Vermont, a picnic, and the perfect day~PART ONE

***UPDATE 2013~SEE ALL THE NEW PHOTOS OF OUR 18TH CENTURY HOME AND YARD, TO PERIOD MUSICK ON THE TOUR PAGE OF OUR WEBSITE~

We left very early for Vermont, after we did a 2 mile run together at 5:30 AM. What a GREAT day. It was sunny and cool. We had the yorkie girls in their 'front packs' and took them with us. We arrived at our friend's house in the country, past St. Johnsbury, 'way up there' in Vermont at about 10 AM. He had the most lovely 1 1/4 inch thick cedar boards ready for us, and we loaded them in the van, and were on our way. We stopped and had our picnic lunch at a beautiful place along the Connecticut River. It was so glorious driving through Franconia Notch and the White Mountains. I took some photos, which I will have in another post.

We stopped at the 1781 Country Store in Moultonboro on our way back, got a small bag full of 3" rosehead nails. Winding our way the last few miles home, on a country road, we stopped at Bart's. He has a trailer set up every summer afternoon, and sells the BEST of fresh seafood. We bought a large piece of seabass to grill for dinner. 20 minutes later we were home, and still had a couple of hours of afternoon to build our raised beds. (I love the circular saw, the smell of sawdust--- and doing all the DIY stuff.)

It only took us about an hour and a half, and we now have 2, 8 inch tall, cedar raised bed gardens in the kitchen garden. One is 4 x8, and one is 4 x 6. The cedar, like the studded batten doors we made for our house, will 'weather' beautifully, and will be a soft gray-brown in a few months! All we need now is some dirt, and some cow manure from our neighbor.

I made some twice-baked potatoes with chives from the garden, soy milk, and lo-fat cheddar, and Adam BBQ'd the sea bass with just a little olive oil and salt and pepper. I made a simple sauce of 50/50 butter, fresh lemon juice, dill, and capers, and poured it over the fish. OH MY! This was as good or better than lobster. Perfectly cooked, charred outside and juicy and moist inside, it melted in your mouth. This was the finale of a perfect day.

Well, my friends, here are a couple pictures of the new 17thc. kitchen garden with the crushed stone down.

VISIT OUR WEBSITE TOUR PAGE AND SEE ALL THE PHOTOS OF OUR 18THC. HOME, AND ALL THE PERIOD GARDENS, STONE WALLS, WATTLE FENCES, HERB AND FLOWER GARDENS AND MORE~

MAKING WHOOPIE (pies)...a New England classic!

Mmm, Whoopie Pies...something I had never heard of until I moved to New England. Actually they are a round, hand-sized cake stuffed with rich creamy filling--those oh so heavenly, and delectable treats that have everything bad for you in them, and taste so eye-rollingly good. Now, I don't eat sugar, butter, or any of that stuff AT ALL normally. I have had whoopie pies, and the memories make my mouth water. I am actually making them from scratch for Adam to take to school for the week as a treat with his brown bag lunch, and I plan on freezing a few and thawing some out to serve on Friday evening when our friend Penny comes from Texas.

I KNOW, I know~ I am serving our period-correct Raspberry Shrub to drink, and whoopie pies are not exactly a 1600 or 1700's delicacy, but they ARE a New England institution.
Did I mentions the flavors? Of course, the dark devilsfood whoopie with the classic marshmallow fluff/vanilla filling is to die for, (and the ones I am making today), but then there are the pumpkin with the cream cheese fluff filling, the orange cake with orange filling and of course the dark chocolate with the fluffy peanut butter cream inside, to name just a few. New England has made whoopie pies an art form.

I have, out on my counter now all the ingredients---brown sugar, eggs, cocoa powder, buttermilk, vanilla, flour, unsalted butter, marshmallow fluff, confectioner sugar, and more. My advice to you; if you come to visit New England, go antiquing, go to the living history museums, see maple sugaring-off, and the exceptional colored leaves in fall---do all this 'New England-y' stuff, but MAKE SURE YOU STOP AT A LITTLE COUNTRY STORE IN SOME SMALL TOWN AND GET A WHOOPIE PIE, and then say "This is wicked good"!

TWO MAGAZINE FEATURES, late summer strawberries, and a trip to Vermont...

Yesterday I stole away for a little bit, and drove the glorious green and winding backroads where I live. It was a lovely day, and I had the windows open and good music playing in the van. I went to my friend Sue's little country shop to get the brand new issue of EARLY HOMES MAGAZINE. They have done a small article and feature on us in the fall/winter issue, and it had just come out. After picking up a couple copies, I happened across a stand selling late summer strawberries. They are small, but the sweet, delicious smell was mouth-watering. I bought a quart, to suprise Adam with his very favorite---my homemade, prize winning strawberry pie in the secret shortbread pie crust with whipped cream on it.

I was up very very early this morning. It is only a little after 6 and I have lots to do to get ready for my friend Penny's visit, so I have already made the pie. It smells divine, this last hurrah of summer~

I am making our favorite summer picnic salad later today---the shrimp, watermelon, avocado creation. Tomorrow we are going on a day trip to Vermont. We have a friend who lives out in the country past St. Johnsbury, and who sells thick cedar boards that he mills, as a side business. He has already put aside the 8 inch wide by 1 1/4 inches thick white cedar planks we need for our 2 raised bed gardens, and we will leave early tomorrow morning to go pick them up. We love the car ride through lovely countryside, while we talk and laugh and plan. We will stop along a roadside on the way home and have our little picnic lunch of the shrimp salad, and pieces of the strawberry pie I will tuck into the cooler with some homemade vanilla ice tea. We swing through Moultonboro NH on our way home, and will stop at the 1784 country store there and pick up a few very long iron rosehead nails to use in assembling our garden beds. We plan to construct them on Sunday. The whole rest of the new garden is now completely finished and is GORGEOUS! I will be unveiling photos of our period kitchen garden here shortly.

Above is a photo of the new issue of EARLY HOMES that we are featured in. SEE THE 'EDITOR'S PAGE', PAGE 33, WHICH MENTIONS US AND ALSO HAS A PHOTO OF THE GORGEOUS WOODEN CANDLESTICKS HANDMADE BY ADAM. THE FEATURE ON US BEGINS ON PAGE 56.

We are also featured in the current August issue of NEW HAMPSHIRE TO DO magazine as well. Look for the article entitled 'OSSIPEE, THE AUTHENTIC NEW HAMPSHIRE'.

*(NOTE~In past years we and our home have been featured in EARLY AMERICAN LIFE magazine, and in NEW HAMPSHIRE magazine.)

"Woke up, ate some oatmeal, built rock wall..."~Progress on our kitchen garden project.

I finally have some photos to put up showing our efforts on the latest project, a kitchen garden with raised bed planters. It probably won't look like much to you because you can't see exactly what we started with. You can read a little about that in my two previous posts on the subject.

We are thrilled to have made a lot of progress this past weekend. As mentioned, we are doing all of this entirely by hand, and Adam has spent days and days digging out what amounted to part of a hill, and leveling the ground to the house to make a place for 2 nice raised beds. He pulled out hundreds of rocks in the process, and chucked them into the adjacent stream bed for later use. The other day, the two of us built this L shape stone wall, using all the rocks we had pulled out of that small piece of earth! If you look closely and compare a couple of the photos, you will see that the ground level HAD BEEN 2 FEET HIGHER at the hill side, and you can see where the terrace rocks end, and the new rock wall has been built where there once was a part of the hill.

This is a very labor-intensive job, and you really get an appreciation of what our forefathers had to go through to build their homeplaces in the 18th century. As I was laboriously digging up the top layer of grass this weekend, and looking at the dirt and mess that surrounded me, it helped to close my eyes and picture the 2 wood sided raised beds, surrounded by crushed natural stone, and NO dirt or scraggly grass. In my mind I can see them next summer, bursting with some spinach and lettuce, and maybe some tiny yellow pear tomatoes, some Sweet Annie and Lady's Mantle, a lot of blue flax, Lady Bedstraw, and perhaps a few old varieties of flowers for some color.

It is raining here today, and it has washed down the dusty new stone walls we built, and they look so lovely. The rain has also softened the soil, so even though we now have mud pit, digging later today and tomorrow will be a bit easier...I will be putting up more pictures of our efforts~

*UPDATE~TAKE A TOUR OF OUR FINISHED YARD AND GARDENS ON OUR WEBSITE~

Progress on raised bed gardens, and a good dinner!

What started as a dream....

Yesterday we made a lot of progress hand digging out more earth outside the back door, and over to the little brook in preparation for the new 'kitchen garden' outside the back kitchen door.  Adam had to take it down 2 feet or a bit more on the high end. This being New Hampshire, there are rocks, rocks, and more rocks in every shovel full. Today we plan on making even more progress, finishing the leveling area and starting to dig out the grass from the entire proposed kitchen garden area, just a few inches so we can later put down the crushed stone between the raised bed gardens and around the firepit, etc, up to the back of the house and the granite and brick kitchen stoop. Adam dug up so many rocks in just an area about 12x15 feet, that we USED EVERY ONE OF THEM, and this morning constructed a new L shape stone wall that forms part of the kitchen garden border. The wall transitions the terraced hill garden to the lower kitchen garden, and borders the brook down the side of the house as well. It looks wonderful and we are quite proud of ourselves at the moment.

I took some photos of our progress so far, and will be putting them in an upcoming post here. Right now, I am posting a couple of picture of the type of raised beds we two will be constructing next month. (NOTE, THIS IS NOT OUR RAISED BED---they are not constructed yet, only a picture of something like what we PLAN to build, and what we hope it will look like with plants NEXT SPRING.)

UPDATE~ 'AFTER'...
OUR RAISED BED GARDENS, SUMMER, 2011~

...is now a reality!

 

SEE ALL NEW PHOTOS OF OUR 18THC. HOUSE AND GARDENS HERE~

Tired and dirty, we were very hungry, and last night made a simple, healthy, and absolutely delicious dinner. It honestly tasted like heaven, and was just our style for a lovely summer night. Here is what we made~

GRILLED EGGPLANT AND TOMATO SANDWICHES
Slice an eggplant into 1/2 inch slices (DO NOT remove skin). Slice a nice big tomato the same. Brush both side of both with olove oil and season with salt and pepper. Get a HOT fire going in the grill.
Adam grilled the eggplant slices for a total of 7 minutes, and then put grated fresh parmesan cheese on top of each one, covered the grill, and grilled another 2 minutes or so. He grilled the tomato slices for about 2 min. on a side or a bit less.

I split some fresh Italian ciabatta rolls from the bakery, and brushed the inside of both halves with olive oil that I added roasted garlic to. Adam then lightly grilled the rolls.
Assemble them like this: on each roll bottom place 2 slices of the eggplant with the melted cheese, some chopped FRESH BASIL--(I cut mine from the garden JUST before I made these.)--, 2 tomato slices, and then the roll top. I served this with hot, buttered ears of local sweet corn (Smart Balance 50/50 butter)!

Oh, YUM! This was SO MELT-IN-YOUR-MOUTH GOOD, we are having them today for lunch, as we have some leftover eggplant and tomato to grill. After lunch, we are going to take a ride over to Bearcamp Nursery and look at all the crushed stone, and pick one for when we are ready to put it down in the new garden.

***UPDATE~TAKE A TOUR OF OUR 18THC. HOME AND SEE ALL THE PHOTOS OF OUR FINISHED PERIOD YARD AND GARDENS HERE~

2013~OUR LOVINGLY RESTORED 18TH CENTURY HOME IS FOR SALE. TAKE A HOUSE TOUR HERE~

'A 17thc. photoshoot' and '17th Century Day'~

When all my 17thc. clothing items are finished, I will be modeling them here at our home which is a period setting with 17thc. antiques, and will be the perfect background for showing off the entire ensemble.
I will be doing my hair in a style of the period for a few photos, and some will feature me in different coifs (caps of the period), as well as different petticoats, along with the period shift and jacket.
I plan to debut the entire finished outfit here on my blog with a series of evocative photos taken by candlelight.
Here are a few pictures taken in my home, that might give you an idea of a little of what my 'debut' photos will feature, and what the setting will be like.

'17TH CENTURY SATURDAY' in Massachusetts is on one Saturday a month until October, and for that day all the 1600's house museums in Essex County and surrounding area are open, ADMISSION FREE. We have been to several, and many places know us, and love that we come dressed in 17thc. costume. We are thrilled that on the next 17thc. Saturday, in September, we are going to be bringing along a new and dear friend from Texas, that we 'met' through our website and this blog. The night before 17thc. Day, our friend is coming to our home and we will give her a tour, and all have our homemade Raspberry Shrub in the taproom. We have a very special suprise homemade gift for her as well. On that day,  I will be wearing my new 17thc. clothing publicly for the first time, and all 3 of us will be in period dress for the entire day.

We chose several special places to take our friend including Saugus Iron Works, Balch House, and Whipple House. We plan to have our picnic lunch in period style at the Rebecca Nurse house in Danvers, and then we will be appearing at Whipple House for some of the afternoon. They really like us, and were thrilled that we were going to be there for awhile. They even put  a blurb about our coming in an Ipswich newspaper. Our friend has never seen any of these places, and we are delighted to show her some of our New England, in real style.  Later, we will all be having dinner, still in costume, at the famous Clam Box in Ipswich---our most favorite place. Local Ipswich Clams are a delicacy unparalleled.

Birthday whale watch and lobster 'bigger than your head'!

I was fortunate to have probably the best birthday ever! On Friday we went on a whale watch tour for the afternoon on the ocean, leaving from Rye Harbor in New Hampshire. It was a perfect summer day---it was sunny, with not a cloud in the sky, and a delicious 70's/low 80's, with no humidity, and quite a nice breeze once out on the sea.
The boat left port about 1:30 PM, and headed far out to sea, passing the Isle of Shoals, with small islands such as Appledore and Star, and the lighthouse. We were headed for a place called 'Jeffrey's Ledge' in the Gulf of Maine---a feeding ground for whales. At a point about 3/4 of the way there we encountered a playful pod of Atlantic Whitesided dolphins, and were able to watch and photograph them for about 30 minutes.

At Jeffrey's Ledge, we floated awhile with no whale in sight. One girl said it should be called a 'whale wait' tour! Only the day before, the tour group had seen several humpback whales here, and one had 'breached', which made for an exciting sight and a great photo op, I am sure. After a time, we were rewarded when a huge Finback whale made his appearance not far from our boat. This whale is second in size only to the Blue whale, and someone from the Blue Ocean Society estimated this one at close to 70 feet---the length of our boat. He exhaled through his blowhole, spraying water collected at the top of the hole many feet into the air. He then dove down to the depths again to feed, which is after all what he was there for. He surfaced several times at intervals of usually from 5 to 10 minutes under the surface. We were able to get some nice photos. By now it was about 4 PM and time to start the long ride back to port. We snacked on the peanut butter pie I had packed and drowsily lounged against a built in bench in the sun, with sea spray cooling us, as we headed back in.

At about 5:45 we were in our car, and headed along a very scenic road by the sea a short way to 'Chauncey Creek Lobster Pier'---an open-air restaurant that reputedly serves the best lobster in Maine. For the first time ever, we ordered the HUGE ones---about 3 1/2 pounds, and had a ball cracking and breaking the shells, and eating them with our fingers, dipping the chunks of sweet lobster into butter. They were delicious---absolutely heavenly---a rare treat.
At about 8:30 as the sun was setting, we headed for home. This was truly one of those beautiful and special days that was perfect from start to finish, and one I will never forget.

Here are just a few photos. We have a whole gallery of pictures that we took this day up on our website.
*Please note we change our galleries often to reflect our '18thc. adventures' and life~

Projects...

Today is one of those perfect late summer New England days. The 90 degree heat of earlier this week has given way to the upper 70's and low humidity. The sun is shining, and everything looks so crystal clear and green.
Early this morning I did a half hour of Bollywood dance and then got the fabulous peanut butter pie made.

Adam is out in back DIGGING. We have a patch of earth outside the kitchen door that is a slighter, sloping continuation of the hill our house is nestled up against. It was at best, a sparse patch of grass with weeds. We have begun the monumental task of digging it all up BY HAND, and in the hot sun mind you, to level it off for a future PERIOD STYLE 'KITCHEN GARDEN'. This involves an area of approximately 15 by 20 feet, and the high side has to be dug out at least a two feet or more deep, gradually leveling off toward the house. This being New Hampshire, there are rocks EVERYWHERE, and you can't dig 2 inches without finding them, and flinging them aside. This job will probably take us a month or two.

The plan is that this is where the 2 of us are then going to construct two, wooden-sided, raised bed gardens in 17thc. style. Between them, and a large patch around them to the door will be natural crushed stone, which will then also encompass an area from the door, around the firepit, and stop in a curve, bordered with bricks we dug out in back, giving way to the rest of the back lawn. Of course, being die-hard DIY-ers, we are doing every bit of this ourselves. I have long wanted a couple of raised bed gardens and this is the perfect little spot for them, outside the kitchen in back.

I wanted to share with you a couple projects I did yesterday afternoon. I was out in the blistering heat hand-dyeing one of Adam's 18thc. reenacting waistcoats and pair of breeches. This is one of his c. 1750's, French and Indian War era ensembles, and one of my favorites. I dyed it a gorgeous DARK MAROON color, and both pieces came out wonderfully.
 I have photos here, but unfortunately, colors on this blog tend to look 'washed out'---in actual life, the color is a VERY DARK burgundy---not the red it looks here. Here too is a photo of an 18thc. style 'PINNER CAP' I made with a left over scrap of white linen, and an old piece of embroidered lace I had! This is a little cap that sits on top of a ladies head, and is often worn for finer occasions when she want to showcase a nice hair-do. I also made some bows in ribbons matching various of my 18thc. gowns, and these can be pinned to the back of the cap, and changed to match a particular outfit. I made this cap in just a short while, sewing it entirely by hand. Sometimes that is very therapeutic, and it was nice to sit in a patch of sun by the window with a glass of homemade ice tea with mint, and A TRIP TO KILLBURN playing on the CD player, and sew! ('A TRIP TO KILLBURN' is a marvelous CD of 17thc. music. One of the pieces on it is JENNY PLUCK PEARS, and at our 18thc. wedding, the fiddlers played that tune as I walked down the aisle.)

Well, I guess now I had better get out there and help dig.

Dogs with haircuts, dinner, and making homemade Raspberry Shrub

Today was a very busy one, with lots to do, and a lot of running around. We took our 2 yorkie girls for summer haircuts. It was the first for Deladis, who is only 4 1/2 months old. The clipper lady, Karyn, is about 30 minutes away, and it is a gorgeous drive on winding country roads. After dropping them off, Adam and I had a lovely hour or so. We went to a local farmstand and got some fresh tomatoes, raspberries, homemade bread, and some patty pan squash, and oh, Adam's favorite 'guilty pleasure', a couple of decadent and delicious homemade 'whoopie pies'.

All this fresh food puts me in mind of last night's dinner. It was SO GOOD. I roasted fresh local red and yellow tomatoes with olive oil and garlic. Adam grilled a piece of fresh salmon, and it was crusty on the outside and juicy and perfect inside. I served it with the roasted tomatoes on top, along with homemade mashed WHITE SWEET POTATOES, mixed with fresh herbs from the garden, and a little 50/50 butter, salt and pepper. I steamed some fresh broccoli and added a bit of the butter and a squeeze of fresh lemon to it---mmmmmm... After dinner we went on an 8 mile ride on our tandem---our 'bicycle built for 2'.

This afternoon I used all the fresh raspberries, and made a big batch of homemade RASPBERRY SHRUB, an authentic 18thc. drink. I put it in jars in the 'fridge, where it keeps indefinitely. I have enough to serve to company for the year. We love to offer it to our guests in our taproom, when they come around the holidays especially. The jars looked so pretty cooling on my soapstone counters, the late afternoon sun streaming in the window, that I took these pictures.
Here too are a few other photos----our last night's dinner, and our yorkies, Sasha and Deladis, after we picked them up from the groomer.  How cute!

A Country Dance~

I have told you in an earlier post that Adam and I are contra dancers, and that we even had a contra dance reception for our 18thc. wedding. This is the 'old time' dancing done for centuries. We have many country dances around where we live, and you can always find one on a Saturday night. You can read more in that earlier post.

We went to one recently in 18thc. clothing, as we often do. Our dancing friends always love that. I thought you would like to see a few photos taken by a wonderful professional photographer, Evie Roberts, who always takes great pictures at these dances. It was at least 90 degrees, but we always dance every dance nonetheless. One of favorites is the Sir Roger de Coverly, which was also George Washington's favorite dance. He loved dances and balls, and was said to be a wonderful dancer.