Ice Storm

We had quite an ice storm here in the Hudson Highlands last night. They had predicted a layer of ice up to 1/2-inch thick overnight, and I think we achieved that, easily.

I was dismayed, this past Spring, when I realized I needed to spend $3000 to take down five large, dead trees, all dangerously close to the house. Thank goodness I did it. Every dead branch came down last night, including some big ones. I am glad the huge chestnut that used to rise outside my bedroom window wasn't there last night trying to bear the weight of this ice!

Just when we finally saw some Autumn colors...

It has been such a late autumn here (because we didn't have enough cold nights, below 40 degrees, to turn the leaves) that most of the leaves are still on the trees. Finally this weekend I was thinking that we had some reasonable colors! It's actually kind of pretty, the snow on the red Japanese maple......

Calder-Eye View of Autumn

My camera and I have been on the road this week, most recently photographing at the Storm King Arts Center (which, if you haven't seen it, is a magnificent, world-class, outdoor sculpture park that we're so lucky to have right here in Cornwall). The installations are so artfully conceived that the contrast of man-made with the natural environment often creates a third, "enhanced-natural" reality. I love this place.

Black Flag, 1976, Alexander Calder

As I wandered amidst the towering sculptures, I started photographing autumn as framed by these whimsical, sheet metal "windows."


I like this symmetrical stand of trees, framed by one of the ovals in Gui, a 1976 Calder sculpture.




Every autumn, when the Storm King Arts Center closes for the winter I feel a pang of guilt, knowing I haven't taken advantage of it as I might have in the previous year. Will take another shot at it in the Spring.

Autumn in the Hudson Highlands

I've done a lot of hiking this Fall, and although it has definitely been a muted Autumn (Global Warming and all that.....), there were still some beautiful sights. Check out my new portolio at Autumn in the Hudson Highlands

Autumn in the Garden

Today is a chilly, grey day - it finally feels like Fall! I had expected to be writing this morning, but instead spent the entire morning poking around, raking and preparing the garden for the winter. While I was at it, I clipped armloads of dried hydrangeas to bring into the house. LOVE this time of year!

Spring Dispatch from Storm King Mountain

Like all gardeners, I have been mostly out of commission for the past three weeks, engaged in the annual race to clean up the remnants of the autumn leaves and get seeds and plants into the ground after the danger of frost is past, but before it gets too hot for delicate seedlings. Normally I take a week's vacation from my job specifically to work in the garden. This year, since I'm working at home, I had the luxury of spending quality time, and it has really paid off.

My house is situated deep in the forest on the north face of the mountain. Though it is a beautiful spot full of native wildlife, it also means that I am engaged in an ongoing struggle with the deer who eat all my plants and shubbery. In addition, this year I have been doing battle with a little gopher, who has worked diligently behind me each evening, digging up everything I plant, neatly laying it on its side next to the empty hole! I don't use traps in the garden (I figure the animals and I are sharing this patch of earth). I also don't use chemicals, since we eat herbs, edible flowers and vegetables that grow there. Luckily I found a biodegradeable, granular spread called MoleMax, which is activated by water and repels burrowing animals. For the deer, I am using a spray called Liquid Fence (all natural ingredients like hot peppers and rotten eggs which make everything taste terrible), combined with a technique suggested by an Amish gardener near Highland Lake, Pennsylvania (where I grew up, and still vacation with my siblings and their kids). She puts chicken wire on the ground around plants that she doesn't want deer to eat, and told me that they hate to step on the wire. I have tried it around my azaleas and some flowering perennials. So far, so good.

Today, for the first time in weeks, I didn't spend the cool morning hours hauling gravel, digging, and planting. Instead, I took a cup of coffee, my camera and tripod, and photographed the results of my work.



Usually, the sage in my kitchen garden is an annual - I have to replant every spring. This year, the weather was so mild that my sage wintered over, and I have a HUGE patch which is flowering (I've never had sage flower before - very exciting!).

This is a Dock-Spider, which I found warming itself on one of my paving stones. It is a beauty - nearly 3-inches in diameter.







My Clematis didn't flower last year (often the case with a new planting), but it is in full bloom this Spring.









I love the perfect symbiosis between ants and peonies. The ants drink the nectar, and their constant movement is thought to help open the dense, double flower buds. This bloom was literally trembling on the verge of opening when I photographed it this morning. As I post this afternoon, the flower is open and the ant is gone - his work is done!


Lots of wrought iron - both new and antique - in the shady "Angel Garden."
































The Garden Shed











And finally, the porch. We are ready for "a long summer's rest" here in Cornwall-on-Hudson!

After the Deluge, An Explosion into Spring

Wow. No sooner did the flood water abate (six inches of rain in less than 24 hours) than the trees in my garden leapt into bloom.

If my beloved Grandma Ruthven were still here, she would quote the springtime poem that I loved as a little girl:

Spring is sprung
The grass is riz
I wonder where
The flowers is?




posted from my mobile phone

Nor'easter Slams the Hudson Highlands

Nearly 6 inches of rain have fallen in the last 24 hours, with more still to come. As the heavy rains tapered off this afternoon, traffic nearly stopped on Route 32 in Cornwall as people gathered at the edge of the bridge over Moodna Creek to marvel at the power and intensity of the water.

Click on the link below for a slideshow of photos of the flood waters here in Cornwall-on-Hudson.
C-o-H Flood Photos

Tiny capsules (containing reproductive spores) are sprouting from the moss in the forest this time of year. They looked so soft and delicate, I just had to brush my face against them. In fact, they are even softer than I had imagined. Diminutive velvet fronds caressing my cheek…..

Spring Comes to the Hudson Highlands

Though it is wet and foggy this morning, Spring is definitely in the air!

I've been out photographing all morning (just finished wiping the mud off my camera gear). Here, especially for my NYC friends, are some images of Spring. I expect we'll be hearing the Peepers (thousands of tree frogs who live in the woods & marshes) any night now.

Snowdrops are always the first to push through the leaves. They have been open for a couple of weeks now.


Some of the brightest greens of early Spring are in the mosses.




How is that for a fungus?! Looks like the tail of a whale breaking the surface.....





The Lenten Roses are open right on schedule. It is always such a thrill to see them nodding in the leaves.


Last but not least, the Pussy Willows. Happy Spring, everybody!

Turkeys!

A yard full of wild turkeys (15, to be exact, plus some assorted deer). This is the view outside my window as I sit here writing, post-winter storm.



posted from my mobile phone

A Christmas Story

The choir arrived early so that we could rehearse prior to the start of the Christmas pageant. While we were singing, I noticed a young mother with a little blonde girl at the altar rail. I had never seen them before, and guessed that they must be here visting grandparents for the holidays. The daughter looked to be about about four-years-old, and was wearing a red velvet Christmas dress. The mother was kneeling and they were talking, the little girl's eyes riveted to her mother's face. As we sang, I kept looking over to them, captivated by how intent and focused they were together.

An hour later, the pageant was in full swing, with various parishioners playing the parts of angels, Herod, Mary and Joseph. Suddenly, the little girl I had noticed earlier came walking up the aisle. Her mother never moved to scold or stop her, she just let her come.

The little one pushed through the angels, proceeded past the choir, and laboriously climbed the marble steps up onto the altar, where Fr. Tom was sitting in an ornate, carved chair. She marched straight up to him, and held her arms out to be picked up. He lifted her into his lap as if they had known each other all their lives. The grandfatherly priest spent the rest of the service with her nestled in his arms. Each time the ritual called for prayer, he took her hand and they climbed the steps to the altar to get the book. Then together, holding hands, they turned and faced the congregation to read.

Her little face was full of light – it was clear that she simply needed to be there. It was an emotional, unexpected manisfestation of the true spirit of Christmas. In religious terms, I would say that she was filled with the Holy Spirit, and it felt to me as though we were visited through her.

That (and the unmistakable resemblance to Cindy Lou Who) moved me to tears.

And a child shall lead them (Isaiah 11:6).

Autumn

Wet summer, gilt-edged fall,

gold trumps orange, auburn, red.

Trees, leaves made of light.

Moving Out

Spring dashing free

Trucks mired in mud leave tracks

that my heart memorizes.

The First Sip of Spring

Spring turns up in muddy boots
Suck…suck…suck at my ankles.
Born of a steady, velvet rain,
every breath tastes of rebirth.
Resurrection.

Dwarf irises spiky and erect
Freckled with purple tears and
Golden mouths dripping life dust
Clearly unaware of how tiny they are.
So proud.

Lyra plunges into the creek, retrieving
mouthfuls of icy water as it rolls
down the mountain. The last vestiges
of winter snow still sparkling,
but now in motion.

Why are the only evident colors
on a yellow-bellied sapsucker
his black and white checked waistcoat
and the dashing red crown on his head?
Shouldn’t I see yellow?

From Provence

This trip I'm staying in Mougins - the ancient, mountaintop village that overlooks Cannes. It was a beautiful spring morning, and I started the day with a walk. The streets, lit by copper-hooded lamps, are so narrow that only one car can pass, almost touching the walls on either side. A little further up toward the center of the village, a car can't even fit - just motorbikes. The buildings are many hundreds of years old - tiny houses not more than 15 feet wide, built of either stone and mortar, or stucco frescoed in "couleurs Provencal." Every window has weatherbeaten wooden shutters, and foliage spills out of terra cotta flowerpots clinging all the way up the sides of the buildings. Many of the houses have been converted to art galleries. It's a magical place to walk and browse, with smell of lavender rising and mourning doves cooing in the gnarled branches overhead.

I turned one corner and came across a paticularly charming stone house. As is the custom here, the street number was hand-painted on a porcelain plaque next to the front door. This particular house also displayed a second plaque with small, neat letters that read "Chien Lunatique"....the most delicate, tasteful "Beware of Dog" sign I've ever seen!

The Big Melt

The Big Melt

This is a time of year that makes me wish I could slough my skin entire, like a snake, just walk away from that old integument and step out new into the air. Humans thrive on the metaphors of rebirth and regeneration, and the trouble is that they're nearly always only metaphors. But it's the actuality of spring that overwhelms us. Every hour peels back another layer of snow and shrinks the dominion of ice. The ground gives, and the sap streams upward. The finches molt into their mating colors. I walk out among it all and find myself hoping to change with the season, too.
By VERLYN KLINKENBORG

Sorrow

I shall believe in sorrow when it comes
like the first down-wandering of snow,
laying its drift of shadow on my heart,
hugging against the hedges of my soul,
gathering on the lintel of my door.
Its wide and still possession of the air
I shall acknowledge as necessity
and pray and pray, not for an early spring
but for the harvest that the year must bring.

By Jane Tyson Clement