Tuesday morning we woke up earlier than usual. And that was a good thing. I was very glad we were already awake (if not actually up and dressed) at 6:30 a.m. when our excavator, Bruce Lease, rolled past our bedroom window in his back hoe. Top of the morning to […]
This is a follow-up for a post I wrote in mid-April when we tried 3 different methods for planting Redosier Dogwood. The yard area carved out around Underhill House was a vast wasteland at that time. New construction, even when you are trying to be as green as possible seems […]
Since we bought our land, Doug and I have spent every free moment out here. Now that we finally live here, we actually went somewhere else for Memorial Day weekend. We knew just where to go — to Wheatland Traditional Arts Weekend in north-central Michigan. This is a pilgrimage we […]
Underhill House now has the hopefull beginnings of a sod roof. This has not been an easy project! I call it a saga of dirt, sweat and tears. The tears are mine. They are tears of frustration. I’ll get to that later. Our roof undulates with the natural curves of […]
I wanted to share a press release I got from UW-Madison this week. It may be to contemplate snow just as spring is finally bursting out all around us, but this piece puts the data behind a subject I have been worrying about a lot lately — the way our […]
We have been dreaming about growing grapes on our south-facing slope for many years. Now the rubber is starting to meet the road. Or rather, the caterpillar treads are starting to meet the ground. When we walked the site with Judy Reith-Rozelle, our grape consultant, we learned that there is […]
Today was a wonderful day for Underhill House. Marcia Nelson arrived with the stained glass windows for the bathroom wall. It’s been a long journey. Following our Small is Beautiful motif, the bathroom is small, and its wall is small. We wanted some high, narrow windows in the wall to […]
Now that we are living in Underhill House, we love watching the ducks, geese and other migrating birds that take a break in our little pond, but it’s obvious that the feeling is not mutual. That’s why we are planting a hedge between the house and the pond. The plants […]
Underhill House is built on a site that was wooded when we first saw it. The southern-facing slope was covered with oaks on the upper part and a little patch of planted pine trees below them down to the pond. The oaks have fallen victim to oak wilt, which is […]
Last Sunday we woke to a clearing sky. We drank our morning tea in the sunshine while rechecking the weather report. We had expected Sunday to be the first of a string of rainy days, but the rain was postponed. This was a chance we had not expected to get. […]
Digging in the Driftless 