Hello Friends, It’s been awhile. This year has been . . . well, it’s been something. I won’t go into all the gory details. I don’t want to ruin your moment, but I will share that we had to take a break from working on the house and planting our gardens due to a health situation that has truly knocked us down. We are not at all back to normal, but I have been able to find the time to write this post.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the plans we had for the year and how we haven’t been able to accomplish any of them. I’ve been thinking about what kind of plans to make for next year and what our Plan B, or C, or even D might be if we can’t accomplish any of those plans either. I’ve been thinking about not making any plans at all. I’ve been thinking about a lot of things, and I’ve been trying not to think about anything at all. It’s been a year.
What I have decided to do is go back to the very beginning. Carry on, but also start fresh. When I began writing and building this website, I hesitated to write the “About Me” section. I wanted the focus to be on the gardens first and the old house second. I wanted the “me” part to be very much absent from the posts as much as possible. I still want that.
I truly believe the land (and more importantly how it is left for future generations) is far more significant than the role I play in it, but I did have for a brief moment a thought that maybe my readers would like to know a little about the person writing the posts. Maybe?
So, here goes . . .
Hello. This is me.
I created this website to share the progress of turning our old farm into beautiful and useful gardens while restoring and preserving our one hundred forty year old Italianate style home.
I am a self-taught gardener and first generation not-a-farmer. I come from a long line of gardeners and farmers (some twenty generations or so). Every generation of my family farmed and kept vegetable and flower gardens for as far back as we can know. All branches of my family can be traced back to colonial Virginia and from Wales, England, and Scotland before that. My generation is the first not to farm.
I have always enjoyed the beauty and tranquility of a garden and have spent most of my life doing the best I can to plant, grow, and tend.
When I was just starting out, I didn’t have any land of my own, so I started keeping house plants in college and added to my collection when I rented my first apartment. I had amassed several carloads of plants by the time my husband and I bought our first house. I kept most of them for nearly twenty years even when moving house several times until we lived in Florida* and I decided to throw them all out. I am slowly adding houseplants back into my life.
We’ve moved from state to state (six USDA zones) but always kept vegetable gardens and improved our yards with flowers, shrubs, vines, and ornamental trees at every place we’ve lived.
My husband and I bought Mædunbroc and its sixty acres in 2021.
I love history, literature, theater, and music. While I mostly write about gardening and the preservation of our old farmhouse, my other interests will pop up in posts along the way, I hope. I keep a stack of books on my nightstand and will share book reviews and recommendations on occasion. I’ve started a profile on Spotify with playlists that are great listening for gardening, holidays, and just for fun. The history of gardening and how plants and plant people have connected with society is of special interest to me, and I hope to share what I’ve learned about those things along the way.
I love good food, cooking from scratch, preserving the harvest, and fancy dinners by candlelight. I learned how to can vegetables and make preserves when I was a child and have continued the practice as an adult. Homemade food always tastes better, and there is such a feeling of satisfaction to see rows of freshly preserved produce on the pantry shelves. I love reading old cookbooks, and I plan to share old recipes on the blog.
Fresh flowers in the house are some of my favorite delights.
I am a Virginian born and bred and now call upstate New York my home by way of Pennsylvania and Florida.
What I miss about Virginia — The food — especially in Richmond (Virginians know how to eat.), the Richmond Symphony, the Landmark Theater (which is not called that anymore), Old Original Bookbinders, both Shockoes — Slip and Bottom, the pink camellia bush on the corner of my parents’ house, the large moss patch under the big oak in the front yard, dinner at the Tobacco Company, lunch at Sam Miller’s, the stately homes, the real Santa Claus, the social life, the ease of meeting new people and having conversations, the short drive to Washington, D.C., lightning bugs, marsh grasses, fishing off the end of the dock, catching fiddler crabs by the creek when the tide went out, swimming in the river, the sun setting behind my grandparents’ old farmhouse, the way the floor sloped at my grandmother’s front door, the occasional porpoise that would find its way into the creek, how easy it was to find book lovers and thinkers, old hymns in an old country church, finding broken clay pipes and arrow heads after the fields were plowed, digging clay out of the cliffs to mold pots, absolutely true ghost stories and folk tales, and opportunities to say Lord Fairfax and Willoughby Spit ; What I don’t miss — The humidity and Northern Virginia traffic.
What I miss about Pennsylvania — Heinz Hall, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Strip District, Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, the excitement of winning seasons for the Steelers and Penguins, the Terrible Towel, eleven stories of shopping bliss at the downtown now-gone-forever Kauffman’s, the Christmas windows, the Mattress Factory, the tea/fine foods/artisan goods shop I owned for seven years, downtown Pittsburgh architecture, the art scene, the fireworks (so.many.fireworks), the view of the city coming from the Fort Pitt tunnel, Rick Sebak’s PBS shows, Mr. Rogers, and Shadyside Presbyterian Church; What I don’t miss — Predominately gray skies for most of the year, the general grumpiness that goes along with living in a city with predominantly gray skies for most of the year (It’s really pretty gritty.), the terrible roads, the fireworks (so.many.fireworks), and ham BBQ.
What I miss about Florida — The confederate jasmine and gardenias I planted in the back yard, Fernandina Beach, the TropiChop with curry mustard, sunrise at the beach, Aunt Catfish’s, the scent of orange blossoms in the air (There aren’t many orange groves left.), Sarasota, the coasts; What I don’t miss — Florida Man, the traffic, alligators, sharks, mosquitoes, snakes, the superficiality that goes with so much tourism and a population with shallow roots.
What I like about upstate New York — The small villages and large farms, clean air, starry skies, cows, horses, sheep, big red barns, old houses, seasons that come straight from storybooks; What could be better — We’re a bit underserved in all possible ways in these parts — shopping, dining, medical care, cultural opportunities (but I don’t really want the development or “progress” that comes along with getting more of these things), the absence of ticks would be nice.
I don’t use social media.
I love thinkers.
I believe there is value in some of the old ways and some of the new ways and seek to find the balance and the best of both.
I am a former teacher, cubicle worker, and shop owner and current wife, mother, writer, and podcaster.
OK, so there it is. A little bit about me.
Now, to you. Feel free to say hi in the comments on this post or any other post. I will read them and reply as I am able. I don’t know when I will post next, but I do hope you will subscribe to the site to receive new posts in your inbox. You can do it here:
Thanks for reading. I really do appreciate it.
*They have these things in Florida called palmetto bugs which is really just a pleasant way to say cockroaches. The nasty little things like to live in the soil of houseplants, and the ick factor became too much for me to handle.
