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