building the stone wall near the mud room stuck it out and got the…
-
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…
-
Reawakening Rosslyn
“Rather than trying to coerce the house to do something new, we tried to reawaken it.” (New England Home) In “Taking the Long View” Paula M. Bodah refers to the renovation of a Victorian house near Boston, Massachusetts in unusually anthropomorphic terms. Reawaken? Since when do houses sleep? Despite the unfamiliar reference, Bodah’s terminology is…
-
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.…
-
Rosslyn for Sale
Susan and I were driving back to Rock Harbor after visiting Rosslyn, an early 19th century home in Essex, New York, which our realtor had just shown us for the second time in several months. It was spring. At least a dozen sailboats speckled Whallons Bay as we wound south along the edge of Lake…
-
Imagining Rosslyn Boathouse, Spring 2006
“Coffee? You don’t even drink coffee,” Susan said. “I know. I know it doesn’t make any sense. But I’m walking through Rosslyn early in the morning with a steaming cup of coffee…” I hadn’t drunk coffee since college, and I’d obviously never wandered around Rosslyn at the crack of dawn either. But I kept having…
-
Soggy Soil Delays Planting
With some Champlain Valley residents being evacuated by boat and the Wesport Marina totally flooded, we’re feeling fortunate that a submerged boathouse and waterfront is the extent of our flooding problems. Although we have our work cut our for us when Lake Champlain water levels drop, another short-term challenge is the super saturated soil. Tilling…
-
Organic Box Springs
After another toss-turn-twist-roll-toss-turn night I spent some time trolling the web for organic mattresses and organic box springs. It’s truly amazing how much this marketplace has changed over the last year or two. There are literally too many options to sort out! I’m hoping to inspire Susan to look into a few and see if…