Wind Sculpture

Yesterday, the wind sculpture was installed, just before heavy rains came up from the South. Here is a view of the piece behind a serviceberry, with the fire pit behind.

Its beautiful to watch, slowly revolving in the wind.

Most of the trees are now in place and they create a sense of peace and tranquillity that is enticing.

All that remains now is for the gravel to be set, which, of course, has to be postponed now until the rains have stopped.

Nicholas

Our beautiful friend, Suzie, gave us this sign as a going away gift, just before we left England. And here, by the antique door, which serves as the gate to our garden, it has found a perfect home. There will eventually be white clematis trailing over the pergola and plantings on either side of the fence posts.

This is the view towards the southwest, mini stonehenge is seeming more and more an ancient, happened upon part of the landscape of the garden, flanked by the Japanese maple and the craggy shape of the weeping crabapple.

What an incredible season in our lives. What astonishing moments we have known, struggles, delays, fears, and at times exhaustion and grief have accompanied us daily....but well, now we only need enter our garden to be reminded of the greatest lesson we will ever learn...

Love is all you need ....

Judy

Progress

Planting has begun and the stone sculpture installed after much heaving and pushing.

The tall fence posts will be trimmed down to 6ft and we hope to install a blue bird nesting box, or two, at the further end of the fence, just inside of which will be one of the two multi-stemmed white birch trees.
We are hoping the white gravel path will be laid this week...
Nicholas

As things take shape in the garden, the gift of our dream becoming reality is more and more evident.

Here is a photograph of the last day of work on the fire pit...

And this is our team checking out the design before they began to plant...

In an interesting convergence of people and time and place, it turns out that the woman planting was a student of mine at the massage school where I teach, and a friend from my childhood was here to help put the bluestone sculpture in place earlier last week...and by "help" I mean he single-handedly lifted a 500 pound stone and put it in to anchor Nicholas' vision for what our designer is calling his mini-Stonehenge...have a look...my friend, Jeff, is 6'10" tall, with an unearthly strength...he says it is all leverage, nice to have a gentle giant around when hundreds of pounds of stone need hefting...

This last photograph was taken standing on the patio, looking down what will be a white-pebbled path to the fire pit area...lined with box, dianthus and iris...there will be peonies and lavenders added...and tomorrow we hope the trees will arrive....

What a joy to witness the unfolding steps...
Judy

Waiting for plants...

There has been great progress in the garden layout in the last week or so, despite heavy rain and thunderstorms on a few days.
Now, the fence posts are in, the rock hound has been at work and the three beds are set out around the pin where the sculpture will go. The fire pit waits beneath its tarp... 42 square feet of bricks are needed to complete it.
This morning, a fine fog came down between 6 am and 7 am; a shroud that cast a gentle blanket of dew over all.

Meanwhile, our neighbouring woodchuck comes by from time to time, somewhat bemused by all the work.

Nicholas

The garden being created has been an enormous joy. At times I have found myself impatient with inclement weather and delays out of our control...but mostly, again, I find myself quite amazed by the process and filled with thanks for the skills of the men who are building it with us.

Here is a photograph of the back garden before the "rock hound" sifted through the soil, removing the larger stones in preparation for the plantings...

This was the image we woke to yesterday morning, and the picture Nicholas posted was taken this morning...in one day, so much has been accomplished.

Out front, the soil is readied for grass seed to be planted, more plants have been delivered and trees are coming soon...

And, inside, we have been busy as well...the paintings have been hung and the carpeting has been laid...

This past Monday, June 17th, marks the one-year anniversary of our arrival in America...we disembarked from the Queen Mary in Brooklyn and began this new leg of our journey...we had not yet fully purchased the land, we had no house plans, no garden design, no furniture, no job, etc...what an adventure!

Judy

Dryden Dairy Day Parade

Today, in gentle, falling rain, I sat on our close friends' porch and watched the Dryden Parade go by. Tractors, cows, children, dogs and, of course, marching bands.

The parade celebrates the history of this town and its dairy farmers who have contributed so much to the spirit of the place since the early 1800's.

And as with all parades, the inner child is there!
Nicholas

So...I missed the parade...and my first Dryden Dairy Day, as I was working. But, thankfully, right along with you I am able to see some of the highlights.

I grew up in a community that had small dairy farms, so I am feeling quite nostalgic in a nice kind of way.

When I got home, there were other little delights to greet me. 
A doe, pausing from her evening meal...

And a rather curious rabbit, exploring the world of newly laid bricks and the Bobcat digger...

What a privilege to witness the beauty of nature, the curiosity of animals, the unfolding of seasons and time...

May we be good stewards of this earth.

Judy

Firepit

The fire pit is nearing completion, and, yesterday evening we were able to sit on the patio, looking out towards Hammond Hill in glorious sunshine as two deer stopped by for a while.

The sense of peace is extraordinary here, and we've also seen the first fireflies out in the meadow, twinkling at night like stars.
Several starling families have fledged over the last week, so now the back garden area is alive with crazy young birds, all learning to fly and tumbling about like mad.
Nicholas

Like the craftsmen who built our home, the landscaping team is equally dedicated and creative...and, as Nicholas said, the fire pit is well under way...

Here is a photo of the early stages, when the earth was just beginning to be prepared...

Once this was done, the gravel bed for the stonework was begun...

This was then tamped down until it was perfectly level and the fire pit itself was constructed...surrounding this will be the same brick pavers as we have used on the patio, as well as a stone retaining wall. Our idea is that we will place cushions on the top of the wall, as well as have a few chairs on the paved area, for seating....I am excited about this, the smell of the fire, the stories, the conversations, again, such possibilities...

A year ago, we were in a B&B in Dorking, we had not fully purchased our land , we had no completed house design, we had not crossed the Atlantic, there was no landscaping plan...most of what we owned we had given away, the rest was put in a container for storage, and we were poised on the cusp of what has been a wonderful adventure...

A prayer that was said at our wedding comes to my mind as I reflect...
For all that has been...Thanks.
For all that will be...Yes!

Judy

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