It has been a while since we've posted any updates, but we have excuses...life has been gently changing and it's required our undivided attention! One adjustment has been creating an overhauled website. After many years, and I'm sure many headaches, our amazing webmaster, Will, is moving on to bigger and better projects. Since we needed to be more responsible and start to micromanage our own chaos, we've cobbled together this site. Bear with us as we work out the kinks and learn the ropes! Will used to throw up his hands when he was unable to reach us, assuming that on our end there was just a tangle of cords and power-depleted communication devices. We will try to do better! Another change has been kids growing up and heading out into the world. Grae is living the life of Riley in Colorado, working, hiking, snowboarding, videography-ing, and generally enjoying Haldeman West family and an amazing landscape. Grailey is getting ready to head off for his first year of college in Rochester, NY, and the other kids are settling happily into new routines and real estate. When one chick leaves the nest, the others negotiate new activities and rooms. Gentle changes.
Tonight I took a walk along the shore of Lake Ontario at my favorite New York beach, Southwick. Miles of sand, and very few people. It is a luxury unique to Northern New York, blessed with boundless, vacant coasts on lakes and rivers. Lake Ontario is a powerful part of the terroir in this area, cranking up feet of lake effect snow that settle over our forests in the long winter months. What tonight were gentle waves and breezes, can turn into violent rollers and winds. Many a dirge has been written of lives lost on the powerful Great Lakes. (For a classic, check out Gordon Lightfoot's, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald). It is a reminder of the power of nature, and the relationship we have in it. Last summer, the lake hit a record high watermark and the beach was nonexistent. This summer it is back, populated with new driftwood, reshaped dunes, and a rich variety of shorebirds. Gentle changes here as well.
The remainder of the summer will be spent relishing the bounty of summer gardens, enjoying friends, playing music, a little more travel, and preparing for the next season ahead. There is wood to cut, syrups to finish evaluating, and new projects to launch. I also need to (absolutely must) wet a paint brush. I am going to resist the urge to engage in September painting. I hate trying to race the setting sun and dropping temperatures...
Happy summer to all of our Northern hemisphere friends! Enjoy the abundance.