The weeds grow larger, but the adventures with Rory, large and small continue. Rory and I visited Frances Avery and her model of A.L. Avery's General Store, an essential supplier of what we need. This small model of the store includes tinier models of everything in the store, clothes, hardware, office corner, kitchen stuff, groceries and EVERYTHING! Mrs. Avery's brother in law and his family lived over the store for many years. It took her a long time…
These tours are over, but even these brief garden descriptions may be useful to others. When I visited Mary Manilla’s garden in Hawley this week it was a ribbon of green along the stream that borders the garden. By the time the Hawley Garden and Artisans Tour takes place on Saturday, July 11, there will be a river of color along the stream as the hundreds and hundreds of daylilies in every hue come into bloom. It…
The roses were just beginning to bloom on June's Bloom Day, mostly the rugosas, but this Fairy, one of two, had not yet begun. Unlike most of the roses in my garden The Fairy will bloom into the fall. I fully expected the roses which had barely begun to bloom on June 15, to be done by today, but they are have a most floriferous and long season. The Queen of Denmark is still petite, but blooming as…
No matter how devoted we are to our gardens, most of us would admit that the most important crop we tend is the children in our lives. The Major and I are happy to let the gardens take a back seat to grandson pleasures on these cool summer days. We had to say farewell to Tynan, but we met our daughter Betsy and her older son, Rory, in Amherst for lunch and a 'backyard circus at the Emily Dickinson…
Yesterday we traded off boys. After attending the 'backyard circus' at the Emily Dickinson Museum, daughter Betsy took Tynan home and left us with Rory. We had an elegant BBQ with friends (before the storm) and woke up to a beautiful Sunday - perfect for an afternoon of lawn mowing. Rory will be 13 next month and I have been waiting for this day for almost 13 years too. The Major is giving him a good lesson, and keeping…
Even though there are lots of activities here and there, we all spend lots of time at home, playing games, making art, cooking, checking out the Frog Pond, and Reading Aloud. Life at the End of the Road offers many activities right here. But we did hit the road to do some errands in Shelburne Falls. Tourists come here because they think its kind of quiet and old fashioned. But it is not THIS old fashioned. After errands,…
We moved from Manhattan to the End of the Road with our three daughters the day after Thanksgiving in 1979. Winter arrived in Heath that night. It was a long cold Heath winter in our uninsulated house. We spent a lot of time dreaming and planning for the spring when we could be warm - and make a garden. After having just read Katherine White’s book, Onward and Upward in the Garden I was determined to have hardy,…
With the weather still cold and wet we devoted yesterday to community service. The only gardening we could do was watch the yeast grow as we started baking bread for the food distribution at the Federated Church of Charlemont. It takes strength to knead bread, but we kneaded until the dough felt like a baby's bottom. We weren't going to get any of the bread, but we baked lemon cookies for the Bridge of Flowers birthday on Saturday…
Grandson Tynan arrived Monday evening, but we wasted no time on Monday exploring the damage done to the landscape. We cleared the path down to the Frog Pond a little more and Ty was amazed at the trees bent and broken around the pond. The frogs and newts seemed to be in good shape. The sundews, too. We still don't know how those tiny, pond-edge carniverous plants, close around bugs to eat them. Since the weather was supposed…
The past week was cold, wet and windy. Not much time out in the garden, although I did pick the last of the lettuce in the herb bed, and lots of sugar snap peas. We eat them raw. On the cloudy, cold and windy Fourth of July we went to a neighbor's BBQ where we huddled in the kitchen, only nipping out to the fire and hot dogs occasionally. We all know that kitchens are the best for…