I often refer to Rosslyn as a homestead, but I’m aware that might mislead some of you. No livestock. That’s probably the biggest deviation from most self proclaimed homesteads. No chickens. No pigs, sheep, or goats. No milk cow. No 160 acre land grant (though we’ve slowly grown Rosslyn’s acreage to more than a third of that historic sum.)
I’ve long longed for ducks. Hatchlings, then ducklings, then juvenile ducks, then mature plump ducks waddling around gobbling grubs and beetles and vegetable garden pests. Susan’s been a staunch bulwark against this homestead addition citing coyotes and hawks and an inadequately envisioned long term plan. Perhaps one day, some day. For now I celebrate wild ducks (“Common Goldeneye Ducks”) and safeguard the mallards (“Make Way for Ducklings” and “Mallard Jacuzzi”).
But ducks or no ducks, our homestead is not about livestock. There’s abundant wildlife, and our vegetable gardens and orchard provide plenty to eat for our family and friends. Throw in farm shares with Full and By Farm, plenty of supplementary victuals from Hub on the Hill, and nourishing ourselves offers bountiful satisfaction.
At Rosslyn, homesteading is less about producing everything that we eat and drink, and more about living as responsible stewards in a property presently and historically endowed with sufficient grounds and outbuildings for homesteading while honoring the homesteading tradition in as many ways as practical for us. I’ll revisit this idea soon, endeavoring to articulate more concisely our personal vision of Rosslyn as a homestead. For now I’ll shift to a few homestead haikus that might better — for their ample vantage despite minimalist format — illuminate what I’m trying to convey.
Homestead Highlights
Bookended between asparagus and apples: skinny-dips, bonfires.
Brookside Dissonance
While ambling brookside, celestial cacophony, a murder of crows.
Apropos Tomatoes
Green Zebras, Black Krims, early cherry tomatoes,… December daydreams.
Now about those ducklings… I might bring up the idea again this spring. Wish me luck!
Boathouse Bonfire, September 27, 2014 (Source: Geo Davis)
If September poems sound overly sentimental to you or if you’re inclined to a grittier observance of the almost-upon-us Autumn Equinox, I’ve got you covered. Soon. Stay tuned.
But if you’re comfortable lingering briefly — and these poems are, if nothing else, brief — in the seasonality and liminality of the present moment, then I’d like to offer you a few September poems. After all, sometimes the singing underneath doesn’t translate to images or longform exposition. So I’ve bundled a tidy bundle of verse celebrating my one of my four favorite seasons.
Susan in Carriage Barn, September 12, 2006 (Source: Geo Davis)
Haiku September Poems
Short and sweet, sometimes bittersweet, is the name of the game when trying to put your finger on something as poignant and humbling as the shift from summer to autumn (with the omnipresent reminder that autumn too will soon yield, and winter will shroud the colors and flavors and aromas away beneath a snowy blanket). But that can be an elusive errand.
There’s something ineffable about Septembering, but anyone who’s dwelled a spell in the North Country is familiar with this shift. (Source: Seasonality: Septembering)
Haiku’s economy offers a bold if foolhardy effort, so let’s start there.
•:•
Dusky zinnias,
harvest-ready to welcome
arriving houseguests.
— Geo Davis
•:•
Bountiful beans,
red-podded asparagus,
climbing the teepee.
— Geo Davis
•:•
Seasonal surreal:
autumnal art, alchemy,
tart transformation.
— Geo Davis
Sunset, September 6, 2015 (Source: Geo Davis)
Longer September Poem
I’m struck by the concurrently lavish spoils and humbling caution of September. In so many respects the bounty of an entire summer’s worth of gardening and orcharding comes due in September. Sure, we’ve been enjoying the gardens since May, but the this month full of contrasts is without doubt the most abundant harvest. And yet, even as we indulge to excess, the crisp nights and the sunlight’s increasingly anemic illumination remind us to prepare for winter.
When Septembering
honor abundance
as autumn will soon
yield to the drum roll
of hale and hoarfrost,
bitter wind, and snow.
— Geo Davis
This might be the first verse to a longer look at the point-counterpoint of this intoxicating yet sobering marvel of a month. It might also have reached its end. A little hibernation should help decide.
Cider Pressing, September 6, 2015 (Source: Geo Davis)
Sing-song Along
I’ve made no secret of the fact that this 2022 summer and autumn have been pivotal for Susan and for me. We’re surfing some seismic transformations in our lives, finally confronting inevitabilities and incongruities that have been evolving for a long time, and fortifying one another for significant choices and changes ahead. In all probability the liminal space we’re navigating underlies the vibrance and drama I’m noticing in everyday events. But I’m unable to disregard the rhymes, rituals, harmonies, and auspicious signs (cairns, buoys, vade mecums,…) as I immerse myself in the texture and artifacts of a decade and a half with Rosslyn, as Susan and I revise and remap and re-plot our next chapters.
So many friends and acquaintances have contributed to this new adventure we’re embarking on, often without even realizing it or intending to effect our trajectory. Influences have an uncanny habit of popping up at just the right time! And so I close this post with an invitation to you. We welcome you to join and participate in our quest. As fellow sojourners we’ll better bridge the valleys and better celebrate the lofty summits ahead. Grateful to be traveling together!
At the root of Rosslyn Redux is a question. What makes a house a home?
Simple question. Less simple answer. More precisely, the answers to what makes a house a home are diverse and possibly even evolving — slowly, perpetually — as we live our lives. What defines “homeness” as a child likely differs as a young, independent adult, nesting for the first time. And our first autonomous forays into homemaking likely morph as we live through our twenties and into subsequent decades, family and lifestyle changes, etc.
Let’s start with a playful poem by Edgar Albert Guest.
Ye’ve got t’ sing an’ dance fer years, ye’ve got t’ romp an’ play,
An’ learn t’ love the things ye have by usin’ ’em each day;
[…]
Ye’ve got t’ love each brick an’ stone from cellar up t’ dome:
It takes a heap o’ livin’ in a house t’ make it home.
— Edgar Albert Guest, “Home” (Source: Poetry Foundation)
If you haven’t read this Edgar Albert Guest poem, I recommend it. And I strongly suggest you read it out loud!
I start with Guest’s insights because they’re thoughtful despite the playful affect. They capture both the breadth and the subjectivity of answering the question, what makes a house a home? And they hint at the protean nature of this inquiry.
Love Makes a House a Home (Photo: Geo Davis)
An Evolving Recipe
Just when I think I’ve narrowed down a reliable recipe for what makes a house a home, I question it. Whether catalyzed by a conversation with another homemaker, exposure to an especially compelling or innovative home, or a eureka moment totally unrelated to “homeness” (recently, sailboat design of 35-50′ sloops), my reliable recipe is suddenly less reliable. It needs a few tweaks. I remove ingredients less essential than previously believed, and I introduce new ingredients. A teaspoon of this, an ounce of that. Season to taste…
The mercurial nature of “homeness” is not really that surprising given the subjectivity of our residential tastes, needs, means, ambitions, and limitations. The rise of a thriving van life culture in recent years offers a healthy reminder of how little is actually needed for many individuals to feel at home. And yet, the proliferation of van life blogs and social media streams celebrate the individuality and subjectivity shaping perspectives on what makes a house a home. Overlanding in a tricked out van, living aboard a wind and water washed boat, or nesting on an anchored spot of terra firma, it turns out that what makes a house a home is profoundly personal.
One of the joys of homeownership lies in expressing ourselves through our surroundings… Most of us can hardly wait to put our personal stamp on our living spaces. It is, after all, part of the process of turning a house into a home. (New England Home)
The process of transforming a house into a home — fixed or mobile — inevitably encounters elements and conditions that shape the nesting process. In other words, our will and whim are only part of the equation.
Once upon a time
this handsome old house
became our new home,
and along with it
almost two hundred
years of backstory,
lives, styles, and lifestyles…
Snipped from my short poem about repurposing Rosslyn into our home, I’m acknowledging the property’s history and preexisting conditions. It’s a nod to inputs outside of Susan and my personal needs and desires. Just as these inherited inputs can be hurdles or challenges, often they introduce character and richness, add depth and texture, and even invest an aesthetic or programmatic cohesion that might otherwise be lacking.
I’ve frequently joked that no detail of Rosslyn’s rehabilitation escaped our fingerprints, [but] much attention was paid throughout to preserving the buildings’ unique heritage. My bride and I were far less preoccupied with our own personal stamp than we were with finding Rosslyn’s personal stamp, her DNA, and reawakening it to guide our renovation. (Reawakening Rosslyn)
I suspect that there’s often an even more abstract but profoundly important force at work in making a house a home. Intersecting our needs and appetites and the preexisting conditions, there exists an ineffable consciousness, even a conviction, that we feel at home. Can it be a sanctuary where we feel safe, happy, calm, nourished, revitalized, and creative? Can the house, as our home, become an oasis nurturing the sort of life that is indispensable to our wellbeing?
House of Dreams: Gaston Bachelard (Source: The Poetics of Space)
I understand that this wonderful old, living and breathing home provides for us in innumerable ways every day. I know that Rosslyn is a house of dreams and daydreamers. And for this I am extremely grateful. (House of Dreams)
This consciousness or conviction is totally subjective and deeply personal. Clearly articulating it can prove elusive. But we recognize the feeling when we’re fortunate enough to come across it. Sometimes the pull can be so powerful that we yield despite logical and practical considerations, and even despite obvious counterindications.
We had joked about how much time and money it would take to make Rosslyn habitable, categorically dismissing it as an investment. And yet it clearly had captured our hearts. If it were our home and not a short term investment, then maybe the criteria were different. Maybe the potential was different. Maybe the risk was different. (We Could Live at Rosslyn)
Many of us have found ourselves in this push-pull between the abiding rules and paradigms we use to navigate most of our life’s decisions and the sometimes conflicting passion we feel for a potential home. Over the last decade and a half that I’ve been trying to understand “homeness” and the curious exceptions that some of us are willing to make when it comes to our homes, I’ve picked the brains of family, friends, and total strangers when opportunities arose. And sometimes when they didn’t! I’ve been struck as much by the overlaps as the distinctions. There do seem to be some almost universal notions of what makes a house a home, and yet a beautiful bounty of unique attributes are at least as important to the individuals creating (and sometimes recreating) their homes.
Personal Mementos Make a House a Home (Photo: Geo Davis)
Vox Populi, An Introduction
Rather than pretending I’ve distilled the perfect formula, I’m going to showcase a relatively random but recent collection of perspectives and opinions gathered from family, close friends, and several contributors to our current projects. That’s right, I’m going to sidestep the tempting trap of defining what makes a house a home in lieu of broadening and diversifying consideration. Or, put differently, I’ll bypass my own bias by crowdsourcing the question.
I reached out a few days ago to a couple people with whom I’ve discussed this topic before. I asked them all some version of the following.
I have a quick challenge-type-question for you. I’m drafting a blog post about “homeness”, and I’ve reached out to a handful of people that I think might offer interesting perspectives. If you have 30 seconds, I’d love to include your thoughts. If not, no worries. No deep thinking. No fancy answers. No pressure. Just a spontaneous, off-the-cuff, candid response to the question: what does it mean to make a house a home? In other words, what transforms a house into a home?
I was so enthralled with the first few responses that I decided to postpone the post in order to solicit even more perspectives. What follows is a fascinating array of responses, starting with several collaborators on Rosslyn’s icehouse project (Tiho, architecture; Hroth and Eric, construction/carpentry; and Pam, project/property management) and Mike, a carpenter who works for us in Santa Fe (as does Hroth, although we’ve been fortunate to have his expertise at Rosslyn as well since July.)
Tiho Dimitrov: What makes a house a home? For me, it’s my books, my guitars, and the odd pieces of art that I own. It’s the art and the books that bring a sense of me or a sense of my spirit. Combine that with the smell of freshly brewed coffee, and you have a home. It’s the imperfections of a place that make it perfect.
Hroth Ottosen: Off the top of my head the difference between a house and a home would be family. But that doesn’t apply to my life. My circumstances are extremely exceptional. I consider my house in Mora, New Mexico my home because I built it from scratch without much help from anybody, and to my own specifications and desires. Not many people can say that. (Later…) While making dinner I thought about what makes a house a home. A name doesn’t hurt. I consider Rosslyn my home right now!
Eric Crowningshield: Home is the place where I feel proud and comfortable being! I joke around saying we are the dream makers because we try to take homeowners’ dreams and turn them into a reality!
Pamuela Murphy: A house is a house, but a home is where the love is. It takes love, hard work, and teamwork to make a house a home.
Mike Hall: To me it it means cozy and comfortable and someone to share that with. This popped into my head because my wife and I are at the Bosque del Apache celebrating our 31 anniversary!
Homegrown Food Makes a House a Home (Photo: Geo Davis)
My next pollees are family members, starting with my beautiful bride (Susan), then on to my parents (Melissa and Gordon), one of my nieces (Frances), one of my nephews (Christoph), and my cousin (Lucy).
Susan Bacot-Davis: It’s easy to see Rosslyn as my home. We’ve invested sixteen years of our life reimagining, renovating, and sharing her. But I learned in Côte d’Ivoire where I lived in 1989 and 1990 that home can be a place very foreign to me. I came to my village wondering how I would ever be comfortable there. I departed almost a year later wondering how I could ever bear to leave. It was my neighbors, my friends and colleagues, my community, and my sense of belonging within that community, not the concrete hut within which I dwelled, that embraced me and made me feel safe and nurtured.
Melissa Davis: I’d say home needs comfortable spaces for you to do the things that you like to do. That means you need to know what those things are! So I need a place to sit and write, draw, type, pay bills, and address Christmas cards. And I need a place for the related “stuff”. And homeness means music in the places I do my activities as well as space to actually do the activities (room for yoga mat, comfortable chair/bed to read paper and books, do crossword puzzles, and drink coffee). House becomes home with enough outdoor space to grow something to eat! Eventually a home has memories throughout it which solidifies its homeness, and that requires people who are important to us.
Gordon Davis: Takes a heap a livin’ to make a house a home. And snacks.
Frances Davis: What makes a house a home in my mind is the few mementos that hold special memories or are sentimental for any reason, which we bring with us to each new place we live in. For example, random mugs collected over the years, or certain books, or even a sweater that we wore after high school grad. Whatever they are, these items carry significance in our hearts and bring our past into whatever new building we’re in to make it our home.
Christoph Aigner: Home is a place that draws people in, a space that makes one feel comfortable and at peace. It is familiar to those who call it home, and it reflects a person’s or family’s values and the life they live.
Lucy Haynes: Bringing the outdoors in – branches, plants. Living things. Also – antiques and pieces that have been used. And enjoyed.
On to friends, diverse personalities with whom we’ve fortunately become acquainted across the years.
Kevin Raines: The word home has it’s roots in the old English word ‘ham’ and means a place where souls are gathered. I like that idea because as a house is lived in it grows rich in memories that welcome and enrich the inhabitants and guests who frequent the structure. Through the gathering of souls space becomes an extension of self, past, present, and into the future.
Lisa Fisher: Home is not the house where you live but your relationship to it. If within the space you feel comfortable, yourself. To be “at home” is to have a sense of belonging — to a place, to the world you have made within it. I think it was Heidegger who came up with the notion of individual worlds, meaning the stuff we surround ourselves with, including ideas and beliefs, but also our physical realm. Homenesss speaks to the human element of habitation: the inhabiting of a space.
Alexander Davit: The stories that are created while people are living there.
Miriam Klipper: House is the structure. A home is all the things you’ve put in it — including memories. By the way, memories include selecting every painting, carpet (remember our visit in Turkey?), crafting the most beautiful house, every perfect detail…
Amy Guglielmo: What makes a house a home? For me it’s comfort and color! Soft natural textures, local art and touches. Softness, coziness, calmness. Always views for us. Aspirational space to dream. And accessibility to community. Beach, pool, recreation. Close proximity to nature. We’re wrapping up designing our new home in Ixtapa, Mexico, and we’re only missing books and games at this point. But I think we nailed the rest!
Roger Newton: Love.
Jennifer Isaacson: Surrounding yourself with things/objects that hold a history and meaning to you.
Lee Maxey: What transforms a house into a home… One word “life”. Living things, people, animals, plants, and any items that support or enhance life. Cooking implements, cozy blankets, music, well read books on a bookshelf, and signs of soul. Today is the 2nd anniversary of my mom’s passing. I have just spent a couple hours going through photos and crying and writing in my journal. One of the things I miss most are the smells. Our smells make a house our home.
Denise Wilson Davis: For me, simply, what makes a house a home is the feeling that love resides there. That, as an owner you’ve put love into it… from the care and fixing to the furnishings and found objects that bring joy or remembrance. Home is an intimacy — a reflection of your heart and creative soul — that welcomes guests and makes them comfortable.
David Howson: This is similar to the saying, “at home”. When one feels “at home”, they mean they feel a certain kind of comfort and peace. One wouldn’t say, I feel “at house”. I fondly remember the first night I stayed at Rosslyn. While it wasn’t my house, you and Susan certainly made me feel “at home”.
Ana June: I think of home as curated and designed. It is a space where your heart is visible in your environment.
I’m profoundly grateful to everyone who offered their quick thoughts. And I was warmly surprised by how many wanted to expand the exchange into a lengthier conversation. So many intriguing notions of “homeness” and personal perspectives on what uniquely distinguish their own living space. Often relationships, shared experiences, and love wove their way into our discussions. I’ve abbreviated this post, and yet I realize that I’d like to dive in a little deeper with many of those I’ve quoted here. With luck I’ll revisit again in the near future.
Pets Make a House a Home: Griffin, April 16, 2012 (Photo: Geo Davis)
Until then, I’d like to weave in one additional thread that I personally consider an indispensable component of our home. Pets.
While Susan is the beating heart around which our small nuclear family orbits, we’ve never been without a dog for more than a few months. For us family and home are intrinsically connected with Tasha, Griffin, and Carley. Although Tasha and Griffin are chasing balls in the Elysian Fields, they remain with us, surfacing every day in our memories and conversations. They’ve left their imprints in the ways we live and play and entertain and in the way that we raise our current Labrador Retriever, Carley. On occasions when our little threesome is temporarily divided, for example this past October while I was away in California while Susan and Carley were in Santa Fe for a couple of weeks, our home felt incomplete. Despite good adventures with good people, Susan and I both acknowledged the voids we were feeling. Our home was temporarily divided. Returning to my bride and my dog instantly made me feel complete once again. So, for us, an important part of what makes a house a home is all of the beings — human and not-so-human (although our dogs differ on the distinction!) —that inhabit and visit our dwelling.
Autumn Landscape, October 27, 2015 (Photo: Geo Davis)
TGIF… time to put another log on the fire, pour yourself something refreshing, and unwind for a moment together. Busy-ness and a continuous cascade of commitments can gradually hypnotize us during the weekly hurly-burly, so let’s take a few minutes to exhale and redirect our attention at this dramatic time of year. Transformation all around us. Breathtaking beauty all around us. I invite you to round out your week by contemplating the autumn landscape.
As another week of icehouse rehab draws to a close, I’m shifted gears a little. I’ll post an update soon, however there’ve been several compelling-but-competing intrigues to pursue. Yesterday’s post about rehoming the “truckling” in exchange for an inspiring reuse/recycling story has elicited several compelling possibilities. (Hoping to make a decision soon, and I’ll share the winning story!) I’ve also been crowdsourcing (albeit quite limitedly among friends and family) perspectives on what makes a house a home. Can’t wait to share the riches tomorrow! For now, with this pair of jolly Jack-in-the-box updates about to spring out into the open, I’m recalibrating and refocusing on autumn landscape.
Autumn Streamscape
As wildlife crisscross
these riparian byways
scents, tracks, graffiti.
— Geo Davis
This haiku takes as its seed the layered narrative along Library Brook which meanders the western margin of Rosslyn’s back forests and fields. So much wildlife trafficking this vital corridor, and all of them communicating, carrying on a distributed dialogue, and creating artistic artifacts.
I spent some time flail mowing near a small portion of this riparian region last summer, eliminating some invasive that have clogged the stream, and encouraging native flora to thrive, ensuring a healthy habitat for our wild neighbors. I thought that I had taken photographs of a mesmerizingly beautiful glade thick with stream-side wildflowers, but I’m unable to find them. Perhaps these images were meant to remain wild, earned quietly on foot, cross country skies, snowshoes.
These contemplative places abound at Rosslyn. And my haiku doesn’t offer a sufficient snapshot. Perhaps I’ll be able to update this page with another poem that offers the scents and sounds of this this wild autumn landscape. For now I’d like to offer you a potent portrait by a Vietnamese poet, Hồ Xuân Hương (1772–1822), that hints at the intoxication I’m alluding to. If “the banana leaves” are overlooked, her poem feels as if it might be leaning against a stump beside burbling Library Brook.
Autumn Landscape
Drop by drop rain slaps the banana leaves.
Praise whoever sketched this desolate scene:
the lush, dark canopies of the gnarled trees,
the long river, sliding smooth and white.
I lift my wine flask, drunk with rivers and hills.
My backpack, breathing moonlight, sags with poems.
Look, and love everyone.
Whoever sees this landscape is stunned.
— Hồ Xuân Hương (Source: Narrative Magazine)
Let us all breathe some moonlight tonight, and let us all let go the of the week just lived and look at the autumn landscape, allow it to stun us, to remind us how to love. Everyone.
In honor of Gaston Bachelard, I’d like to subtly bastardize the sentiment:
I should say: Rosslyn shelters day-dreaming, Rosslyn protects the dreamers, and Rosslyn allows us to dream in peace.
It’s not always 100% evident to me. When a foundation leak graces us with a basement flood. Or Lake Champlain spills out of her banks and into our boathouse. Nor when a 100+ year old maple tree succumbs to blasting winds and smashes the handmade fence. Etc.
But on afternoons like today, the smallest things, like the way the morning light illuminates the carriage barn windows, I know. I understand that this wonderful old, living and breathing home provides for us in innumerable ways every day. I know that Rosslyn is a house of dreams and daydreamers. And for this I am extremely grateful.
Thank you, Keri and Gaston for the timely reminder!
I find something whimsical and intriguing about looking through o-o-old windows. Antique panes of glass. Wavy window glass that subtly distorts and dream-ifies the view.
Another more Apollonian observer might consider this riffled reality discomfiting, unsettling. But wonder wells within me when grandfatherly glass slumps and swirls. It’s like a watercolor. An impressionist painting. A mirage. It invites the viewer’s curiosity and creativity to complete the image. To co-create the illusion.
Wavy window glass,
swirling, curling, rippling glass,
my undulant muse.
— Geo Davis
I shared this sentiment more succinctly here:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CS4NqFvrpG9/
The image appeared more playful in small format on my phone. More watery. Less geometric, the grid of the screen secondary to the semicircular whirl of once molten glass. But, akin to the impetus for this post, the discrepancy between smartphone and desktop images can be surprising and unpredictable. So rather than retracting the coupling of my “Wavy Window Glass Haiku” with a pic poorly illustrative of the idea I’d wished to convey, I’ll tease it bit further here. I’ll try to dilate the notion enough to demonstrate the relevance to Rosslyn Redux.
Wavy Window Glass Muse
From my earliest encounters with this property, Rosslyn emerged as something more than the name of a few old buildings on an historic waterfront. Rosslyn loomed larger than bricks and mortar and slate and sagging floors. Rosslyn was a real and overarching character — an anthropomorphic entity akin to a living, breathing human being — that both Susan and I both recognized and admired.
We’ve often joked that Rosslyn seduced us.
Yes, projection.
But you know what? She did. Rosslyn seduced us.
From the get-go we both yielded to this benevolent force. We were smitten, willingly and unreservedly. And our bearings blurred. The reason(s) we purchased the property, uprooted ourselves from Manhattan, transplanted our small family of three (Susan, Tasha, and your faithful scribe) to Essex began to evolve. Our objectives wavered — no, more like shimmered the way a mirage does, at once enticing and confusing — and our vision meandered from the clarity we’d identified at the outset. Rosslyn swept us into a kaleidoscopic adventure as burgeoning and unpredictable as it was engrossing.
A decade and a half after we purchased Rosslyn, we’re still in her thrall despite an original timely of 2-4 years. That’s right, at the outset we saw this chapter of our lives as a tidy interval. A recuperative ellipse. Ha!
In virtually all respects our love affair with Rosslyn has enriched our marriage and lives among family and friends. She has provided generously and faithfully for us. And we consider her a being, a member of our small family (Susan, Carley, Rosslyn, and yours truly).
Where exactly am I going with this?
While I won’t put words in Susan’s mouth (nor Carley’s, for that matter) I’m 100% certain that Rosslyn became my muse. Yes, I’m proposing manse as muse. And a beguiling and mysterious muse, I might add.
Rosslyn’s wavy window glass serves as suitable symbol for muse who wove her way into our lives.
I’ve likened peering through old glass to looking at a watercolor. The image adorning the top of this post (and an idea I’ll revisit fleetingly in tomorrow’s blog post, “Backcountry Barns”) play with watercoloring’s romantic expressionism. In my opinion, watercolor is compelling in large part due to its evocative, emotional appeal. Less duty-bound to verisimilitude, I find that a well executed watercolor is an invitation to wonder, an invitation to collaborate with the artist, and to enter into a protean partnership with creator and creation. Watercolor is less object than lens, less product than process.
Much like her wavy window glass, Rosslyn as muse has welcomed whimsy into our journey and relationship with her. As such she’s been an immensely inspiring and encouraging mentor. She’s encouraged us to see home and family and community differently. She’s helped us reimagine our relationships with all three.
I’ve distilled too little and wandered too much in this post, so I’ll curtail my mental roving. In closing I’d like to share a couple of useful snippets.
Hand-Blown Glass
If you’re unfamiliar with wavy glass, the simplest explanation for it’s unusual character is that it was hand-blown.
For years, the only glass available was hand-blown glass… A local glass worker would blow the glass on a rod and spin it into discs which when cooled could be cut into small pieces. (Source: The Craftsman Blog)
Pre-industrial, hand made glass retained interesting artifacts unique to its fabrication process. Here’s a more detailed explanation.
Wavy glass is the “cool-looking” glass commonly found in older window panes, doors, and furniture built prior to the early 1900s.
Generally, the further back in history you go, the wavier the glass is. As craftsmen improved their methods over time, the wave and distortion became less apparent.
Early manufacture of glass involved single sheets of glass manufactured by a craftsman by blowing through a tube, resulting in tiny bubbles called seeds.
As a result, glass produced in the 1700s tends to have more distortion than glass produced in the 1800s. In the early 1900s, increasing industrial advances led to machine-produced glass. This glass, while less wavy, still had imperfections and was widely used in the United States cities in the early 1900s. (Source: Pioneer Glass)
You’ll never look at an old pane of wavy window glass the same way again!
A couple of weeks ago I shared another walking stick photograph on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter with this accompanying haiku.
A walking stick and
miniature companion
gossip in the shade.
My walking stick haiku makes more sense if you actually look closely at the photograph.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CDogBYJpIs8/
Can you discern the walking stick’s miniature companion? Is it a spider. Definitely not a yellow garden spider, but I’m not certain if it’s another arachnid or another spidery insect.
The walking sticks were photographed while perching on lawn furniture and a fence posts. Different but not distant locations. There’s another notable difference. Or two. Can you spot it/them?
Walking Stick Trivia
Today’s snapshot (the one at the top of this post) appears to be the same variety of walking stick (maybe even the very same bug), but s/he appears to have lost a rear leg. And a green arm or half of a pair of Pinocchio proboscises?
Unfortunate. Losing limbs unlikely offers a survival advantage. And yet this walking stick remains agile despite the impairment.
I realize I’ve never shared a “Friend or Foe” post about walking sticks, so I’m adding it to the already endless punch list of future posts. It’ll be the perfect excuse to learn a little more about this bizarrely beautiful bug.
Phasmids, Phasmatodea, Phasmatoptera…
It turns our that walking sticks (aka “ghost insects”?!?!) are somewhat phantasmagorical, er, rather Phasmatodea. You with me?
The Phasmatodea (also known as Phasmida, Phasmatoptera or Spectra) are an order of insects whose members are variously known as stick insects, stick-bugs, walking sticks, or bug sticks. They are generally referred to as phasmatodeans, phasmids, or ghost insects. (Source: Wikipedia)
Walking sticks perplexing and intriguing. And, in a slightly bamboo way, they are beautiful. Well, at least the ones I’m sharing in this post. I admit that I know little about these quirky insects, so it’s a time to pursue curiosity down the proverbial rabbit hole (or bug hole?!?!) It’s time to learn more about the Phasmatodea…
You can file this next tidbit in your quirky-to-the-point-of-being-cool folder. (You have one of those, right? Right!) If you think that walking sticks — as well as other “stick and leaf insects” in the phasmid species such as Chitoniscus sarrameaensis — are worth more than just a fleeting glance, I suggest you check out Phasmatodea.com.
The world’s leading website about phasmids. (Source: Phasmatodea.com)
Phasmatodea.com… started as a project funded by the phasmid experts, Oskar Conle and Frank Hennemann, with the clear aim to provide an extensive source of information, photos and possibility for the identification of species of this fascinating insect order, not only for scientists but also for breeders and anyone interested in these insects. Now we’re the world’s leading website about phasmids, having the largest photographic gallery and the most comprehensive content about this insect order. (Source: www.phasmatodea.com)
Welcome to the wacky, wonder-filled world of walking sticks. Off to learn more, maybe even enough to some day share a a “Friend or Foe: Walking Sticks” post. Stay tuned. Or, better yet, teach me what I need to know before I get gobbled up by a walking bamboo stick. Thanks.
I’d planned on getting the drone up in the air for some aerial photography of the waterfront and deck areas (where we’re planning some maintenance projects). As luck would have it the morning was misty. No, more like pea soup. So I waited. And waited. It burned off a little, but finally I realized it wasn’t going to clear up. I decided to find out what I could photograph despite the less-than-optimal conditions.
The results were not as useful as I’d hoped, but also considerably more interesting than anticipated. More dreamy and evocative. More dramatic. More romantic. In short, a win!
Sometimes it’s just a matter or pivoting priorities, right?
At moments like this that I surrender to poetics. To place. To the poetics of place.
Sometimes poetry and artful images speak more clearly, even more truthfully, than all the analytic blather we’re want to rely upon. Sometimes it’s worth stepping aside and allowing the simplest of ideas and images to tell the story.
Here’s one of the photographs that speaks volumes to me. Hope it says a little something to you as well!
https://www.instagram.com/p/CSWsTAdrIuU/
I find that aerial photography (and drone imaging in general) often deliver surprising results. The perspective is often surprising. As is the beauty. The almost tannic inkyness of the foreground waters (where Rosslyn’s boathouse extends east into Blood’s Bay). The shoreline connection to Lake Champlain‘s Adirondack Coast is as compelling as the relationship to the Adirondack Mountains (and Boquet Mountain in particular) is this hazy midsummer “eye in the sky” snapshot.
Today’s a day for peach haikus. With blustery storm incoming, our team concerned about balancing inclement weather reports with an ambitious 4-day scope of work, and the sort of bone-deep chill that shivers the bones and shakes the confidence, I propose that we take a micro-vacation. How’s that? Let’s flip the calendar back to sunny August when Rosslyn’s peach trees offered up sun warmed fruit bursting with nectar. A pair of summer-soaked watercolors and a pair of poems just might take the edge off and remind us that similar joys lay ahead. I hope that you enjoy these peach haikus.
Peach Haikus
As I’ve mentioned previously, recent years have drawn me toward the humility and mystery of haiku. Through brevity and minimalism blossoms a microscopic world. An invitation to disconnect from the hurly-burly for a while in order to immerse ourselves in a moment, a fragment. And often that miniature moment actually contains something immense, universal. A bit like gazing into a small drop of water that appears to amplify the world around it like a gnome-scale snow globe. Minus the snow. We’re trying to conjure summer vibes after all.
Summer’s first peaches,
sunshine soaked and siren sweet,
seduce all senses.
— Geo Davis
Peach Haikus (Image: Geo Davis)
Peach Haikus in Mid-December
There’s something decadent about peaches in wintery months. Once upon a time it would have been an impossibility, of course, but in this brave new world it’s possible to purchase peaches year-round, harvested faraway in warmer climes. And yet, no matter how reputable the source, there’s simply no comparing a snow season peach to the fresh-off-the-tree variety we enjoy in mid to late summer. The colors are almost impossibly saturated, and the sweet treacle that drips from lips is an indulgence on par only with fantasies. Even the aroma of a sun soaked peach pulled from the branch is an extravagance. Store bought winter beaches often have no smell at all, or only the subtlest of ghost-smells, like a facsimile transmitted too many times, diluted with each new iteration.
And yet, perhaps, just maybe these images and these peach haikus will conjure for you a recollection so tantalizing that your optimism will rebound, incoming winter will settle into a less ominous perspective, and your enthusiasm for next summer’s fruit will revitalize your spirits. Hope so!
Hankering for a hammock huddle this morning, so I’ll I revisit the photograph I shared on June 6 depicting a herd of hammocks near the orchard. Yes, the color is a little over juiced. And the shadows are dark almost to the point of feeling ominous. Or cozy? But this moment beckons this morning given yesterday’s storm damage. (I’ve included another image below capturing just how close one of the fallen trees came to both the icehouse and the hammock huddle.
Hammock Huddle Haiku
Together apart,
plein air cocoons canopied
beneath maple trees.
— Geo Davis
Pandemic Precursor
While quarantining during the early months of the pandemic Susan and I spent time exploring and experimenting with aspects of our property that we’d never considered before. Or not recently, at least.
Sixteen years have lulled us into habits, ways of living and looking at Rosslyn that have possibly become more confining than we’d realized prior to weeks-on-end of quarantine.
We spent many afternoons and early evenings on the lawn of the abandoned clay tennis court (located west, northwest of the icehouse). It started because the early spring sunsets were best visible from here, but it continued because we discovered a fresh and inviting space and perspective that we’d previously overlooked. And this new vantage, this new ritual catalyzed a shift in our thinking. Wondering, really. We’d inadvertently stumbled upon a liminal space. And the longer we spent hammocking together near the glowing Solo stove fire pit gifted to us by our older nephew, bundling up as the evening grew chill, witnessing another pandemic sunset, the more our conversations and questions raced into exciting new places. Our wondering wandered further and further into liminality.
Transitions. Flux. Liminality. Interstices. Inflection. Evolving… We are awash in transitions! (Source: Transitions)
Three years later we’re navigating a tempest of transformation. But I’m tickling a tangent, so best to stick with our hammock huddle for now.
Ensemble Hammocking
Our earliest ensemble hammocking in this location, back in March or April 2020, was nestled up together in this wooden arc stand.
Pandemic Hammocking 2020 (Source: Geo Davis)
Needless to say, no side-by-side reveal since we were quarantined, and we weren’t super swift with selfies…
We’ve long loved hammocks, stringing them up throughout our property, so it occured to me that it would be fun to create a group of hammocks hanging together in the hopes that soon we’d be able to be joined by friends once again. Recumbent social distancing!
The hammock huddle shown at the top of this post was born. The same is shown here, minus the giant maple tree that used to tower nearby.
Hammock Huddle (Source: Geo Davis)
As it turns out, the hammock roundup has been a hit. For the third season in a row we’ve enjoyed group hammocking among the still adolescent stand of maple trees growing between the tennis court and the orchard.
Yesterday‘s storm damage was distributed throughout our property, and the immense maple that succumbed in the photo stood right next to the hammock huddle. Guided through the forceful blow by some benevolent force, the towering tree exploded onto the ground without damaging the hammocks, the maple trees in which they are suspended, or for that matter any of the adjoining trees save a few branches here and there. It’s remarkable really. Even the gate through which we drive the tractor was unscathed. And, as I pointed out yesterday, if the wind been blowing in the opposite direction, the maple would likely have destroyed the icehouse that we are just beginning to rehabilitate. Instead, we have a new aperture of visible sky this morning and a year’s worth of firewood.
There is much to admire in a mulberry tree. The handsome habit and height. The luxurious leaves. The shady canopy. The concentrated blackberry-esque burst of inky sweetness.
While you may have a fuzzy notion about mulberry wine, there’s a fairly good chance you haven’t actually spied — up close and personal — a mulberry tree or mulberries. So I find when I walk family and friends through Rosslyn’s orchard this time of year, stopping to point out the ripening fruit. If ripe enough to eat, and lately the mulberries have been perfect, almost everyone who tastes the fruit loves the taste. And yet these delicious tree-grown raspberry impersonators are unfamiliar. I wonder why…
I’d like to revisit this perplexing situation in in the future. But now a look at our three trees and a mindful mulberry meditation of sorts. First let’s stand a while beneath one of the mulberry trees, and lifting our gaze up into the shady foliage, our eyes will begin to spy the mulberries hanging like miniature clusters of grapes.
Although I shared this Instagram post yesterday, most of those photos actually date back a couple of weeks. Now the third and last of our mulberry trees is ripening. And it’s raining. So I harken back to sunnier days.
The first two Hardy Mulberry (Morus nigra) trees ripened roughly concurrently. Their fruit is slightly smaller than the Illinois Everbearing Mulberry (Morus rubra) which we (and the birds!) are harvesting now. Despite some potential color confusion with Morus nigra (aka black mulberry), Morus rubra (aka red mulberry), and Morus alba (aka white mulberry, common mulberry, or silkworm mulberry), both of our varieties are ripe when they appear shiny black. The juice within is actually somewhere between scarlet, violet, and midnight. Lips and fingers quickly stain dramatically and persistently, so don’t expect to sneak a snack without getting caught!
Mulberry Meditation (Source: Geo Davis)
Carley, our year-plus old Labrador retriever manages to stealthily Hoover fallen fruit from the grass, at once an efficient and stain free means of harvesting. I’ve yet to master this technique myself, so my fingertips often belie my gluttony for the rest of the day.
Mulberry Maturation
Our mulberry trees are about nine or ten years old at this point, and they’re growing tall enough to actually evoke treeness rather than nursery stock or dwarf stock. As the trees have aged they’ve set heavier and heavier crops of fruit each summer. Given the approximately 15-18′ height of all three trees, the birds are the primary beneficiaries. We harvest what we can reach and leave the rest to our avian neighbors.
When the fruit first emerge from the mulberry flowers, they are green and covered in small black “threads” left from the blooms. These fall off as the mulberries ripen first to white, then pink, then red, then purple, and finally a deep lavendar-black. At this point they are plump, glossy, and 100% ready to eat!
It’s time for my mulberry meditation, but first a gallery (in case the Instagram post isn’t working.)
Mulberry Meditation (Source: Geo Davis)
Mulberry Meditation (Source: Geo Davis)
Mulberry Meditation (Source: Geo Davis)
Mulberry Meditation (Source: Geo Davis)
Mulberry Meditation (Source: Geo Davis)
Mulberry Meditation (Source: Geo Davis)
Mulberry Meditation (Source: Geo Davis)
Mulberry Meditation
At the outset I mentioned a mindful mulberry meditation, and I hinted at the vague familiarity that I and others might have with wine fermented from the juice of this beneficent tree. That time has come.
“I put everything I can into the mulberry of my mind and hope that it is going to ferment and make a decent wine. How that process happens, I’m sorry to tell you I can’t describe.”
John Hurt
“Huzzah!” I’m grateful indeed to Mr. Hurt for bundling up such creative cleverness. Both bacchanalian and theatrical, Dionysian and persistently mysterious… I’m struck by the many ways this metaphorical explanation approximates the whimsical adventure of redacting Rosslyn. I’ve turned often enough to my own compost and gardening metaphors to obliquely and insufficiently describe my own process. I’m essaying — albeit in unpredictable fits and starts — to distill our wonder-filled fifteen year affair with Rosslyn into the sort of package that might be handed on to others.
What in the world do I mean?
Good question. And if the answer were as good, as tidy and clear, I’d have wrapped up and ventured on to a new quest long ago. I haven’t. Not yet.
However I am feeling closer to clarity, closer to a tidy conclusion in recent years. Even recent months.
There’s much to unpack here (to borrow a euphemism from contemporary talking heads), and I’m doubling down on my resolve to package Rosslyn and pass her on. The property. The experience. The story.
It’s premature to say more now, but know that Susan and I have begun to wonder and daydream about a future in which Rosslyn has been fully fledged. It’s complicated. It’s bittersweet. And it’s still premature.
We’re not quite ready to say goodbye to her yet, far from it actually, so our leave-taking is not imminent. But it’s out there on the horizon, and together we’re brainstorming and beginning the process of letting go, of passing her on. Some day. Concurrently I’m revisiting the images and notes and sketches and letters and poems, allowing them to ferment and hopefully made a decent wine from a decade and a half of life and memories and artifacts.
Before my words wander too far afield, I will close this wayward reflection with my mulberry backstory.
A long, long time ago, at least four decades, maybe more, I first tasted mulberries at an auction. It was midsummer, just like now, and my family was attending an outdoor auction on an old farm that might or might not have been abandoned at the time. I don’t recall for certain, but I suspect the property had been vacant for a while.
I actually don’t remember much about the day except that I came across a grade school classmate who lived in the town nearby. She introduced me to mulberries.
A towering tree stood at the gabled end of an ancient barn, and the ground beneath was covered with fallen fruit. In short order we’d climbed up into the branches to feast on ripe mulberries. We spent the rest of the afternoon high in the mulberry tree savoring (to the point of achy stomachs) the jammy black mulberry deliciousness. With the auctioneer’s singsong soundtrack and enough mulberries to bloat our bellies and stain our clothes, the hours melted deliciously into the sort of nostalgic motherlode that still brings me contentment in midlife.
My decision to plant mulberry trees at Rosslyn half a lifetime later was rooted in that sweet syrupy memory.
Seven Apples, an apple still life, August 10, 2022 (Source: Geo Davis)
Sometime seven apples, five ripe edibles and two depicted in watercolor, are perfection. Rosslyn’s curious combination of real fruit and facsimiles (the latter painted by a dear friend, Amy Guglielmo, nearly two decades ago) are subtly playful. A self reflective still life, if you will. A juxtaposition of food and art.
I’ll admit that a decent dose of sentimentality pulls me here. A delicate illustration conjured by a close companion of many years. And plump apples tempting. Granite agonized over, tiles attentively paired by my bride and me, installed by Elaine Miller in the August days of Rosslyn’s lengthy rehabilitation,…
But there’s another poignancy as well, and it’s rooted in the illustrative rendering, liquid pigments now dried onto, into paper. A photograph of a painting of apples. Next to real apples. A verisimilitude vignette. As I endeavor to untangle my Rosslyn narrative from our Rosslyn narrative; to distill my poems and stories and essays and homemade images from the property itself (and her many artifacts); indeed to separate myself, ourselves from the ecosystem that has been our home and our life for so long; there is something in this vignette that resonates deep within me despite the fact that I still can’t quite define it. Perhaps clarity will accrue in the coming months as I reexamine the memories and relics of our sixteen years at Rosslyn. Partly a poetics of place, perhaps. But what else? Why?
