“We live where there is so much possibility in the landscape,” Marie Stella said to me as we stood on the deck of Beaver Lodge, her house in Ashfield, looking through the woods down to the beaver pond. Stella has entered into most of those possibilities, using native plants, planting vegetables and fruits where a lawn might be expected, harvesting rainwater, using stone from the house site to…
These apples may not be the most beautiful, but they are pretty sound inside which means I spent the afternoon peeling, chopping and boiling them down to make 5 quarts of apple butter, a delicacy I only discovered last year. Two quarts have already been passed along to my oldest daughter and her family. They like apple butter on black pumpernickel bread, we like it on French toast. There is hardly any way to use apples that is…
The North Quabbin Garlic and Arts Festival in Orange, MA, has to be one of the best organized, most fun, most educational, most artistic, most inspiring festivals I have ever attended. It all began with a conversation under a tree, and now, 11 years later 12,000 people find their way to this small town to enjoy a fabulous day in the autumn sun. Or autumn showers as the case may be. The solar powered main stage provides music…
Yesterday I put up a new Blog Page, a Brief Tour of Heath, which will give more distant friends and readers a better sense of the Hilltowns in western Massachusetts. Sawyer Hall is a center of town life containing as it does the Post Office, where you can also buy the annual dump (Transfer Station) sticker, all the town offices, the Police office, and the Heath Free Public Library which I visit at least once a week. Last summer…
The wind and the rain have knocked the dahlias down, but the colds, night time temps in the 40s, don't seem to bother them at all. The cosmos are bowed down as well, but just as beautiful and healthy. We are at the beginning of the bloom season for Boltonia. The plants have very sturdy stems, about 4 feet tall, and the flowers are small and fringey. Great for autumn bouquets. This rose is also standing tall and…
Foliage-viewing – Annual failure to slake Winter’s color thirst. In her haiku Carol Purington captures a season and the necessity of trying to prepare for the monochromatic winter landscape. She captures the colors, creatures and songs of every season at Woodslawn Farm here in western Massachusetts. This haiku is from her book Woodslawn Farm. To see what other muses are abroad and inspiring us, visit Carolyn gail at Sweet Home and Garden Chicago, the host of…
The pace is slightly more relaxed, but the fall season can be just as busy for gardeners as the spring season. Many of the same tasks are required, clean up, soil building, compost building, and planting. In the autumn, all gardeners, both novice and experienced, have another chance to launch the next attempt to improve their gardens. For flower gardeners this means a comprehensive new guide to perennial care might be in order. With The Perennial…
It is so pleasant to run errands at this time of the year when the landscape in turning into a jewel box. But, in fact, I only have to travel down the dirt road to our mailbox to see this glory.
It might be more genteel to say a harvest of worm castings, but no one ever knows what I'm talking about when I use that term. Castings or manure, I took advantage of the warm day to bring my worm farm out of the basement and begin the harvest I dumped the whole bin full of worms, bedding and manure out onto a plastic sheet, and let that rest and give the worms time to dive deep into…
The sun shone, the crowd gathered and the celebration began. Ground was broken for the new Buckland Public Library addition. I was there for this joyous occasion. For nine of the happiest years of my life I was the Buckland Librarian. The library is small, only about 900 square feet, but the Board of Directors was devoted to making it the best library possible, and the patrons were all devoted readers. While libraries are full of information of…