Monday, April 20, 2009

getting back into it...

After 10+ years of Manhattan based biking, it's great to get out on the bicicletta and pedal some new pavement. Katonah is slap bang in the middle of one of NYC's reservoir systems, which makes it easy to pick biking loops with a nice view on hand. I'm really enjoying getting moderately lost and piecing together exercise and exploration...

Unfortunately all of this water is off limits to my kayak, so for the meantime I'll be trying to build up some strentgh in the legs to tackle all those hills!

Sunday, April 19, 2009

breaking ground








Almar garden update...

After spending my morning freeing the last of our trees from an army of vines, Jeff and I broke ground on a raised bed vegetable garden today. I've got the sunniest spot near the house, inside 8' of deer defence fencing, but still have to figure out a defence against the woodchuck that lives nearby. I foresee caddyshack scenes unfolding...

We put in a solid afternoon of lumber lifting, pole digging, circular sawing and ended up with a reasonably solid structure to work with. There's still a couple of weeks before the last frost date, but after that I'll have more to post...

Monday, April 13, 2009

before & after


Now i'm ready to begin the "country" part of this blog in earnest: the last two weekends have marked the start of the gardening project. I've marked off roughly 100 square feet of lawn to turn into a vegetable garden. The lawn is off, the soil is tilled, and the compost is stinking up the joint. Now all I need is a little bit of warmth and I can get some of the many seeds I'm gonna grow into the beds. I'm gonna do my best to keep a visual record of this, as well as a description of any standout meals that come out of the project. And anyone who wants to link to my blog gets a claim on whatever kind of harvest I produce...