Catching up--February 22-26, 2014

All has been well here at Ramsay since our post at the end of last week.  The weekend weather was lovely, compared to the past few weeks of rain/snow/cold/gray.  Weekend guests seemed to enjoy their visit, and had an inadvertent visit with our dogs on Saturday.

This week has been mostly routine.  On Monday, Donny came and picked up some of the round bales of hay from the northwest field, Sherry was here working her magic in the main house, and Geo continued his work clearing underbrush and helping with livestock feeding.  Sherry and Geo were here for part of the day on Tuesday, which was cloudy and cold.  Wednesday began with beautiful flurries of snow, which, fortunately, didn't amount to anything.  By late morning, the skies had cleared and the rest of the day was sunny, although still cold and breezy.  Tonight's temperatures are expected to be in the low teens.

View to the north, photo by Stephen

Stephen spent much of today doing monthly accounts and other paperwork in our farmhouse estate office, but also ran some farm errands and coordinated with Geo about his work.  He talked with Kevin Kennedy, Ramsay's in-house carpenter over most of the past year, who is going to install a filtration system for the fish pool adjacent to the parterre garden.  Our good friends at Grelen Nursery in Orange County say their search for the special trees needed for the estate is still underway.

March is just around the corner, and we are seeing some very slight greening in the fields in response to the longer days, even though it's still cold (today's high was 37 degrees, the morning low was 15 degrees).  Stephen also noticed these hopeful sprouts in the garden between the driveway and the Carriage House.