CertainSeason

Gardens Under Way

The new bed by the front door with the dwarf lilac Scotty and Mariela gave us.

 

The hosta and white flower bed at the top of the drive, below the shed.

 

The kitchen garden in bloom.

 

Wild roses in the yard.

 

Auction Acquisitions

Went to the auction at the Halderman house. There was lots we would have loved to have bid on, but finances being what they are...

Nevertheless, we got a set of pewter plates and cups, a beautiful set of ironstone platters and covered vegetable bowls, some nice braided carpets for the kitchen, a surprise birthday gift for my goddaughter/niece and these lovely Aladdin lamps.

Made some nice tomato tarts to take to Patty and Mark's, too.

Bill picked up some nice 1940s-1950s desk lamps.

A Deed, Indeed...But Whose?

So the phone rang yesterday morning, and it was Mrs. Halderman, the wife of the couple from whom we bought the house. They have sold the farm...250 acres for $420,000 in case you were wondering...and are in the process of  cleaning out the big house. As she put it, she went to look through a drawer she "would have sworn was empty" and found some papers in which she thought we might be interested. And, indeed, we were...as it seems to be an original deed to the house with Lemuel Haynes' signature. At first I was of the opinion that it was the deed which transferred possession of the house to Haynes, but the date is 1825 and we're pretty sure he moved in here in 1803. It's going to take some more detective work, but it is a deed and it notes that "in consideration of the receipt of one thousand four hundred and twenty-five dollars" title was transferred to Lemuel Haynes."

Haynes' signature is visible, faintly, in the bottom fourth of the document, in the top of the blank space on the right hand side of the page, to the left of what look like what might have been a seal. The document is framed so that both sides of the document are visible...on the reverse is another notation about Lemuel Haynes and, interestingly, and puzzlingly, a reference to "Rutland, Vermont". 

The document is handwritten and in that 19th century hand that is difficult to read (and with all the use of typing and keyboards anymore, will probably become completely undecipherable to future generations!) It is not easy to read the text, so I am still trying to determine exactly what it means. But it is Haynes' signature. 

On a different subject, in the past two weeks, a vacuum, the lawn mower, the house water pump have all broken in addition to the toilet seal in the upstairs bath and the garbage disposal both leaking. Oh, and Bill's car has about $1,000 in repairs that are needed.

Wishing that deed had our name on it at this point!

Gettin' Hot

I have been feeling pretty smug about the temperatures here, and I am sure that what we're having isn't anywhere near to the blast the rest of the country is getting...but for here? It's hot! I knew we were in trouble when my car thermometer read the outside temperature yesterday morning at 8:00 a.m. at 80 degrees. By about 3:30, when I was leaving the Pember to come home, it read 97.

Meanwhile, the garden is growing greener and greener. We have been blessed with intermittent rain along with this heat, so for the most part the garden is pretty happy. I gathered a good pound of green beans two days ago, but now the beans and the squash and the tomatoes and the cucumbers and pretty much about everything are bursting. The broccoli keeps putting out florets. The peppers are doing quite well. I had to pick this one to make room for the others that are growing even larger on the vine. I prefer them ripe and not green. I am barely staying ahead of the cucumbers (made a nice cold buttermilk, cucumber and shrimp soup for supper last night...below...it doesn't look like much in the photo but it is really pretty with the green chives, the pale green cucumbers and the pink shrimp). And last night I collected a collander full of beans and squash and brocolli and a few cherry tomatoes. The tomatoes are just about ready to explode.

To date, these are the items in the household that are breaking or broken: upstairs toilet (Bill had fixed the seal, but he seems to think it's leaking again); the lawnmower, which we have been told is beyond repair; the adjustable nozzle on our garden hose (it works but not as well...the handle that levers the action is broken); the tiles are falling off of the wall in the "master" bath; the water pump is wheezing like an old lady running uphill every time we take a shower or run the water; and the garbage disposal is being finicky. The water pump is probably the worst of these, though I am feeling the loss of the lawnmower more immediately. The grass is growing with all this heat and rain and I am unable to use the push mower.

Oh...right,,,did I mention I broke my toe? A too tight kitchen and Bill's heel vs my bare foot. My toe lost.

The dogs are basically floored by the heat. I try to hose them down and they look at me like I'm trying to beat them with a stick. Go figure. Killer has taken to staying out all night. I leave the door open at night so he can find his way back in through his handiwork of torn screen. But I go to sleep every night expecting to find his carcass out in the field (if I was lucky...he'd probably be carried off by a martin or a hawk and we'd never see him...I think I'd prefer that.) But there he is the next morning (so far), hopping into bed and crawling between one of our legs.

Cold Buttermilk, Cucumber & Shrimp Soup

1 quart buttermilk

1 T English-style dry mustard

1 t salt

1 t sugar

1/2 pound cooked shrimp, cooled, shelled, deveined, and chopped, reserving 2 to 3 whole shrimp, halved lengthwise, for garnish if desired

1 cucumber, peeled, seeded and chopped fine, plus, if desired, shaved cucumber slices for garnish

2 T minced fresh chives

 

 

1. In a large bowl whisk together the buttermilk, the mustard, the salt, and the sugar, add the chopped shrimp, the chopped cucumber, and the chives, and stir the soup until it is combined well.
2. Chill the soup, covered, for 3 hours, or until it is very cold.

Garnish each serving with shrimps and thinly shaved cucumber.

New Guest Quarters

I've been waiting and waiting and waiting to get the little room off the office...which had been called "the nursery" by the people who owned the house before...cleaned out  (it has served as a warehouse for the White Crane archives and...well...stuff... since we moved in) and arranged in a more, shall we say commodious way. I wanted a bed in there so we could have more house guests when they came. And I wanted some quiet place to lay down and take a nap in the afternoon. And now it is. The Cusco scarf hides the window which looks out into the meadow. We couldn't get the box spring to fit up the stairway to the second floor (a split box spring is on order)...so we got five 12-inch wide boards and laid the mattress across that.

I love it.

Ice Ice Baby

So, a few weeks ago, on February 6 to be precise, I wrote about the ice sheets on our roof melting slightly and slipping off of the slate. The sound was stunning...more like an earthquake than anything else I've ever heard.

At first we thought the only damage had been that the ice took out the gutter protect over the door, that kept the melt from dripping on us as we entered and exited the house and maybe smooshing down a few evergreens on the north side of the house.

But now we discovered that the sheet that came off the front of the house...every inch of eight inches thick -- probably more -- and possibly six to eight feet long (it could conceivably be as long as the pitch of the roof, which is a good deal more than eight feet)...smashed the lovely park bench we had sitting out there. It's hard to see -- the bench is still buried in snow -- but the ice sheet clearly smashed through the seat slats of the bench. I can only imagine it basically wiped it out.

It is sort of difficult to make out, but the ice is very thick...you can see the very top of the ice sheet where the little pine needle sits on the top. That is the top and the bottom is all the way down to the smudge of dirt, visible just above the frame of the bench arm. It's probably more like ten inches thick...or more.

Pretty awesome. Very glad I wasn't sitting there.

Alex, I'll take "Two Things We Didn't Need" for $200

1. What is more snow? [see left]

2. What is...a leak in the forced hot water heating system...[on your right]? Walked into the living room this morning, out of a pretty good night's sleep, and there was the distinct scent of anti-freeze in the air (actually I had smelled it in bed as I played with Brewster, but I just thought it was some odd cleaning scent from...I don't know).And there was this spraying of water...think Buckingham Fountain, only smaller, coming out of the wall  (and leaking into the cellar) and  with dogs and Persian carpet runner...

Oh Bill.....?!?! (he was upstairs...he got up earlier.)

We were like two Dutch boys with our fingers in the dike. grabbing any towels we could find and paging through the furnace manual with the other hand. We managed to turn off the water so it stopped leaking.

Many wet towels later....the Plumber is here now performing a $275 wallet-ectomy (or as it is known in the biz: a bank account "Hoovering.")

(I don't know why I capitalized "plumber" there...perhaps out of respect for my family history?)

Soooo....blizzard? check

Toothache? check

Plumbing problems? check

A Monday to remember. Which, of course...it's not. It's Tuesday. That's how bad a Monday it is.

And oh...by the way?...the plumber came back a second time...another $275.

The good news?...we could cover it and still buy groceries. But sheesh.

My Winter Project

Ever since we moved in I've said that my "snowy day-winter project" would be to unpack the boxes and boxes and boxes of books that we moved from Brooklyn to here. My excuse the first winter, of course, was there were more important things to do. But I was running out of excuses...and we are clearly not running out of snow! (iIf my Gentler Reader will kindly scroll down to compare and contrast the depth of the snow against the Adirondack chairs sitting around the fire pit by way of comparison.)

So I have finally unsealed the door to the "nursery" as it is called...the little room off of the office with the little square window. It has been, literally, stuffed to the rafters with boxes of books since we moved in. As I have attempted to locate one or another book as the need arose, the boxes would get cut into, opened, rifled through and moved around. Which makes for an nice, unholy mess.

Honestly, there's just not enough space to get enough perspective on how horrible this mess really is. The photo just doesn't do it justice. It doesn't help that I am a terrible procrastinator when it comes to things like filing (there are two kinds of people in the world...filers and pilers...I am the latter.)

So organizing began with sorting through the pile of mail and papers and references and saved newspaper sections and magazines and you name it piled on the table that I would need to work on if I was really going to get organized. That took the first day.

Now I have waded into the deep and murky nether regions of the nursery...and have, as of this writing, emptied six whole boxes of books (which translates into six shelves.

Like they said in Jaws..."we're going to need a bigger boat". (Or more bookshelves.)

Honestly, I don't know what's deeper...the snow outside or the books and piles in my office.

January Gray

I have decided that I really do love winter. For one thing, it is the first season I recall after having moved into this new home a little over a year ago (it was really Autumn...Halloween to be precise...but it was all such a blur and a tumult it wasn't until December, when we actually closed, and Bill actually joined me here that the memories begin to clarify.)

I like how the landscape is utterly changed...more things become visible...it's spare and clean (well...when it isn't muddy after a thaw) and I like down comforters and boots and scarves and chamois shirts.

As always we reveled, ever so briefly, on New Year's Eve at Al and Sue's in Easton Connecticut. Pat and Barb were waylayed by Pat's bad back, but managed to come for breakfast New Year's Day (I keep wanting to write "Sunday"...that New Year's fell on a Friday this year really threw me.) We had to leave Missy at home and I fretted about her virtually every minute we were away. We raced home Saturday, getting back about 6 p.m. and threw open the doors of the house, hoping she was inside (where we'd asked not one, but two neighbors to put her if they saw her running around, as she is wont to do.) Alas...no Missy, but moments later, after calling her name off into the fields she came racing down the road out of the dusk. Safe and happy to see us.

The next morning, I got up and went to the store to get the paper. When I returned, Brewster greeted me at the car door per usual...and there was blood on his head! Bill was standing in the door and when I asked if he knew that Brewster had blood on him, he replied saying that Missy had been hit by a truck!...and had taken off up the road. The blood on Brewsie's head had been from his trying to comfort (I know, I know...I'm anthropomorphizing...but it sure seems like tenderness) Missy right after the accident.

She's fine now, but it was a tough day of  monitoring her and trying to find an effective way to manage her pain. Nothing was broken, fortunately. The only wounds seemed to be minor...a cut on her lip, a small, almost invisible cut over her eye. She was limping and favoring her right side and she was clearly pretty shaken up by it. I think she did her usual dodging of cars, and wasn't paying attention and didn't factor in the trailer this particular car was towing...so when she dodged the car, she was caught by surprise by the trailer and that's what hit her (according to Bill.) It still chaps my ass that whoever it was didn't have the decency to stop and at least check and see if she was alright (we know it was a red truck, towing a snowmobile trailer...if I see that person I promise they will get a piece of my mind.)

Let's be clear here, too...Missy is partly to blame, too, since she thinks nothing of going up to the farm or the barn and taking the road to do so. We are forever trying to coax her out of the road, which she seems to see as her personal domain. It's how we initially came by her as a matter of fact...she brought the other neighbor dog, Teddy, the golden lab, down the road with her.

Right after she was hit, she did what dogs who are injured do....she ran off...up the road, to who-knows-where? So I got back in the car and drove up the hill calling for her and found her on the porch of the farmer (her actual owner, but who doesn't seem to care about her one way or the other). There was no one home. She was just lying there on the porch...so I went up and ran my hands over her...she seemed to be fine except for a little blood on her mouth and eye and even that wasn't so bad.

She was definitely dazed and a little confused. I started thinking about shock. She has never allowed me or anyone to pick her up and she has steadfastly refused to get in the car (which is why we had to leave her when we went down to Connecticut ...thank goodness this didn't happen while we were gone!) or allowed us to put a collar and ID tag on her so if something like this happened, at least she could be identified and someone could let us know (you hear that red-truck-with-trailer!?!?)

I had a coat in the car, so I went to get that to cover her and keep her warm to prevent shock. As soon as I approached her with it she stood and literally seemed to warm to the coat...so I decided to go for it and just try and pick her up and put her in the car. She didn't struggle at all and allowed me to carry her to the car, open the door and put her in the back, much to my amazement. I got her back home...she didn't know how to get out of the back of the car, so I had to lift her out, which was probably best for her anyway. She immediately went into the bedroom and got on our bed. I called the vet, but there was no one in except the emergency operator...it was, of course, not only Sunday, but January 2nd. She seemed fine so we weren't really too concerned about getting her over there. I had run my hands over her rather "roughly" so I could feel if there was anything broken (or to see if she reacted). And there was nothing like that. Her only tenderness seemed to be the right front paw, and even that she allowed me to handle rather firmly to see if I felt anything broken. She was so good...she was obviously in pain but she let me check her, and a couple of times actually hurt her inadvertently during the day. The two of us spent the day on the bed with her pretty much. Brewster circled around, licking at Missy's face, and we just watched her breathe. She looked a wreck, her entire coat suffering from what looked like "bed head"...and when she got up and moved around she was stiff and tentative and sad to watch.

No surprise, slowly over the day, she seemed to get more and more sensitive and more sore. We finally decided to give her a naproxen (we figured she is about 60 - 70 pounds...it was a 200 mg human dose) and it seemed to do the trick. Within the hour she was much more spry, able to move, started eating and drinking...and this morning all is back to normal, except she is still limping slightly. Bill opened the door for her to go pee ...and she immediately headed out on to the road, following the double yellow line all the way back up the hill to the barn, for a visit.

We don't think we'll take her to the vet. We would if we thought there might be even a slight chance there was something wrong we couldn't see. But a) she really isn't our dog, even though she lives with us, sleeps with us and is fed by us. She belongs to the farmer technically and legally. And b) it wouldn't be cheap to take her in...it would no doubt involve x-rays at a minimum and we would rather not go to that expense right now, as much as we love her. Be assured we would do so if there was the slightest indication that it would be in her best interests to get checked out.

She's running up and down the stairs today, jumping on and off the bed. Eating her usual meal and generally looking and feeling her old self. 

 

All is back to normal. Whatever that is. We have a full tank of oil and a fireplace that keeps us warm. The Yule tree is still up and sparkling but as soon as that comes down, the gray hard cold of January will prevail again.

Preserving Summer

The weather is decidedly autumnal. Everyone local is disappointed with the fall colors (not enough brilliant reds they say), but I've had my breath taken away by the color palette several times as I have driven around the county.

Didn't want to let the herbs we grew go so yesterday we did some infused vinegars...lemon balm, tarragon and thyme. My camera still won't talk to my computer...or maybe it's my computer that can't see my camera (I may have to bring them to counseling) so this is not an actual photo of the ones we did (ours are prettier.)

This is also not a photo of the cellar (ours, again, is prettier...though the quantity of preserved goods is about the same) but we spent a good long while down there on a gray rainy day, putting up shelving, organizing and labeling the wines and bringing down all the canning we've been doing to keep (along with the roots, which we're still leaving out while the weather is cool). Our shelves are those metal "Metro shelves" that you see in restaurants. They make for such good storage. 

I really wish I could share a picture of our "tasting room" for the wine. I found some nice wine labels at J.K. Adams, and the wines are all nicely labeled and arranged in the rack. I found a thermometer that measures the temperature as well as the humidity. I hung the old "candleliere" so there is lovely candlelight and there are two chairs and the roster of wines along with a mirror and tray of glasses should we decide to venture down to the cellar for a tasting. Too bad we're almost running out of space for wine racks (unless we build one in the hearth that is down there.

Also too bad the cellar ceiling is 5'10 and I'm 6'1". 

Jody and Luisa (Dancing Ewe Farms) are coming for dinner on Wednesday, so we are planning the menu. We can't very well serve them their own cheese for appetizer so we're casting about for ideas. Salad course, perhaps a parsley salad to use some of the lush parsley in our herb garden...followed by rabbit stew on noodles (I wanted to make the noodles from the Marina di Chioggia squash but Bill said no)...with a side of our roasted Brussels sprouts and dessert...a ricotta semifreddo with spiced oranges. As I write that, with the cool breeze coming through my window from the meadow, I begin to think a warm dessert might be nice...something bread puddingish...but the semifreddo would use some of Jody and Luisa's exquisite ricotta and it may be the last we can do a cold dessert...