Cold At The Cape

Bill & I visited Old Farm this week before the blizzard hits the East Coast. We walked the beaches, made soup, ran the woodstove and read books after shoveling our way into the house. Lake Wequaquet, the Cape's second largest lake, is four houses away and now frozen solid after weeks of extreme cold. Harvard's Women's Crew team stayed and practiced at Old Farm a while ago.

A good book to read is "From the Vikings to Vonnegat; A Cape Cod Reader", while here.

"Leif Ericson, a natural Viking leader with a touch of wanderlust, heard from a fellow sailor, Bjarni Herjulfsson, of new lands far to the west. Setting sail with thirty-five men in the year 1003, Leif followed the directions of his friend and eventually made several landings on these unknown shores. One landing is reported to have been at Great Point on Nantucket, while another was believed to have been at Bass River on Cape Cod." Frederick J. Pohl

Happy Valentine's Day!

All of my Christmas Amaryllis bulbs bloomed for the day.

My valentine Anders, I miss you.

Building Bulkhead Doors

Every month we spend a long weekend at Old Farm usually with a project in mind. Last visit, Bill built another bulkhead door for the original basement opening and it was installed primed before leaving. Fun!

Drove home into a blizzard. What a winter.

Snowstorms

 While heating his house with wood, Leif's first and recent snowstorms, when log piles are key.

We recently took down 7 more big trees here, making several piles and clearing the front yard of trees too close to the house.

Four large Walnut and a Sycamore tree will dry out here with some given to artist woodworkers.

Other piles are dead Ash ready to split and burn.

Leif cooks outside on his vintage Weber all year.

18" of snow the winter we bought Old Farm & gutted the entire upstairs.

Planting Bulbs

Every Christmas, Bill's sister gives all her siblings Amarylis bulbs planted to grow upon arrival, and during the month of January, pics are shared. It is fun to see how all the different varieties become most beautiful. Ours are planted in Maxwell Mustardo's gorgeous ceramic ice bucket and tall vase. 

I also bought 110 flowering bulbs on sale now (buy one bag 75% off, get 2 more free) on the Cape; where I will plant striped tulips, tall white tulips in porch planters here and a dozen Giant Allium in 3 lawn planters by Bill for Leif's modern landscape.

Good to watch on Netflix: "Tulip Fever"!

Bill's 3 large planters...

Planter by Nicholas Newcomb.

Earlier, I planted 25 white Mount Everest Allium from Holland in Christian's rock garden with many small white ones already packed in.

A Custom Dining Room Table

Leif's dining room table is made of rare Brazilian match booked petrified (submerged tree base used) Palographico wood, with a thick beveled top and straight legs. It was custom made for a tall family and we have cut it down a bit.

A Well Stacked Porch

This is the third time I have stacked our side porch for winter, to feed our large Jotul and smaller Morso woodstoves. Larger logs are stacked to the right, kindling is kept in the old wine barrel, ashes in the antique 13" wide copper bucket, and a hatchet on the hand carved "Kubbestol" is for splitting more kindling.

The broom is NYT's endorsed "Casabella Wayclean" wide angle, & huge pine cones are from CA.

The lights are antique brass English carriage lights electrified. Kubbestol is made by Finnish friend Benny, the brick steps by my father and planter & porch built by Bill.