Tag: Amish

Among the Amish
In keeping with the modesty of our Amish neighbors, this morning I would like to offer an understated but respectful nod to the family who have been helping us maintain and nurture Rosslyn’s grounds over the past year. No personal portraits and no names. No website and no Instagram handle. But plenty of respect and gratitude to the kindhearted, hardworking men and women who help empower our stewardship of Rosslyn’s ample responsibilities and resources as well as groundskeeping at our ADK Oasis Lakeside and ADK Oasis Highlawn guest accommodations.

Among the Amish: One Horsepower (Photo: Geo Davis)

I’ll allow these images of horse and buggy to stand in for the individuals whose disciplined humility belies their industry, tenacity, and spirited nature.

We’re grateful to our Amish community for assistance nurturing Rosslyn’s organic vegetable, fruit, and flower gardens; our holistic orchard and vineyard; and 60+ acres of landscape.

[…]

One nearby Amish family has been trafficking between our properties, learning quickly what each garden, each plant, each property needs. (Source: Amish Assistance)

Pam’s gratitude for their mettle and endurance is especially notable, as circumstances have obliged her to evolve her business in an increasingly administrative and organizational capacity. Juggling a half dozen properties within our extended family (as well as additional properties for other clients) and project managing demanding construction projects for us leaves little opportunity for gardening, orcharding, landscape maintenance, wood splitting, and countless other chores that our Amish friends have willingly taken on.

Among the Amish: Buggy & Barn (Photo: Geo Davis)

Amish Buggy Haiku
```
Air conditioning
even when the horsepower
is pausing to graze.
```
There’s something slightly pastoral, slightly romantic about the buggy and barn snapshot above, and perhaps the haiku as well. And do I close with another gratitude, for life and work among the Amish offers this additional perk. Recalibrating and picturesque, their welcome presence and participation affords us opportunities to pause and contemplate a life lived differently from our own. And oh-so photogenic!
May 24, 2023
Amish Assistance

Amish Assistance Departs (Source: Rosslyn Redux)

We’re grateful to our Amish community for assistance nurturing Rosslyn’s organic vegetable, fruit, and flower gardens; our holistic orchard and vineyard; and sixty acres of landscape. While there’s much to admire about the dedicated women who have planted and weeded, pruned and suckered, nurtured and harvested for us, I’m especially grateful for their petroleum-free, exhaust free locomotion!

You suspect I jest? I do. Often. But not in this case. I’m actually quite fascinated with their efficiency of 21st century horse-and-buggy travelers.

And not only when our dedicated Amish gardeners arrive and depart, but on most every morning’s bike ride between the Adirondack foothills and Lake Champlain. I often share quiet, winding backroads with these courteous drivers. And last night, returning from Westport at an advanced hour, we witnessed three buggies moving along at a startlingly quick clip despite having no headlights. Only a single, diminutive lantern bounced within each buggy scarcely illuminating the driver, so certainly offering no navigational assistance.

Amish Assistance Arrives (Source: Rosslyn Redux)

As muscly pickup trucks and stealthy EVs wind through our rural communities, the Amish manage admirably to accomplish whatever locomotion they need without combustion engines or power grid tethers. There’s plenty to be learned from them, and not only for their dedicated industry.

This is a new opportunity for us. One nearby Amish family has been trafficking between our properties, learning quickly what each garden, each plant, each property needs. Since early spring the two to three sisters will arrive in the morning via ultra quiet conveyance. Although it took Carley a little while to become accustomed to the horse-drawn buggy, she’s no longer startled when the staccato sound of horse hooves and the curious crunching noise of carriage wheels on crushed stone awaken her from her postprandial snooze. She perks up, saunters into the screen porch, and observes. The bonneted young women wave, and I return their greeting. Carley watches until the horse and buggy disappear from view.

I’ll close with a short video I shot early in the morning last summer as another Amish buggy for a moment rolled in front of the rising sun.

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August 15, 2022
Transplant Soon?

With the high tunnel prepped and heating up and a variety of organic veggie seedlings maturing, we just might be able to jumpstart garden planting by a month.

Transplant Tomatoes Soon? (Photo: R.P. Murphy)

We have been fortunate this year to have help getting our vegetable plant seedlings underway from the Amish family up the road who helps us with so many outdoor activities at Rosslyn, from Aimee Baker who started growing for us last year, and from Pam Murphy who manages projects like this for us on the property.

Transplant Peppers Soon? (Photo: Aimee Baker)

So we have all sorts of healthy young organic vegetable plants, thriving and approaching the point when they can safely be transplanted. Here’s the most recent update from Aimee.

I’ve been putting them in greenhouse during day, bringing them in at night… next week is looking fantastic temperature wise. But I have a few more to transplant. I’m the next couple weeks they’ll really take off! I figure more towards 3rd week they should be doing well enough and hardened enough to get some into ground. The peppers may take a little longer as they take a little more time to take off and harden, I’m figuring an extra week so end of April they’ll be good to go. –Aimee Baker

With temperatures improving, there’s a fairly good chance. We will begin to get things seated in the next week or two. And possibly transplants in mid/late May… Stay tuned!

April 8, 2023
Giebel Garden Flashback

I apologize in advance for bypassing several timely updates on the icehouse rehabilitation progress. Sorry. I promise that they are coming soon. But there’s something about springtime, about gardening, about the promise of colorful blooms and produce that I’m finding too tempting to resist. And so I share with you what I’ll call a “Giebel garden flashback” from last summer, August 10, 2022 to be exact. Taken by dear friend Brian Giebel and pushed out to the world via Instagram, I revisit it now with all the enthusiasm and optimism of an almost 100% planted garden. May 2023 be as abundant as 2022!

Giebel Garden Flashback (Photo: Brian Giebel)

Thank you, Brian, for capturing this outrageous sunset (and my embarrassing posture). And thank you for reminding me what I’ve garden looks like in high season so that I may gird my angst about the two upcoming frost warnings.

I’ve learned again, and again that worrying about the weather is an unhealthy and unhelpful practice. So I won’t. Or, I will try not to worry. Nature, benevolent nature, will offer us what she considers right.

Artichokes Ready to Transplant (Photo: R.P. Murphy)

And in the meantime, we’ll postpone planting 18 newly arrived artichoke thistles. They look robust and healthy now, so we’ll try to keep them that way until the risk of frost has passed. Then, into the garden, they go!

Artichokes Ready to Transplant (Photo: R.P. Murphy)

Once those artichokes are planted, we will be almost finished. Today we offer an especial thanks to Pam for rounding up the artichokes (the last available from our supplier), and the Amish family who helps ensure that our seeds are in the freshly filled ground and the transplants are well tended. Thank you!

Giebel Garden Flashback (Photo: Brian Giebel via Instagram)

And to you, Brian, thanks for this Instagram post nine months past that fills me now with hope for our future harvest. Soon we will be feasting once again!

May 16, 2023