Rosslyn Redux

Tag: Seasons

  • Adirondack Autumn 2012: Part III

    Adirondack Autumn 2012: Part III

    Adirondack Autumn 2012: Part III (Source: Rosslyn Redux)

    Adirondack autumn is sliding stealthily into winter. I’d better accelerate my fall iPhonography retrospective so that I’m ready to chronicle Rosslyn’s soon-to-be-snowy winter. In order to fast track the process, I’ll [almost] skip the textual annotations that I included in Adirondack Autumn 2012: Part I and Adirondack Autumn 2012: Part II.

    The video slide show above is story enough, I think, but there are a few images that beg explanation. There are several photos related to boating because me bride and I stretch the season as much as “comfortably” possible in the autumn. In fact, we stretch the whole season, starting early and ending late. Most years we are able to enjoy a six month sailing, windsurfing, waterskiing, wakesurfing season starting at the beginning of May and ending in the final days of October. So these images are a watersports swansong of sorts.

    A more rigorous editor would have eliminated the “live simply” snapshot, but I love this t-shirt given to me by my sister-in-law. Sure, the graphic’s great, but it’s the reminder that I value each time I come across it on my t-shirt shelf. I’m hoping to play with the idea in a cartoon soon, a sequence of the simple pleasures of rural Adirondack living with the slightly ironic banner, “Live simply!” Stay tuned…

    Veteran RR readers will know that the squirrels occupy a dramatic place in our Rosslyn lifestyle, so I won’t get into that here, but those images capture the quirks and charms of our “Adirondack monkeys”. Squirrel-proof birdfeeders? We’ve tried five varieties so far, but the squirrels always succeed. And the squirrel perched on the edge of the stone water trough? Just try to convince me he’s not peeing in the drinking water!

    I included my ever growing collection of gardening books because I was reminded again this fall that gardening occupies my imagination even as the gardening season is ending. One might expect their enthusiasm for planting and weeding and landscaping and harvesting to flag after many months of spring-summer-fall gardening. But instead, my mind turns to next season. Adirondack autumn means fall planting. Maintenance. Changes. It’s been a busy fall for Rosslyn landscaping and gardening projects, but I’ll postpone these updates until later. And once the snow begins to fall I pull out the books again and begin to sketch plans for next spring, make lists and schedules, order seeds for indoor forcing,… By late winter when my seedlings are well underway in our basement under lamps, I’ll begin pruning fruit trees. In short, even in the Adirondacks gardening is a year round passion.

    The shots of tempting chalkboard menus come from the Essex Ice Cream Cafe which for the first time (ever?) is open year-round for breakfast and lunch. And, soon, they’ll be launching a turn-back-the-clock delicacy that not only tastes sensational, but carries some personal satisfaction as well. More on that once the secret is no longer a secret and the most delicious maple-derived confection in the world is available again, more than a century after it was first produced in Essex. Okay, I’m teasing you. Details soon!

    Perfect transition to that odd photo at about 1:02 in the slide show. What’s that?!?! Dog food, perhaps? Actually that was a memorable venison stew with spinach. Deer hunting is an important part of North Country culture and though I do not partake (I’m a poor gunner, and I find it difficult to shoot anything that can bat an eyelash at me,) I love venison. Several generous friends share with me each fall, and this stew was the best I’ve ever made. Lots of onions and wine get cooked down with the venison, and lentils and wild rice are added toward then end. The spinach was a last minute stir-in. So, it’s a feast for the belly, not the eyes.

    The next picture, a step closer to eye candy, is broiled cabbage. Sounds unpromising. Try it. Delicious. I’ve made it several times, and it I can manage, I’ll share the ultra simple recipe soon. Even non-cabbage stalwarts love it!

    I think that everything is self-explanatory. If not, let me know. Thanks for sharing our Adirondack autumn.

  • Autumn Vegetable Garden Update

    Autumn Vegetable Garden Update

    It’s been getting considerably cooler at night lately, and feeling fall-like much earlier than the last few years. We’ve already had two nights that broke forty degrees! But still no killing frost.

    The vegetable garden is still thick with produce. We’ve been eating cantaloupes and musk melons just as quickly as we can. The same goes for eggplant and tomatoes. We’ve lost the battle with cucumbers which are getting so big they’re almost obscene. I have to apologize before giving them away as a gifts lest I offend someone with tender sensibilities. Fortunately they still taste good. The key is to slice them the long way and scoop out all of the seeds the same way you do with melons.

    Several varieties of tomatoes have succumbed to blights. Fortunately the affliction hasn’t really damaged many tomatoes themselves, just the plants. It seems to primarily be an issue with the determinate varieties. 75% of the indeterminate plants are still growing like gangbusters, pumping out large, delicious heirloom tomatoes.

    The zucchini seem to have gone dormant, although they’re still producing lots of blossoms. I would love to cook up some squash blossoms before the season ends, but haven’t managed to do it yet.

    Lots and lots of sweet peppers too. And a full crop of green beans, spinach, lettuce, Swiss chard, and baby kale coming online soon. I grew a small quantity of beets with the intention of harvesting their “greens” (actually, their deep purple/red). We ate about half of the crop in our salads this summer, but at this point many of them have grown into full grown beets. So we’ll end up harvesting those as well this fall.

    What else? The Brussels sprouts are just beginning to set, so I need to snap off most of the foliage to concentrate their energy into sprouts. We pulled up all the corn stocks and composted them. The leaks will be ready to start harvesting in about a month, and only the artichokes have failed to produce. After last summer’s bumper crop, it’s a mystery. Half of the plants succumbed to root rot during the rainy month of June. And the half dozen plants that lived are runty and unproductive. To date none have set even the smallest of chokes. Not giving up yet though…

  • Early Autumn

    Early Autumn? The weather Channel tells the story...
    Early Autumn? The weather Channel tells the story…

    Autumn appears to be coming early this year. For at least a week nights have been dropping into the chilly 50s. And this morning I see that temperatures slid even lower.

    Perhaps this is normal? Yet it doesn’t seem normal. The 40s in mid August? In Essex, New York? On the shores of Lake Champlain which usually acts as a “heat sink” effectively extending our warm season?

    Early Autumn’s Reminder

    Early Autumn? The thermometer outside my bedroom verifies the chilly story...
    Early Autumn? The thermometer outside my bedroom verifies the chilly story…

    Whether or not early autumn is here to stay, it’s serving as a reminder. Get out and enjoy the temperate weather before it’s gone. Today and tomorrow promise to be sunny and warm, perfect days for cycling and hiking and gardening. Perhaps even windsurfing? Or wake surfing? Hopefully one or the other!

    And there’s another goal I’ve set but neglected for several years. I’d like to make a habit of working in the boathouse for a few hours away from my study, my desk, my piles and files. No better time than the present. No better motivator than a crisp, early autumn morning when I can faintly see my breath in the sir as Griffin sniffs around the yard. Soon it will be too cold to work in the boathouse. Soon…

    Anticipating Autumn

    Of course, early autumn whispers aren’t all “Caution!” and “Carpe diem…” After all, Adirondack autumns might well be the finest time of the year. The harvest reaches its peak. The hiking and biking are unquestionably superior to all other times of the year. Photography. Sunsets. Sailing. Fly fishing. Fall foliage. The day the ginkgo leaves shower down…

    In short, August’s recent summer lullaby marks both a bittersweet ending and a joyful beginning. It’s a time to savor summer’s delicacies and anticipate autumn adventures ahead. I think I’ll call a chum and bum a sail!

  • Autumn Equinox

    Autumn Equinox

    Outbuildings, September 22, 2020 (Source: Geo Davis)
    Outbuildings, September 22, 2020 (Source: Geo Davis)

    Autumn equinox is upon us again. Better than daylight savings time, right? Equal day and equal night. A perfect easterly sunrise and a perfect westerly sunset.

    So many thresholds. August-to-September. Labor Day. First frost. First hard frost. Autumn equinox. Halloween. Daylight savings time. Thanksgiving…

    Autumn is a season of thresholds. And among the many metaphorical doorsills and gateways, tomorrow seems especially significant since it’s a *real*, transition, like first frost, not an invented human centric ritual. A celestial no less!

    How will you mark this autumn equinox?

  • Autumn Twangs

    Autumn Twangs

    September Twangs, September 23, 2019, (Source: Geo Davis)
    September Twangs, September 23, 2019, (Source: Geo Davis)

    September Twangs Haiku

    Early morning light
    in mid-late, late September
    twangs like a banjo.

    Three years and two days ago, September 23, 2019, autumn light leapt the visual audio barrier shortly after sunrise. The moment, really a medley of moments, still resonates today. Cooling hues and crisper textures tickle nostalgia for fall foliage past, the sentimental tug of mornings, no, illuminations past, hollowed out, taught, ready to be plucked into song.

    Lyric longing. Morning luminescence. The icehouse dormant just beyond the basswood tree so recently. Now awakening. Coming to life just as autumn twangs, summer exists, winter rehearses.

    Falling Forward…

    A month from now, as autumn achieve’s its most dramatic, most colorful climax, childish charm inevitably gives way to the inevitable arrival of winter. In “Autumn Vibes”, the exuberance and optimism that twangs in the haiku above still linger but are already fading, resolving into the sweep of seasonality. Seasons come. Seasons go…

  • Autumn Aeration

    Autumn Aeration

    Autumn Aeration: Tony Foster preparing lawns for a healthy 2023 growing season (Source: R.P. Murphy) Autumn Aeration: Tony Foster preparing Rosslyn’s lawns for a healthy, holistic 2023 growing season (Source: R.P. Murphy)

    If perfection were possible, then Rosslyn’s lawns would be dethatched and perforated deep into the soil every spring and every autumn to ensure healthy circulation of water, nutrients, and air. Needless to say, most years (every year?!?!) perfection eludes us. But, in keeping with our holistic approach to gardening, orcharding, and landscaping, we’ve come to rely upon at least once yearly (autumn aeration is preferable when we only have time for once-a-year) to ensure robust lawns. Experience has shown us that a healthy diet of organic fertilizer, zero pesticide, and aeration nurtures not only an attractive ground cover, but a resilient heterogenous sod that rebounds quickly after drought, etc.

    Before continuing, a quick thought on why I favor autumn aeration over spring aeration, all things being equal. September and especially October offer the perfect balance of still-warm soil, ensuring efficient coring (spring can be muddy, gumming up the aerator) and cool temperatures slowing the growth of the grass as it approaches winter dormancy. It’s always better to prune, trim, and aerate with a minimum of impact to the plants, so the closer to dormancy, the better.

    Autumn Aeration: Tony Foster preparing lawns for a healthy 2023 growing season (Source: R.P. Murphy) Tony Foster aerating Rosslyn’s lawns to ensure root-deep circulation of water, nutrients, and air during the coming year (Source: R.P. Murphy)

    The photographs in this post show the indispensable Tony Foster, jack of all trades (master of all that requires physical exertion), patiently aerating. Shortly he will follow up with organic fall fertilizer and grass over-seeding. These bedfellows will slumber together over the long winter months, and by springtime they’ll be ready to fortify the lawn for another season of dog and human activity.

    Tony has also aerated the lawns for us up the lake at our ADK Oasis vacation rental properties, so his perspective is informed when he explains the benefits of autumn aeration.

    “It’s very loving, very caring for life. It gives air to the roots. And water. We need these things to live.” — Tony Foster

    If only I’d been so succinct! Tony is spot on. Autumn aeration (and spring aeration, when we have the luxury of time) provides to our heterogeneous mix of grasses what it needs to thrive.

    It takes about 3 hours to aerate a lawn depending on acreage. It’s simple. It involves punching holes into the ground sending oxygen and water to the roots. There are professional size aerateors to cover more ground. Similar to mowing a lawn, Aerating lawns relieves packed soil and allows air water and essential nutrients to reach grass roots. Almost Any lawn can benefit from this process given the low water table in the area causing lawns and gardens to grow poorly.

    In our area early fall and spring are some of the best times of year to do this. Aerating can be tough to do in dry soil, so you are best to aerate when the soil is damp or a few days after it rains.

    The equipment can be rented if you would like to do your own lawn from several lawn and garden stores or you can hire someone proficient in the process.

    You want to stay away from roots or stumps because it can damage the machine. — Tony Foster

    Autumn Aeration: Tony Foster preparing lawns for a healthy 2023 growing season (Source: R.P. Murphy) Autumn Aeration: Tony Foster preparing lawns for a healthy 2023 growing season (Source: R.P. Murphy)

    Autumn Aeration for a Tennis Court?

    Back on May 8, 2012 I posted a thinly fictionalized account of aerating the lawn, and I focused on a specific area of Rosslyn’s yard. Adjacent to the icehouse now being rehabilitated, once upon a time there was a clay tennis court. This area has long since returned to grass, but it’s still recognizable despite the fact that we’ve removed almost all vestigial indications (actually one steel net post remains as a sort of memorial… for now.) The perfectly level lawn and the outline of a tennis court were until recently notably if you wandered uphill as Tony is doing in the photo above. We’ve used this area over the years as a perfect volleyball and croquet court.

    In that post we decided not to aerate the old tennis court area of the lawn.

    “You don’t want me to run that thing on the tennis court, do ya?” he asked, referring to the lawn aerator we had rented…

    […]

    “Good question, Wes. I didn’t think about that.”

    […]

    “I was just thinking about the clay, you know?”

    “You’re probably right. You don’t want to get bogged down in clay. Let’s skip the tennis court and focus on whatever else remains around the carriage barn and back around the gardens.” (Source: Rifle & Eggs)

    In recent years I’ve recently second guessed that decision to forgo aerating the tennis court. After all, the clay is especially compacted and it drains poorly. What better candidate for aeration? And so we now include it in the acres of green that Tony patiently nurtures with autumn aeration, fertilizing, and overseeing.

  • Autumn Vibes

    Autumn Vibes

    Autumn Vibes ⁣(Photo: R.P. Murphy)
    Autumn Vibes ⁣(Photo: R.P. Murphy)

    Sugar maples ablaze between the orchard, gardens, and barns. What a season! ⁣Thanks, Pam, for capturing the autumn vibes from this fun vantage point in the nearest of Rosslyn’s meadows.

    Although leaf peeping fiery fall foliage is inevitably and justifiably the cynosure this time of year, autumn vibes are aroused insubtler ways as well.

    Ripe apples and pears in the orchard. Grapes trellised along the fence line. Blueberry bushes blushing crimson. Squirrels hustling acorns into their winter larders. Deer, emboldened, arcing easily over the fence to forage the gardens and orchard. Canada geese chattering south in protean Vs, settling onto the lake or into the fields for the night…

    There are so many transitions to mark this mature season.

    And this year we have a new ritual this year: re-covering the high tunnel after months of open air gardening. New scissor doors will make air circulation and cooling convenient in the coming weeks when daytime solar gain can still be significant. And with a hint of good fortune we may even extend our growing season later than in the past. New experiment. New territory. New optimism. And the always new but familiar autumn vibes of light frost followed by heavy frost — gentle warning followed by mortal barrage — whittle dramatically away at the vegetable garden’s viability. But with the high tunnel it just might look a bit different this year. We hope so.

    Autumn Vibes Haiku

    Early the ash turns,
    now maples and blueberries,
    succession of leaves.
                    — Geo Davis

    So recently I shared a still-ripening vision of autumn, similarly infused with lyric longing and luminescence, but less resigned, less resolved, perhaps less poignant. In “September Twangs” the micro poem wasn’t puerile, but it did sing with the intoxicating twang of exuberance and curiosity. The poem above, though a mere sliver of a season, nods to the inevitability of fall’s flourish fading. If the earlier haiku was a ginger, matinal perspective, a youthful perspective when autumn was just arriving, this October haiku is less twang and more the sound of fireworks fading. Perhaps a sonic boom echo-doppling into the forests and hills, perhaps a casdade of delicate cracklings decaying downward, twinkling sparks like celestial petals falling free of their blooms, bending toward gravity’s seductive beckon, then fluttering toward the placid lake’s watery mirror.

  • Garter Snake in the Snow in Summer

    Garter snake gliding out of the Snow in Summer ground cover at Rosslyn in Essex, NY.
    Garter snake gliding out of the Snow in Summer ground cover at Rosslyn in Essex.

    That was one jumbo garter snake, friends! Even longer than the timber rattlesnake I witnessed a couple of weeks ago in a friends barn, though falling short in girth, rattles, and venom.

    Though this Common Garter Snake (Thamnophis sirtalis) was docile and quickly retreated into a crevice in the stone wall, it’s a common misconception that these familiar garden-variety snakes are not venomous. They are.

    According to Dr. Bryan Fry, a biologist from the University of Melbourne, garter snakes needn’t be feared, but the do use venom to subdue their prey.

    “Most of the snakes that we think of as nonvenomous are actually venomous,” he explained. Garter snakes and many other supposedly nonvenomous snakes actually produce tiny amounts of venom. Dr. Fry is quick to point out that this does not mean that garter snakes are dangerous. “All they need to do is stun a frog or slow it down a bit, and it’s enough to help them,” he said. (The New York Times)

    I recall being bitten by a testy garter snake multiple times as a young boy. Then, as now, I was intrigued with snakes. I was less than five years old, playing in the yard at “The Farm”. I no longer recall where or how I captured the small snake, but I knew enough to discern between dangerous snakes and the almost harmless garter snake.

    Each time I would pick up the increasingly angry snake, it would bite my hand. I would drop it into the grass and then stoop to pick it up again. Another bite. Drop. Pick up.

    I was a slow learner.

    Despite a collection of small nips, there was no lasting damage. Apparently no venom made its way into my young hand.

    Although garter snakes are not considered venomous, they have a gland above the upper jaw on either side (corresponding to the venom gland of vipers and other venomous snakes) that produces potentially toxic secretions. In general, bites from garter snakes are harmless because these snakes lack fangs and thus cannot efficiently inject the gland’s secretions. However, prolonged bites by western terrestrial and common garter snakes have caused swelling and localized bleeding in people, presumably because unusually large amounts of the secretions seeped into the victims. (Online Nevada Encyclopedia)

    I rarely pick up garter snakes these days. I’m not sure exactly why, but I don’t. Maybe I’m more sensitive to their plight, aware that being pulled out of your habitat by a clumsy giant just so he can get a closer look isn’t exactly what I’d wish for were in the serpent’s handsome black and yellow striped skin. Or scales…

    Nevertheless I enjoy finding them, especially when they’re as big and healthy as this one. I discovered him sunning in the Snow in Summer, a soft cushiony groundcover that must have felt pretty pleasant with the morning sun. Until a gawking giant and his nosy Labrador Retriever came along.

  • Midsummer Mementos

    This is the first sweetcorn I've harvested from our vegetable garden this summer. Delicious!
    The first sweetcorn I’ve harvested from our vegetable garden this summer. Crisp, sweet, fresh, delicious!

    It was chilly this morning, low 50s, having apparently hit 49 in the still-dark hours before I woke.

    Not unpleasant chilly, just a little reminder that a month from now this will begin to be normal. Days like today with sunny skies feathered with wispy clouds and puffs of crisp wind will whisper, “Ready for autumn?”

    But not yet. This midsummer morning is just a preview. And a reminder to soak up all that is vibrant about early August. The first sweetcorn harvested from our vegetable garden. So crisp, so sweet, so fresh.

    A pausing butterfly, black and white wings opening and closing as if the fragile creature is inhaling, exhaling, inhaling. Resting beneath a blueberry bush.

    Sea glass (lake glass?) from Rosslyn's Lake Champlain waterfront.
    Sea glass (or “lake glass”, perhaps?) from Rosslyn’s Lake Champlain waterfront in Essex, New York.

    The recently completed standing seam roof on the carriage barn, insurance against winters’ snowfalls and architectural parity with the ice house. At last.

    A collection of sea glass and pottery fragments piled on the stone retaining wall by our boathouse. A gift from Lake Champlain.

    The newest arrival in a parade of daylilies. A petite variety near the waterfront with centers as yellow as the sweetcorn, stretching decadently into the garnet petals.

    This is the bittersweet romance of early August. As midsummer’s bounty reaches its extravagant apex, we glimpse brief hints of autumn flitting in the distance like a mirage.

    I remember to take advantage of the present. Before it is gone.

    More Midsummer Mementos

    Here are a few additional midsummer mementos. I first typed, “Here are a few final midsummer mementos.” But I caught myself. Final? I suspect not… 😉

  • Hammock Days of Indian Summer

    Rosslyn Boathouse, Indian Summer (Photo by Eve Ticknor)
    Rosslyn Boathouse, Indian Summer (Photo by Eve Ticknor)

    A warm thank you to friend, photographer, and some time Essex neighbor Eve Ticknor for giving me these evocative images of Rosslyn’s boathouse.

    You will see in my photographs, ways to see water, not just to look at it. Honing your observation skills will open your eyes to other worlds. ~ Eve Ticknor (Aquavisions)

    Rosslyn Hammock, Indian Summer (Photo by Eve Ticknor)
    Rosslyn Hammock, Indian Summer (Photo by Eve Ticknor)

    Indeed. Eve’s photographs capture  dreamy abstractions that don’t easily reveal their source. Rarely does she share images as literal and representational as these. So I considered myself very fortunate when I received her email recently.

    The photos were accompanied with a question: Is that you in the hammock? She had shot the photographs from near the Belden Noble Memoiral Library on the Essex ferry dock. At first, she hadn’t noticed that someone was reading in the    hammock. It wasn’t until she saw my flip-flops on the deck that she realized someone was contentedly resting.

    She caught me!

    Image of Indian Summer

    Although we’ve already experienced some chilly days and nights this fall, we’re also enjoying frequent installments of Indian summer. I’ve taken advantage of a few such days to grab my tablet and work lakeside from the comfort of my “corner office”.

    Eve explores refracted and reflected images on the surface of water, never using Photoshop or filters to alter her images. What we see is what she saw. And yet she succeeds in capturing all sorts of whimsical illusions on the water surface.

    Illusion of Indian Summer

    And yet these fun photos are no illusion. I was busted midafternoon playing hooky. Can you blame me?

  • Summer 2019 Flashback

    Summer 2019 Flashback

    Historic Essex offers plenty of Instagram-able views and vignettes, don’t you think? And it’s always a fun surprise to see familiar facades pop up in other shutterbugs’ feeds.

    From midwinter’s snowy vantage, this sunny moment offers a sweet if slightly sultry siren call to the dog days of summer.

  • Organic Box Springs

    Organic Box Springs
    Dissecting 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 maybe she’d be willing to try out something new… A couple that look promising:

    • Home Green Home Organic Box Spring
    • Abundant Earth Organic Cotton Box Spring
    • Earthsake Organic Box Spring
    • Royal-Pedic Double Diamond Box Spring
    • Rawganique Organic Box Spring

    I’ve come to suspect that our problem with the bed/mattresses we’ve been sleeping on since moving into Rosslyn might have less to do with the mattress and more to do with the box spring, or lack thereof. The mattress sits on a rigid platform that was built for us. I’ve read in several places that heavier bodies (I’m usually around 205 pounds) are better supported by mattresses with springs in conjunction with box springs.

    “Sleepers over 175 lbs. especially will appreciate the increased flexibility of a box spring compared to a rigid slatted platform.” (Home Green Home)

    Worth a try? Susan’s found it incredibly hard to sleep soundly on this mattress/bed as well, so we’re both looking for a smart solution rather than trying new mattresses every few months…