There's Something About Living in a Small Village ...

When Audrey and I bought our house over 25 years ago, we were really looking forward to raising a family in a small community. Now we're not quite in a neighborhood, we have to walk through two neighbors' backyards to get into the Village, but nor are we in a big development. We live in a village that has it's beginnings back before the Revolution when it was on one of the major routes between New York and Philadelphia. Up until two years ago it had it's own butcher shop [really more of a small general store, without the cracker barrels, in order to be economically possible in the modern world].

The heart beat of this kind of village is the volunteer first aid squad, the volunteer fire company and the ladies auxiliary that supports them both. We also have our very own Post Office which, since the closing of Chester's Market, has become our social center, if you will. That's where you meet your fellow villagers and where you hear about all the goings on about town. It's really not about gossip [although there is some of that], it's the place you go to connect with everyone; who is dealing with health issues [and more importantly if they're in the hospital and need a visit!], who's a new grandparent, whose kids are back from college, who's in need of "care" packages, etc.

It's also the kind of place where you share your bountiful garden harvest, even if you don't have the chance to drop off the produce at someone's house! ;-)

Ya gotta love it!

Nat

Biff Heins

Several years ago, I started to photograph the people who live and work along the D&R Canal [our pristine part of the state!] and the first person I shot was Biff Heins because he was an artist, I already had a good relationship with him and I really saw him as a sweet man. I think about Biff whenever we are having a spell of beautiful weather, the air about him was always calm and radiant and I find his shop wonderfully picturesque!

He grew up living on the Canal and for many years was restoring antiques in the barn that his father had built right across the street from where he lived. He was also an incredible watercolorist working with the glorious palette of colors along the Canal in all of the seasons

Biff passed away three years ago; he came by our house to rototill our garden [he had a big Troy Built rototiller that he owned with his sister and they had a policy of not loaning equipment to friends for fear it would damage relationships]. He had lunch with us after he did our garden and then went back to his shop to paint. That night he died in his sleep , I'm told, with a wonderous smile on his face. I and many others miss him! He was such a kind man, a talented artist and a true craftsman.

So, when we get this kind of weather, and the colors really begin to sing, I head down Canal Road, put on my "Biff glasses" and just work on photographing some of the beauty that he would always see in this area.


Whether it's a box of old tools sitting outside his shop or all of the various vises and clamps that still hang in his shop.


Or maybe just the rain barrel that still sits outside his shop so that he could water his little vegetable garden.....

Nat

This Can't Be NJ!

Since the day we got back from vacation [naturally!], the weather here has been amazing! Usually we get beautifully clear blue skies about twice a year, immediately after a storm front has moved through the area.

It's been looking and feeling more like Iowa or Montana or one of those other states than it looks or feels like New Jersey. Many years ago when I was still in the photojournalism corner of the profession, I would fantasize about getting a job at the Austin American Statesman because every time I visited a close friend from the Navy down there, the weather was so unbelievable gorgeous! I had forgotten how blue the skies could really be.

I guess because we're the most densely populated state, over the last 20 years or so there has been a concerted effort to retain much of the farmland that originally made New Jersey "The Garden State". One of the recent additions to the preservation of the farm land is the Griggstown Native Grasslands Preserve. The majority of this land used to be a horse farm along the D&R Canal and a number of years ago a developer was trying to buy up the land. The township, in coordination and with the help of the NJ Audubon Society, was able to buy up all 600 acres of the land, annex it to other land that is part of the Ten Mile Run Greenway which in turn is part of the East Coast Greenway and turn it into a native grasslands meadow where wildflowers are blooming and the grasslands species of birds have a place to call home. Rght now the Black-eyed Susans, milkweed and Cone flowers are in bloom and it's just a wonderful place to go filled with trails, birds, rabbits and all sorts of other wildlife.

Nat

Summer is REALLY here ...

When I was in elementary school, I knew that it was REALLY summer right after school closed for the summer and my mom would let me stay up late on a weekday night and I could have Cheerios with blueberries as a late night snack. I mean cereal at NIGHT! With fresh blueberries!

In those days I was drinking multiple glasses of whole milk every day [I was a growing boy after all] and I just loved pouring the milk over the "bluebs" and Cheerios and then covering everything with sugar [what we, in our household, now call "white death"]. The absolute best part of that was saving the last "blueb" to have with lots of sweetened milk at the bottom of the bowl.

Well, now it's Rice Dream instead of whole milk [Which I now think tastes much better] and there's no sugar on top and it's a bitch to save one blueberry to have at the end with just the milk.

But I do now know that it's SUMMER!! I finally had the chance to go out and pick some of our berries yesterday and had my first bowl of Cheerios with "bluebs" last night! AAAaaahhh, the simple pleasures of life!

I think we're going to have an unbelievable crop of berries this year; the rainy month of June and now the hot [FINALLY] summer days to plump 'em up! Anyone interested in buying more shares of General Mills?

Nat

What a wonderful office!

Having visited The Cape Cod Lavender Farm last week while on vacation, we got home and realized that if we were going to harvest our lavender at all, we had to do it right away! My wife decided to harvest all of our lavender over the last few days. I haven’t counted, but we probably have 35 plants on two different berms on our property and in her Fairy Garden right outside her office door.


So now I have 75 bunches of lavender hanging upside down from the beams in my office/gallery space on the second floor of our barn. Damn! Does it smell wonderful! Now she’s looking through eBay to see if she can find women’s hankies to use for making sachets. What an amazing mind she has!

I just hope she won’t be taking it all down too soon!

Nat

Cape Cod Vacation

My wife and I were on vacation last week, staying with some close friends we don't get to see enough of at their house in Eastham, MA out on THE Cape (as opposed to Cape May down here in Joisey!). Yea, I'm one of those dyed in the wool New Englanders even though I've lived here in NJ more than any other place on the planet.



The weather wasn't great (it rained for the first 6 days we were up there) but it was a wonderful time. One of the days when we didn't have torrential rains, we went to The Cape Cod Lavender Farm and it was just amazing! Aside from acres of ten different types of English lavender (I had no idea there was ethnic lavender), there was a wonderful enchanted garden complete with a Fairy Castle that had been made by Ed Foisey from North Harwich, MA. It was amazing!! Complete with leaded glass windows, oaken doors with [tiny] brass hinges, cedar shake shingles on the turrets topped with copper flashing and a tiny weathervane. This castle was so much fun that we called Ed as soon as we left the lavender farm to see if we could stop by his place and take a look at it. He’s an amazing artsian/craftsman/gardener/herbalist/sculptor/woodcarver/mason! And as every New Englander does, just about everything he used was made from found objects!


We probably wasted about two hours of his afternoon as he showed us around his backyard garden that he’s been working on for eleven years. It was gorgeous with winding, gravel paths, multiple Fairy Castles and several Toad Homes and all sorts of other garden sculptures he has made.We probably wasted about two hours of his afternoon as he showed us around his backyard garden that he’s been working on for eleven years.

It was gorgeous with winding, gravel paths, multiple Fairy Castles and several Toad Homes and all sorts of other garden sculptures he has made.


I want to make these!! I have SOOO much to learn though! I have never done anything that comes close to masonry, and I've never done anything with art glass (although I do have a close friend from long ago who was a fantastic artist with it, won all sorts of awards down in Texas!); but buildings are just too cool not to try my hand! I don’t imagine that the doors will be too difficult but I have no idea how to treat the stone work so that it’ll last longer than I do.

This particular one was about four feet tall and probably wighed about 100 pounds, it wasn’t going anywhere!