Tag: Themes
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Moon Over Lake Champlain
Last night’s moonrise over the Vermont foothills (south of the Green Mountains) was absolutely sensational! The moon started out fat and orange as it made a dramatic appearance. My bride and I first spied the moon over Lake Champlain while driving home to Essex from Willsboro after dining at Johnny’s Smokehouse. Breathtaking. And elusive because it…
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We could live at Rosslyn
“We could live at Rosslyn,” I said. “What?” Susan sounded startled. “You mean buy Rosslyn and live there?” “Why not? If we lived there, if it were going to be our home instead of just an investment, maybe we could justify buying it.” We had joked about how much time and money it would take…
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Ed Pais visits Rosslyn Boathouse
Edward Pais was a classmate of mine at Deerfield Academy from 1986 to 1990, and he now practices architecture in Burlington, Vermont. Despite being out of touch for more than two decades we recently reconnected via Facebook. Ed joined the Rosslyn Redux Facebook page and he’s offered ongoing feedback about our boathouse during the Lake…
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Almost Logical
Within minutes we were tripping over each other, drunk with excitement, imagining one whimsical “What if…” scenario after another. No filter, no caution. Our reveries flitted from one idyllic snapshot to another. “What if I finally sat down and finished my novel?” After dawdling self indulgently for a dozen years – writing, rewriting, discarding, rewriting,…
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Rosslyn Gardens: Heirloom Tomatoes and More
Rain, rain, rain. That was the main melody this spring, and all of that rain delayed planting vegetables. But as Lake Champlain‘s devastating flood of 2011 begins to subside, I shift my attention to the garden. The latest video update takes a look at what’s been planted in the garden including lots of tomatoes: Beaverlodge…
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Kids, Friends and MSG
“You’re right. We both could have careers,” she said. I nodded. “But could we really live full time in the boonies? Where the closest healthy supermarket is in Vermont, a ferry ride away?” “I could. I have.” “Maybe I could… Our friends here lead great lives, right?” “Right.” “They have so much more to talk…
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Rosslyn Roundup, June 6
Monday morning media mashup? From Champlain Area Trails (CATS) to Old Adirondack, there are so many local news updates directly related to Rosslyn that I’ve collected the half dozen most relevant links for you. The titles are clickable links to the primary content, so once you’ve read each blurb (in most cases excerpted directly from…
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Make Way for Ducklings
As a child, one of my favorite picture books was Make Way for Ducklings, by Robert McCloskey. Really… Okay, am I giving away too much? Probably. That’s the way of the storyteller! There was something about those illustrations — simple unselfconscious line drawings halfway between representational sketches and cartoons — that captivated me, that compelled…
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Postprandial Soak
After dinner Susan opted for a postprandial soak. Quiet. Languid. Sybaritic. Tasha curled up beside the bathtub, sighed and fell asleep. A breeze carried the faint smell of pine trees through the open window. A whippoorwill called in the distance. “Wouldn’t it be great if we could live here?” Susan said. “Why couldn’t we?” I…
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Rosslyn Boathouse: Friends, Flooding and Photos
This afternoon Essex neighbor Stephen Phillips stopped by to help assess the damage to Rosslyn boathouse caused by week after week after week of flooding. Having run a large contracting company for many years, his perspective is valuable and his offer of assistance welcome. In the photo below he’s sitting on the stairway down to…
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Vintage Adirondack
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TQI3QmIhrw] My bride and I credit the Adirondack lifestyle for luring us away from Manhattan in 2006 to become North Country full-timers. But what exactly is the Adirondack lifestyle? Actually it’s not so easily defined, perhaps because there are so many different perspectives on what makes living (or even vacationing) in the Adirondacks desirable. High…