Today, in honor of a late dear friend, I am posting some random photos taken September 17 several years ago in the Pittsford, New York area.
This giant golfball statue has an interesting history. I must have been in the right place at the right time.
Dear friend, may you continue to rest in peace. You are missed.
This past September, my spouse and I had the opportunity to visit the MacKenzie-Childs property in Aurora, New York. Their store is a checkerboard fantasy, and had a section devoted to Christmas.
So, of course, I had to take pictures.
Here's to a checkerboard Christmas, as I join up with Sandee at Comedy Plus for her #WordlessWednesday.
I am hoping that my Florida readers and friends are all safe after Hurricane Ian. Ian was a reminder of the power of Nature, and how destructive it can be.
Meanwhile, my area is under a frost advisory.
My post today isn't as exciting but I hope you enjoy it.
The last couple of times we have visited Canandaigua, New York (situated on one of New York's Finger Lakes). we haven't enjoyed sunsets along Canandaigua Lake The weather hasn't been favorable. But I sometimes forget that there are other reasons to take pictures of a lake.
Saturday, after attending the Naples, New York grape festival, we decided to recover from the massive crowds and chill back in Canandaigua. We purchased a turkey sub sandwich (others call them hoagies, or heroes) at a deli we like, and took it to a bench to eat.
It had been a lovely day up to then, but clouds were rapidly encroaching.
The reflections were starting to get interesting.
There are some historic boathouses on the lake; I don't know if these were those boathouses but I liked the contrast between water and sky.
One more reflection shot.
Joining Yogi and other sky watching bloggers for #SkywatchFriday.
I've blogged before about my love of grape pies, a regional specialty of a certain area of the Finger Lakes. In my opinion, the best pies were made by a woman named Monica. More on her later.
Grape pies are made from either Concord or, if Concords aren't available in your area, red grapes. I was introduced to this specialty around 2015 and have loved them since. Every baker makes them slightly different and the fun is in the tasting.
To truly experience grape pies, one has to attend the Naples (New York) grape festival, held the last weekend in September
Let me give you a virtual taste.
Naples is on the southwest side of Canandaigua Lake, one of the Finger Lakes. Grapes grow on the Finger Lakes (and along Lake Erie) especially well.
Naples is all about grapes. The fire hydrants are painted purple. There are commercial vineyards right on Main Street. There are a couple of wineries right along the main street, too.
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| Front door of Monica's Pies, early September 2022 |
As you can tell from the architecture, grapes.
Naples has a population of about 900. Except for the Naples Grape Festival, when the population swells to 20,000 or maybe more.
I think they were all there on Saturday, when we got there. This was a little later on, when things had thinned out some.
What can I say? It was a festival. The sidewalks were so crowded you couldn't walk, The traffic when we got there was, shall we say, jammed. We expected crowds. We didn't expect a crush.
Pie signs were everywhere. I understand, in a good year, around 30,000 grape pies are sold at the festival. Cindy's is a favorite of many people but we hadn't tried her pies. Cindy is Cindy Trzeciak, a home baker who made some pies around Christmastime, 1978, to make some extra money. They sold so well, the rest is history.
Here is Cindy's menu. Many vendors give the choice of frozen unbaked or baked, because you can't freeze a baked pie. But we didn't have any way to keep a frozen pie frozen. Cindy calls her take out window "the pie hole".
Another of the great bakers, Jeni Makepeace, recently retired. I had one of her pies earlier in September - I think her daughter has taken over the business. Anyway....back to the festival.
I waded my way to the judging tent on the grounds of the high school. After buying a T-Shirt (purple, of course), I asked one of the judges how they run the judging. (I was secretly hoping one of the judges was late, and they would choose me to take their place.) Alas, no. But the judge explained how they cut the pies into small pieces, put them into cups, and, well, eat them.
Then the judge showed me the plaque with the names of past winners and invited me to enter next year.
Well, no. Unless they had a subcategory of worst pie. Also, grape pies are not easy to make because you have to skin the grapes. Concords have tough skins. And, oh yes, seeds.
We ended up buying a pie and cookies from her, and one from another vendor, Jeanne.
But what about Monica, you ask? Her name is Monica Schenk.
Monica used to sell her pies year round. She started to bake them in 1983 as a young mother and eventually opened her own shop on Rt. 21. We had last been at her shop (which had turned into a takeout window due to Covid) in 2021. At that time she hadn't yet announced she was retiring.
Monica's Pies closed at year's end "for the winter" and never reopened. When we passed by her store earlier this month, there was a sign saying she had retired.
But it turns out (I found out on Facebook) she was going to be open one last time, for the festival.
And that's it. It was going to be her last stand.
We drove past Monica's on our way to Naples (it's not within the village) and saw the lines of cars parked along the narrow highway and the lines of people in front of her small shop.
It's nice to be loved, in a way. But then, people don't let you retire.
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| Two lines! |
We decided to come back on our way out and, hopefully she would still have pies. She did. The lines were much shorter, too.
People were buying (literally) hundreds of dollars of pies (she has, or should I say had, many flavors besides grape). Maybe some were buying for their entire family? We bought a pie. One pie.
Oh, Monica. It will be the last one of your pies we eat. RIP (rest in pie), Monica.
We drove home Sunday, with our precious cargo of three grape pies, which somehow we need to eat before they spoil
Don't tell my Weight Watchers coach, but I'm up to the task. Shhhhh!
If you want the recipe, I took the liberty of getting it from Monica's website, because I fear it will be taken down in the near future.
Thank you for the several years of pie, Monica. It was worth driving 120 miles to get one.
Recipe by Monica Kay Schenk
Grape Pie
4 cups stemmed Concord grapes
2/3 cup sugar
3 tbsp. cornstarch
1 tsp. lemon juice
Slip skins from grapes, saving some of the skins. Cook middles until soft, put through a sieve to get seeds out. Put back with skins and add sugar, cornstarch, and lemon juice.
Fill pie shell and cover.
Bake 400 degrees F for 45 minutes.
Do you like pie?
Along the shores of Seneca Lake, near the city of Geneva, New York, a planting of weeping willows line the bank of this New York finger lake.
Some of them date back to World War I. They were planted (from what I understand) in the 2015-2016 era.
I don't know if this is one of the original willows but, from the size of its trunk, I wouldn't be surprised. A number of them were destroyed in a storm several years ago. My phone says this picture was taken at Seneca Lake State Park.
I love viewing old trees. What history could they tell us?
Joining Sandee at Comedy Plus for her #WordlessWednesday.
I wait all year for this time.
Daylilies are blooming.
Why not stop your Internet browsing and spend a few minutes here? Sit down, have a rest.
I love day lilies so much, my zone 5b Southern Tier of New York front yard is crammed with them. My back yard has too much shade for them but I have been able to grow some others on the part sun side of my house.
Day lilies are not true lilies, incidentally, which is a good thing because the red lily beetle isn't attracted to them.
I've bought these at a combination of plants sales including our local
Cornell Cooperative plant sale, a plant sale we lucked into years ago in
Charleston, and a wonderful day lily business in Penn Yan, New York (Finger Lakes region)
called Grace Gardens, owned by Tom Rood. More on Tom a little later.
This possible spider lily only puts out two or three flowers each year, or at least it seems that way.
This one is also from Grace Gardens. It is speckled as I took its picture right after a drizzle shower.
Oh yes, I was going to blog a little bit about Tom Rood. Our world is so small sometimes. It was interesting that Tom Rood used to work just blocks from where I live, in an industry totally unrelated to growing plants. The Grace of Grace Gardens was his mother, who loved daylilies. Tom and Kathy also founded the Finger Lakes Daylily Society.
It was an honor to have met both of them.
This is my only reliable rebloomer.
These pictures (well, almost all of them) were taken July 5. I have more daylilies out now. Maybe I'll devote a weekend post to them.
Another sunset from my recent trip to Canandaigua, New York, in the Finger Lakes.
A few minutes later, the bumps look even more dramatic, but they then start to dissipate. But now, back to the after-sunset.
The glow continues.
And the sunset says "good night"
Joining with Yogi and other sky watching bloggers for #SkywatchFriday.
When I watch the sky, especially a sunset, I can be concentrating on one thing and totally miss something happening just a few things away.
Monday, spouse and I took a short vacation to Canandaigua Lake in New York State. This is one of the Finger Lakes. We have visited several times, and enjoy watching sunsets over the lake.
On Monday evening, I had my iPhone SE first edition out, as usual. The sunset show was beginning.
In a different direction was moored a tour boat called the Canandaigua Lady. I decided to take a picture of it while standing on the public pier.
A handful of minutes later, a couple walked past us, towards (it turned out) their moored boat. "Look out!" the woman said (or it's what I thought she said). I thought perhaps I was in their way and I started to move off the pier. "No, look!" she exclaimed. The moon is rising. Look!"
The moon was rising behind the Canandaigua Lady. Here, it seems to be resting on the red canopy. It looks like a little white ball. My iPhone doesn't handle the moon well, alas.
Soon, the moon decided it had rested enough, and continued its rising away from the boat.
But I had to return to the moonrise.
I watched, admiring the moon's reflection on the lake.
We left, finally, and walked away from the lake.
Not only did I get a sunset and moonrise, but there was also a nice blue hour.
If that woman hadn't alerted me to the moonrise, I would have missed it. Lesson learned. Pay attention to all of your surroundings!
Joining Yogi and other sky watching bloggers for #SkywatchFriday.
Today is the last day of April, and it's the last day of the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. It's time to end our virtual journeying from Florida to Vermont and back again with a "Z" post.
You'd think I would be at the Zenith of happiness today, but for some reason, I couldn't decide on a Z post until the last minute. So I decided to end the Challenge with a post about the man most associated with the iconic TV show The Twilight Zone, actor, screenwriter, producer, Emmy award winner, and narrator Rod Serling.
But, wait! Haven't I blogged about Rod Serling before?
Yes, I have. But please bear with me. And yes, I know that Rod Serling's name doesn't have a Z in it, but, for me, I will always associate him with The Twilight Zone. So, Z for Zoned it is.
Some of my posts about Serling:
A Spring Tour Through the Twilight Zone
Rodman Edward Serling was born in Syracuse, New York on Christmas Day, 1924. He and his family moved to Binghamton in 1926 and he grew up on the West Side of Binghamton, New York. His father owned a kosher meat market in Binghamton.
His boyhood home on Bennett Avenue is a private residence and not open to the public, and I am not including a picture (although you can see it in the article I linked to).
But these are pictures, taken today, of the junior high (now called West Middle School) he attended in Binghamton.
His childhood seems to have been rather idyllic. He spent many happy hours in a neighborhood park called Recreation Park, which had (and still has) a historic carousel installed in 1919. Happy children still ride it each summer, at no charge.
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| Recreation Park Carousel June 2013 Hard to see, but figure on the right is Rod Serling |
Upon graduation in 1943, Serling enlisted in the military and was plunged into combat. He served three years in the Philippines and his combat nightmares never left him.
Serling returned after the war a changed man, like so many veterans. Some of the darkness in his life came through in various Twilight Zone scripts, but so did the longing for the happiness experienced in his childhood neighborhood. One such episode, the fifth episode of the Twilight Zone series "Walking Distance", is considered one of the greatest shows in network history.
His wife's family had property in the small Finger Lakes town of Interlaken. As an adult, Serling's production company was called Cayuga Productions. (Cayuga Lake is one of the Finger Lakes). Although Serling had moved to California,he and his family returned to the Finger Lakes/Interlaken area for vacations.
It was there that, in June of 1975, Serling suffered a heart attack and was hospitalized first, in an Ithaca area hospital, and later in Rochester, New York. Eventually, he died during open heart surgery at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester. He was only 50 years old.
Now that we are at the end of our April wanderings, I want to bring you to one final destination, Interlaken, New York, a small town in the Finger Lakes, and to its cemetery.
There, you will find the simple graves of Serling and his wife, Carolyn.
And, near the cemetery, you will find one last thing, if you come in the summer. You might just recognize this cornfield if you are a Twilight Zone fan.
A cornfield.
Thank you for your readership during the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. I hope you will keep reading my blog because I've enjoyed having you come along on my virtual April trip.
Sapsucker Woods Sanctuary on the border between Dryden and Ithaca, New York has some 220 acres of woods and wetlands which are easy to hike-flat and well kept. Owned by Cornell University, this sanctuary is part of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, owned by Cornell University. This birding hotspot is free to the public and includes a wonderful Visitors Center that just reopened after having been closed since COVID-19 arrived.
It was a wonderful location to engage in some reflection photography.
There are several ponds on the trails. The trees are only now starting to change color.
Reflection in one of the wetlands.
Some of the many trees felled by beavers; you can see some other tree reflections in the water.
A tree that has almost completely lost its leaves - it might be a maple that caught a disease common this wet year to maples. Sadly, there was also a lot of evidence of dead ash trees, which are succumbing to a blight. I was trying to get a picture of a downy woodpecker working this tree but I didn't succeed.
You won't see any bird pictures - we were too busy enjoying the hike.
We saw various birds - Canada geese, black capped chickadees, downy woodpeckers, a woodpecker we think may have been a hairy woodpecker, blue jays, and more, while hiking the trails. It was such a beautiful day.
Cayuga Lake, on the way home.
Joining up with Yogi and other skywatchers at #SkywatchFriday.
