Spring 2015

The Daffodils are up and the black flies are out, or so I am told. Friends of ours checked on the place this past weekend and took this photo. They reported that everything made it through the second extremely rough winter in a row. No damage as far as they could see. That is alway comforting. We will be arriving in June and look froward to the coming summer at Dragonwood!

Spring 2013

I thought I'd share these photos sent to me by some very dear friends who recently visited Dragonwood. They live nearby and check in on the place from time to time when we are away. They tell me that Dragonwood came through another Tug Hill winter in fine shape. Looking forward to summer in the woods!

Garden Photos - Summer 2011

Thought I post a few photos of this summers gardens. It's been a hectic summer with selling the business and getting ready for our move to Florida (winters) so the garden has been put on the back burner. Despite the neglect it's doing quite well. We have perhaps the best tomato crop in recent years. We tried a new variety of pole beans that are excellent. Our garlic harvest was good as it always seems to be.

The weeding has gotten away from me a bit more than is typical.

In these photos you see my grand daughter Kaitlyn (4) looking for "Jack in the Bean Stock", also our outstanding horse radish, and my cucumbers that I grew on a trellis for the first time. So far so good.

Field Testing Bobbex Deer Repellent

Like most rural locations across the northeastern part of North America we have a huge white tail deer population. Seems deer love to eat Hosta. We now have hundreds of Hostas and well over forty different varieties.

In past years the deer didn't bother with our Hosta collection until fall when they were about to go dormant anyway, so we didn't care much when they browsed off the foliage. Last year they decided about the end of June to devour our collection. Luckily Hosta are very resilient and come back with out any problem the next spring. We set out to try a host of different tricks to try to keep the deer from feasting on Deb's babies. Nothing really seemed to work and this year by the middle of July half of our collection has been wiped out by these hungry critters.

On the reccomendation of a local nursery we have purchased and applied Bobbex Deer Repellent to the ones that remain untouched. The nursery claims this is a good product and I hope it is.

We will let you all know how this works and what we think of it.

We would also like to hear about any other ideas you may have. Please feel free to share your experiences good and bad with deer repellent, tricks or products.

Orange Marmalade Hosta

This is one of our favorite Hosta plants. Orange Marmalade. It seems to be doing well in it's second summer at Dragonwood.

Orange Marmalade is a mutation of Paul's Glory and is a medium size Hosta. The golden yellow/orange center turns to white later in the season. These Hosta produce a lavender flower in mid summer.

Tug Hill

This short video gives you a glimpse of the region. In talking with people from different parts of the country I often sense that many people picture New York City when they think of New York. It is difficult for some folks to imagine vast wilderness areas and pristine forests with clean rivers and lakes.

The Tug Hill region is about the size of the state of Rhode Island and lays between Lake Ontario and the Adirondacks.

In addition to the core forest area there are many family farms, great cross country skiing and snowmobiling. The Salmon River and it's tributaries as well our many lakes and ponds make for great sport fishing. We also have a growing Amish population. Oswego county aloan now has over 300 Amish families that have moved here over the last five or six years. Wide open spaces, cheap land and an abundance of fertile soil and fresh water make this area very attractive for those who wish to live off the land.

It does take a strong spirit to endure our harsh winters. Lake effect snow piles up on average between 200" - 300" every year.

A Sign Of Things To Come

"It's beginning to look a lot like......." Well you know the rest. Now that Thanksgiving is behind us, it's that time of year and the lake effect machine will begin to crank up. The cold winds coming down from Canada over Lake Ontario will begin to dump prodigious amounts of snow on our side of the lake. Time to dust off the snow shoes and cross country skis. This morning we only had an inch or two but soon we will measure it in feet.

Are You Better Off Today Than You Were Four Years Ago?

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rep/are-you-better-off.html

Can't post the hyper link so copy and paste. Very interesting read.

Keith Thompson: Totally Off The Grid

Putting Up Wood

We heat with wood and split most of it by hand. Yesterday my buddy "Timber" Dick Dupre spent a couple of hours at Dragonwood with his splitter. Sure made easy work of a good five face cords. It would have taken us many hours of hard labor to split by hand what we were able to do in less than three hours with the machine.

Photos, Top to bottom: "Timber" Dick Dupre running the splitter, KII rolling a log for me to "buck up" with the chain saw, and the bottom photo shows me gathering kindling.

The Cabin at Dragonwood

Fall 2010

The last week of October we enjoyed three days of "Indian Summer" with temps in the 70's and a lot of sunshine. Here are a few shots taken at Dragonwood over the last couple of days. A look up the driveway with all the autumn leaves. Also a couple of fall garden shots including our fall crop of leaf lettuce, leeks and one of our just planted garlic beds. This year we planted over 150 garlic cloves of six different varieties.

One photo is of a small lake just down the road. Deb has painted this scene a couple of times and sold both originals. She also did a print from one of the paintings that has since sold out.

Will be up this weekend to cut and split more firewood. We will also begin putting things away for winter. Next week will be the beginning of November. Here in the Tug Hill region that means snow will be on the way soon. I will box up the solar panels and put away a lot of the garden tools etc. . I have seen things crushed by the weight of the snow. One year a garden cart was left out. The weight of the snow that winter all but destroyed it.

"Rock Run"

A Good Haul! KII and I never pass an opportunity to grab some good field stones when we have the chance. We have numerous ongoing stone walls and other stone projects as well as some Andy Goldsworthy style sculptures planned for the gardens. You can't have too many rocks. We have several piles in various places around the property. These get sorted every now and then into "rounds",corners,flats, uglies, etc.. This makes it easier to find the right stone for a given need.

We plan to clear about an acre for additional gardens and some fruit trees. Pulling stumps and bulldozing should produce a bounty of choice specimens next spring.

Stone Wall Detail

I thought I would post this close up of one of the many stone walls that I have put up at Dragonwood over the years. This one is a little over 10 years old and look at the moss and lichen. It looks as though it has been there much longer. The stone work at Dragonwood is a never ending project. I hope to do some stone spirals and towers in time.

Summer at Dragonwood

One of the many butterflies and moths that we see daily during the summer. The second photo is a hummingbird moth that likes the Bee Balm or "Oswego Tea" and at the bottom is a Lobelia Cardinalis, a.k.a. Cardinal Flower that grow wild around the pond. This year we have had a real problem with Deer eating our prized Hosta collection. In the past they have browsed the Hosta in the fall at the end of the season, so we really didn't mind, but this year for some reason they started munching in June. Not good. Deb is trying a variety of concoctions to dissuade them from eating our babies. "Senator Muskie" our new resident in the pond this year is a young male muskrat. He ate all of our pickerell and I think most of the arrowhead as we have hardly any this year.

Blue Angel Hosta

Our Hosta collection is ever growing. We now have well over 30 different varieties and Deb is always looking for more. She has become obsessed, a real "Hosta Freak". I even see a series of paintings in the near future.

This Blue Angel above is one of my favorites. I especially like the blue foliage. Other favorites include Orange Marmalade, Yellow River, Dream Weaver, Sum and Substance, Katie Q, June, as well as some of the variegated varieties like Patriot, Minuteman, Whirlwind, Wide Brim and Francis William.

At some point I will photograph and document them all.

Logging Off Black Cherry

My buddy Vince is culling about 40 Black Cherry trees for us this week. The market is not optimal by any means but if Kevin II is going put up a yurt in the spring we needed to clear some out anyway.

Lloyd's Prayer

I received this in an e-mail. I'm not sure who penned it


In honor of Lloyd Blankfein, Chairman at Government Sachs:

Our Chairman
Who Art At Goldman
Be They Name

The Rally's Come, God's Work Be Done
We Have No Fear Of Correction.

Give Us This Day Our Daily Gain
And Bankrupt Our Nearest Competitors,
Leaving No One Left Standing Against Us.
And Bring Us Not Under Indictment.

For Thine Is The Treasury
And The House And The Senate
Forever and Ever,
Goldman.