Happy Solstice from Ithaca, New York!

 

Greetings to all of our friends in Ireland! It's been almost three months since we moved back to the Ithaca area. I'm writing this on the shortest day of the year and also our first wintry snowstorm of the year, with predictions of 4-5 inches of snow today and tomorrow. Yippee!! We've been working on clearing our ski trails in the woods and really looking forward to getting back on our skiis again. 

Here are some photos to catch you up on life since we returned to America. 

Home

We returned in early October when the leaves were turning 

red, orange, yellow and purple. 

Our dogs made the trip just fine - here they are sniffing around at our friend Danny's pond. They love running through the woods here with so many animal tracks to smell: deer, woodchuck, squirrel, chipmunk, possum, and coyote!

 We are so happy to be back in our own house again! We built it ourselves in 2000 and it is passive solar with a greenhouse on the south side. This is the back of the house with a fenced area for the dogs and a dog flap in the back door.

The front side of our house with covered porch and attached greenhouse (it wraps around the other side)

Inside - an open floor plan and south facing windows for good solar gain in winter.

Looking up to our bedroom - we used a fallen tree from our land for the center post.

We started sowing some of our old seeds in the greenhouse right after we returned - bok choy had the best germination from 6 year-old seeds, lettuce had the poorest germination. I'm also trying different varieties of broad beans which I'll plant in large individual pots to grow in our greenhouse.

Family  

 It was great to reconnect with our families again! Here we are with my brother Tom, his wife Martha and their son Ian. They live an hour away and came down on our first weekend back. We get together with them a couple of times a month and play music - Tom plays guitar and sings and Martha plays upright bass.

Tom had found a nice used stove for us online before we came back. Here's Bill and Tom moving it into place. The old stove is in the background - it wasn't big enough for the house and the catalytic converter wasn't working anymore.

 We had a get together with some friends on the first Saturday home.

My parents came up to visit - here's my Dad on the couch with my nephew Ian and my mom in the chair on the right. While they were in Ithaca they spent a few days at the new senior community where they will be moving to next summer, about 25 minutes drive from our house. 

In our forest - Bill, my dad Ed and sister-in-law Martha

 Swingin' on the grapevine

More recently we had big news! Our daughter Monica and her husband Matt are expecting a baby next July! We are going to be grandparents! We're going out to San Diego, California to visit them in February, then again after the baby is born of course!

Fun

 

Halloween is a big deal here -  this year our costumes had an Irish flavor.

Then more recently we got to use our costumes again when we were asked to play Irish music at a party to celebrate the release of the Hobbit film (no one to play English music apparently). Our friend Heather accompanied us on guitar.

I just finished making this gourd banjo from a kit, which came with the dried and cured gourd and the neck partly finished. The first banjos made in America in the early to mid 1800's were patterned on an African instrument brought by slaves and using dried gourds for the 'pot'. It has a deep and plunky sound compared to a modern banjo. 

Next year I want to grow my own banjo - I'll grow some special canteen-type gourds in the garden and cure them for a year, and harvest a maple sapling from our woods for the neck of the banjo. If I wanted it to be truly homegrown I would have to hunt a deer in our woods and tan the hide for the banjo skin!

Work

I'm working again at Cornell Cooperative Extension, a statewide not-for-profit that educates community and leads projects in many different areas, including agriculture, parenting, nutrition, financial management, youth activities, and gardening. The last department is where I am working, with a lot of different projects going on including a new seed savers network with the first Ithaca seed swap scheduled for February, and a one day event called Spring Into Gardening, a day of 20 different gardening workshops and classes at one venue. 

Here's a link to the gardening pages of the CCE website  -scroll down on this page and you can see a couple of events featured that I am involved with, including a slide show presentation on the gardens of Ireland.

Ithaca

We live in a small rural town called Newfield, but our main hub for work and play is Ithaca, about 12 miles north of our house. Ithaca is a beautiful and progressive city with a population of about 60,000 and two univerities, known for gorges and waterfalls, an amazing farmers market, seasonal festivals, and surrounded by farmland, vineyards and orchards. 

Go the Visit Ithaca website and scroll down to the video link near the bottom right corner to see a lovely 5 minute film of Ithaca and surrounding environs set to music by a funky local band. You'll see why it was hard to leave Ireland but easy to return to Ithaca - it's a special place.

Happy Solstice, Christmas, and New Year to all of you!