The goal this past fall was to have contractor #3 do “indoor” work during the cold snowy winter months. It wasn’t like there was a huge amount of work that needed to be done in the kitchen but it was the annoying little projects (many of which required a very large ladder) that Lynn and I were simply not capable of doing. (#1 we don’t have a ladder that long and #2, I hate heights. More than that I hate being the girl that holds the ladder for the boy to go up and hope he doesn’t fall.)

So we had a “stop sign” window that had been installed roughly 6 years ago that was never finished or painted.

It was annoying to look at and even more so since no one could reach it!

Because we couldn’t just have one annoyance in the kitchen, on the other side of the wall, same height but different shape, we had another window that was also unfinished! This we named the “Juliet window” because technically if you stood in that room (a bedroom that will hopefully morph into a closet), one could lean out and look down into the kitchen.  No one knows why we named it the “Juliet window” other than it kind of reminded us of Juliet’s balcony in Verona.

Consequently, a few weeks ago, both these windows had proper moulding installed around them and were painted as well.

We also had the proper high hats finally installed in the ceiling (you can see one above the stop sign window).

Last but not least, we had a range hood installed above the stove which required yet another trip to Ikea to get one last kitchen cabinet. The range hood we originally bought was high end with a fancy glass top which our contractor told us would need to be ducted outside thus costing millions of dollars to put up (well not millions but you get the idea). It’s sitting somewhere in the garage if anyone wants it.

We also bizarrely now have a light above the kitchen stove. I know that’s not strange but truthfully it’s taking me longer than I expected to acclimate to actually being able to see the food I’m cooking!

Besides the kitchen, the other major project this winter was to paint the “pink” staircase.  I’m assuming the previous owner was trying to match a pink bedroom that was on the second floor because the color was exactly the same. One summer, I attempted to paint some of the aforementioned staircase.  This resulted in a staircase that basically looked like this for nearly 7 years because neither Lynn nor I wanted to tackle it.  Yep, it was pretty ugly.

I particularly like the couple of pieces of duct tape I must have stuck on many years ago trying to cover the holes in the wall.

Besides the pink staircase, the walls were also a mess as was the ceiling on the landing.

OK, so apparently we have a problem with lead paint in an old house. Really? Our contractor was hemming and hawing about it but I went into denial mode even though I understood EXACTLY what our contractor was telling us. This resulted in an up-charge for all new sheetrock and special paint that would somehow magically “contain” the lead.

Let me just say, it cost me as much to paint this one frigging staircase as it does for me to pay the landscaper to mow our back 4 acres FOR THE ENTIRE SUMMER SEASON.

Yes, thank you I will take a deep breath.

So, in the end the staircase came out quite nice and contractor #3 did in fact even paint the doors.

Really now that I look at the before and after, it turned out very nice!

Right now that both staircases are done we need to figure out what to do with the steps. These stairs, like the stairs we had when we owned a house on Long Island, are in pretty bad shape and were simply painted over and over again.  A few weeks ago we tried to sand one of them. 20 minutes later we gave up realizing it was a project that A) wasn’t the worth the time and B) would come out crappy whether we painted or sanded. So, basically a lose-lose scenario.

Because we’re trying to save some money (we still need the guest bathroom totally renovated by next summer and hope to expand the deck), we thought we’d try putting down some vinyl floor planks ourselves over the existing treads and see how that looks.

Truthfully I can’t tell the difference between the vinyl and the “real” floor below. Between both staircases (14 stairs each), I’m thinking this might be an affordable alternative.

On the weather front, we drove up to the Red House Friday night in 59 degree weather, hit some rain and a 20 degree drop in temperature, only to wake up to about 6 inches of snow (if not more). Luckily, our neighbors across the street and next door were extremely kind and snow plowed the sidewalk and lower part of our driveway so we could get out. And yes, come the spring, we’re finally going to buy our own snowblower and hope to snag a discount for an end-of season sale. (Thank you guys, you know who you are!)

Finally, we are still winding down after a whirlwind Christmas holiday with our kids and family and a week-long FOODIE road trip to SC and NC. (Note to young chefs we met, we appreciated everything you cooked for us but NOT EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE GRILLED.)

I’m hoping 2018 will be a good year for us and the Red House. So to my readers I send  best wishes for good health, much happiness and love, no parking or speeding tickets, great wine, real farm to table food and lots and lots of money.

PS Our daughter Rachel, gave us this cutting board for Christmas and we LOVE it!

Ironically, this was the first long weekend since we bought the Red House (yes, that would be seven years) that both kids and their respective girlfriend and boyfriend were coming to visit. That means that when they arrived right around cocktail hour when we should have been toasting the start of the weekend, we were actually scrambling for flip flops and rubber boots for everyone to wear and a wet/dry shop vac we could plug in without getting someone electrocuted. Did I mention we needed at least 3 brooms so we could take turns pushing the rising water towards the sump pump that while going was simply not keeping up with the insane amount of water?

After a good hour of trying to keep up with the water flow, we decided to stop and luckily  at this point the rain stopped, the sun came out, and I was able to show them the garden and the FINALLY FINISHED MASTER BATHROOM.

We have lots of gorgeous looking lettuce.

And the biggest sage leaves I’ve ever seen.

Coupled with so many beautiful flowers…

As well as celery and some very green tomatoes.

Meanwhile after the garden tour, they got to see the newly finished master shower and the dining room table Lynn and I put together the night before although the dining room itself has quite a ways to go.

We picked up those green chairs at a garage sale on Long Island ($15 for 4!) and like the color so much that when we buy “real” dining room chairs they obviously have to be this exact shade of green. (I know, I know, this will be difficult but the “tastemaker,” aka Lynn says it is possible.)

But back to the flood. Even though the Red House sits fairly high up on a hill and when the bamboo dies in the winter we actually have a pretty view of the houses in the valley below. The problem is the house is also directly in the path of nearly 4 acres of sloping fields. So when the water runs down the field, we get a flooded basement and this time a “lake” on the side of the house.  Looking at all the water, we suddenly remembered a pipe that had been buried in the grass that we decided to dig out – thinking we could channel some of the water to the pipe.

This resulted in a ditch being dug the length of the property and more water than I’ve seen in our backyard. Luckily, the guys helped dig out the ditch which was a dirty muddy mess. (The girls decided to put up a volleyball net since after all it was 4th of July weekend!)

The theory was if we could divert the water away from the house, we hoped we wouldn’t be spending another 4th of July making sandbags. While we did manage to eventually stop the flow of water, we were worried that there weren’t enough sandbags around the new furnace and hot water heater. So after the kids left, I ordered sandbags online and we drove down to the Big Box store to buy sand. This time however, we carried the 50 lb bags of sand into the basement and made the sandbags there instead of stupidly making them in the driveway.

We also tried to shore up the basement window by putting a large metal window well in front of it but then got side tracked cutting down all the beautiful vines that were growing on the side of the house. (We rarely go on that side of the house so weren’t even aware how incredibly tall they had grown!)

Meanwhile, we finally have guest bedrooms for people to stay in, comfortably I think, as well as two finished bathrooms with one to go. Lynn also put back the railing leading up to the second floor and even spray painted the hardware! Whoops, this close-up reveals a spot he missed.

I also did some baking (blueberry muffins and zucchini bread) which as everyone knows I loathe (not the goodies but the act itself). And put out lots of good cheese from Jones Family Farm for everyone to nosh on before dinner.

Meanwhile, we started to clean out the TV room, dragging boxes of stuff up to the attic on the hottest day of the year (of course) a few weeks ago, but are still left with the church pews that we thought we could use in the kitchen but that didn’t quite work. (Anyone who wants them kindly message me – they’re free!)

Meanwhile, all this bad weather at the Red House has made us a bit paranoid about rain which is annoying only in that rain has never deterred us from doing any activity or road trip in the past.

Since we are still waiting for a date for our siding to be installed, we probably need to spend a day or two outside patching up holes in the foundation and maybe learning how to re-grade the slope around the house. Why do I already know this absolutely won’t be any fun at all. At least if we are working outside, I can look at the sumac that’s slowly turning red, just in time to (hopefully) match the new Red House siding.

Happy Summer!

I wish I could report that we’ve made progress in renovating the Red House but unfortunately at this stage in the game (meaning the complicated stuff), we’re very dependent on our contractor to finish our upstairs bathroom. This means while most of the plumbing has been installed, the insulation needs to be put in the walls before the sheetrock and then tile are applied. As you can see not much has changed in this room since the last time I photographed it!

Apparently since our contractor has a lot of outdoor jobs that he’s scrambling to get finished before the weather takes a turn for the worse, I do have to give him some slack. He has assured me that I’m #1 on the top of his list when he finishes with everyone else. Being me (frighteningly straightforward and to the point), I also reminded him that last winter he complained that he couldn’t get into the house without shoveling a path to the door because of all the snow. (I don’t have anyone who plows for us and don’t intend to incur that expense either!)  I also suggested since he obviously didn’t want to spend half of his day shoveling when he could be inside working on a room, he may need to speed things up a bit.

I would also love to start working on the dining room. But since all the materials he needs to complete the bathroom are sitting in the dining room, this room, too, has to wait.

While the leaves are turning, the marigolds seems to be thriving in the garden, the weeds even more so and with all the asparagus ferns cropping up, I’m thinking I’ll have a very nice asparagus harvest in the spring indeed. I’ve decided however, after planting two seasons of garlic in the fall, I’m going to wait until the spring to do it this year and see how that turns out. Reason being: Lynn is busy trying to finish our master bedroom (that means even though he took off all the moulding around the room and put everything back up, there is still a lot of patching that needs to be done as well as taping, spackling and finally painting.

To pull him away from this to get out the tiller (I’m afraid of the tiller it kind of drags me across the field) to plant some garlic seemed dumb. So the garlic will wait until the spring to be planted along with whatever else we can manage to grow in hopes that the deer, rabbits, squirrels and even a local cat or two won’t devour everything we’ve planted.

What is particularly nice about living up here especially in the fall are all the farmer’s markets as well as field after field filled with pumpkins in lovely shades of orange.

Last year I was lucky enough to grow a couple of pumpkins. This year I had to buy one.

Since the weather is turning colder (it was barely 55 degrees when we arrived this Columbus Day weekend), I’m also thinking of food that will warm us. That would be soups (pea and lentil), stews (goulash and chicken paprikash in particular) and lots of carbs like mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese! And while I do try to stay away from sweets as much as possible – I have been thinking of making cinnamon rolls (no, not the kind you bang out from those icky cardboard containers in the refrigerated section of the supermarket) but cinnamon rolls made from scratch.

For those readers who have children or other instances where your household size shrinks from 4 to 1 or 2, I can say that I’ve finally mastered cooking for just the two of us without a huge amount of leftovers. And if we do have have leftovers, it’s because I’m usually trying to make sure at least one of us has something to take to work for lunch the next day.  The problem with this cooking for 2 instead of 4 (or more) thing though is that there are simply dishes (particularly desserts) that just don’t get made anymore. Why bake a batch of brownies or oatmeal raisin cookies if there aren’t any teenagers around to eat them all in a single sitting? Did I mention I’ve been craving cinnamon rolls?

In the meantime, I picked the last of the tomatoes (still green) from the Red House garden.

And admired not only the meadow but how pretty the marigolds still looked in the garden.

And since it was rather chilly, I also decided to make some Braciole stuffing the meat with slices of mozzarella and some smokey ham.

I managed to find a few (albeit slightly bruised) leaves of basil still growing in the garden and found a bag of potato gnocchi we buy at a little Italian deli near the Red House for under $3 a bag that was still in the freezer from the summer.

Did I mention even as I was cooking the gnocchi and Braciole I was craving cinnamon rolls?

On a completely different note. We have a neighborhood cat who shows up like clockwork between 5 and 5:30 on the weekends we are here. He or she slowly meanders to the back of the property seemingly looking around for maybe a tasty little mouse or some other morsel to eat. Now, this cat is really the slowest cat I’ve ever seen so it was particularly funny when I tried to take a picture of the cat and suddenly the cat took off at an amazingly fast pace.

I followed the cat as it walked the length of the property and found myself staring at the stainless steel rolling cart we’ve been using in the kitchen as a table/work counter since we still don’t have countertops for the kitchen cabinets. Wouldn’t that surface be just fine for rolling out dough?

Since I also don’t have any cookbooks up at the Red House (I know that’s old school but I still use them!), I dragged out my laptop and followed a recipe from the Pioneer Woman for Cinnamon Rolls 101 online.

And yes, I already did have all the ingredients on hand so this was a really easy recipe.  I mixed everything together and tried to follow the instructions but the dough just seemed a little bit too wet so I added more flour than called for. The dough rose, I rolled it out, layered it with melted butter, sprinkled on some sugar and lots of cinnamon just like the picture online.

Except I wanted to add some apples to my cinnamon rolls so I did just that.

Really, doesn’t this just look yummy?

I rolled the dough into a log shape, cut the log into slices, and arranged them in a pie pan. The dough seemed a bit wetter than it probably should have been but I figured it would “correct” itself when baking.

I’ve always had a problem with every oven I’ve ever owned and this one is no different. I read a recipe and it suggests a cooking time of say 15-18 minutes and when I peek at what I’m baking, 9 times out of 10 I need double the amount of baking time indicated. Since I was convinced that the thermostat in this new oven wasn’t working properly, I actually went out and bought an oven thermometer. I’d like to say the oven was off, but actually the temperature was exactly what it was supposed to be.

So back to the cinnamon rolls. The recipe called for adding “maple flavoring” to make the frosting. Ha Ha Ha. Living in Upstate New York, I don’t need “maple flavoring,” I can use the real stuff. So I did, mixing maple syrup together with some powdered sugar and milk.

The rolls came out of the oven, I frosted them, and here’s what they looked like.

Yes, they looked delicious but when we ate them in the morning for breakfast (after sticking them back in the oven to warm up a bit), they were a tad too gooey inside! So even after following the recipe and adjusting the baking time and having for the first time ever a second thermometer inside my oven to make sure the temperature was correct – these rolls needed to be baked a bit longer. (We ate most of them anyway, no worries!) So like the cat that prowls our property looking for tasty tidbits, I got mine too this weekend.

Finally, knowing that winter is literally around the corner up here, it’s awesome to drive a mere 5 minutes from the Red House and see the leaves changing, some late summer flowers still blooming and the water in the creek flowing so beautifully. What we’ve learned up here the last 4.5 years is to enjoy every minute of it.

And even though Lynn was really cursing the entire time he was putting everything together, in the end he said it was “easy.” Go figure.

I feel I have to share once again how the original kitchen looked in 2010 just to give this story some perspective.

We also have two amazing hardwood floors in Guest Bedroom #1 and Guest Bedroom #2.

Originally I was going to get a laminate floor to save some money but the guy installing the floor (who came to do the initial estimate, too) advised us against it. Also we have hardwood floors throughout our teeny, tiny Long Island house and even 12 years later the floors still look great and are really easy to clean.

So in case you don’t remember what the floors looked like, here’s a shot:

Unfortunately, our master bathroom and bedroom are nowhere near completion…

So right now we are bunking in Guest Bedroom #2 (the larger of the two).

We also finally got some of the electrical work done – so no more fixtures literally dangling over our heads.

Lynn and I always have a problem finding products that we like (ceiling lights and bathroom fixtures are our two biggest challenges) so we decided to try and salvage the existing light fixtures. A can of silver spray paint on one of the bedroom light fixtures and some rewiring on a decorative living room fixture therefore were a good compromise.

And yes, we cheated a bit, too and picked up a really inexpensive Ikea light that looks like a spaceship!

With my kitchen nearly done (I’m having an issue with ordering the countertop I want but more on that in a later blog post), and my parents coming up to visit, I also baked. I know I complain about baking over and over again but not only did I make zucchini bread but I made a cheesecake, too! Originally the plan had been to make zucchini bread using the zucchini that was growing in my garden. Obviously, that didn’t happen but I can say I did get two huge zucchini from the farmer’s market – one went into the cake, the other went into some homemade ratatouille.

Originally I thought when we came up to the Red House our garden would be brimming with vegetables. I had planted zucchini, beans, peas, carrots, tomatoes and tons of basil. Unfortunately, we now have a very large family of bunny rabbits living on the property.

While they did leave me with some basil and a few tomatoes, they ate nearly all the peas and all the zucchini! (The carrots are still in the ground so I’m not sure of their status yet.)

I did start to harvest some of the garlic since this time last summer I had dug it up. I was particularly happy that I managed to grow a crop from some of the cloves I harvested last year. After digging up about 30 garlic heads though, I decided to let them be for another week since some of the heads were rather small.

One interesting side note to our time up at the Red House this summer has to do with a reunion we attended. Most people know I lived in Munich, Germany, for 10 years but some may not realize I graduated from high school there, too.

Since this was my 35th (gulp!) high school reunion and Lynn and I hadn’t been to  Munich since 2007, I decided it was definitely time to go back (especially since I had also somehow missed every single reunion prior to this one as well). Dare I mention that Lynn and I will be celebrating 35 years together, too, this October?

Consequently, while most summers are spent exclusively up at the Red House, this year we spent 10 days in Germany and 5 days in Italy. As usual we did a lot of driving and eating and gushing at all the beautiful architecture, vistas and of course food.  And while I love the Red House even in it’s unfinished state, I do want to share some pictures of the trip.

There were farmer’s markets brimming with fresh radishes, artichokes, beans, tomatoes and lettuce, as well as flowers in nearly every hue imaginable.

There were shots of castles on the Rhine as well as picturesque vineyards (even on a gray day), and too many pictures of Italian art and architecture to share but a handful.

And then there was the food. Bread and cheese, homemade pasta, beer and pretzels the size of basketballs, Apfelstrudel and pizza!

Of course after the Europe trip (particularly with nearly a week in Italy) and with a “real” kitchen, I had no excuse but to make my first Red House pizza in my new oven, too!

Truthfully, the oven could have been hotter since the crust came out soggy. (The leftover pizza that we warmed up and kind of burnt the next day actually tasted better.)

What I realized after this trip however, was how very similar the area around Munich (particularly Garmisch-Partenkirchen) was to upstate New York. Undoubtedly, it’s why I always liked being up here. Granted, the mountains are not as high, but we have very pretty lakes and streams, rolling hills, and gorgeous forests a mere hour’s drive from the Red House.

On a different and not so bucolic note, we came home from our journey to find bats in the Red House. Our contractor has been working diligently to replace all of the plumbing in the house primarily to put a bathroom in the master bedroom and in doing so has unfortunately created a few “holes” in the walls.

This has resulted in at least two bats trying to take up residence inside the house! We noticed this one night when we were watching a DVD. Suddenly one of us saw something fly by out of the corner of one eye with what looked like very dark wings. Lynn and I are not good with bats or any other type of scary monster-like animal for that matter. Consequently, we quickly exited the room, shut the door and ran upstairs.

The next morning, our contractor showed up and found the bat sleeping by the basement door. He put on a pair of gloves and simply picked up the bat and put him inside a plastic supermarket bag. Once in the bag, he took him outside and released him back into the wild! Since the bat slept through the entire experience, I can only conclude it was a “teenage” bat.

We thought the bat episode was over, until the next night we were watching another DVD and sure enough once again there was something dark flying around in the next room. So, we repeated our previous night’s performance by quickly exiting the room, closing the door and going upstairs. This night however, Lynn also decided he was going to “seal” us in the room – so underneath the doors he wadded up some placemats and a kitchen towel.

This didn’t bring me any great amount of comfort and truthfully, I woke up at 4 a.m. thinking I heard and saw something flying around the bedroom. Plus, I was really really hot since the room was probably around 300 degrees since we had put in new windows, insulation and now a new floor! (Okay, it wasn’t really that warm but it felt like it.) Plus, now that I was hot and annoyed, I really had to pee but was afraid to go into the bathroom. Note to self: this is why you’ve never been camping – you hate bugs, creepy crawlies, bats and other things that are generally scary.

Finally it was morning. Our contractor showed up again (in itself always a good thing) and he found the hole in the wall that he thinks the bats were flying through. He grabbed some insulation and filled up the hole. We have not had any bat sightings for about 24 hours now so I’m hoping this method worked.

I was also hoping that similar to Shakespeare’s play, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” our very own “Puck” would emerge from the forest behind the Red House and tell us that the bats were only just a dream! Unfortunately, he did not, they were in fact very, very real!

I will leave you with this thought and image. We started our trip this year in Frankfurt, Germany, a city Lynn and I had never visited. We walked through the old town and came upon a pedestrian bridge called the “Eiserner Steg.” There on the bridge, similar to many bridges we’ve seen in Paris and Florence, were locks that had been affixed not only to the structure but to other locks, too.  As romantic history buffs will know, the padlocks when locked with a key, symbolize a love that can’t be broken especially since the key to that lock is thrown away.

Since I, too, am a hopeless romantic, I spent a lot of time looking at the engravings thinking I would find a couple who had the same initials as we do. Perhaps, instead, I should have been looking for a lock with the initials “RH.” After all, I think our relationship is pretty darn good after 35 years (especially since this is our THIRD house renovation). The Red House still needs a lot of work and love put into it – somehow I know we can do it.

A few weeks ago I did manage to prepare the ground (the soil that is) for believe it or not, next year’s garlic crop!  Now if it seems like we just pulled out last year’s crop, we did! (And as previously mentioned we still have quite a few cloves to consume.) This time however, I at least had an inkling of what I was doing and what the outcome would be. Cut the scapes, cut the scapes, cut the scapes so the garlic will fully grow! Ok, got it.

I did, however, plant less garlic than last year. Somehow last year, I managed to get nearly 100  cloves in the ground which I had purchased at a local garlic festival.  This year, I planted 75 cloves. When I was planting them and counted what I had put in the ground I was tickled. 75 seemed to be the “special number” this year and since we just celebrated my Dad’s 75th birthday this past September, I had mixed feelings about both.

The fact that I planted next year’s crop (hopefully) from garlic that I had grown myself made me quite proud.  Thinking of my Dad turning older than I ever could have imagined he would be left me feeling a bit nostalgic.

How exactly could my Dad be 75?  See, he was a young father (a mere 24 when I was born), and when we were living in Munich, Germany, he was the guy who used to take me to midnight movies at the tender age of 12.  Why at midnight you might ask? Well because the midnight show at the Europa movie theater was the only place in Munich (at least in 1973) where you could see an American movie in English. The fact that it was across from the Munich railroad station, (and thus like most neighborhoods surrounding a transit hub rather seedy) was a bit odd especially since during the day the theater would primarily show x-rated movies. (Hint for younger readers: there are no x-rated films out there anymore, you’re either watching true porn or they cleaned it up and made it an R-rated flick.)

This meant that in 1973 I saw Soylent Green and Papillon with my Dad in addition to The Sting and The Exorcist.  I know The Way We Were also came out in 1973 but since that was definitely more of a chick flick, I don’t I think I saw that movie until many years later when I was in college.

The fact that some of these movies might not have been appropriate for a 12-year-old was irrelevant, which is probably why even to this day, I blink rather rapidly when I hear the words “Soylent Green” (even though I liked Charlton Heston, especially in Ben Hur) because I’m still terrified of the thought of people being chopped up to create a new food group!

As if that wasn’t enough, I remember putting my hands over my eyes when I saw Steve McQueen in the scary leprosy scene in Papillon where everyone seemed to be wrapped in dirty blankets but minus a limb or two.  This probably also explains why once I was old enough to babysit, I strongly discouraged the kids I was watching from building any sort of fort structure made out of old blankets or sheets.

But I guess the Red House has made me grow up a bit (even though I like most New Yorkers did spend some very formative years living in Brooklyn dealing with mice and roaches and other unsavory things) so that when I was cleaning up the property and found a dead mouse a few weeks ago, I didn’t run shrieking from it.  I actually took a picture of it.

Then I went back to deal with the mess we’d made of the field by not mowing it.  While originally the thought of creating “paths” with areas that would be filled with wild flowers was a good one, the idea wasn’t properly executed. The wildflowers grew on the perimeter of the property (which I didn’t plant) and not in the middle (where I did plant.)  Consequently, there were very large prickly weeds growing out of the soil with quite a few cotton ball-like looking things, too.

I have looked at numerous gardening sites to try to determine what these are exactly, to no avail.  Kindly send me a note, if anyone knows their name (other than a pain you know where.)  They are extremely prickly and will tear through even the toughest pair of gloves I discovered.

Still, I decided they had to go, so I took a machete (yes, we actually have one) to the stem, then stacked them all up so that I could drag them, en masse, over to the compost pile.

Now since the Red House property was once an old potato farm, I wondered if this was some sort of weird leftover potato weed.  But I don’t think so, know why? Because do you remember seeing something like this sticking out of the ground when Scarlett was digging up the very last potato or radish there was to eat in Gone With the Wind? No, and her hands (like mine these days) were pretty much a mess which unfortunately even Rhett noticed when she went to try and seduce him into giving her some coin to pay the taxes.

But back to the weeds. The other thing that made dragging the weeds to the compost pile bearable is that I could actually get to the compost pile since the day before, courtesy of Craigslist, I found someone who showed up in a truck and for $200 agreed to haul half of the construction mess away. The fact that the guy who showed up with even less teeth than Steve Buscemi in Fargo, made it just that much more appealing.

And now let me get back to the garlic. With those 75 cloves in the ground, I know I needed some hay to scatter over the dirt.  Now, if you’re even lucky enough to find hay on Long Island it generally costs around $10 for a teeny, tiny bale.  In upstate New York, the same bale is half the price and three times as big!

See, I even put in on the tractor, to show it off!  I pulled off a couple of pieces and scattered them on top of the garlic I had just planted and that was that.

So with all this activity, we needed some food.  Since I still don’t have a kitchen (and truthfully 2013 doesn’t look promising either for this endeavor), I brought stuff up.  Which meant, since I was still in the end of summer mode, I made what I will lovingly call the “Rotten Fruit Tart.”  Well, it might sound of kind of disgusting, cleaning out the fridge of overripe, rotting fruit, but the truth is once you cook it,  it all kind of comes together anyway. (And, yes, I did throw out the fruit that had mold on it.)

So, there were plums, blueberries, and raspberries to use. I sprinkled the fruit with some walnuts and whatever sweet liquor was in the cupboard that I can’t bear to drink but always have on hand to sometimes “rescue” a dessert.  It all got piled into leftover tart crust and went in the oven to bake for about 30 minutes. Bottom line: it looked ok and tasted even better.

I also made bread, a rosemary-flecked loaf that would have been perfect to dip into soup but somehow the weather turned warm and the fish place in Island Park had lobster claws on sale for $25 so how could I refuse an offer like that? Well, since it took me nearly 2 hours to shell all five pounds worth, maybe I should have resisted.  I ended up with chunks of lobster meat and somehow managed to pull together a meal we could eat.

But back to the Red House garden. I have celery still growing and brussels sprouts which I realized I planted too early so I’m hoping they’ll mature enough in time for Thanksgiving.

I’ve also made frequent visits to a couple of local farmers in the area, who unlike NYC Greenmarket prices, will sell you an enormous head of broccoli for a mere 75 cents, a head of cauliflower for a dollar, and a cute little pumpkin for two quarters.

In the meantime, I will leave you with this parting shot, a not-too-comfy chair that we leave out in the field year-round.  I don’t think you’d ever want to watch a movie sitting on it, but you never know.

This past summer my Dad wrote an article about watching a game at our small town baseball field and the Wall Street Journal published it.  Although I did send the WSJ this article, thinking perhaps they, like the Times, (even after 30 years) would be amused by my version of his day at the ballpark, they apparently didn’t think it was worthy of their publication.  I, however, do think it’s worthy of mine.

And not to totally discredit the big boys, if you’re a subscriber to WSJ, you can read his version, “A Dawgs Day Afternoon at the Ballpark” online.

While my husband Lynn and I had been in Herkimer County, New York, for two years trying to renovate a house, we had yet to see a baseball game.  When my parents decided to visit us one weekend, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity for us to see some “real” baseball. Besides, since I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been to a baseball game with my Mom and Dad, I thought it would be a lot of fun.

So, the four of us went to Veteran’s Memorial Park one Sunday afternoon to watch the Mohawk Valley Diamond Dawgs play the Amsterdam Mohawks.  My father was amazed that tickets were a mere $3. I was tickled at the fact that we wouldn’t even have to pay that, since a woman standing near the gate was handing out free tickets to anyone who wanted them, insisting a local fast food place was giving them away.  I grabbed up my free four while Dad was still parking the car (parking the car in town means you park on the street in front of someone’s house, not 25 minutes away for $30).

I was a bit concerned about having my mom sit on oh-so-uncomfortable metal bleachers for who knows how long, but she was a trooper and would occasionally stand up in between innings.  My dad was standing up a lot, too.  First, he went to get some beer.  He kept asking me, “do you want a beer, do you want a beer?”  I, never one to refuse a free drink, thought, “why not,” and he practically skipped away to the concession stand where someone had nailed on a block-lettered sign with the word “BEER” to the top of the booth.  He returned holding a cloth bag as if he had decided in between to do some environmentally correct grocery shopping, and low and behold, inside the bag were 5 cans of beer for a mere $12.  There were also a fair amount of ice cubes thrown into the bag, too, which knowing the price of ice these days made me wonder if the beer had actually only cost $2, and the ice cost $10.

Dad particularly liked our announcer that late afternoon, a gentleman with a keen sense of wit who he decided to name after the actor Wilfred Brimley.  Since I’m a lady of a certain age, I actually don’t know who Wilfred Brimley is but that’s irrelevant.  The point is, the guy was funny, he kept the game moving, and my Dad (and Mom) were having a great time.

While initially my Dad started yelling “Go Devil Dawgs, go!” I had to quietly correct him and tell them they were the Diamond Dawgs, named for the “diamonds”, i.e., crystals that could be found in the Herkimer area, not a baked good which is what he was calling the team.

He laughed at his mistake and then went to look for a hat with the Dawgs logo on it.  He came back with not only one hat, but two for a mere $20.  One hat he gave to my husband, who as long as I’ve known him has not worn a hat of any kind, ever.  This hat, however, he swiftly put on his head.

While mom and dad were amused by all the entertainment in between innings – the county dairy princess and her court had the unenviable task of setting up contests with some of the local kids which usually involved either drinking a large container of milk or running with it.  I, on the other hand, was amused that the dairy princess, seeing as she was around 16, was not pierced or visibly tattooed, her hair appeared to be a “natural” color and that she actually was wearing a sensible skirt (as in slightly above the knee) and a top that showed absolutely no cleavage!

I looked at the brilliantly blue sky and as the afternoon wore on and the sun started to set, a light breeze picked up.  Since the park is set in a valley, all around us were hills, and massive oak trees that were stunning in its setting.  I noticed besides the constant comment from the Wilfred Brimley sound-alike, that I could actually hear the wind and not some annoying person in the crowd yelling into their cell phone.

Although the Diamond Dawgs lost that glorious afternoon, one final event made me realize how much fun we had that day. The team was sponsoring a 50/50, which I didn’t realize mom and dad hadn’t heard of before.  Now, while I’m not much of a gambler, I love playing 50/50! (For those who aren’t familiar with the game, you put in a certain sum of money, get a raffle ticket and if your ticket is called, you win 50% of the purse and the house keeps the other 50%.) When I explained the simple rules of the contest, Dad pulled out some money, too.  A young ballplayer, accompanied by one of the dairy princesses’ was approaching people in the bleachers to play.  Reportedly because of league rules that prohibit players from physically handling any money, the dairy princess put the cash in a bucket, while the player handed out an “arms length” of raffle tickets for $5.  In the meantime, Dad struck up a conversation with this young man, realized he was from a certain town in New England that they frequented, and started talking to him about a local restaurant!

I’ve often heard comments about how the Mohawk valley area looks a lot like Italy – rolling hills, brilliant sunshine (when it’s not snowing), and enviable farm land. When I was 12 years old, I bet my Dad I would someday have a house on a hill in Italy.  I realized that day sitting in the ballpark that even though I lost my bet  with my Dad about having a house in Italy, I did in fact end up with a house on a hill in an area that really does look a bit like the Italian countryside!

And the ballplayer who was handing out the 50/50 tickets, did I mention that he had really long arms and we ended up with nearly twice the amount of tickets we should have? Yet, the 50/50 purse wasn’t ours to be had that day. We didn’t need it, we ended up with so much more.