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The black raspberries — black caps — are having a great year. Jen is gathering great bowlfuls to be made into jam. The mulberries are also ripe at this time, which is why we can often find a deer grazing at the end of the driveway.

Jen, returning Sunday from her 40th high school reunion, looked in on her garden, which, as has become customary, received about two inches of rain on Saturday. Daisy assumed her post by the garden door.

The herons have built a nest very near our bank of Vlei Marsh, giving us a good view of what we expect is a growing heron family.

Even though Sarah remained at Colgate rounding out her junior year, Jen received the traditional Mothers’ Day breakfast in bed. To commemorate the occasion, she performed eight hours of manual labor in field and garden.

Jen stopped to smell the cherry blossoms on a crisp Easter Sunday afternoon. In less happy tree news, we had to take down the big maple in front of the sun porch. We’ll need to plant a replacement, perhaps a bit farther from the house. We spent Saturday in Saratoga, where Sarah rowed in the […]

Today was our annual sweeping of the barn, in which the droppings of a generation of barn swallows and pigeons are removed to make way for this year’s crop. The barn swallows should arrive any day. The pigeons never left.

Jen, braving frigid conditions, introduced some phragmites to the scythe.

We clustered nine around the table for Thanksgiving this year, with Sarah absent (she celebrated in Strasbourg). We had all the traditional favorites, although we experimented with new recipes for turkey, gravy, and stuffing. We also had some splendid new additions, such as a sour cherry pie contributed by Geoff. Jen made an exceptionally delicious […]

Summer may be ending, but the dahlias are plentiful.

Sarah rode both bicycle and horse this weekend. Jen took a short break from jam-making to see what the birds were up to in Vlei Marsh.