Tag: Winter
-
Sunup Sunday
Up early for a soggy gray morning, rambunctious not-quite-winter wind thrashing and whorling, raindrops on and off, on and off,… Not quite the sunup Sunday I’d conjured in my technicolor imagination! It was the sort of unsettled environment that makes the prospect of returning to bed more inviting than, say, making breakfast for Carley. But…
-
Flashing Flashback
Weather reminds us that autumn will inevitably yield to winter. Frost. Flurries. Cooold nights… Probably soon-ish, at least for short intervals. And yet the threat of colder, wetter, even snowier and icier days ahead is 100% less concerning than it was a year ago. We’d only just begun our foray into Rosslyn’s icehouse rehabilitation. And…
-
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…
-
Teak Table Renewal
As a teenager, I spent my summers working at the Westport Marina, first as a dock boy, and later, managing a fleet of rental boats. My coming of age memories are intricately interwoven with my boating and boatyard memories. They overlap. They converge. A recurring narrative during the boating preseason was cleaning, brightening, and oiling…
-
Poetry of Earth
I missed my mark — Earth Day, April 22, 2023 — with this post extolling the poetry of earth. It was germinal then, and it remains germinal today (albeit marginally more mature?) Sometimes a seed germinates with exuberance, practically exploding into existence as if overcome with the glory of imminent bloom and fruit. Other times…
-
35° Morning Dip in Lake Champlain
Among many curious characteristics that distinguish the dazzling Amazon who stole my heart 22 years ago, Susan actually enjoys cold water. Swimming in cold water! She claims that it is Scandinavian heritage (on her maternal side). And so it should come as no surprise that a 35° polar plunge in Lake Champlain is my bride’s…
-
Meditative March
Mornings offer me moments of introspection, mostly optimistic meditations catalyzed by the dawning of a new day. A fresh start. So much pent up potential swelling. And like morning, springtime fills me with enthusiasm for what is possible. A seasonal morning. And so I’m finding myself lately absorbed in this liminal zone of daily and…
-
Field Notes & Punch Lists
So many photos and field notes and punch lists, marked up plans, pruned and grafted scopes of work. This is the ephemera of construction and the detritus of rehabilitation. A midden of sketches and diagrams, souvenirs of collaborative problem solving, artifacts of alterations and adjustments,… this is the tangled and layered chorus we seek to…
-
Windy Winter Storm
This was not supposed to be today’s post. There were several others in the works. A timely update on progress inside the icehouse. And a meandering meditation on *reinvention*, specifically how it pertains to us — Susan, Rosslyn, and me — and why reinventing has become an enduring pillar for this project. But nature had…
-
Moonrise in March
Startled by the sightof lunar liftoffI slip-slide on ice,reel, rebalance, andthen I remember:a full moon risingtomorrow, tonightpenultimate nightof winter’s waxing.The March moon shimmerson unfrozen lake,saluting springtime’sassured/unassuredarrival two weeks —per the oracles,a frosty fortnightof whiplash weather —from this Monday eve.
-
Perspective vs. Nostalgia
I am not quite sure where I belong but I have always been engaged with where I am. I like to think this gives me both a resistance to nostalgia and a breadth of perspective but I could be wrong. — Edward Relph (Source: Placeness.com) Much thinking these end-of-February, beginning-of-March days on seasonality and sense of belonging,…
-
Saturday Snow Day
No progress on the icehouse project today. None. By design. And by the benevolence of mother nature. Today we celebrated a Saturday snow day! Although Saturdays and Sundays are usually rest days for most people, our amazing team has worked through weekends and days-off for months in order to ensure forward motion seven days a…