Millerton - Creating

THANKSGIVING 2011

BEAUTIFUL

Millerton - News Worthy

On October 29, 2011, New York, and specifically Millerton (and the entire Hudson Valley region) was hit with a very cold, very wet, and very significant snow storm. Between 8 inches of snow fell on Saturday.

Millerton and many parts of the Hudson Valley remain without power since Saturday's storm. Temperatures dropped to 14 degrees. No power means no heat. There has never been a recorded snowfall, this significant in October. Let's hope it isn't a foreshadow of what our winter will be like.

Millerton - Home Improvement

UPDATE!

11/13/11

The kitchen floor is done.

(And I peaked under the linoleum in the sun room and I'm 90% sure it has the same floor underneath.)

Our Kitchen - very exciting (hehe)...

When we purchased the home the kitchen floors were a disaster. Not only linoleum, but 20 year old, "well worn" linoleum with a very unpleasant design.

This past Saturday, after gardening for most of the day (getting as much done before winter sets in) I found myself a little bored. (ha!)

First I considered pulling down the fake wood paneling and drop ceiling in the dining room, but that is going to be a huge undertaking.

Instead, I took a peak under the existing kitchen flooring.... and VOILA!

For the next couple of hours I ripped and pulled that linoleum up, prying thousands of nails out of the wood along the way. By midnight I had a good part done.

I didn't have much time on Sunday but I was able to get about two-thirds of the floor up. Next weekend I'm sure I can finish the job with the help of friends to pull out the refrigerator and electric stove!

The floor is in really great shape and won't even need sanding. So, in the next couple of weeks I'll prime and paint the floor.

I love gray. Gray goes with everything and yet it is still "color" and I love color. So, hopefully, eventually, the floor will look like this.

I'll keep you "posted".

Millerton - Creating

Picket Fence
The fence and gate are finally done! It came out pretty closely to what I imagined. The gate, designed by my 7 year old daughter, has a unique handle that allows you to open it from both sides by just turning the ring.

Although it took a lot longer than I had anticipate and now it's fall so I'll have to wait to plant vines, roses, etc., I'm very happy with how it's turned out.

Can't wait till Spring!

UPDATE

On October 15 I planted 140 tulip bulbs in front of my picket fence. Oh, I REALLY can’t wait ‘til Spring now!

Millerton - Interesting Places

To say New York has had an exceptional amount of rain this summer, would be an understatement. There are mushrooms and moss growing everywhere (not to mention, the unmentionable mold who’s smell permeates the air). This extraordinary amount of rain and dampness, combined with our usual humid summers and unusually cool days and nights has ruined my vegetable garden. I had a ton of cherry tomatoes but it never was warm enough to ripen them so they had no flavor. And my other tomatoes just cracked and never turned fully red. Sigh. But, looking on the bright side, which I always try to do, I have fantastic string beans and Brussels sprouts.

This past weekend (yes, mid September) we finally had a sunny, warm and dry(ish) day. Making the most of it, in the morning we walked the trail in Copake Falls to BashBish. The falls, because of the rain, were enormous, quite beautiful and exciting.

Later that afternoon, we decided to take a swim in Rudd Pond. Although there were not lifeguards on duty (and no park employees to be seen) there were a few people enjoying the beach and pond. It seems only fair, even though technically no swimming was allowed, that we finally, after almost an entire summer of terrible weather, were able to enjoy a warm afternoon at the pond.

After the pond I took a drive. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I like to do this when I have a few minutes to really get to know the area. So we headed East on Shagroy Road (which once you cross the state line, is called Belgo Road). The roads twist and turn upward and downward and the scenery is fantastic – many of the homes are quite stunning in fact. One home in particular had this fantastic stone wall. Keep in mind, there are many antique stone walls in the area. But I’ve never seen anything like this. Truly remarkable (and now on my “wish list”).

It was a very good weekend.

Millerton - Things to Do

One of the reasons I fell in love with Millerton is the village's bucolic surroundings. When I have the time I greatly enjoy a slow drive through the area. On one particular fall day, I was driving on one of the many beautiful roads admiring the colors when I came upon this house.

Well, perhaps "house" isn't the right term.

It was love at first sight. I've taken friends and family by the house and everyone agrees that it's architecture and the surrounding gardens and pastures are flawlessly designed and manicured. After a little research I came across a little bit of information (mostly from Wikipedia).

Thomas Hidden, a New York City businessman who had made his fortune in paint manufacture and real estate, assembled all or part of four dairy farms in the Coleman Station area in 1903. He then retired to the 450-acre (180 ha) estate and built the house. He was one of the first wealthy New Yorkers to choose the Millerton area, as opposed to neighboring Sharon, Connecticut, and other towns in that state's Northwest Highlands, as a place for a country home. A horse breeder, he found the area an ideal place for that activity, with convenient nearby rail access to the city via the tracks originally built for the New York and Harlem Railroad.

For the horses, he built a half-mile (1 km) indoor training track and large stable complex. He also continued to produce milk as well. The house, whose architect is unknown, is considered the most architecturally significant in the Harlem Valley. It epitomizes the earlier stage of the Georgian Revival, with its close adherence to classical models and proportions.

After Hidden's death in 1918, the house was eventually sold to Sheffield Farms, a large corporate farm that would become by the middle of the century one of New York City's largest providers of milk. Shortly before Sheffield became part of Sealtest in the 1950s, the stable and track burned down. The estate was subdivided down to the 17 acres (6.9 ha) on which the house sits today.

It remains a private home. In the late 1980s an old brick farmhouse and carriage house that Hidden had kept were demolished by the then-owners, and the original Corinthian capitals on the front portico's entrance columns were replaced with the current Tuscan ones. Other than the changes to the carriage house, those have been the only significant changes to the property.

Millerton - Things to Do

August 5, 2011 Article in the New York Times:

Williamsburg on the Hudson By PETER APPLEBOME

FROM the venerable general store his grandparents opened in 1919, where you can get hunting knives, cigars, worms, khaki pants and copies of Vogue, Phil Terni has watched Dutchess County’s passing parade for most of his 68 years.

The store has seen celebrated customers — Babe Ruth, Ava Gardner, Artie Shaw, Ruth Bader Ginsburg — amble in and out. And Mr. Terni has seen Millerton prosper as an agricultural crossroads with three hotels served by three railroads, and then decline toward irrelevance as the milk processing plant shut down and the farms died. Still, none of that has prepared him for what he sees outside his door every day.

“Not in my wildest dreams would I have expected this,” he said in the back of the store, with its black-and-white photos of old locomotives, a giant Revolutionary War oil painting, bric-a-brac from a century of small-town commerce. “This never would have entered my mind.”

And yet there it is, everywhere you look: the old diner, renamed the Oakhurst and now serving gourmet curried chicken rolls, organic burgers and venison chili cheese fries; Eckert Fine Art, with its paintings by Eric Forstmann and Robert Rauschenberg; the fliers for the Buddhist Path of Fulfillment retreat; the sustainable agriculture benefit; the artsy, SoHo-esque Hunter Bee antiques; the three-screen Moviehouse on Main Street with its art gallery and cafe.

Somehow, Mr. Terni has no idea how, Millerton has become hip, cited by the magazine Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel as one of the “10 coolest small towns in America.”

“It’s just my comfort zone,” said Rebekah Blu, who has specialized in rock ’n’ roll, celebrity and what she calls Goddess photography and moved to town with her husband and two infants from the East Village two months ago. “You think of the East Village; you have local businesses, not chains, you don’t need a car, there’s lots of art and culture. You have a lot of that here, but you’re living in the country.”

In the usual suspects of Hudson Valley exurban revival, like Beacon, Cold Spring and Hudson, in cities like Kingston and Poughkeepsie and smaller communities like Tivoli, Red Hook, Accord and High Falls, you can find something similar.

Call it the Brooklynization of the Hudson Valley, the steady hipness creep with its locavore cuisine, its Williamsburgian bars, its Gyrotonic exercise, feng shui consultants and deep clay art therapy and, most of all, its recent arrivals from New York City.

Jenifer Constantine and Trippy Thompson, bartenders in Williamsburg, found the adventurous loft life there a bit too precarious after the birth of their first child in 2007, and moved to New Paltz to open their own minimalist, Brooklynesque bar and restaurant in Rosendale, Market Market, with a locavore menu and weekly spoken-word slams.

Dave Lerner, a musician, found the Brooklyn life getting claustrophobic and moved to West Saugerties, a placed that seemed different but part of a familiar universe, where there was music and culture but you could bike, hike and breathe.

John Friedman, a lawyer who lived in Greenwich Village, fell in love with Hudson and went from making mostly telecom deals in Manhattan to making mostly agriculture deals in the Hudson Valley.

Kate Doris left her hometown of Kingston as it skidded downward after I.B.M. left in the ’90s. Now she’s back, plugged into the local art scene, amused at the number of her Brooklyn friends who have also moved up.

The greening of the Hudson Valley did not begin yesterday. It’s as revealing for what it’s not as for what it is. And given the comatose national economy, many grains of salt should be added to any rosy projections.

Still, in the best case, it adds up to more than refugees from the city, fair-trade coffeehouses in every far-flung town and unexpectedly cool places and culture — the Phoenicia Festival of the Voice, the Last Bite in High Falls, the Wassaic Project arts organization in a refurbished mill and animal auction house.

Instead, you could argue, it’s a new chapter in an old story — Henry Hudson’s voyage of discovery, the Hudson Valley School’s attempt to capture an American Eden, updated for the Twitter era and based around sustainable, human-scale agriculture; manageable towns that are neither giant cities nor cookie-cutter suburbs; a $4.7 billion tourism industry; and the mountains, valleys and rivers of one of America’s unspoiled places.

“We’re in the early stages of a green economic revitalization of the Hudson Valley,” said Ned Sullivan, president of Scenic Hudson, which half a century ago was at the heart of a battle to save Storm King Mountain, spurring on modern environmentalism.

“The land is being preserved,” he said. “Waterfront parks are being created. Water supplies are being protected. There’s a green economy that’s being born.”

IN the beginning was the river, which the Indians called Muhheakantuck — “river that flows two ways” — because for about half its 315 miles it is also a tidal estuary, where salty water meets fresh.

Life on the shore has flowed two ways, too, through culture and commerce. For almost a century, beginning around 1825, the Hudson Valley was the nation’s first industrial heartland, an incessant bustle of shipbuilding, ironworks, railroad lines, shipping docks, cement, stone, iron, lumber, weaponry and even whaling industries.

The valley was also a seminal creator of American culture, from Washington Irving, who became America’s first international literary celebrity, to the Hudson Valley School and later to artist colonies and the Woodstock Festival. The factories are almost all gone. The cultural buzz remains.

You can pick your favorite current image of industrial past and creative present. The stunning Dia: Beacon collection of massive modernism in an old factory on the Hudson? The exhilarating Walkway Over the Hudson that turned an abandoned railroad bridge into the world’s longest pedestrian bridge? The industrial spaces turned into artists’ studios in uptown Kingston?

For more of the article go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/07/nyregion/hudson-river-valley-draws-brooklynites.html?_r=1&hp

Millerton - Gardening

Here is an update on "The Pumpkin".

As you can see, he's grown considerably and is getting some gold spots.

Very exciting.

Millerton - Things to Do

Millerton has a new and improved website:

http://www.enjoymillerton.com/

I especially enjoy the historical photos -- some I've seen before -- but many are new.

Millerton - Gardening

This year, I've tried a few new things in our Garden.

Pumpkins

My brother has grown various types of pumpkins in California for several years. His vines produce many more pumpkins than one can handle so he decided to start a fantastic tradition of

leaving a nice, new pumpkin on his neighbors' doorstep (several pumpkins if the family had

children) every Halloween.

So this year I thought I'd give pumpkin farming a try (eager at the chance to have enough to leave one or a few on my neighbors' doorstep). And, as you can see from this little beauty (and it's only

July) I've achieved some success. This one is the

largest and we have about 8 other pumpkins of various sizes so far.

My brother advised me to put "their bottoms down" to achieve a more round, typical

jack-o-lantern, shape. As they mature, they will of course become larger, then they'll turn yellow and eventually ORANGE.

Unfortunately, however, the pumpkin patch has started to take over our entire garden. Note to self: next year, plant them where there is a lot more space!

Zinnias

While I've grown Zinnias from seed in California, last year, when I attempted in Millerton, not a single flower came up! I was convinced it was something I did wrong - now I'm convinced they were just old seeds. BECAUSE look at these beauties.

These photos do not do these wonderful flowers justice. The first photo shows a flower whose color fades from a fantastic dark peach to a wonderful warm golden yellow - with a soft pink center. It reminds me of rainbow sherbet ice cream. (It's my favorite one so far.)

At first glance this bright pink one seems so perfectly simple and yet, because of

the tiny row of yellow flowers around the center, you'll notice that it is actually very complex.

In fact, and this may sound odd, but it reminds me of when I was a little girl and I'd watch the Jackie Gleason show with my father. Before the show (which was the "Honeymooners") they'd have "Jackie and the June Taylor Dancers". www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEQg-L-Rbp0 The women would dance on the floor making all sorts of kaleidoscopic like images from the birds-eye camera above.

I know, I know... but that's what it reminds me of. I think because of it's bright, very feminine color and the rows of petals.

And in this last photo, showing the height that these lovelies have reached, (with orange cherry tomatoes as a backdrop) you can clearly see how sturdy, healthy and prolific the Zinnia is. Oh sure, Zinnia's may not have a fragrance but they make terrific cut flowers that will last a good week in fresh water.

I plan to harvest the seeds from the strongest most lovely ones so I'll have even more next year. Not a bad investment - a $2 pack of seeds.

Brussels Sprouts

Here is an update on my Brussels Sprouts...

As you can see, they are turning into perfect little nubs (for lack of a better word). The wonderful thing about Brussels Sprouts is you can just cut off as many as you'd like and leave the others to mature. These are definitely on my "always grow" list.

Millerton - Interesting Places

Botanical Gardens - Chapter One - Innisfree

This weekend we're planning an excursion to Innisfree Botanical Garden located near Millbrook, New York (about 30 minutes Southwest of Millerton).

Among other things, I find Botanical Gardens inspiring. And having been raised in California, I'm still learning about the plants that will and will not survive zone 5's harsh winters and even more importantly the plants that will flourish.

From the photos I've found of Innisfree, I'm truly excited about Saturday's excursion.

Here are some photos I found online - but I'll post my own photos next week.

Also, here is a link to Martha Stewart's article about Innisfree: http://theradioblog.marthastewart.com/2010/05/a-garden-a-day-innisfree-garden.html and here's the link to the Innisfree Garden's website: http://www.innisfreegarden.org/

According to their website: Innisfree is a 150-acre public garden in which the ancient art of Chinese landscape design has been reinterpreted to create, without recourse to imitation, a unique American garden. At Innisfree the visitor strolls from one three-dimensional picture to another. Streams, waterfalls, terraces, retaining walls, rocks, and plants are used not only to define areas but also to establish tension or motion. The 40-acre lake is glacial, most of the plant material is native, and the rocks have come from the immediate forest.

From 1930 to 1960 Innisfree was the private garden of Walter and Marion Beck. In 1960 Innisfree Foundation under the stewardship of landscape architect Lester Collins opened the garden to the public. Today, Innisfree is held in trust by its board of trustees, both for the people of New York and for people throughout the world to enjoy and study garden art.

Innisfree Garden lies in the hollow which surrounds Tyrrel Lake; low wooded hills give the site enclosure. Innisfree embraces the Eastern design concept of asymmetric balance that combines rhythm, pattern, space and form in a harmony independent of formal symmetry. In Western gardens little is hidden. The garden, like a stage set, is there in its entirety; its overall design revealed at a glance. The traditional Eastern garden hides this complete view. Visitors walk into a series of episodes or pictures and can enter the sequence of pictures wherever they choose. The rugged topography of the Innisfree site invariably enframes these pictures called cup gardens. A garden picture may be composed of several small cup gardens within the larger one.

Dominant in the design of the garden are natural stone, sculptured land forms or berms and carefully engineered water features. Stone is an infinitely suggestive material, rich with poetic, philosophical, and artistic meaning. Innisfree has an endless supply of rocks. The glacier which carved the lake deposited on the property a combination of sandstone, limestone, granite and quartz. These rocks are gorgeous, water-warn, lichen-encrusted pieces of sculpture that can effortlessly steal the show. Their placement, however, must be exact. Six inches right or left, backward or forward can wreck the picture.

The building of berms, like the placing of rocks requires intuition and imagination. A berm can give direction or enclosure; a berm can be impressive sculpture or merely an undulation of earth needed to relieve the flatness of the ground. Like the rocks, the land forms are permanent design elements in the garden; they do not grow, shed in the Fall, or sicken mysteriously.

At Innisfree water is paramount. Tyrrel Lake is a large, deep natural lake from which water is pumped into a hillside reservoir. A complex system of underground pipes takes this water to various parts of the garden to be used not only for irrigation but also for the man-made streams, pools, waterfalls and sculpture which make the garden so exceptional.

Millerton - Things to Do

In May I wrote about the Copake Auction and how fantastic it is. This past weekend I got a few more bargains:

This beautiful hand carved oak chair with fantastic details including the Fish at the top. $40.
Another amazing rocking chair, in mint condition and again, solid oak! $40.

Lastly, the beautiful Octagon dining table. I do not need another dining table but at $20 I couldn't say no!


I purchased all of these through Live Auctioneers. So much fun and fantastic bargains!!

Millerton - Vegetable Garden

The real difference between rich and regular people is that the rich serve such marvelous vegetables. Little fresh born things, scarcely out of the earth. Little baby corns, little baby peas, little lambs that have been ripped out of their mothers’ wombs. Truman Capote.

Our lovely vegetable garden is coming along nicely!

UPDATE

(Brussels Sprouts)

(Raspberry Patch)

In just a few more weeks we'll be enjoying sweet Raspberries!

(Zinnias in the foreground, then cucumbers then tomatoes.)

I am really loving the pea-gravel around the raised beds. So much easier to maintain and I think it looks fantastic!

(A little bit of everything.)

Millerton - Home Improvement

It was a busy weekend but so many things were accomplished.

One of the first things I did was paint the iron furniture my neighbor had given me. It was black and a little rusted in spots. The entire process took about an hour! Yah, that's all. I used 4 cans of RustOleum white paint. I found some nice & reasonably priced cushions and pillows at Target of all places. It's coming along nicely.... but definitely needs a fire pit!

I also finished putting the gravel around the raised bed for my vegetable garden. No more navigating the lawnmower around the boxes of vegetables and no more edge clipping! I also think it looks fantastic.

I'm very pleased with how my garden is growing. We've had a lot of rain, not a lot of sun, so everything is very green and healthy. But, without the sun, nothing is blooming or ripening.

All we need is SUN! Look at how fantastic these Brussels Sprouts are doing. The turnip and beets, on the other hand, have beautiful greens but no bulbs...

All in all, our home is coming along nicely. I took this photo of the front yard as a "before" picture because we should be getting our picket fence in the next couple of weeks! Very exciting.

Millerton - Things to Do

This past Saturday we went strawberry picking with friends at a farm near Copake.

On Sunday night I made Strawberry Jam. I'm sure there are recipes you can follow, but I'm not much of a follower.

Here's how I make Strawberry Jam.

1. Clean and prepare strawberries (remove stems, etc.).

2. Place strawberries (about 6 to 7 cups) in large pot with about a 1/8 cup of orange juice.

3. Cook strawberries on low heat until they release their juices.

4. Add sugar and stir (add as much sugar as you like - I start off with about a cup and go from there).

5. Continue to cook strawberry/sugar mixture until all of the liquid from the berries is released.

6. Use potato masher to smash cooked strawberries until they are at the consistency you like (I don't like large chunks of strawberries in my jam).

7. Add pectin.

8. Once the mixture comes to a rolling boil, ontinue to cook, on medium heat, for about two minutes, stirring consistently.

9. Ladle mixture into sterilized jars.

10. Clean the rim of the jars and place sterilized lids on them then tighten lids slightly.

11. Once the jars of Jam have cooled a bit - but are still warm then tighten as much as you can.

12. Once the jars of Jam have cooled completely, store in refrigerator (I keep them in the refrigerator because no preservatives are used and to be safe).

This is the basic method I use to make any type of jam. If you want to make jelly just strain the liquid from the pulp and use only the liquid.

Millerton - Vegetable Garden

The real difference between rich and regular people is that the rich serve such marvelous vegetables. Little fresh born things, scarcely out of the earth. Little baby corns, little baby peas, little lambs that have been ripped out of their mothers’ wombs. Truman Capote.

Our lovely garden is coming along nicely.

Pumpkins.

My little pumpkin patch (first time pumpkin grower here) seems to be doing just fine! I can't wait to train their long tentacles to grow all around the garden boxes. And this fall, my daughter and her friends will be so happy picking the orange beauties for Halloween Jack-O-Lanterns. (Oh, and I'm looking forward to making - and eating - pumpkin pies.)

Vegetables

I took advantage of the cool weather this past weekend and placed pea gravel around the raised beds. No more having to navigate the mower around the boxes and I love the earthy look (although I'm feeling the 15 wheel-barrel loads of gravel it in my back today!)

I also planted a few more things. I planted some sweet potatoes, a rhubarb, a sun choke and even tried soy-beans. Soy-beans don't generally grow around these parts (hehe) but I figured, "What the heck. If they grow and I get some beans, my daughter will be very happy with me."

Fruit

Although our plum tree had a bunch of lovely white blossoms in early spring, only one lovely little plum survived our very strange weather including exceptionally high winds (even some suspect "tornadoes") torrential rain and thunder storms. Now, if it can just survive the birds!

Millerton - Creating

Yes, it's Spring and the weather is perfect for gardening - or just relaxing.

One of the reasons I fell in love with this particular village home was because of it's fantastic wrap around porch.

The thought of sitting on the porch, sipping coffee and sharing conversation with family, friends and neighbors was enticing to say the least.

But it wasn't until our first spring that I realized how beautiful these these Rhododendrons would be.

Millerton - Creating

Lily of the Valley

In the early spring, on the shady side of our yard, there is a huge patch of Lily of the Valley.

The white bell-shaped flowers (which also come in pink) cluster on a small stem and hide under their large green leaf.

The fragrance from these small flowers is soft and delicate. Pick a handful and put them in your home and you will be shocked at how their sweet clean scent fills the air.

We are also fortunate to have this lovely wild columbine. While it may not have a perfume, it's flowers and foliage are lovely.

With the rock wall backdrop, these columbine stand nearly two feet tall.

Millerton - Creating

Recently Updated with this photo!

Here is a photo of my tree peony after the buds opened.

These amazing flowers are about 8 inches wide.

One day this bush will be about six feet high and four feet wide and hopefully

COVERED in these amazing blossoms.

One of my first "posts", in June 2010, was about Peonies.

After many years of wondering, "What is my favorite flower?" I can honestly say, unequivocally, "It's the Peony!"

There are so many varieties - in so many colors and shapes - with a perfume unlike any other. Whatever your favorite color might be, you'll find a suitable peony. Yellows, purples, pinks and reds and stripes, solids, doubles and singles. All with a fragrance that will knock your socks off. Small flowers, huge flowers or in between. They are great for cuts and essential to a proper cottage garden.

Just look at this tree peony - ready to pop! With its huge blossoms and bronze leaf.

This is only a one year old plant - first time bloomer - and look at it's beauty.

Each year I plan to add a couple peonies to my landscape - collecting peonies will be my new hobby.

Millerton - Vegetable Garden

2011 Vegetable Garden.... progress

In this photo, we have Brussels Sprout on the far left, followed by Radish and Carrots, then Beets and the 4th row are turnips. I've mixed the Radish and Carrot seeds because the Radish will mature faster and as I harvest it will provide ample room for the carrots which are slower. I've started my seed on two-week intervals to hopefully have vegetables for a longer period.

As you can see, the tomatoes are in their cages,

the chives have already started to bloom and the raised beds are made and ready.

I love the beautiful pink chive blossoms which are fantastic in a salad.

And my new neighbors (Cathy

and Walter) gave me these

brightly colored tomato cages.

In this photo are two varieties of cherry tomatoes - a red and a yellow.

I also have cucumbers and sage.

Now, all I need is for the weather to

cooperate.

WE NEED SUN.