When we arrived at the Red House, the rain stopped long enough for us to bring everything inside without getting soaking wet.  Our other activity that evening, unfortunately, before we could have a cocktail or even think about eating was to haul all the trash we had collected two weeks ago plus all of the recyclables (mostly beer and wine bottles!) we had collected from LAST summer to the curb.  Thing is at the Red House we have trash pick-up once a week — on Friday’s.  Since we usually arrive Friday night, we always miss trash pick-up and have to always take the garbage home.

Since most of the trash we had bagged consisted of debris from the house, many of the bags were simply too heavy to lift (for me at least), let alone carry down the very, very long driveway to the curb. That’s when Lynn and I decided we would put a big blue tarp in the back of the car, hoist the bags onto the tarp, and DRIVE down the driveway. It worked. However, spying on the garbage guys the next morning, they seemed a little perplexed by both the appearance of trash in front of a house that looked abandoned, coupled with the sheer weight of what we were ditching.

It rained all day Friday and Saturday, and part of  Sunday.  While this was supposed to be our planting weekend in addition to our finally sheet-rocking the upstairs bedrooms, the most I could do via planting was to layout all the little packets I wanted to put in the ground.

Now the only reason I even contemplated planting all these goodies from “scratch” or seed actually (which I had never done on Long Island) is because everything I planted last year from these same little packets grew!  I may have gone a bit overboard by the number of packets I purchased, but I figured what the hell, let me at least try.  But I’m not an idiot, I did have a back-up plan in case nothing grew and bought lettuce, two different kinds of tomato plants, basil, and marigolds (to keep the deer away), too.

The other good news about the property is we finally found someone to mow all four acres.  Our landscaper actually showed up to mow on Memorial Day and with two really big ride-own mowers and a helper, he did THE ENTIRE PROPERTY IN TWELVE MINUTES.  I felt so bad that Lynn used to spend hours, entire weekends actually, trying to mow the meadow on the Troy-Bilt.

One good thing about a rainy weekend (even a long holiday-one) is that you are forced to tackle projects you’ve been putting off.  This enabled us to start sheet-rocking one of the upstairs bedrooms.

We, however, got off to a bad start.  It seems we had forgotten how difficult it is to rock a ceiling. So even with me standing on a chair and Lynn standing on another chair, holding up a piece of rock by myself with Lynn trying to secure it to the ceiling with a power tool wasn’t working. Apparently, I was a lot stronger three years ago than I am now… But then we remembered the last time we rocked the living room ceiling, we had rented one of those sheet-rock “helpers.”

It’s basically a drywall lift that puts the piece exactly where you need it to be without killing yourself trying to do so. So we bagged the ceiling idea until we could rent one and Lynn focused on doing the walls instead.

Meanwhile the amount of weeds that were growing in the garden and around the house needed to be dealt with.  So despite the pouring rain, I went outside and pulled as many weeds as I could thinking at least once the rain stopped we would be able to till the soil and plant anew.

I hadn’t forgotten, however, in doing this project that Lynn, always the perfectionist, wanted to do the ENTIRE garden over again.  That meant before I could plant (provided of course, I got all the weeding done and it stopped raining), he wanted to put down new sheets of weed-blocker, plywood dividers, and bags and bags of small marble chips.

While he was doing this part, I decided I wanted to try and make pulled pork sandwiches that we could eat if we ever got back later that night to Long Island. I found a pork shoulder that was small enough to fit in the toaster oven, cooked it for about 5 hours at 275 degrees, and voila, it did turn out to be quite tasty!

I also picked some more asparagus from the garden that I discovered hiding underneath all the weeds! I can’t tell you how tickled I am to snip asparagus from my own garden. Lynn is tickled that they look like the “real” thing; I’m assuming he means the supermarket variety.

I also decided to take some photographs of the property.  I still love the color and look of the “barn” aka garage door, and hope even if we have to rebuild it someday that we can at least duplicate its rustic look.

My other culinary find this weekend was to see huge bags of fiddlehead ferns at the local farmer’s market.  I have to admit the first time I ate fiddlehead ferns was in Cape May, New Jersey, of all places. Since their season is so short and they have such a unique texture and earthiness, to me they’ve become that much more exotic (and thus a must for my table!)

Of course the weather finally cleared up just as we were about to leave the Red House. We had hoped to set up the deck furniture and have a meal or at least a glass of wine outside during our time there but it wasn’t to be. I thought about other Memorial days we had spent together, one in particular when we were living in a $375 a month rent-stabilized apartment in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Since combined we made little more than that each month and thus had no extra cash for anything, we would often find ourselves many hot summer evenings on “tar beach,” aka the roof on the top of the apartment building. If we were “tanning,” we’d lie on a towel, if we were trying to be civilized, we actually sat on a couple of director chairs that we had bought at Conran’s back in the 80’s.

Originally the chairs had black canvas seats and backs but somewhere along the line I must have replaced them with what looks to be now like a light blue. There was one chair left and our son Nicholas wanted it for his up-and-coming photography and video studio. I took a picture of it before I sent it off to him. Who knows, maybe one day he’ll do a photo shoot at the Red House and bring it back…It’s got a lot of history you know.

I suppose most of my fondness for the Red  House is actually the property.  I love being outside as much as possible even if I’m eaten alive by the mosquitoes and itching for days afterwards.  I love looking at the garden and seeing what’s growing.  I love watching the sumac trees wave in the wind.  I love watching the clouds move quickly across the sky and am constantly amazed at how quickly the weather can change.  I love seeing deer on the property at night, and watching the hammock we hung up last summer sway between the tall pine trees.

I like the fact that kids still walk in this town; I see them carrying their towels to the community pool in the summer, a sled or plastic dish to go sledding on in the winter. I love hearing the freight trains tooting their horns at all hours down in the valley, and the Amish horse and buggy trotting by the house on Sunday mornings. I don’t even mind the occasional RV lumbering its way up to the mountains, and the more than occasional band of motorcycles rumbling their way down from the mountains.

In other words, there always seems to be a lot happening outside the Red House.  So, once it stopped raining Labor Day weekend, and it was dry enough for me to venture outside,  I looked at my garden and thought, it didn’t look like summer was over, not with all the flowers still blooming!

End of Summer Garden

The marigolds, in particular, seemed to be doing exceptionally well.

Red House Marigolds

But there were an incredible amount of weeds in the garden which I tried to pull up, along with branches that had fallen during the storm, so I started tossing everything into the wheelbarrow.

Once I got through most of the weeds (really, no garden is ever totally weed-free), I was able to find a few eggplants, hanging.

Also hiding underneath some thick vines, I discovered two acorn squash which I promptly picked, a single jalapeno, yellow squash and quite a few green tomatoes. I picked the tomatoes only because I knew if I didn’t, they would be gone by the morning.

What They Left Me

I, in turn, left the critters (that would be the deer, rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks and the occasional raccoon), a pile of what I thought were perfectly edible (for them, not us) yellow cucumbers, but not a single animal touched my artistically arranged pile the entire weekend!

What I Left Them!

I still have tons of basil, lots of celery, and a few leeks.  I’m going to pick the basil and make batches of pesto.

The celery, I ended up cutting as many stalks as I could transport home, figuring I could toss them into salad (namely chicken or tuna), in batches of homemade chicken soup, and if I got really ambitious, into some sort of stuffing for a roasted chicken.

Definitely Not Supermarket Celery

And because I absolutely LOVE LEEKS, they will get their very own story, in addition to my doubling (or even tripling) the amount I plant at the Red House garden next year.

First Time Growing Leeks!

When we started the garden and planted asparagus and green beans, tomatoes, eggplant and peppers, some leeks, and yellow and green squash, too, neighbors repeatedly told us that even if anything did grow, the critters (namely deer, chipmunks and squirrels) would eat it. I didn’t want to negate what they were saying, but realized they might be right when I looked at our tomato plants and thought they looked like well, a tad clipped.  In fact, it looked as though some sort of animal had taken to biting off all the good parts, namely the flowering part, without leaving us humans with anything to eat.

I, however, wasn’t going to give up. Working on the theory that sometimes if you just keep pruning it will eventually grow back, I did just that.  Unfortunately, the tomatoes weren’t the only vegetable the animals seemed to like;  the green beans that usually grew so abundantly everywhere else, were shriveled and tiny and didn’t bear any resemblance to the healthy plants I knew.  The eggplant in particular seemed to be suffering from some sort of bug infestation with all the leaves chewed in various places.

I kept watering and looked at the abundant sunshine and hoped for the best.  The good news is that what I’m left with looks very pretty.

Like this single green baby zucchini that I can imagine selling for $7.99 a pound at a Greenmarket in Manhattan, and the zucchini blossoms stuffed and fried and served on a plate at Eataly.

Then there’s the  single, slightly dark jalapeno, that no animal has claimed.

The Lonely Jalapeno

And a nice crop of basil and celery, too.

Celery

My biggest discovery working with a garden this size are the weeds.  They are prolific, constant and truthfully add some charm to the plot.  I don’t want to admire them so much that they become an integral part of the landscape, similar to the overgrown acreage of Philip Johnson’s Glass House in Connecticut, with only the bare minimum being plowed and plucked, but it is fairly tempting to go that route.  Ironically these weeds, since they originated from the hay we lay down to purposely keep the weeds at bay, have very pretty yellow flowers.

Pretty Yellow Weeds

These “flowers” are not to be confused with everything else I’ve got going, interspersed as they are between the vegetable beds.

Lovely Flowers

More Lovely Flowers

And Again...

I also have the beginnings of a very long cucumber vine, with a lone and chunky cucumber hanging off.  I know he just wants to be a pickle already.  I mean look at him, he already looks like a pickle!

So even though the few tomatoes that I have are still green.

Tiny Green Tomatoes

And my eggplant looks like it’s been attacked, I do have the beginnings of some lovely strawberries and asparagus.

Iffy Eggplant

The Beginnings of Strawberry Fields?

I Love Asparagus

My leeks, unfortunately, look like they’ve battered by a windstorm, or maybe I just stepped on them by mistake!

The Leeks

While my chives prefer to hang out in a pot filled with pansies!

Pansies and Leeks In An Old Barrel

So even though some of my plants are being stubborn or eaten by the animals, like my green beans for example…

No Jack And The Bean Stalk Here!

I, at least, have newly painted chairs (red, of course!) to sit and watch everything grow….

But not until all my work is done.

These Are Real Wood, Painted Red

THE MEADOW

BAMBOO

That’s just the bottom half of the hill.  On the top half of the hill and above the trees, we have a whole other little piece of property and part of a forest that leads to a hidden waterfall.

THE FOREST

Since I wrote about trying to mow this property extensively on the www.eathappy.net website, including my trying to conquer my fear of riding the lawnmower, I will focus on something else.

Like all pieces of land back in the late 1800’s, this was farm land.  I’m not sure what kind of crops they were growing back then but as recently as the 1980’s the fields were still being cultivated to grow potatoes and corn, green beans and tomatoes.  The crops are long gone but I do have a ton of mint and what looks like burdock.

WILD MINT WITH BURDOCK

There’s also lots of berries and a old well that’s an eye-sore, boarded up as it is in the middle of the property, that we have to think about what to do with.

BEAUTIFUL BUT PROBABLY POISONOUS BERRIES

THE WELL

I casually planted a few flowers and they grew so abundantly that next year I’ll definitely plant some more.

A FEW FLOWERS

Then there are the weeds.  I know weeds aren’t supposed to be beautiful, but look at these.

ARTISTIC WEEDS

There are also oak trees that have fallen and their twisted branches have taken up shapes (the antlers of a reindeer, a large wishbone) that remind me of some very highly priced artwork I’ve seen at ABC Carpet in Manhattan as well as in a couple of furniture catalogs. Perhaps I need to sell some of these pieces to help with the renovation? (If any one wants one of these, please let me  know.)

THE WISHBONE

ANTLERS

Watching the seasons change up at The Red House has been breathtaking.  We watched the meadow go from nearly still-frozen turf when we acquired the house in late April, to lush green by July, to a cornucopia of color when the first red and gold autumn leaves fell.

THE LEAVES ARE CHANGING

While the house renovation is consuming us, we have started thinking of ways we can landscape all this property without losing its inherent natural aesthetic or breaking our non-existent budget.

In this week’s (11/24/2010) Dining Section of the New York Times, I came across an article about people who forage for edible plants for high end restaurants.  Perhaps I should share some of my sumac fruit with the chef at Del Posto?  For a price of course.

SUMAC