Archive for August, 2005

Vermont

August 15th, 2005

Last week we went to Vermont. Nothing was happening in Philadelphia—clients are all “down the shore” so we figured we should grab a little vacation while we could. Spent Sat looking for places on the web and drove up Sunday.
Stayed at several b&b’s: the Old Homestead in Barnet, VT, where Gail Warnaar combines a B&B with The Double Reed Shop —“a complete, one-stop resource for double reed musicians”; Lake Salem Inn in Derby VT run by Joe and Mo Profera, who it turns out fled the good life in Philadelphia for the north woods; and The Summit Lodge in Killington—don’t go there unless you like very large dogs.

We saw Bread and Puppets, hiked a bit, had a picnic, shopped a bit, saw museums and visited book stores—VT has some very nice books stores—took pictures, sketched some, ate in nice restaurants—and one not so nice! and then home on Thurs—short and sweet but nice to get away.

The only thing gardeny we did was not to garden!—and the weeds had a terrific growth spell—It was hot and humid and they were very happy!!!

Garden Hoax

August 5th, 2005

One thing I did this summer that has to do with gardens is the Garden Hoax. ( A “hoax” according to our friend and ex assistant, Joe Labolito is a jaunt you go on for no other reason than you want to go on it.)

Several friends, (Jane and Jane and Margie and Sally and Pam and Mike and I), from college, Moore College of Art and Design, ( just Moore College of Art back in the day), get together each year for a couple of days and visit gardens. ( I call it a hoax but the others may call it something else.)

We’ve done Longwood Gardens in PA, White Flower Farm in Connecticut and several wonderful gardens in Long Island including Jack Lenor Larson’s LongHouse and Marders Nursery. Different members of the group volunteer to set it up, so this year Jane and I set it up.

We all stayed at the Thomas Bond House, a colonial inn for a bit of city and yea olde Philadelphia, ate at great restaurants and gabbed all night.

We chose Chanticleer, outside of Philadelphia, a most wonderful “Pleasure Garden’ and a visit to the garden/studio of another Moore Alum, Janie Gross who is a designer of pressed flowers – she doesn’t just press flowers but has a most wonderful book full of her photographs of them – The After Life of Flowers and flower pillows for sale in Kohl’s and lots of other fantastic irons in the fire! She’s studied flower pressing in Japan and been on Martha Stewart – just a terrific artist. – and I do her web site! – Saw Janie in the morning, had lunch and Chanticleer in the afternoon. – Debbie came along also!

I don’t do a lot of things with “the girls” – any girls – what with teaching and working in the studio so this is a major treat and I so look forward to it. Margie started it off and I thank her very much.

Oh, and while I don’t do Sally’s site, if you have a little dog and are nutsy about it, you should visit her site, plaiddogs.com

this summer

August 3rd, 2005

It’s been awhile since I’ve entered anything here so here goes…
It’s August already and school starts in a few short weeks – so that shoots summer! (I teach graphic design at Philadelphia University in the School of Design and Media. )
This summer has been hot and muggy but I guess that’s what summer is like in an east coast city – but it means my real garden is a shambles – all over grown – plants love this hot humidity!

The tomatoes are coming into their own so its something with tomatoes every night – also the herbs – lots of pesto with the tomatoes – can’t get enough in the summer. I’ve tried the freezing pesto to have on a wintry day but it’s not the same. Just as there is nothing like a fresh garden tomato you should eat pesto in the summer.

Some things I’ll talk about in the coming days are my herbs – esp. the hanging pots I planted and walnut ink! But this is all for today!
…beth