More garden work...

The process of creating the patio is painstaking: yesterday the crew filled all the joints with fine sand and, soon, it will be finished.

You can see a big hole being dug at the bottom of the garden which is where the celtic wall and firepit will be installed. Its hard to visualise at the moment, but our designer is confident that it will all make sense.
Nicholas

With the slight delays of scheduling and rough weather, we are about 3 weeks behind on the work in the garden, which meant our choices on some plants were not available. So...to our local garden centre we went...

These are a small portion of what will be planted, but it is so much fun to actually have them awaiting planting...a forsythia, given as a housewarming gift to us by good friends, will be planted, with others, and honeysuckle at the lower border, 3 Sarah Bernhardt peonies (but of course), will be planted alongside a bed of bearded irises, just beyond the Japanese maple...

 4 yellow climbing roses and 4 clematis, shades of purple and white, will be on the opposite fence...

Everything feels quite chaotic again with all the large equipment and the mud of last week's intense rain and storms, newly hardened by scorching heat...but, as our landscape designer was digging down through the top layers of rock and building rubble yesterday, he lifted beautiful, moist, loamy, earth by the bucketful, healthy earth that will form the beds for our plants and provide nutrition and the sustenance for the trees yet to come. And I was reminded that, more often than not, if I look beneath the hardened places in me, if I dig deeply and gently, beneath the remnants of storms and dryness, sadness and pain...beneath those surface scars...I will find the possibility for new life...

Judy

Storms...

The landscape team managed to start the patio last week before a series of thunderstorms came by. It is a painstaking process, setting the stones on compacted gravel and then filling the cracks with sand before holding everything in place with a frame.

You can imagine the mud behind the house, but our valiant landscaper has been a trooper despite it all.

Yesterday he and I visited a local quarry where I selected some large rocks that will form part of the rock garden behind the living room. 

I can't wait to see them in place.

Nicholas

The photograph above was the light within the cloud forms just prior to one of the extraordinary storms last week. We were seated on our front porch and this was the view over the hills to the west...glorious.

Here are the first pavers for the patio being put into place. They will also be used for the floor of the fire pit area of the garden...the colours remind us of the brick homes we had in England...we didn't consciously make the decision, but it is quite a wonderful kind of comfort and memory.

The bricks are now all in place, but are covered with a tarp, to protect them until they are tamped down and "cemented" into place with the fine grains of sand that will fill the small spaces between.

And here are examples of the "bluestone" from our local quarry. This is a type of limestone native to this part of New York state...it has such interesting colour variations with the iron oxides and mineral deposits...Nicholas has selected 7 stones, which will be formed into a small sculptural feature in the meditation garden directly behind the living room... (the lower image is a HUGE stone...see Nicholas' feet just above...we are not having it in the garden, but it gives an idea of colour)

During a long meeting with our landscape designer on Friday, I found out that he grew up not far from my tiny hometown, that we know numerous people in common, and that we share friendships...but had never met one another until this moment. Somehow the garden feels even more precious now...

It will be a wonderful thing to see the trees and plants and sculptures going into this earth...we were reminded when we looked at the calendar today that all we own was packed into storage exactly one year ago...what a journey it has been to this new life...

Judy

Creating a garden...

Our garden designer and landscaper has started work... levelling out an area for the patio and setting the stage for some fencing. At the end of the plot is a naturalised honeysuckle hedgerow, somewhere under which is a rabbit warren. And then a creek flows down the hill.
Our plan creates a gravelled rock garden at the center of which is the sculpture I was gifted by my ex-patients. I can't wait to see it rotating in the wind.
Meanwhile, we were treated to a spectacular sunset the other night....

Nicholas

So, with the landscaper has come more big machinery and the insatiable desire to document the entire process once again...

While there are rock garden components to the garden design, there are also flower beds, 3 large ones, that will frame the beautiful sculpture, which also arrived in an enormous crate yesterday, and is sitting in the garage. 

We will have roses and clematis climbing on the fence, hydrangeas, hostas, and lily of the valley on the north side of the house, along the path leading to the garden door, peonies and iris on the west side, along the pathway, lined by the 3 apple trees , that are in honour of the portion of this land, which was once an orchard. The pebbled areas will also have plantings of creeping thyme, juniper, weeping crabapple, japanese maples, boxwood and lavenders.

The sides of the garden at the back of the house will be entirely fenced, but the back boundary will consist of a living hedge, mostly honeysuckle.

As I look at this photograph, and the view from our windows I am filled with gratitude that both Nicholas and I have the ability to imagine what might be possible, to see potential, to see form where none yet exists...

Here is our beautiful patio...

And, here is the fire pit...

To some it might look like a pile of stones, wrapped in plastic...of course, it is a circle of stones, wrapped, and set on a wooden palette on dry earth...but, for us it is the image of the fires we will build, the people who will gather around them, the stories, the warmth, the future memories...

Judy

Spring Light at Applewood

Spring time here is gorgeous. In the hedgerow adjacent to our house is an old apple tree with blossom, that, last week was splendid in the evening light. The bushes are alive with a flock of goldfinches, several pairs of red-winged blackbirds, wood thrushes, jays and other as yet to be identified birds.
We had a thunderstorm last night; the lightning scattered amongst the hills and rain poured down.
A pair of wood chuck have been feasting on dandelions in the grasses of the next door property; that is, until the grass was mowed and so the woodchucks had to venture further afield.

The house is a delight to live in; quiet, well ventilated and cool in warm sunshine... there is much to do, particularly arranging the paintings in the gallery for display. 
Nicholas

These beautiful flowers arrived as a housewarming gift from our beloved friend from England, Scooter...they grace our new dining room, just as she graces our lives. Such gratitude in having them and her love with us this week. We have had so many people writing and celebrating with us, new friends, family, friends from years gone by...it is a gift to be in a new place, surrounded by the thoughts and energies of those we cherish.

As we unpacked, we tenderly held items from our grandparents, our parents, our siblings, our friends...at times it was almost overwhelming, for the smells of just-opened boxes brought back memories with an immediacy that was shocking. I know the olfactory nerves are the quickest pathway to the brain, but I have never had such vivid evidence to the link between smell and memory...

Here on the corner table, a totem pole given to Nicholas by his grandfather, Tommy. It was given to him after he became a blood brother of the  Kwakiutl tribe of Native Canadians, who were grateful for Tommy's help with restoring the food production in Canada following World War 2. The sculptor was from a family of totem pole artists from Alert Bay in Vancouver Island. Alongside the flowers, a gift from our new neighbours, is a beautiful vase given to us by Mom and Dad on a trip to Vienna...and on it goes, rather like our histories coming together anew in little pieces we can see and touch.

Another little gasp of recognition and grief came when a piece of Paddington fluff was found attached to a duvet cover from our bedroom in England...my Mom and Dad gave us a sculpture of a Keeshond (Paddy's breed) as a housewarming gift; I gave it to them years ago in celebration of our Keeshonds, Domino and Echo...it is nice to have it here on Applewood Lane...

This is without a doubt a time of memory and dreams convergent, a time of unpacking and settling in, a time of deep reflection and emergent creativity...

Judy

Chapter 3

Chapter 1 began last year when we scattered our beloved dog's ashes on Cotmandene in Dorking. Chapter 2 when we arrived in New York on June 17th and, now, we have moved into our a new home. 
It has taken two years in the planning of it, from bare land, to concept, to drawings, to framing and now, today the landscape grading happens to complete the exterior garden scape.
Our builder hoisted the flag on April 30th!

And we've had perfect sunshine the last two days, greeting us in the morning like a golden splay across the fields. 
There is a herd of white tail deer which graze in the early morning for a while.
And a flock of wild turkeys...
Nicholas

Well it has been a very busy week!
Our shipment from England cleared customs in record time and today everything will be delivered! 
This meant things went into high gear with our incredible team in preparation for all our goods.
The mirrored backsplash was installed yesterday...

The grading of the earth around the house was completed in anticipation of the landscape designer beginning mid-May...

The mailbox is in place and the local post office knows we are living here now!

And, once the land had been softened with the heavy equipment, we installed the bird feeders...and, to our absolute delight, a pair of goldfinches found us within hours...followed by cardinals and red-winged blackbirds this morning...a dozy woodchuck cast a few glances towards the house as well, but he is shy and we have not been able to photograph him yet...

Later last evening, this was the extraordinary light glowing on the field and the distant hills, as seen from our living room...

We are so filled with joy and gratitude. There is a stillness, a quietude, a reflective quality to the landscape and to our home itself, and we both feel the desire to begin our creative work anew...

Judy