During Superstorm Sandy in late 2012, this hill was completely underneath the salty Atlantic Ocean right up to the trunk of our great holly tree that you can see at the top of the hill in this photo, with the terrible result that our garden was devastated, the wooden edging all floated away, and we truly had no idea what, if anything, might have survived. So perhaps you can imagine just how grateful we are for such a bountiful and beautiful resurgence after only two years of effort. My only difficulty this morning was deciding which one of so many photos to choose. There are more on the way…

Whoa! What a spring it’s been, and how can it already be early July?

The weeks leading up to summer are always busy ones for Richard and me as we work to get the beach house ready for the onslaught, which begins in early May and, most weeks, includes at least 6 and very often more than 8 people who we do our best to make feel welcome and a part of our Cedar House family.

And, as my regular readers know, this includes lots of cooking on my part, as well as – especially in the Spring – lots of gardening. And, while all this activity has prevented my being as regular as I’d like with posting to this blog, the upside is that I now have a backlog of many new discoveries, thoughts, recipes and ruminations that I’ll be posting in the next few days.

In a word, the gardens are AMAZING this year – especially given that they were fairly well completely destroyed by the Superstorm Sandy salt water flood that inundated and killed so much of our 17 years of husbandry only three years ago.

Of course, we’ll probably never again see the like of our 30′ southern magnolia (a Christmas gift for Richard in 1990 when it was only a sapling) and 25′ sequoia trees that both succumbed to the deluge, but it’s as if everything else is determined to make up for time lost, and we are both fairly gobsmacked by the full, healthy growth we are seeing this year – following a truly horrific winter – and I look forward to sharing all this with you in the coming days and weeks.

Also, a quick word to those of you who were gracious enough to read “A Boy’s Tale” as I posted the first eleven chapters: Part I: “The Wedding,” earlier this year. Never fear! Part II “The Covenant” is on the way, but as you can imagine, it takes serious focus and blocks of time to get it right, and given the demands of the last few weeks, posting new chapters has simply not been possible. But, watch this space! John Mark’s adventures will be continuing soon, and what a long, strange trip he is about to undertake!

Thank you all for your patience. Lots more to come…