March Walk

Childhood Memories

Each step brings back memories of childhood March walks in the New England woods exploring after the long winter.  The annual trek for signs of spring greenery forming anew.  Soft earth under foot, birds singing loudly overhead. The ride home on my father's back after little feet tired or misstepped in the moist ground. 

This March day was no different with signs of spring to be seen. The vernal pools giving rise to new growth.  Met by skunk cabbage* rising to greet the path.  Green to be seen dotting the low areas of the woods floor.  Skilled feet stepping over the mud.

*Symplocarpus foetidus, Eastern Skunk Cabbage

The March walk in the woods repeated and complete.  Satisfaction that the woodlands are responding to the call of the Spring. Thanks Dad for the memories of those walks together! 

"The Spring Project"

Fall and Winter Planning, Then It's Time...

The summer is the season when we live outside and traverse every inch of our yard.  By the end of the summer, we have many ideas about changes we want to make for next year - the mix of plants, vegetables, flowers, shrubs, trees, new planters, architectural elements or a pathway. Change is inevitable as nothing remains static.  Our plants continue to grow and spread much as we try to keep them in check. Throughout the fall and winter we think about how we want to engage with our environment. Researching, reviewing, and planning. 

As soon as the last frost gives way to spring flowers, the time is upon us to execute those plans. We take into account what winter has delivered to us by spring.  There are many emotions that greet us as we near the start line ready to commence implementation of "the project."  The process of planning gives us time for ruminating, imagining, examining alternatives and dreaming about what the finished product might look like. There is a freedom in the planning that allows for possibility in what might be.  Once we make the investment of time, materials and/or labor, there's no turning back. "The project" has begun.

The arrival of the heavy equipment (shown here) sets the plan in motion. Our "spring project" involves planting some white pines against a barren hillside to provide sightline interest and to relate visually to mature white pines that were planted years ago by the barn.

What are you working on this spring? 
Please share in comment section below
or use #myspringproject on IG.  

Good luck with your spring project!

Winter Meets Spring

Fleeting Moments 

Fleeting moments of transient weather. 
By mid-afternoon all snow gone. 
Time spent watching nature work her magic.
Spring force too strong for winter's remnant.
Beauty in transition.

Monday morning, March 21, 2016 
Photos by TB

Today's Inspirations - Greenhouse Envy

In no particular order these are the things I'm looking at today and contemplating for home. Thrilled to have found so many great inspirations for inside and outside from gardeners around the world. 

Living Willow Structures

 Via Bonnie Gale

Considering something like this tucked away in a clearing of willows out behind the rock outcropping below the small pond. Living willow structures are often found in gardens in England.  

Finishing a room with plants

via @eddie.herzog

What's not to love about this picture.  Love the composition of this scene with the woven natural textures below and the Blue/White against the white flowers.  Fabulous table and backdrop needless to say.  In search of great baskets for plants to bring greenery inside the house. Finishes the room.

Moss Pots

via @juliaronchigardendesign

Just saw these this morning and thought they would be great for early spring centerpieces.

Myrtle Topiaries

via @debbytenquist of @loithai featured by Martha Stewart

After reading up on Myrtle Topiaries came away with serious greenhouse envy (takes 5+ years to get it to look like this), but armed with a source in southern Maine to visit this summer to pick up a few of these beauties - Snug Harbor Farm in Kennebunk. Stay tuned for road trip photos.

Here's a video with Martha Stewart on making your own topiaries.
Supposes you have your own greenhouse to let these lovelies grow for a few years to get ready. Martha Stewart on Making Myrtle Topiaries.

Enough inspiration for the day, back to real life.

Winter Whisper of the Garden

YOUR GARDEN IN WINTER

via Pinterest

"And when wind and winter harden
All the loveless land,
It will whisper of the garden..."
-Oscar Wilde

via @silverinthebarn, Virginia

@silverinthebarn displays her winter garden beauty and challenges us with a quote from an old dowager: "Spring is a hussy!" (pronounced "huzzy" the way older Southern ladies often do.) "Anyone can have a beautiful garden in spring, but to have one in winter should be your goal." 

via @pjknyc1 from Central Park Shakespeare Garden, New York


Send us photos of your winter garden!
sliceofexurbia@gmail.com

Winter Containers

Repurposing Fall Cuttings

As the fall flowers faded with the first frost, we came up with a new solution for our otherwise empty containers. We repurposed evergreen cuttings from around the property and branches from the woods to give containers greenery for the winter months. Looks great! Can only imagine how good they will look against a snowy landscape....

Google Maps and Me

Home is where the heart is?

No, it's where Google maps puts the location marker.  Google maps had the location marker for our home somewhere out in the woods on our property.  As a result, navigation directed all visitors to an adjacent street behind our property.  Inspired by my daughters to be a change agent, it finally dawned on me that perhaps I could change my little piece of the navigation world. 

I posted my dilemma in a Google maps forum and quickly got two responses.  I was able to submit a change to the location marker for my house with an error explanation and move it closer to my driveway entrance. Who knew that for three years a change to this frustrating situation was in my control.  Google Maps approved the change and in two days we are back on the map as living on our own street.  Three years of cursing the navigation system that imposed this on me, and all it took was my own input to make the system more accurate.  Lesson #1: Ask for help in navigating the system! The Google Maps forum community quickly came to my assistance with the information I needed and provided me the link to submit my update. Google Mapmaker

Technology continues to change the world as we know it. Remarkably though information still is only as good as the local input received. Lesson #2: Technology gives us the vehicle to broadcast that local information. Little actions have impact. Make your mark.

That Which Inspires

En Plein Air - A French expression that means “in the open air” is used to describe the act of painting outdoors with the artist’s subject in full view.  With portable paints and easels, the Impressionists found they could capture the momentary and transient effects of natural light and the elements by painting en plein air. 

It is a reminder to us how the same scenes we see each day are altered by the changing conditions of sky and sun.  How much do we notice? The artist catches every detail and nuance with their skilled eye and talented hand. A moment in time is captured on their sketchpad or canvas.  

View our photos on instagram of the beauty of the changing elements at @sliceofexurbia.

Images via Slice of Exurbia

"Something There Is That Doesn't Love a Wall"

Throughout the Hudson Valley there are remnants of old stone walls that once marked boundaries of fields and property lines.  The stones so carefully placed resting one on the other winding over hills and across valleys.

Summers spent in Robert Frost country in New Hampshire gave me an appreciation of the importance of knowing the boundaries of your property. In a neighborhood on a lake where many houses had the second generation in the same family living there, property line issues had a way of becoming cemented in local lore.   Robert Frost wrote in his poem, "Mending Wall" of the annual ritual of walking the wall with a neighbor to mend and maintain it.

As a homeowner, it is truly important to learn the property lines that surround your yard.  Issues arise over time and it is much more pleasant to truly know the boundaries and understand your maintenance obligations vis a vis your neighbors.  We have all heard stories of neighborly squabbles that could have been avoided if first, there was knowledge of the property lines.

If it is not easy to tell the boundaries from your survey, it is a good investment to hire a local surveyor to mark the property line with a rebar marker that has permanence vs. a flag/stake.  In our area, we use Campbell Engineering, Chappaqua, New York.  This information helps if you need to have a conversation with your neighbor regarding encroachments or dumping by cavalier yard workers.

There is wisdom in the old New England saying, "Good fences make good neighbors."  Where each knows the boundaries, there is understanding and acceptance.  Where each works to maintain his part there is harmony.

Mending Wall by Robert Frost

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

Images by Slice of Exurbia

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow!

You know it is summer when you see the orange daylilies by the side of the road, by a mailbox, behind old stone walls or on the lakeshore. The orange swaths pop up in unexpected places and are reminder to us to enjoy the fleeting days of summer.

Yet each flower lasts only for a single day. Greeting the morning with such boldness and beauty.  An inspiration to us to reflect on what it means to make the most of our time.

With multiple buds on each stem, a cluster can bloom for several weeks.  They are a reminder that each day of summer should be savored and enjoyed. Here today, but gone tomorrow. Carpe Diem - Seize the Day!

Images via Slice of Exurbia

Something On Which We Can All Agree?

In these politically charged pre-primary days it is great when we can find some common ground. Sunday marks the 31st anniversary of National Ice Cream Day.  The Congress in 1984, by Senate Joint Resolution 298, designated the month of July as "National Ice Cream Month" and the third Sunday of July as "National Ice Cream Day".  Further, they asked the President, then Ronald Reagan, to issue a formal proclamation. 

A look back at this historic proclamation:

By the President of the United States of America  
A Proclamation

Ice cream is a nutritious and wholesome food, enjoyed by over ninety percent of the people in the United States. It enjoys a reputation as the perfect dessert and snack food. Over eight hundred and eighty-seven million gallons of ice cream were consumed in the United States in 1983.

The ice cream industry generates approximately $3.5 billion in annual sales and provides jobs for thousands of citizens. Indeed, nearly ten percent of all the milk produced by the United States dairy farmers is used to produce ice cream, thereby contributing substantially to the economic well-being of the Nation's dairy industry.
 
The Congress, by Senate Joint Resolution 298, has designated July 1984 as "National Ice Cream Month," and July 15, 1984, as "National Ice Cream Day," and authorized and requested the President to issue a proclamation in observance of these events.

Now, Therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim July 1984 as National Ice Cream Month and July 15, 1984, as National Ice Cream Day, and I call upon the people of the United States to observe these events with appropriate ceremonies and activities.

In Witness Whereof I have hereunto set my hand this ninth day of July, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty-four, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and ninth.

RONALD REAGAN

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Citation: Ronald Reagan: "Proclamation 5219 - National Ice Cream Month and National Ice Cream Day, 1984," July 9, 1984. 

   
This is something that we should all be able to agree on!  Since 1984, we've seen the rise in popularity of frozen yogurt (first introduced by TCBY in 1981). You may wonder - how has the popularity of frozen yogurt impacted our consumption of ice cream?

Source:  Fortune Magazine, "Do We Still Scream for Ice Cream," July 24, 2014

 
Even as we've become more health conscious, frozen yogurt has not surplanted Americans' love for ice cream.

In honor of this national holiday.....Let's go get some ice cream!  What is your favorite place to go - name/location?



[For our lactose intolerant friends we acknowledge your hardship in not being able to eat ice cream.]

Image via

Weed the Garden, Weed the Pond

Three summers ago, we inherited an old farm pond and learned quickly about the need for maintaining the pond to prevent overgrowth of algae and weeds.  The hot summer sun quickly warms the shallow areas around the pond edge, creating a perfect environment for new growth.

After a good cleaning of the pond bottom last year, we are seeing less algae, but still are getting an abundance of pond weed.  The addition of black lake dye has helped, but with warm weather in June the weeds are growing quickly.  The dye is not as effective at the edges of the pond. The presence of aquatic plants in lake environments can be summarized in a single statement:  “If light reaches the bottom, plants will grow.” NYS DEC A Primer on Aquatic Plant Management in New York State 

We ordered some tools from The Pond Guy last fall to help with pond maintenance.  The net was very helpful in early spring to remove algae forming along the pond edge.  The rakes got their test this afternoon on the pond weed.

The weed rake (left) was the workhorse with it's long rope. It was easy to throw the rake into the lake and pull it back along the bottom.

The weeds came up easily and the rake did a good job pulling them out. We used the net to pull up pieces that had broken off. It was easier to do than we expected.

Weed the garden! Weed the pond!
Chores are never done.

Before and After

           

 

Images via and by Slice of Exurbia

More Than A Parade....

Fire Truck Parades Mark the Start of Summer!  

Did you know the parade is a competition?

As June ends and July rolls in it's time for the Fire Truck Parades from our local Volunteer Fire Departments.**   As much as it is a time for the public to enjoy the impressiveness of the equipment and the neat uniforms of our firefighters, the sounds, the colors, the sights, it is a time for local fire houses to share camaraderie with fire departments from other towns and show off their stuff.

To take pressure off local organizers, parades are judged by independent judges from the Westchester County Parade Judges Association (WCPJA), formed in 1973. Their membership consists of former Chiefs from Fire Companies and Departments in the Lower Hudson Valley.

For 42 years, they have judged Fire Department Events in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Delaware.  It is the purpose of the WCPJA to provide fire departments and companies with an equitable means of judging parades, and other event competition, for the benefit of all, with a strong emphasis and goal of developing a closer relationship in fire service.

CLICK HERE FOR SCHEDULE OF UPCOMING WCPJA PARADES AND COMPETITIONS AND RESULTS

**LOCAL PARADES:

Friday, July 10th at 7:00 pm
Mount Kisco Parade, Mount Kisco, New York

Friday, July 24th at 7:00 pm
Bedford Village Parade, Bedford, New York

Wednesday, August 5th at 7:00 pm
South Salem Parade, South Salem, New York

Saturday, August 22nd, 4:00 pm
Carmel 100th Anniversary Parade, Carmel, New York

ALL-VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENTS
Neighbors Helping Neighbors
With deepest appreciation for those who volunteer for our local Fire Departments. Please come out and show your appreciation for their hours of service!!  Cheer them on!! Check the schedule above for a Fire Department parade near you in the next few weeks.  Great family outing!! Don't forget to check the WCPJA link and see results from each parade!!

A Special Shout Out to Mount Kisco Fire Department (our fire district):
For over 100 years, the all-volunteer Mount Kisco Fire Department has provided residents of Mount Kisco, New Castle and Bedford with fire protection.  The Mount Kisco Fire Department has one Department Chief and three Assistant Chiefs.  The four member companies each have their own set of line officers and administrative officers. The four member companies: Union Hook & Ladder Co. No. 1, Mutual Engine & Hose Co. No. 1; Independent Fire Company; and Rescue Fire Police operate out of three fire stations with 200 volunteers. The Department operates with four engines, two aerials, two rescues, one utility truck and four chiefs vehicles and responds to approximately 600 fire emergencies a year.

Foreward from Katonah Fire Department Historic Movie

"From the very dawn of civilization, FIRE has been man's best friend and bitterest enemy.

In large centers of population the ravages of fire are minimized by laws requiring buildings of fire resisting construction and a paid Fire Department on duty all hours with authority to do whatever is necessary to save life and property.

In small suburban and rural communities this task falls on the Volunteer Fire Department whose record of lives saved and property salvaged from the ravages of fire is one worthy of all praise and the willing support of every citizen."

Link to view:
Historic Movie about Katonah All-Volunteer Fire Department


Images via, via and via