RhinebeckFarm.com

We haven’t had a frost yet, and flowers continue to bloom in Jen’s garden. Yet it is peak leaf-peeping season. On Saturday we cleaned out our car, now officially totaled. Before soccer practice, Sarah gathered some of the prettier leaves from the yard.

Our biennial hickory nut harvest is upon us. We’ve gotten a bit smarter: we now know which trees produce the biggest nuts with the thinnest shells, and we’ve also learned that gathering two bushels of nuts is useful only if your goal is to have mice that look like Alex Rodriguez. Sarah maintains a laser-like […]

It was an old Colgate joke that upstate New York might not have much of a climate, but at least it had plenty of weather. That’s what we had this weekend: Sarah’s soccer game was rained out on Saturday, and it also rained on Sunday, but in between we had flashes of beautiful fall weather. […]

Today we hosted the Landsman Kill Trail Association’s Fall Trail Ride.  About fifty horses and riders took part. Sarah fed a peppermint to Tequila Sunrise (“Sunny”), a 19 year-old who, as a two and three year-old, ran at Belmont and Saratoga, with a couple of second-place finishes.

We took advantage of the spectacular weather today — about 68 degrees, sunny and dry — to go for a long walk.  In Jen’s bag are some wild grapes and the first of the hickory nuts. Sarah and Jen caught a frog … … but they couldn’t keep him for long. On Saturday, we retrieved Sarah’s […]

We were very excited to find this check in the mailbox Saturday morning.  It’s Sarah’s award for winning first place in the children’s landscape competition for the picture — a view of the pond — she entered in the Dutchess County Fair.  Now we have to figure out how to retrieve her blue ribbon. Sarah’s […]

Our garden cantaloupes were ripe as we entered a hot and sticky Labor Day weekend, with the emphasis, for me, on Labor, of both the town and country varieties (conference calls; barn-sweeping). Our third-floor neighbors the Seilers, including Sarah’s friend Annie, visited for the weekend.  The girls had a wonderful time, staying up late and […]

The last two days of the 166th Dutchess Country Fair were canceled because of Hurricane Irene.  We were all immensely disappointed not to be able to attend this year.  We had high hopes for ribbons and looked forward to meeting bunnies, drinking 4H milkshakes, going on midway rides, and enjoying the various other pleasures of the […]

Lew and Rinda visited this weekend.  To celebrate, we pressed Sarah’s wagon into service for a small cocktail party in Jen’s secret garden. The garden itself is looking great.  Here is one of the butterfly bushes that Jen planted in the spring. Everyone had a good time. Sarah got her grandfather to play Quirkle with […]

On a rainy, slow-moving Sunday, Jen, Sarah and Grandpa toured the garden. Here is the largest of our six cantaloupes. This poblano is about the size of a matchbox. We have lots of tomatoes this year, but the Brandywines — my favorite — have not fared well.  This is a Jet Set. The tomatoes are threatened […]