Home HudsonValley MAY 12, 2016 • ULSTER PUBLISHING • WWW.HOMEHUDSONVALLEY.COM
Home, Lawn & Garden
Time to grow your garden again
A guide to gardening, home improvement, real estate and growth
12, 2016 2 | May Home Hudson Valley
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Naturgemälde Paul Smart revisits the origins of “The Unity of Nature”
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n early April, I attended an author’s talk all about the nineteenth-century explorer and early scientist Alexander Von Humboldt sponsored by Olana, site of the Hudson River School painter Frederic Church’s Moorish palace-like home as well as some of the region’s most exquisite views and gardens. The event filled the Hudson High School with an audience from all reaches of the region. Indian-born, German-raised and London-based lecturer Andrea Wulf read from her masterful best-selling biography, The Invention of Nature: Alexander Von Humboldt’s New World. She talked about her subject’s resurgence from a century of relative obscurity. “He was known as the Shakespeare of the sciences, and for the popularization of knowledge,” Wulf told her audience. She recounted the Prussian noble’s exploits, and her own struggles to retrace his footsteps. “He was called ‘The greatest man since the Deluge …. He gave us a way of understanding nature and science that informed the Paris talks about climate change last December.” The eccentric but brilliant Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt, for whom California counties and South American cities and a Pacific Ocean current are named, was one of the last of a breed of men and women who strived to know all they could of the world they inhabited as that world was slipping from enlightenment to industrialization. He delved into those areas of adventure, experience, collection and analysis that would eventually be named science (instead of the “natural philosophy” of his schooling days). As a young man, he befriended and inspired a much older Johann Wolfgang Goethe, the great poet and playwright, with whom he argued about the beginnings of the world. Though he confounded Napoleon, he got the latter’s blessing for a fiveyear journey to South America to explore the rain forests and the Andes. Thomas Jefferson heralded him, dubbing the man “half-American.” Most importantly, as Wulf reiterated in her book and talk, the man came up with a concept of nature which paved the way for modern ecological understanding, including man’s role as a disruptor. He coined the modern environmentalist maxim of “only protecting what we love” and became the first of a line of passionate advocates to directly influence Henry David Thoreau, Charles Darwin, Walt Whitman, John Muir, and Frederic
Contributors for this issue: Andrew Amelimnckx of Catskill writes about crime, food and art. Susan Barnett, a licensed real-estate salesperson affiliated with Gary DiMauro Real Estate, has been an anchor, producer and reporter for WRGB-TV and was Hudson Valley bureau chief for WAMC Northeast Public Radio. Jennifer Brizzi writes on food, health and gardening for newspapers, magazines and books, and does recipe development, cooking demonstrations and teaching. Her website is www.jenniferbrizzi. com. Matthew D’Onofrio is an up-and-coming writer currently studying at SUNY New Paltz. He is interested in the way people communicate and share with one another. Paul Smart edits this publication, plus several others. Violet Snow, a journalist, author and frequent Ulster Publishing presence, specializes in history, genealogy, suspense fiction and nature, and also expresses herself through photography, video and music. Lynn Woods, long-time Kingston resident and Ulster Publishing writer, is co-director of the film Lost Rondout: A Story of Urban Removal. This issue’s cover is a painting by local artist Josephine Bloodgood.
Ideen zu einer Geographie der Pflanzen nebst einem Naturgemälde der Tropenländer is the name of the 1807 print by Alexander von Humboldt and A.G. Bonpland, published alongside their Essay on the Geography of Plants, which made visual Humboldt’s way of seeing the unity of nature.
Church, who worked to bring Humboldt’s scientific discoveries and journeys to life in his greatest paintings. What did Humboldt discover? Standing in Peru atop what was then believed to be the world’s highest peak, he had an epiphany. He saw all of nature as one entity, where species were not distinctly unique but variations on a theme. He came up with the concept of isotherms, explored how climate patterns determined ecosystems, and became acutely aware of the fragility of our world.
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umboldt came up with his quantum theory for all that is nature in visual terms, a complex print drawing he called Naturgemälde (“The Unity of Nature”). In his vividly portrayed cross-section of the volcanic mountain in South America, Humboldt made
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connections among geology, botany and geography. He even explained the degree of blueness in the sky. Olana invited Wulf to speak as a means of building enthusiasm for the 2016 exhibit, “Capturing the Cosmos: Frederic Church painting Humboldt’s Vision of Nature.” The show runs through October in the Evelyn and Maurice Sharp Gallery at the Olana State Historic Site outside Hudson. By reintroducing this man Humboldt into the Hudson Valley, this event served to shift our appreciation for the settled qualities of where we live back to the worship of wilderness inherent in Church’s and Thomas Cole’s great paintings. We should remember Humboldt as an important figure in the polymath beginnings of nature’s way of making things understandable.
12, 2016 4 | May Home Hudson Valley
PHOTOS BY JENNIFER BRIZZI
What makes a plant desirable? How about simple beauty, and an ability to balance a view, as is the case in the author’s choice of chenille, columbine and stachys.
Plants of dreams What Jennifer Brizzi would do if she had a staff of a dozen gardeners!
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ould that there were time, acreage and sufficient sun. I’d surround myself with growing things of every hue, shape and size. Time is the enemy of the avid gardener, who would rather be out there tilling, weeding, harvesting or merely admiring than almost anything else. But there are other foes, too, life circumstances that would thwart efforts at creating that gorgeous dream plant-space. Although there is arguably as much beauty in one tiny wild violet as in a field of carefully tended tulips, more is more, I think, when it comes to gardening. There is never enough. I am greedy for growing things, with an infinite wish list. Growing plants is therapeutic and a hedonistic pleasure both, albeit grueling and arduous, as I was reminded when I threw out my lower back one year when ardently tilling the soil, or when my ill father was forbidden by my stepmother to keep gardening in his latter years. He would hide tiny herb plants behind bushes, his connection to the earth needing to endure in spite of his frailty.
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Years earlier, when I was a child, my father’s giant organic garden kept our table full of the freshest foodstuffs, whereas some of my friends ate only canned vegetables. I grew to love vegetables passionately, and to love to cook them from age nine onward, and eventually to grow them myself. My parents’ gardening stopped there, my mother more interested in wild plants and my father not much interested in flowers. The previous owners of the brick colonial house where I grew up had left us a huge willow, long hedges of red and white roses, daffodils everywhere, blue bearded irises, a lush grove of rhubarb and fat blueberry bushes. All were gone long before the house was sold a few months ago. I always had a black thumb with indoor plants, keeping alive only the odd philodendron and aloe, but when my interest in outdoor growing began to emerge I did a bit better. My first efforts were on a tiny third-floor balcony in Providence, just a few little pots of herbs and tuberous begonias (although they don’t smell, they are stunning and remain one of my favorites). A few years later I moved to the garden apartment of a Brooklyn brownstone with a fenced-in back “yard” where I stuck flower pots in every inch of space and tomatoes in half a plastic doghouse. There was some sun but not quite enough. I started seeds in sunny windows and learned what grew well from seed, what was best bought as a plant, and what worked in just a few hours of sun a day and what absolutely did not. The gardening helped distract me from some personal sorrows that plagued me at the time, and I went overboard, carting home hundreds of pounds of potting soil in a laundry cart over the bumpy bluestone sidewalks, giving way too much money to Burpee, and picking up plants every day as I walked home from work. I came to terms with the lack of sun and grew to love good shade plants like characterful coleus, feathery astilbe, bright blue browallia, caladium, hostas and impatiens, all beautiful plants for which even if I had a huge sunny yard now I would still love to find shady spots.
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s an avid cook, for me there is nothing like eating fresh vegetables just harvested from a few feet from the stove. But I didn’t have much luck in that dark Brooklyn courtyard. Then 20 years ago I moved from Red Hook, Brooklyn to Red Hook, Hudson Valley, and finally had a big sunny yard. Although it was rented, the landlord was fine with me digging up a portion of his lawn and growing things. Finally I could happily grow gorgeous tomatoes — brandywine and sungold and others — with French marigolds to
keep bugs away. I grew velvety red sunflowers, geraniums in every color, giant silvery cardoons and long, obscene, curved cucuzza squashes with huge, opulent, fragrant white blossoms that I would write odes to in the middle of the night. When our tenure ended at that spot, we found a little rent-to-own house in Rhinecliff, with finally some feeling of permanence. Not enough to plant asparagus, maybe — that requires a commitment! — but I dove into gardening even more intensely than before, planting bulbs, perennials, Boston ivy, wisteria, even an apple tree, in hopes of sticking around a while. The yard wasn’t quite as sunny as at the Red Hook apartment, and super-rocky besides, but it was ours. I built a couple of raised beds and grew scrumptious emerite green beans, lacinato kale that produced prolifically for months even in shade, a wild arugula that kept coming back every year, Asian Bride eggplant — a most un-PC name for a sweet and delicious white-with-lilac-edges nightshade. I am probably the only gardener in existence who has never been able to grow zucchini, to my sorrow, because I love it and its tasty blossoms. From previous homeowners we inherited cedars and sugar maples, lilacs in two hues, loads of forsythia, a nice lily-of-the-valley patch and a rosebush. I tended to a couple of short but wide flower borders, planting cosmos and spider flower, columbine, borage, bleeding heart and hollyhocks. Ever the container gardener, I still grew things in pots all over the patio: strawberries, portulaca, nasturtium, nicotiana, damiana, daylilies, hens and chicks and so many herbs.
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f I had those scarce items I mentioned — time, acreage and sufficient sun (plus a staff of a dozen gardeners) — oh, the things I’d grow. Everything I’ve already mentioned and more: hydrangeas, the bluer the better, and peonies in every color, dainty forget-me-nots. I love exotic black flowers from pansies to petunias, climbing beauties like clematis (jackmanii), morning glory and lipsticky trumpetvine. I tend to prefer purple/blue blooms, after that white, black, red, pink, peach, not so much yellow and orange. I have no preference for big or little petals, loving the flamboyant and subtly delicate equally. I love the non-flower garden plants that are so gorgeous and add so much to a fat pot, like vinca vine, sweet-potato vine and those silvery fuzzy sweet stachys. Herbs like ornamental sages and thymes serve double duty in garden and kitchen. And to me a shade garden full of various ferns is essential. Those orchids circulating on Facebook that look like monkey faces or tiny well-endowed
May 12, 2016 Home Hudson Valley men are not on my list. Then there is the very fleeting drama of the flowering bush. Although azaleas are pretty, I prefer the flamboyance of the rhododendron, and would plant a few, in deep red, around my property. Later on in the season the flowering quince always awes me, so that’s surely on the list. Although cypresses remind my ex-mother-in-law (who is Italian) of cemeteries, I think they’re gorgeous and I would plant them all over my sculpture garden. And how I would love to have any kind of magnolia; they are all stunning, from the star to the saucer to the grand ones that grow down south. As I write, flowering cherries have just passed and cheeky pink dogwoods are busting out all over. And I think red Japanese maples are just gorgeous. Yes, I will take all of those! And when it’s cold and monochromatic outdoors I would hang out in my steamy, sunny greenhouse, inhaling the aromas of my lush and sexy tropical plants like jasmine and gardenia, two pure white, particularly sweet-smelling favorites of mine. In the vegetable department, first on my list is dozens of varieties of heirloom tomatoes. Then I’d keep trying zucchini, grow emerite green beans again, cucumbers, winter squash, cruciferous vegetables, and of course plenty of those gorgeous cut and come again looseleaf lettuces. And lacinato kale and okra and herbs for Vietnamese food. I’d grow fruit, too, like berries, especially blueberries, raspberries, strawberries and currants. I’d plant peach, apple and pear trees. I’m nuts about nuts, any kind, and if I could grow nut trees in my back yard I would be very happy. Unfortunately my gardening days are over, for now anyway; by spring of 2011 my time at the Rhinecliff house ended and I was in a small apartment briefly, with no memory of any plants I had there, indoors or out. Where I have dwelled for the past four years, however, I have several houseplants that are clinging to life. But as nice and roomy as the place is, there is little indoor sun, and its shared deck is dark, too, heavily shaded by old oaks, so any attempts to grow herbs or flowers or anything in pots at all have not been successful. But yesterday I bought a fuchsia in a hanging planter and I’m going to try to keep it alive. Until the dozen gardeners show up.
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Home office: 845.246.1001 • Cell: 845.532.0310 YESTERDAYS CHARM with plenty of original character intact in this 1932 two-story home, plus 1985 addition of spacious Contempo w/high ceilings, gourmet kitchen with breakfast nook plus adjoining family room. Spacious living room w/bluestone fireplace with classic northern artist's window, library and formal dining room. Tall ceilings throughout the main floor add to the graciousness of this home. Complete new roof, ceilings, walls, new wood floors in sunny family room adjoining kitchen, new rugs in bedrooms and hallway, new stainless steel fridge, dishwasher and double oven. Guest apartment in lower level with kitchen and full bath with new slate floors and fridge and vanity. Sep entrance makes it possible to have income from this access apartment or use as guest suite. Great, convenient location to NYC bus route, yet off “the beaten path.” New stainless steel dishwasher, fridge and double oven. New vanities and ceramic tiled floors in ½ bath and hall bath. ....................................................................... $440,000 TUSCAN INSPIRED VILLA in the heart of Catskill park on 1.7 landscaped acres. This 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom colonial is a 2 story brick and stucco with many exceptional features: Stone entry pillars, circular driveway, flagstone patio, balcony overlooking the grounds. Master BR w bath and walk in Cedar closet. Two other bedrooms share a luxurious bath with bidet and sauna. Kitchen has custom cabinetry, Sub Zero fridge, Kitchenaid DW, GE Elite convec oven, eat-in area + adjoining formal dining room. There is a 1 bedroom guest apartment on the lower floor. .................................................................................. $455,000 MUST SEE this completely renovated Stone Victorian with guest apartment. Spacious living room with fireplace. Large, eat-in, gourmet kitchen with custom cabs and center island. There is an adjoining dining room. Additionally, an office with fireplace. Formerly an Inn and restaurant. Restorations include conversion of a bar room into a game room. Former dining area (36’ X 26’) of restaurant with fireplace has separate entrance allows for many uses. There is a 1BR in-law apartment w kitchen and full bath. At rear is a 4BR/2bath restored farmhouse. Also another building contains two, side-by-side, 2 bedroom apartments. A circular drive connects all the out buildings. Also a barn and a former, brick “smoke house”. Property is partially fenced and includes a very large, level meadow. Also available on 12 acres for $925,000 with option to purchase 9 acres of meadow! ........................................................ $999,000
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12, 2016 6 | May Home Hudson Valley
Going loco for local Andrew Amelinckx provides advice ce for more thoughtful participation in the food d economy
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e live in a region that provides des a veritable cornucopia of locally grown wn food choices. In season, navigating g the many available options can be a bit of a mind-numbing experience. There are farmstands, Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs), farmers’ markets, and the newest option, the subscription service. My wife and I happen to be obsessed with buying local, sustainably produced food, and our weekly food budget proves it. Our weekends during the warmer months often involve making several stops to get our groceries for the week. There’s the farmers’ market for some of our meat and whatever vegetables catch our fancy. Our favorite farmstand, located on Old King’s Highway in Catskill, is where we get our eggs and maple syrup. We get raw milk and a variety of meats at the farmstand near Germantown. We also like to support small grocery stores. We buy local honey, coffee, and whatever else we might need to round out the necessities at a store just up the street from us. We also shop at the large chain grocery store in our town for items we can’t easily get locally (toilet paper, for instance). Finally, we’re usually well-stocked in the produce department because we share a garden with friends every year. We do manage to put up a lot of the excess veggies for the winter by canning and freezing, and my wife will be the first to admit that she becomes squirrel-like when the days begin to get shorter and the nights cooler, and starts buying an excessive amount of fresh produce (sometimes even the types of vegetables we’ve grown ourselves) that will find their way into our meals — from tomatoes for pasta sauce to hot peppers for our Mexican dishes — in the dead of winter. During the colder months, when our garden
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Community supported agriculture brings one close to the farm. There’s nothing like farmstands or one’s own garden to connect to the pleasures of fresh asparagus, kale or spinach, let alone the wilder tastes of ramps and fiddleheads this time of year.
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resembles a vegetative graveyard, we’ll either get a share in a fall/winter CSA from one our many local farms or use a subscription service like Field Goods, which starts at $15 a week and goes up from there depending on size of family and whether you want to add on to the selection of vegetables that you receive. There are a number of pickup locations, and you can choose to do it week by week, which is handy if you happen to be going out of town on a trip. Eating seasonally helps. In the winter we try
to stick to the root vegetables that are still plentiful in the Hudson Valley. We can roast them or use them in soups to provide for delicious and hearty meals, just what you want on a cold and dark winter’s evening. Sometimes I pine for tomatoes during these times. After you’ve eaten a local, in-season tomato bursting with flavor, the ones you get in the grocery store in January are pallid by comparison (literally and figuratively). I usually wait for the next go-round in summer.
May 12, 2016 Home Hudson Valley
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onestly, the prices for locally grown, sustainably produced food aren’t that much higher than what you’ll find at the supermarket. We tend to eat fewer higher-ticket items like meat, and instead pile more veggies on our plates in order to stretch the protein source for a couple of meals. We are by no means wealthy. We choose to spend a bit more of what we earn on good, healthy food because we believe it’s worth it. Besides eating better and in a more healthful manner, there are hidden advantages to shopping locally. You’re keeping the money in your own region instead of giving to large corporations. In an age of industrial-scale agriculture which has led to countless food recalls and even deaths, buying meat and produce that isn’t traveling thousands of miles and being handled by hundreds of hands before reaching your plate goes a long way in preventing food-borne contamination. Rob Kitchen is a Columbia County farmer who along with his wife Heather owns and operates Pigasso Farms, which produces pasture-raised pork, beef, lamb and chicken. We get a lot of our meat from them, usually via the Hudson Farmers’ Market. They also operate a farm store on their property in Copake, but haven’t yet ventured into having a CSA. Rob tells me that initially they did better at the farmers’ markets than at their store, but over the four years the store has been open it has become a major part of their income. I asked Rob which way he would prefer to have customers buy from them. “We will take their business anywhere — at the farm or at the market,” he replied in an email. “We are only open on weekends, so we need to make most of our weekly income in a short period of time. We have a set goal each week to achieve to pay our monthly expenses.”
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ver the years, I’ve spoken to a lot of local farmers. Most say the CSA system works well for them since they get the money up front at the beginning of the season, giving them the capital they need to get their plants in the ground. While it’s great for the farmer, paying early in lump sums can be hard on your wallet as a customer. But you’ll be getting a bigger bang for your buck than buying produce weekly, and in the end will save money while supporting your local farmer in a big way. To me, that’s a win-win. The only downside, and this isn’t really a downside per se, is that we found even a half-share for just two people can provide a lot of food. The answer to the problem is simple. Get creative in the kitchen, throw more parties, and/or go in for a half-share or share with friends. Whichever you choose to do, you don’t have to be like my wife and me and go whole hog (although we haven’t actually bought a whole hog, at least not yet). You’ll find taking small steps toward buying more of your food from local farmers will lead to big gains for everyone involved.
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12, 2016 8 | May Home Hudson Valley
Maple in the Spring Garden.
June Delphinium.
‘We’re all like flowers’ Lynn Woods visits Portia Munson’s garden of earthly delights
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wenty years ago Portia Munson and her husband, Jared Handelsman, started living full-time on their 80-acre property in Catskill that had been farmed by her great-grandparents. “They got it in 1931 and did subsistence farming, raising chickens, turkeys and pigs. They had an orchard,” Munson said, pointing out the window of the glassed-in porch to the remains of the apple orchard, consisting of a few tallish trees bearing delicate white blossoms. Munson’s grandfather and father came here to hunt deer. Munson, who grew up on Long Island, visited the place as a child on weekends. “It was roughing it, but I loved it,” she said. Munson had been living in New York City before meeting Handelsman while the two were earning their MFAs at Rutgers University and moving upstate. The plank-sided house had no electricity or plumbing — only an outhouse and hand pump for getting water from the well. They updated the eighteenth-century house, preserving many of the original features such as the wood-burning stove in the kitchen, which they still cook on, and the original beams, which had been hidden by a suspended ceiling. They raised their two children in the house, which is rustic, playful — large flowers are stenciled on the living room walls and the enclosed porch walls are wallpapered with images of the forest -- and lived-in. Both artists have floor-through studios in an enormous Dutch barn Handelsman moved from a mile away and painstakingly reassembled on the property.
recently showed her work. Munson also continues to make and show her plastic pieces, which are composed of thousands of discarded items of similar color, be it pink, green or blue. Stream, comprised of blue plastic detritus that snakes like a blue monster along the gallery floor, opens in July at Wave Hill in the Bronx. While the arrangements are striking as sculptures of pure color, they also reveal the ghastly nature of the plastic detergent bottles, toys, egg crates, yogurt containers, even, in the case of a pink piece on display in Munson’s living room, crack vial stoppers — you name it -- which appropriate the natural, healthy associations of a color (weed killer is invariably packaged in a green bottles) and yet are toxic and artificial. The scale of the pieces also underscores plastic’s omnipresence. “Plastic is the lead of the future and should be illegal,” Munson said. “We’re living in the plastic age, and I’m hoping and trying to imagine we’re slowly leaving it …. It’s already changing life as we know it on a micro as well as macro level.” At the moment, sitting in Munson’s farmhouse, observing the numerous birds flitting to the feeder hanging against the windows and admiring the view of the mountain soaring over the field and woods, the plastic invasion seems pleasantly distant (although she said plenty of plastic trash floats down the stream and gets discarded on the roadsides).
Descending directly behind the house are massive beds of plants bordered by smooth stones gathered from the creek. A thick thatch of whitened, flattened twigs — an out-of-control wisteria — form a massive crow’s nest on the supporting portico. Beyond it are quince and lilac bushes, several magnolias, their pink buds just beginning to blossom, and peach, plum, crab apple and apple trees, fuzzed with green.
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tepping out the door onto the open porch, hung with numerous hanging chimes Munson crafted from old silverware, and into the side garden, one discovers a nature that’s still pretty bare-bones, more about structure than riotous performance. A gnarled sugar maple, whose columnar form is almost humanoid, serves as the foil to the bunches of plants; against the somber palette of early spring -- gray, brown and pale green—the multi-colored tulips and yellow daffodils are almost garish, confetti-like. A squarish stone seat (Handelsman rolled and wheeled some of the rocks in the garden from an abandoned quarry on the property) forms a base for the sculptural twist of the tree. It faces a pedestaled birdbath, which leads the eye to more descending steps and gardens. A tilting, ladder-like trellis constructed of cedar branches indicates where roses climbed before
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erhaps the most life-changing project for Munson was planting the garden, or rather gardens. Known for her large-scale installations of found plastic, which began when she began picking up pink plastic trash from the street in the 1980s, she started using flowers picked from her garden in her artworks after moving to the country. She arranges them in a mandala pattern on a scanner, and then blows up and prints the image. By taking flowers out of context and showcasing their intense color and structure, much as a scientist collecting specimens, Munson creates a kaleidoscopic vision suggesting the eternity and perfect design of the cosmos. Because the material is so ephemeral, each piece is made in a day. Munson is represented by PPOW Gallery in New York City. Her flower pieces are also on display in light boxes at two New York City subway stations. She currently has a large flower installation (Cosmos) at the Albany International Airport. Locally, Cross Contemporary, in Saugerties,
PHOTOS BY PORTIA MUNSON
Portia Munson and Jared Handelsman’s garden near Catskill, as much art work as muse, has been featured in various national publications and books over the years.
May 12, 2016 Home Hudson Valley
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starving rabbits consumed them winter before last. White bleeding hearts delicately nod along the bluestone path, which is also bordered by columbine and Virginia bluebell. Scattered about are large bowl stones, in which a hollow has been scooped out through water erosion along the flat top, collecting water for birds to drink and bathe in. Beyond the driveway are several large gardens, plopped down in the grass. A straw-covered area, adjacent to a giant reclining tractor wheel (full of chives), is where Munson will plant her annual garden and an area surrounded by a fence of cedar branches and wire is the summer vegetable garden, looked over by a precariously tilting purple martin birdhouse, like a character out of Dr. Seuss. Already this spring Munson is growing radishes, kale, spinach, lettuces, sugar snap peas, and arugula. She planted garlic around the edges last fall, which repels pests (and is eaten by the family year round). A
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12, 2016 12 | May Home Hudson Valley long bed, punctuated by another birdbath, will be planted with dahlias and single-petaled peonies which resemble yellow pompoms. Heading back toward the rear of the house, there is no grass — just meandering garden, with stepping stones providing access through the neatly arranged masses of plants and tall “needle” stones, resembling miniature stone-aged monuments, placed at intervals along the bluestone paths; they were harvested from the stream and are used as hooks to help position the hose. “The gardens are always in process,” Munson said. “They’re constantly evolving.” A large, antique brass school bell dangles from a dead tree, which Munson rang to summon the children when they were young and out playing in the fields or woods. A birdhouse is perched in the crock of a cherry tree, and a rusted crib placed in one of the large flowerbeds has the industrial look and geometrical simplicity of a minimalist sculpture.
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he gardens feel as homey and lived in as the house; Munson said many of the plants were donated by friends, costing nothing and infusing the garden with personal associations. Directly behind the house, whose south-facing lower floor, bounded by large glass sliding doors, is being transformed into a passive greenhouse for fruit and nut trees by the couple’s 22-year-old son Zur, is a rough patio furnished with chairs made out of drift wood collected at the beach. A shallow channel lined with cobblestones and crossed by a tiny bridge accommodates the stream that suddenly forms in heavy rains. On brisk days, one can soak in a hot bath in the clawfooted tub, partially hidden from view by a rush screen. (There’s also an outdoor shower.) On the far left of the field, isolated like a carnival ride, is a massive edible earthwork constructed by Handelsman. Hundreds of high-bush blueberries planted in an immense double spiral, which is covered by tented netting during the summer. The fabric is suspended from a platform in the center, which looks as if it’s awaiting a preacher anxious to convert the berry bushes, and supported on dozens of weathered locust poles that
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are arranged at regular intervals along the spiral pattern. It’s a new-world version of the circle of neolithic stones at Avebury (and is viewable from above on Google Earth). On the other side of the field, to the right of the house, rises a wooded hillock, a terminal moraine left by the glacier. Atop the hill are a tiny cemetery and an upside-down metal rowboat suspended above a large hearth boulder, which functions as the sugarhouse where Handelsman boils the sap he collects from dozens of maples on the property. Closer to the house, amid Munson’s winding beds, stands the original brick smokehouse, sheltered by a tin roof; Zur tried it out by smoking some cheddar cheese, which Munson declared was delicious. Munson also collects flowers from the woods. We cross the field, which is dotted with the white
flowers of wild strawberries, to the stream that meanders through the level woodland and admire the capacious treehouse constructed by Handelsman, complete with spiral staircase, board walls, slanted roof, stove, and furnishings — a favorite getaway for friends. Back at the house and gardens, we enter the enormous barn and go up a flight of stairs to Munson’s studio, where numerous scanned flower pieces are tacked to the wall. She was initially inspired to work with flowers when walking in her garden thinking about a friend who had just died. “Images of flowers started to come together in my mind,� she recalled. “I was thinking about how we’re all like flowers.� She added that the garden was important for her soul. “It’s so inspiring to work with the land.�
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12, 2016 14 | May Home Hudson Valley
WIKICOMMONS
Jack-in-the-Pulpit.
Mohonk as seen from SUNY New Paltz.
Discovering the nature cure Matthew D’Onofrio has learned to find comfort in his surroundings
W
e all have different ways in which we relieve stress or escape our minds. Some of us have positive methods like working out or meditating, as well as negative methods such as drug use or binge eating. If you live in a place like New Paltz, however, there is just no better way to get away than stepping right outside your door, taking a deep breath, and enjoying the magnificent views in this unique place we call home. “The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where
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Since its day as a teachers’ college, SUNY New Paltz has played a role introducing city and suburban kids to the natural wonders of the nearby Shawangunk Ridge. Now a trail network will link the village and college directly to ridgeline trails. they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature and God,” wrote Anne Frank in her diary, now referred to as The Diary of a Young Girl, “because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. As longs as this exists, and it certainly always will, I know that then there will always be comfort for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances may be. And I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles.” Regardless of what you believe in, nature does in fact exist all around us, though it may appear scarce in some places in the world. Luckily New Paltz is not one of those places. A 360-degree scan, no matter where you find yourself in this town, provides some natural beauty, whether it be the Shawangunk Ridge or the Wallkill River beneath the Carmine Liberta Bridge.
B
orn in Staten Island, I did not truly appreciate nature. As a college freshman in West Philadelphia, for me nature in the
form of even a forest or field was hard to come by. With a torturous 20-credit workload suddenly dropped on me, I was also unaccustomed with adopting healthy practices to ease my body and soul. Though my mother had always told me smoking was bad for me, the instant relief from a cigarette sure did numb the pain you felt when you got a 33 out of 100 on a chemistry exam for which you had studied countless days and nights. Nature does not make your breath stink, cost you $13 a pack and give you lung cancer. I eventually transferred to SUNY New Paltz. Here, well, things are different. When I felt overwhelmed from the hardships of pledging a fraternity my sophomore year, a pretty girl from my class who knew the area showed me a nearby walking trail bordered by trees. We stumbled upon an old windmill covered in moss, watched the sun set against the mountaintop, and wiped away our worries in the process. “There is a pure and nurturing energy here, lots
May 12, 2016 Home Hudson Valley of potential for spiritual growth,” said 21-yearold SUNY New Paltz student Shannon Blaise O’Connor, originally from Westchester. Shannon has the mindset that she must always perform at her fullest potential, a mindset that wears herself out as she’s constantly “trying to have it all.” She puts an immense amount of pressure on herself and gets frustrated when she finds herself being lazy and not moving forward in her life. It’s at times like that Shannon goes for a walk on The Wallkill Valley rail-trail or takes a nap by “The Gunk,” SUNY New Paltz’s on-campus pond. She also likes to sunbathe at this one little grassy area behind the Student Union Building. She says she does her exercising, reading and reflecting on her life outdoors. New Paltz is chock full of great outdoor spots too. Minnewaska State Park, the Mohonk Preserve and the Mohonk Mountain House are not far away. I don’t know of a single similar place in Staten Island that compares to these wonderful areas. The Franklin D. Roosevelt Boardwalk and Beach comes to mind, which offers a fascinating view of endless ocean water plagued by vomit-colored water and a polluted beach.
I
“
came here for a change of scenery,” said 18-year-old Julie Leung, a SUNY New Paltz student from Brooklyn. In her opinion, News Paltz is slower, more peaceful and a lot greener. “New Paltz made me more outdoorsy,” she said. She has become a big fan of hiking. In under a year she has explores Minnewaska, Breakneck Ridge in the Hudson Highlands, and Bear Mountain. “The rail-trail is next!” Hiking is not the only option when stress is knocking on the door. She walks over to the Sojourner Truth Library on the campus. “I will go to the library and just stare outside those big windows and take in the view,” Julie said. “It is so beautiful.” I too find myself breaking away from my studies in the library to admire the view of Shawangunk Ridge. When it is slightly foggy, there’s the illusion of a jungle, as though someone in New Paltz had started playing Jumanji. That’s what is so great about nature. It unveils itself to each and every one differently, depending on that person’s perspective. “Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better,” said Albert Einstein. If it was good enough for him, it’s probably good enough for me. When comes a time when I feel overburdened, overanxious, overworked, or just plain fed up. I look up at Skytop Tower sitting on the Shawangunk Ridge and realize that by the time I reach the top all my woes will disappear.
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12, 2016 16 | May Home Hudson Valley
WIKICOMMONS
What really makes a great home? A getaway working hut of one’s own, according to Henry David Thoreau, George Bernard Shaw and the author.
The house I dream of Susan Barnett proclaims that she should know better
I
sell houses for a living. I know how irrational the most level-headed among us can get when it comes to where we live. I see it firsthand. Any broker can tell you stories of the clients who know exactly the kind of house they want. “We want a farmhouse with a barn,” they say with conviction. “Don’t even show us anything else.” Three months later, they’re in happy possession of their dream home, a suburban raised ranch in a neighborhood just like the one in which they grew up. It is what they really wanted. I’ve been thinking a lot about what makes a place a dream home. I’ve been struggling with that idea in my own life. My house is the sensible shoe of homes; a perfect fit which doesn’t tug at my heart. In the hope of falling in love, I keep making improvements. My home is a 1970s ranch house on a suburban cul-de-sac. When we moved in a few years ago, it was a Band-Aid-colored wart hiding from its neighbors behind a wall of massive white pines. The location was good. It had the space we needed. The price was right. A very sensible purchase, partner and I told each other. But we agreed: we don’t want to stay forever.
After Hurricane Sandy dropped one of those pines onto our roof (and nearly my head), we made sure that could never happen again. Our house now sits in a clearing. It’s painted a sophisticated deep green with nearly-black trim. There’s now a carport. This year we created a massive flower garden where the pines once stood. The crumbling red cement stoop that once led to the front door has been replaced by a lovely cedar deck with a pergola above it. Inside, we’ve remodeled bathrooms, bedrooms, removed walls and replaced windows. There’s not a square inch that hasn’t been repainted. It’s a lot better. The neighbors and friends who saw it before all rave. But I don’t love it. What I do love is the eight-foot-bytwelve-foot shed with a front porch where I write. Its raw wood walls are whitewashed inside. There’s nothing inside but shelves, a small table and a couple of chairs. Outside I’ve hung flowering plants and planted wisteria that will someday climb up and over the porch roof. If we ever moved, that’s what would be hard to leave. Knowing that feeling to be irrational, I’ve tried to figure out why. And I think the answer is that it reminds me of similar places I loved as a child. Every time I step inside there’s a happy, familiar feeling.
May 12, 2016 Home Hudson Valley
M
y new theory is that sentiment is a massive part of our attraction to a house. Despite all the practical reasons for buying a house, it’s not going to be your dream house if there’s no sentimental chord struck there. I think that even ultra-modern metal and glass houses, if they’re dream houses, offer some element that strikes a sentimental chord in their owners. Maybe it’s the meadow outside. Maybe it’s the mountain view that reminds them of their best year at summer camp. Recently, I stumbled upon a house for sale in the Columbia County town of Spencertown. As I wandered through it, a woman showed up who told me she’d lived in it for 30 years. They had sold it. The next owners had abandoned it, and her heart was breaking. “This was my dream house,” she told me. “I still think about buying it back. It’s where my children grew up. We were so happy here.” I’ve loved several houses. Three stand out. First, the Victorian in Connecticut where my children were small. It’s fair to say we’ve never gotten over it. There was a huge red maple to the side of the house where my son spent many happy hours. There was a young maple in the front that we delighted in watching grow. It’s big now. The summer cottage my parents built near Cooperstown had trees, too. They were clusters of birch trees which are still my favorites. And the little schoolhouse near the Housatonic River where I lived for a time had big trees to the back. I strung a hammock between them. I knew life couldn’t offer anything better.
I
recently found myself thinking longingly of a little house in foreclosure in a sleepy town near my parents’ old summer place. It was rid-
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dled with mold and had what appeared to be a lake in its basement. A contractor estimated $70,000 to redo it, probably more than it was worth. But it had great woodwork. It was a walk to the library. It had a massive maple by the sidewalk in front of it. I really wanted the place. Fortunately, I did not get it. Sadly, this house we do not love did originally have a couple of massive old trees that I now mourn. But after the hurricane the oak was just too frighteningly close. An insensitive contractor killed the other maple, my favorite, saying he couldn’t get the pines down without taking it, too. I suspect that sealed this house’s fate. I’ve developed affection for it, but it will never be love. HGTV wants us to believe that a dream home is made of high-quality finishes and the latest gadgets. I don’t think so. The spiffiest stove and designer décor don’t make a dream house. That’s a trophy house. A dream home may have a temperamental
dule Sche ool P Your ing n e p O y! d To a
| 17
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12, 2016 18 | May Home Hudson Valley
PHOTOS BY VIOLET SNOW
Over the years, the author has found the world outside her door and garden a creative gateway.
Gardening and writing Violet Snow explains how nature opened up a new world for her
Y
ears ago, when the towns of Shandaken and Olive had their own newspapers — the Phoenicia Times and the Olive Press — I started my journalism career with a nature column, “Natural Wonders,� which ran in both papers. At the time, I was an herbalist, spending a couple hours a day in the woods and fields, observing everything, identifying plants with my field guide, and grooving on nature. I was thrilled to share my solitary experiences by writing about them every two weeks for the papers. This intimate relationship with nature was filling me with amazement. It had not always been so. I grew up near Poughkeepsie, in a housing development plopped in the
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middle of old farms. My remedy for depression as a teenager was to walk up into the fields where I could study the ingenious construction of red clover and yarrow flowers and marvel at the great slabs of bark peeling off an old shagbark hickory. From a boulder on the hillside, I looked over the Wappinger Creek valley. Despite the white bulbous water tower that marred the view, I was always soothed by the waves of tall grass rippling in the wind. When I moved to Manhattan, my occasional doses of nature came from trips to Central Park, where I was too restless and preoccupied to relax — until I began to study herbal healing. Suddenly the anonymous weeds became individuals, many of them with medicinal properties. Some of them could even be eaten. A new world opened up to me. With my left brain occupied by a task relevant to nature — examining, analyzing, consulting the field guide — my right brain was free to absorb the beauty around me. I fell in love with plants and wanted to spend more time with them, so I moved to Phoenicia. At first I was focused on healing and edibility, so I was only interested in the weeds, which grow mainly in fields. Memories of boring hikes through the woods on childhood vacations in Greene County discouraged me from venturing into the forest. But when I started learning the names of trees, the woods became my playground. For two years, I carried a field guide to trees everywhere I went. I even learned to identify naked trees in winter. Once I had the trees down, I turned to animal tracking. By then, I was writing my column, and I spent a couple of winters describing the activities of the creatures on the mountain behind my house, their passage written in the snow. (I never got good at dirt tracking, I’m sorry to say.) My detective work revealed a coyote limping through the woods with an injured paw, a pair of foxes court-
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ing in February (running in huge circles), a mink sliding repeatedly down a steep stream bank.
O
ne spring, I discovered tree buds starting to open. Such beauty — the tender green shoots emerging gradually from the brown bud scales, the unfurling of tiny leaves — and I had never paid attention to them before! And each species had completely different buds, giving me a new way to identify the trees. It all went into the column, along with fascinations that some people may not have appreciated. One winter I found a dead deer in an out-of-theway spot. I returned to it regularly to take photos and report on its slow but steady dismemberment by visiting skunks, crows, and raccoons which had left their tracks in the snow. The Ashokan Watershed Stream Management Program offered a class on identification of stream insects, which engrossed me for several months. I could not resist the discovery of tiny creatures,
Home, Lawn & Garden May 2016 An Ulster Publishing publication Editorial WRITERS: Andrew Amelinckx, Susan Barnett, Jennifer Brizzi, Matthew D’Onofrio, Violet Snow, Lynn Woods EDITOR: Paul Smart COVER: Water Bearer (oil on canvas, 48 in. x 48 in.) is by Josephine Bloodgood, executive director at Historic Huguenot Street LAYOUT BY Joe Morgan Ulster Publishing PUBLISHER:
Geddy Sveikauskas Genia Wickwire DISPLAY ADS: Lynn Coraza, Pam Courselle, Pamela Geskie, Elizabeth Jackson, Ralph Longendyke, Sue Rogers, Linda Saccoman PRODUCTION MANAGER: Joe Morgan PRODUCTION: Diane Congello-Brandes, Josh Gilligan, Rick Holland CLASSIFIED ADS: Amy Murphy, Tobi Watson CIRCULATION: Dominic Labate ADVERTISING DIRECTOR:
Home, Lawn & Garden is one of three Home Hudson Valley supplements Ulster Publishing puts out each year. It is distributed in the company’s four weekly newspapers and separately at select locations, reaching an estimated readership of over 50,000. Its website is www.homehv.com. For more info on upcoming special sections, including how to place an ad, call 845-334-8200, fax 845-334-8202 or email: info@ulsterpublishing.com.
May 12, 2016 Home Hudson Valley
present in all our local streams because of the purity of our water, spending their lives breaking down leaves and other organic matter, breeding en masse in spring, and feeding the fish with their bodies. I studied primitive skills, most of which took more manual dexterity and devotion than I could muster, but I did learn to tan animal hides and make string from plant fibers — both of which I wrote about. New subjects of study kept popping up — lichens, mosses, mushrooms, the spring catkins of willows and birches, caterpillars, spiders, slugs, plant skeletons in fall, bird calls. If I couldn’t figure out what to write about, I’d make up a scavenger hunt and ask people to look around for five specific items, such as a thorny twig, seeds with various dispersal strategies, a mint family plant. As long as I didn’t make the items too hard (doll’seyes berries apparently stumped everyone), I’d get a few replies, which made me feel connected to my
reading audience.
I
’m getting nostalgic now, remembering the pleasure of getting people out in the woods to see the wonders I’d seen. I’ve moved on from herbalism. The plants got me back to writing, a youthful pastime that had faded and is now back in full force. My head is so full of words that I don’t get the same charge I used to get from walking in the
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woods. Instead, I garden. I love sinking my hands into the earth, watching the plants grow, editing the weeds to keep the edible ones for harvest. When words start coming through, I can interrupt the gardening and go back into the house to write them down. The Phoenicia Times and Olive Press are no more, and I’ve turned to writing about ancestors, as well as more general journalism. But I’m so glad I had those years of “Natural Wonders.�
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12, 2016 20 | May Home Hudson Valley