Category Archives: Home

September 7, 2015

Labor-free Weekend

By daseger

I’m now in the last day of a very relaxing Labor Day weekend: the weather has been glorious but the fact that we started classes before the holiday rather than after has definitely contributed to my more peaceful state of mind. Instead of fine-tuning my syllabi I have been gardening, shopping, boating, bicycling, walking, eating and drinking. Salem is full of tourists; everyone is commenting that if seems more like October than September. However, they seemed quite spread out to me: never in the way but filling the shops and restaurants with festive energy. September means the weddings resume next door at Hamilton Hall (no air conditioning over there, thank goodness, which makes for very peaceful summers for us) but even yesterday’s wedding was small and tasteful (as compared to over-capacity, purple-clad bridesmaids, and a unicorn plastered on the horse harnessed to a festoon-clad carriage). We have a couple of new shops in town, including one called Hauswitch which looked so attractive that I had to go in even though I disdain anything kitschy witchy and they have spell kits (among lots of other things) for sale! Gorgeous store–the polar opposite of kitschy–it definitely put a spell on me. And even though, sadly, I can’t eat cheese, I had to go into the brand-new Cheese Shop of Salem which was packed with both cheese (among lots of other things) and people. We finally made it out to the now-accessible Baker’s Island (more in my next post), and skirted the fringes of the Gloucester Schooner Festival on the way back. Alas, I do have to work a bit today.

Labor Day Weekend in Salem 2015: a tale of three gardens– flowers from the still-vibrant late-summer garden at the Ropes Mansion, the fading herb garden at the Derby House, and mine, kind of in-between; Hauswitch and the brand-new Cheese Shop of Salem, absolutely packed on Saturday afternoon, the new coffee shop on Derby Street, the fishing pier at Salem Willows; approaching, on (looking back at Boston), and departing Baker’s Island.

4 Comments | tags: Baker's Island, Gardens, holidays, Labor Day, Local Events, Salem Willows, Shopping | posted in Current Events, Home, Salem

August 14, 2015

Fleeting Phlox

By daseger

I’m going take a break from berating ugly buildings and stop and smell the….phlox, because it’s that time of year, or maybe even past time. My garden is shaded quite a bit by Hamilton Hall next door so my bright white “David” phlox is in full bloom, but I took a walk around the beautiful gardens of Glen Magna Farms in Danvers yesterday afternoon and saw that their multiple varieties were on their way out. Still lovely, though. I always think of phlox as the ultimate country New England perennial–in Vermont and Maine and western Massachusetts you see it everywhere adjacent to old houses but less so in the old seaports like Salem. It’s a North American native that became so beloved in England in the later nineteenth century that English botanists created unique varieties that they then sold back to American gardeners, who were desirous of colorful versions of “antique” flowers for their Colonial Revival gardens. When I was planting my own garden, I just wanted a mildew-resistant variety, so I went with “David”, but the phlox in all shades of pink at Glen Magna have made me a bit envious. The source for all varieties of phlox is Perennial Pleasures up in northern Vermont, and their annual Phlox Festival is on right now, so if you have the time and the inclination this weekend by all means go—it’s well worth the trip, believe me.

My small patch of phlox, and the more lavish display at Glen Magna Farms, set against the McIntire main and summer houses:

Phlox in its heyday: adopted by English illustrators, artists, and horticulturists: Frederick William Hulme (1816-1884; Victoria & Albert Museum), Bertha Newcomb (1895, Southwark Art Collection), and a seed packet from the 1930s (Victoria & Albert Museum).

Can you find the phlox in the pioneering Cubist painting by the French artist Albert Gleizes, La Femme aux Phlox (1910, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston)?

2 Comments | tags: Art, ephemera, Flora and Fauna, Gardens, great houses, horticulture, illustration | posted in Home, Houses, Nature

July 4, 2015

Red, White, Blue & Calico

By daseger

We are sticking very close to home this July Fourth weekend as we have welcomed a new cat only two weeks after losing Moneypenny and there are lots of adjustments to be made on the part of said new cat (Trinity), our older resident cat (Darcy), and ourselves. I wasn’t quite ready for a new cat, but I am a sucker for a calico and this one almost magically appeared at our local shelter after a rough start in life. So I find myself cleaning out closets and other mundane house chores in between hissing standoffs and prepping my upholstered furniture for the coming attack by a new young cat. Yesterday was actually a much more beautiful day than today, which is cloudy with incoming rain. I hope it holds off until after the fireworks tonight, because Salem‘s are always spectacular: bigger and better every year. So I did leave the separated cats for a long walk, a long bike ride on my (also new) bike, the adorable Spokes and Stripes parade sponsored by Parents United and dinner at the Willows–under a bright red full moon which I couldn’t capture on camera. It looked briefly like Mars before disappearing behind a cloud bank. Most of the pictures below are from this sunny July 3rd: home, Chestnut Street, some sights and scenes around Salem including the Willows–all prepped for the big Horribles Parade this morning (which I missed, but I am sure there will be some great photographs at the Creative Salem site soon). My closet cleaning has uncovered lots of discoveries, including my favorite vintage dress which I purchased DECADES ago in Saratoga Springs, NY (and it was vintage then): I’m going to put in on in a few hours and go out to a fireworks barbecue on the water, mindless of clashing cats and impending rain. A happy, safe, carefree Fourth (and Fifth) to all.

Salem on July 3 and 4: Trinity (who did not come in a bag or a box but seldom leaves the latter), the house and garden (with daneberry–the only red on display), and a shadow silhouette against Hamilton Hall, the Hall and Chestnut Street, a patriotically-painted house on Essex, the Spokes and Stripes parade on Salem Common, the Willows, my newly-rediscovered old dress.

6 Comments | tags: Architecture, Cats, Chestnut Street, Fashion, Fourth of July, Garden, Hamilton Hall, holidays, Home, Local Events | posted in Home, Salem

June 19, 2015

Desperately seeking Distractions

By daseger

A difficult week: we had to put our beautiful calico cat Moneypenny down after she suffered some sort of stroke, and then Charleston. Too awful for words, and I just walked past that church last week. We’ve had some lovely late spring early summer days, which seem almost cruel in my morose mood. My garden looks beautiful from far away, but up close it is full of weeds that I’ve been too busy to yank out. So that’s my plan–I shall tend to my garden and pursue the other distractions that have always been helpful in tough times: shopping (for everything from clothing to vintage lawn games), old movies (life is always good when Doris Day is on, submarine movies always plunge me into another world, and I’m currently obsessed with George Sanders), history (not only my profession but also my daily preoccupation–the perfect perspective corrective), and drinking (another great perspective corrective, in moderation of course). I need a new bicycle too: that will help. I do have some nice pictures that belie my dark mood: the garden–from afar so you can’t see the weeds! The lilac and variegated dogwood trees are particularly beautiful this year. Chestnut Street Park across the street, with the remains of a lovely neighborhood party last night, a thoughtful offering from my friend Pamela, and the gardens and antiques at the Massachusetts Horticulture Society’s Elm Bank last weekend, when all was well with the world.

Very impressed with this lady’s bedstraw–must get some.

15 Comments | tags: Antiques and Collectibles, Garden, Home, horticulture, Mood, Shopping | posted in Current Events, Home

May 1, 2015

May Wine

By daseger

I have a particularly fond childhood memory of dancing around a Maypole wearing festive (alpine? Elizabethan?) dress at the hippie nursery school I attended in Vermont, and consequently I always celebrate May Day. I do not erect a Maypole in my backyard, but I been known to don the occasional flower wreath or sprig in my hair (especially if I don’t have to go anywhere) and I usually make May Wine, the traditional German spring spirit. May Wine (Maiwein) is simply sweet white wine infused with sweet woodruff (galium odoratum, or Waldmeister, “master of the woods”, in German), and there are lots of variations, both from the past and in the present. You can simply take a few sprigs of the herb, tie them together, and drop them in a bottle of Moselle to infuse for the afternoon in the refrigerator if you like, or you can make a May Punch, by adding sparkling water or wine and fruit. Have your own Happy Hour, or invite your neighbors and drink to the retreat of winter and the onset of spring, a universal sentiment but one that seems very apt this particular year!

A Health to all Good-Fellowes (c. 1615-40), British Library; German May Day postcard, c. 1900.

My “recipe” for May Wine is always evolving. Generally I take one bottle of Moselle and another of sparkling wine (Proseco, Cava, or if you can find it, German Sekt) and pour them into a glass pitcher to which I add the sweet woodruff (you must snip it before it flowers) and a few splashes of Italian sparkling lemon soda. I leave this concoction for most of the day, and then strain it and pour it into glasses filled with a few strawberries or raspberries. My sweet woodruff is definitely not ready for prime time this year (it is barely out of the ground), so I bought several potted plants, for the first time ever: even if my garden is not ready for May Day, I am.

Sweet Woodruff (Galium Odoratum, Asperula Odorata, the “master of the woods”, from Dietrich, A.G., Flora regni borussici (1833-1844); Kerner von Marilaun, A.J., Hansen, A., Pflanzenleben: Erster Band: Der Bau und die Eigenschaften der Pflanzen (1887-1891), and Bluestone Perennials.

7 Comments | tags: Art, books, ephemera, Food and drink, holidays, Home, Illlustrations, Seasons | posted in Current Events, Home

February 16, 2015

Snow Light

By daseger

I’ve got nothing…but snow: sorry, worldly readers, I must feature snow yet again! With another 17 inches deposited from this weekend’s storm, we are now up to about 7 ½ feet by my unofficial calculation. We’ve got two major ice dams over our bay windows (thanks Victorians!!! the 1820s house is tight as can be) that have been depositing incessant drops of brown water into our house over the past few days, and I woke up happy this morning because it was so cold that the leaking stopped…for awhile. That about sums it up. You do develop perspective when you go through a prolonged period of weather adversity, and begin to focus on the light at the end of the tunnel. I’m not sure that our tunnel is coming to an end yet (it’s only February!), but I did see a lot of light this weekend. Saturday night we walked to dinner through the snowy streets and I noticed it was so light outside, and when we returned home it seemed lighter still. What the weatherman was calling a blizzard was intensifying, and the sky was an eerie light gray–I almost expected to see the famous Boston Yeti out back….and there he was!

Sorry it’s so blurry–I can’t venture out back because we haven’t shoveled, so this (these) picture(s) was taken through my dining room window, while it was snowing. And yes, this is a rather pathetic attempt to place the Boston Yeti in Salem; he/she lives in Somerville, I believe. Seriously, that snow-lit sky was beautiful on Valentine’s Day evening, even though it meant ever more snow.

And yesterday, blustery cold. Behold the inside of my second-floor library window, with major ice-dam leak above: all clear and dry today, for now. I promise: this is my last post on snow!

14 Comments | tags: folklore, Home, Photography, Snow, weather, Winter | posted in Current Events, Home, Salem

February 5, 2015

Snowbanks in Salem

By daseger

Fair warning: this is not going to be a “pretty” Salem post. The first few pictures–taken on the morning after the second major snowstorm in a week that raised our snowbanks to four feet or so–are picturesque, but the remainder reveal a far less pristine picture. I try to walk to school as much as possible even in conditions such as these, so I thought I would show you yesterday’s commute, which was not for the faint-hearted. Generally I walk down side streets to get to Salem State, but yesterday I was determined to navigate busy Lafayette Street, to see if I could actually walk on the sidewalks. I would say that about two-thirds of the way was a clear path: the remainder clogged with snow that property owners (whose responsibility it is) had neglected to clear, forcing me, the mere pedestrian, into the busy, narrowed street. Nearly every single intersection was marked by a HUGE snowbank with no cut-through, again–forcing me into the street. I’m not sure if there is anything to be done about this particular problem: the snow has to go somewhere!

Setting the Scene: Lower Chestnut Street, the day after the second storm.

My commute yesterday: starting off and proceeding to Lafayette:

On Lafayette: the owners of #276 and all the houses pictured below apparently feel no responsibility to clear their sidewalks.

The most intimidating snowbank, at the corner of Holly and Lafayette Streets, and on the other side, a nice man clearing his sidewalk.

9 Comments | tags: Chestnut Street, Home, Lafayette Street, Nature, Snow, weather, Winter | posted in Home, Houses, Salem

January 25, 2015

White Report

By daseger

Oh the indignity! All day long yesterday (and still) the Skinner’s site reported that Frank Weston Benson’s Figure in White, recently deaccessioned by the Salem Public Library so that funds could be raised to fix a fountain, went unsold, but now the Salem News is reporting that BENTON’s painting went for $300,000, far below its estimate. And in other news, we had our first snow storm, which cast everything in white–more, much more apparently, to come on Tuesday. Winter has arrived rather later here in eastern New England, but it appears to be making an entrance!

Frank Weston BENSON’s Figure in White, and more white outside.

8 Comments | tags: Art, Auctions, Garden, Local Events, weather, Winter | posted in Current Events, Home, Salem

November 30, 2014

Thanksgiving Colors

By daseger

We spent Thanksgiving up in my hometown of York Harbor, Maine, which is only about an hour north of Salem. When we arrived York looked very different than still-green Salem, coated in icy snow. Many people in the southern counties of Maine and adjacent counties of New Hampshire lost their power due to a Thanksgiving-eve snowstorm, but we were fortunate to have light and heat and lots of food and drink. While waiting to eat on Thanksgiving Day, we took a drive around the grey town: York (encompassing York Harbor, York Village, York Beach and Cape Neddick) is a summer town and it always looks strikingly stark to me in the winter. I’ve also got some pictures of my stepmother’s Thanksgiving table here–before we messed it up. When we returned to Salem, all was icy and white but today is forecasted for the 50s so the terrain is returning to that golden brownish-green hue so characteristic of November.

This cat o’nine tail exploded before we left; the rest burst while we were away (just one day and night!) Impossible to clean up all this fluff.

Thanksgiving table: Della Robbia plates and Shaker chairs.

Fifty shades of grey off Nubble Light.

White on white: one of my favorite houses in York, and the gargoyle outside my parents’ house.

My favorite childhood painting.

Back home; sunny Sunday.

4 Comments | tags: Antiques, Flora and Fauna, great houses, holidays, Interiors, Maine, Nature, Pottery, Thanksgiving, weather | posted in Current Events, Home, Nature, Salem

August 2, 2014

The Last Week of July

By daseger

The last week of July was full of contrasts and transitions for me: we spent most of it in York Harbor, but I traveled back every other day for my evening class, we left for Maine on a dark rainy day in which a tornado swept down in a town just to the south of Salem (very unusual for Massachusetts) and enjoyed clear sunny days thereafter, the late-summer flowers are of course also a study in contrasting color. For the most part, we’ve been so fortunate this summer to have beautiful weather: often sunny, never too hot, with rain occurring often enough to keep everything green. I hope this continues throughout August but the dog days do threaten……anyway, here are my favorite photographs from the week, mostly of gardens and flowers. I have included a photograph of the best ice cream stand in the world, Brown’s in York Beach, my father’s prized Swiss chard, and the gardens at Stonewall Kitchen’s company store in York, which are always inspiring–even the vegetables look beautiful (actually my father’s Swiss chard looks pretty good too). There are “soft” spots in nearly every picture so I apologize in advance: my camera lens got a bit smudgy when I was trying to take the first picture in the rain, and I never noticed until just this morning.