Category: Irondequoit Melon

This blog format suggests I assign posts to a category. I get to make up the categories. The ones I use most are “Life is a Spell,” “We Live Like Kings,” and “Field Recordings of the Future” although they are assigned arbitrarily. One category I hardly use but have for this post is “Irondequoit Melon.” Our sandy soil and temperate conditions near Lake Ontario made our area ideal for melon farming. The Irondequoit melon developed a reputation for being exceptionally sweet and fragrant. They became a regional delicacy—sold in Rochester’s public market and were shipped to nearby cities. In the late 30s the soil became infested with a fungus, fusarium wilt, and the melon seeds were retired.

Aman’s Farm Market has been selling “Irondequoit Type Melons” this season and we are working on our third one. They incredible juicy and sweet.

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Am I the only one who thinks this trailer looks really cool? It’s a little beat up. It obviously has a leak in the roof because they have the blue tarp up there. They have recently spray painted the whole thing. Black. I didn’t get close enough when I took this photo (I was on their property) so I can’t be sure but it looks like they spray painted it with the propane tank in place. I love how the blue painters tape on the windows matches the tarp on top. I can only image what it looks like inside.

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While out walking yesterday we ran into a neighbor who told us he had seen an eagle’s nest in the tall trees behind his house. He said he hadn’t seen any action in there yet. We found the nest, above the marsh, and stared at it for a while but didn’t see any activity either. We had just seen an eagle sitting on a nest along Lakeshore Boulevard on Saint Patrick’s Day.

Our neighbor told us he had taken a picture with his drone of a hawk flying above his house. He said he has since learned that bird watchers frown on the use of drones because it bothers the birds. He added, “for good reason.” But he said before learning this he captured a hawk flying above his house with a snake in its claws. He told us he would send the photo.

His photo hardly looks real but the most dramatic thing about it for me is how well you can see the lake from a bird’s perspective.

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We walked to the end of Seneca Road yesterday. It comes to an abrupt end in the parking lot of the Newport Marina. When we first moved here there were all sorts of funky homes down here, some only seasonal and some abandoned but the neighborhood is moving on up. We found a brand new home next to last year’s new home at the very bottom of the hill. Ice still covers the bay but it won’t last long in these sixty degree days.

Today we walked to the end of Hoffman. one of our favorite walks. The marsh that looks so forlorn in the winter is starting to sing with birds. Peggi opened her Merlin app and in the first minute she recorded a Red-winged Blackbird, House Sparrow, Downy Woodpecker, Mourning Dove, White-breasted Nuthatch, House Finch, Black-capped Chickadee, Northern Cardinal, White-throated Sparrow, Red-bellied Woodpecker and a Blue Jay.

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We started about three dozen Pimiento de Padrón plants from seed this year and most of them came up. The plants have been producing peppers for over a month now. That means more than thirty days in a row where we have eaten a plate of peppers. Typically it is like Russian Roulette, maybe one pepper on the plate will be hot but our batting average is way north of that this year.

We shared a plate with Dan and Diana last night. We took a batch to my brother’s annual corn roast on Sunday. We brought them to dinner at Jedi and Helena’s. They went nuts over them so we’ve dropped off a few more batches. We took them to dinner at Tom and Jann’s and Tom had to know where we got the seeds from. We dropped another batch off for him today. We brought a platefull over Jeff and Mary Kaye’s when we had dinner out there. Our neighbor’s Wayne and Sarah gave us some ginger and turmeric they grew in their garden so we repaid them with a baggie of pimientos.

They grow so fast we have to visit our garden every day to pick them before they get too big (and hot). This is just one of the reasons our summer has gone so fast.

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We walked over to Kathy’s today expecting to find her garden in first gear. Her Lenten Roses were in bloom and the daffodils were almost open. Kayakers and fishing boats were out on the bay and the temperature was headed toward seventy. We walked by the new townhouses on Culver, the ones that chased Matthew and Louise out of the neighborhood. I miss them and St. Salome’s, the church they tore down to build the townhouses (you can see one of them behind the sign above). The church was looking pretty run down. I always like that they advertised the “Sacrament of Penance.”

St. Cecilia’s, further down Culver, still has one weekly mass but no parish priests, no school and no bingo. They sold most of their property to a senior living facility. According to the Diocese of Rochester website, Rochester had 54,500 Catholics when the diocese was formed in 1868. The average Catholic then was socio-economically poor and they gathered according to their ethnic background in 35 parish churches (and 29 mission churches.) By 1966 there were 155 parishes (and 36 mission churches.) Each had parish priests and two or three daily masses. Today they are closing shop all over town. There are so many alternatives. Spiritualism was founded in the city of Rochester by the Fox sisters. The Mormon faith originated in Palmyra, just east of Rochester.

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Liberace photobombed my shot of our garlic drying in the garage. He performed two nights at Canandaigua’s Performing Arts Center in 1985. We didn’t see the show but I snagged the poster from Record Archie once the dates had passed.

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We heard the red-winged blackbirds’ song but we couldn’t spot any of the birds in cattails along Hoffman Road. The outlet from Durand Lake has cut a swiftly flowing stream through the beach on the big lake so we were unable to cross. The roads through the park are all so descriptive. There was a zoo on Zoo Road and there is a pinetum along Pine Valley Road. Lakeshore Boulevard is aptly named. There are ferns on both sides of Sweet Fern Road so there must have been a log cabin on Log Cabin Road.

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At dinner last night, in Kathy’s backyard, Jan mentioned a recent house fire in which someone had died. It was on Garford Road, one of the streets off Culver, and we were trying to place it. We walk in a different direction most days so if it is nearby, we have been down it many times. Turns out it is one of the sunnier streets and we prefer the tree-lined ones so we were not that familiar with it. We walked over there today and most of the Cape Cod is still standing but it looks like a total loss.

This nearby house caught our attention and we stopped to study it. We discussed the charred logs on the beds of white stones and the weathered stump with a plate on top of it. Peggi directed my attention to another detail and I broke out laughing, quickly catching myself because some of the neighbors were outside. She had said, “It appears they don’t want anyone using their front door.”

An American flag seems to completely cover one of the few windows in the house. The eagle (is that where the “spread eagle” term comes from?) at the peak is a nice touch. This patriotic section of the house appears to have a spotlight on it. It’s odd that the person who designed the house recessed the garage. And the canvas awning they have on the window near the garage makes it impossible to see in or out of it.

The shades are completely down on the criss-crossed picture window and the diamond pattern is picked up again on the tiny window in the door. Finally, I love the house number, the two digits separated by the bare bulb lamp.

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Rain was predicted this morning so we got out early for our walk. The bay was especially beautiful in the fog. Parts of the bay were still frozen over and we couldn’t even see across to Webster. There are so many ways to walk down to the bay. Culver Road ends down there of course but each cross road off Culver (Point Pleasant, Seneca, Titus, and Norton) also winds down a hill to the bay. Each one is world unto itself.

Seneca Road ends at the Newport Yacht Club. You can just see the tip of one of their docks in the photo above. And there is a new house going up just to the left. They cut way into the hillside to carve out a lot and are putting up a huge three story home. There was King’s Audio Technology van parked outside and while I was taking this picture the owners pulled up. We congratulated them on their new home and told them we used to go to the bathroom in the woods on their lot. They laughed and told us we could use their bathroom when their house is complete.

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Peggi was up at the crack of dawn and caught the Worm moon over Culver Ridge Plaza. It is aptly titled as I just watched a robin pull a worm out of the formerly frozen ground.

We dove into Warhol’s Diaries last night on Netflix. Did Warhol want these made public? If it was just the AI voice reading the diaries that would be one thing but I find it a bit uncomfortable watching Rupert Murdoch’s wife and former Factory hangers-on analyzing Warhol’s insecurities. I guess it’s all part of the full picture and he did open the door.

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We had one the best skis of the winter this morning. There was fresh snow and the wind was howling so our tracks from yesterday had drifted over. The temperature was in the mid twenties so it wasn’t heroic or anything, just beautiful and wild. Ann, the ski coach from West Irondequoit and a yoga buddy from when we used to meet in public, was out on the course with crutches. We stopped to chat and learned she had broken her ankle. She slipped on the ice while wearing clogs. I was thinking that’s what you get for wearing those ugly ass shoes but I kept it to myself. She giving encouragement to her team as they whizzed by.

Yesterday’s ski was problematic but we pulled it off by avoiding the lowlands where the recent thaw left slush under the snow. We only missed one day of skiing during the meltdown and took advantage of the down time to walk up to Aman’s. We brought back a peck of 20 Ouncers and Peggi made applesauce.

We watched Paris Saint-Germain play Real Madrid in the Champion’s League last night, an edge of of your seat match that remained 0-0 until the sixth minute of stoppage time when Mbappé, playing along side Neymar and Messi, danced around Lucas Vasquez and put one past Thibaut Courtois They deserved the win.

We followed that up with “The Two Faces of January,” based on another Patricia Highsmith book, a psychological thriller. We were on the edge of our seat for that one too.

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Walzford is one of our favorite streets. We make a point of going down it or coming back on it when we walk up to Aman’s. The lots are generous, the houses are all different having been built over many years rather than all at once so the street has a complex character. We ran into Marsha here, where she has a part-time job tending to one of the gardens. There is a fair amount of BLM banners and a wrap around porch with a sign overhead that reads, “Porch of Indecision.”

We shopped at both Aman’s and Wegmans so our backpacks were loaded. We could barely bend down without falling over but the pile of fresh flowers near the curb on Culver was irresistible. They must have been used briefly at an event, probably a funeral, and then discarded. White Lillies, purple flowers mixed with Eucalyptuse greens all freshly picked. We picked through the pile and carried an armload home. Peggi arranged four gorgeous displays in various parts of the house. It smells like a funeral parlor in here.

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Folklore has it that one in every dozen Pimientos de Padrón, a popular Spanish tapa, may be hot. Most often the whole batch is mild but one time in Madrid, I can remember exactly where the cafe was, every single one of them was too hot to eat. We left them on the plate.

Fruition Seeds offered Pimientos de Padrón this year so we grew our own. We picked our first batch to have while we watched the Spanish men’s soccer team eliminate the host nation in the olympic semi-final. Eight or nine of them were hot as hell. Water doesn’t help but yogurt sort of neutralized the fire.

We put a new row of arugula in and it was up in three days. And another row of cilantro, our third. Our tomatoes are starting to roll in and the second planting of romaine is begging to be thinned. Peggi has been making little pizzas with our cilantro pesto and today we brought back a big bag of basil for traditional pesto which we plan to make with the garlic Jeff gave us from their garden.

Just watching the contractors work on our roof was exhausting. They jumped out of the truck at eight each morning and didn’t stop until five. We had a few things to do to stay ahead of them and then there was the nightly check on what they had done. We were thrilled with their work and they told us we were good people to work for.

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The temperature was near ninety a few days ago. The street pool is open and we’ve been swimming for the last week. And now this.

I remember the big guy at Case’s saying, “Wait until Memorial Day to put your tomatoes in.” But that was the old days. We’ve gone with the 15th for years and when the long range forecast looked especially good we put them in early. It will be 70 on Monday but between now and then they are predicting lows around 43.

We rounded up every pot we could get our hands on to create little tents for the tomato and pepper plants. We started everything from seed and we need to protect these little babies. The basil, lettuce, Swiss chard, arugula, spinach, carrots, beets and mesclun will all be fine. They love this weather but we are walking a fine line with the tomatoes.

Our garden is in our neighbor’s old tennis court. He engineered the four tier electric fence to keep the ground hogs out. And he lets us use his hose to water. We make sure to keep him entertained. After we brought every plastic container we had down he let us borrow his buckets, some flower pots, his recycling containers and his wheelbarrow. Our plants are under each one of them. And there’s a few plants out in the open serving as a control group.

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So many funky places to live. We walked down to the bay and found clusters of homes we never noticed before. Places that you can only get to by foot and can only see when the trees are bare. Seneca Road dead ends here at the Newport Yacht Club, thankfully not as fancy as it sounds. Just to the south Titus Avenue winds its way down to the bay. You can see the last of the homes on that street from here but you can only get there by boat. And to the north Point Pleasant goes down a steep hill to a gated community of condos but the road splits off into the forever funky Schnackel Drive and the private access walkway that leads by foot only to at least ten more homes that line the shore. All these neighborhoods are a short walk and each one makes you feel like you’ve left town.

Exactly one year ago today we had two other couples over for dinner. In our house without masks! An event we had arranged at the Little Cafe where Margaret Explosion was playing that Wednesday, the night news broke that Tom Hanks and his wife had Covid. Our house guest, Steve Black, had just left that morning. We went into lockdown the next day. Fast forward in a year that somehow went both fast and slow and we are only one week from being fully vaccinated. That is we had our second jab one week ago.

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The funky neighborhood south of Lake Bluff Road in Sea Breeze will surely come up in value some day. Maybe just after we leave, the way the triangle between East Main, Culver and Merchants came up just as we left it. Not that I’d want to live in a neighborhood that has arrived. I’m just noting that it is under appreciated today. And funky. There’s tiny houses with views of the lake, dead end streets surrounded by woods and an anything goes attitude to property management. 

We walk in This neighborhood often. Sometimes we work our way up to the lake on Birch Hill Drive which skirts the edge of the park above Tamarack Swamp. We’ve even found a way to connect the dead end of that street, where you overlook the lake, to the dead end of Lake Bluff. This is Tom Sawyer stuff. 

Yesterday we found a street we had never been down before. Trelawne Drive. It too dead ends at cluster of homes, some of which have a view of the lake. Finding a new street is like the best part of a dream, the part where a whole new scene unfolds and you think, “I’ve got to remember how I got here.” It’s like finding out there is a new album of unreleased Eric Dolphy recordings. I had just read that Thelonious Monk called the swollen protrusion on Dolphy’s forehead his “knowledge bump” so he has been on my mind.

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It is impossible to get away from corruption. It is a good part of what makes the world go ‘round. We found this graffiti under a bridge on one of the last legs of the Camino Portuguese. We did it! We walked from Porto to Santiago. It went too fast.

My watch has the sunrise time in the upper left hand corner and because it automatically adjusted to the Spanish time zone I assumed it was telling us the time of the sunrise here. So we set the alarm for 7 AM to get an early start for the last of our two week walk. Turns out that was sunrise in Rochester. We were up before the coffee shops opened. In fact young people were still partying outside a bar when we left our hotel. The sun, in this western region of Spain does not break the horizon until 9 AM. We walked the first few hours with the aid of the flashlight on Peggi’s phone.

The Cathedral in Santiago is closed for repairs so no Botafumeiro. No problem. We did that last year when finished the Camino Frances. We’ll take a high speed train to Madrid tomorrow.

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We “suited up” (Permethrin-treated tick gear) in yesterday’s fifty degree temperatures and walked through the woods with this two person saw. It belonged to Leo, our former next door neighbor, and it still hangs in his old shed. Monica, the new, proud owner of the shed, let us borrow it. I couldn’t wait to use it.

Peggi and I traded ends a few times and coordinated our strokes to make short work of the big Sassafras that had fallen across our ski path at the very bottom of the biggest hill. We carried the saw all the way to the golf course and cleaned up four of five other blow downs. We’re ready for snow.

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