Hail, yes. Frost and snow, too

At the start of our loop around the blocks surrounding the Little Bitty in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood yesterday afternoon, the skies decided to spit upon us. Aw, heck, I thought, I’m wearing shorts! Then I coaxed Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle onto the blacktop outside the Dish Network offices at the end…

What a Birthday Week it’s been with my dear wife Karen

Every mid-October, the Birthday Week celebration for my dear wife Karen kicks in. I’m a fan for the extended celebration, for her. (My December birthday as the older of our pair, I tend to want to mark on just that day.) Yee-hah 2015 started before the birthday proper. It included a requested trip to the…

Light it up for the Mets, Big Apple

Talking baseball with my bowling teammate Randy in the middle of the New York Mets’ game five tussle against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Thursday night, my astute fellow sports fan mentioned that all the teams left this postseason claim blue as their primary color. And the Mets add red, said the native Syracuse guy.…

Reds, oranges and blue sky and water in the Adirondacks

On our hour-plus drive northeast of Syracuse to attend the Forest Hollow open house, last weekend, I noticed to my right a giant reservoir. And the rolling body of water followed us all the way to Cathy and Bruce Thomas’ house. I commented to my dear wife Karen how low the water looked. So, after…

A pre-birthday visit to Forest Hollow pays off

When my dear wife Karen informed me that our friends Cathy and Bruce Thomas were staging a seasonal sale at their cottage store, I was all in. And Saturday turned out to be a superb day for the little-more-than-an-hour drive northeast from the Little Bitty in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood. I’d been up…

A lake in October catches the eye and iPhone 6

That lake sure looks pretty, I thought. You must park and pull out the iPhone 6 to share this October sight with the world. My trip some 35 miles southwest from Syracuse for my weekly WAER community blog column last week took me through Skaneateles, a quaint, pretty village of note. The folks that live…

A ‘shroom with a view

It’s been an odd and off growing season around our Little Bitty in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood. The roses that bloomed were too few, and far later than usual. The hydrangea refused to flower. Even the lawn gave me two weeks off between cuttings. Now, this. Wild mushrooms are sprouting out of nowhere,…

Still not much pop to the leaves, but there’s orange to be found

I’m still lamenting the lack of color in the changing-of-the-leaves in my Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood. Hover over any gallery photo for a description. Click on the bottom right photo in any gallery for an enlarged slide show. Too much green still, and way too much brown in what has decided to give up…

Now’s the time to put in that tree, dig it?

This is the time of year when Robert Hoadley’s business barks at him seven days a week. Hoadley owns Lakeview Nursery and Hoadley’s Wholesale Nursery on 140-plus acres of land in Auburn, N.Y., some 30 miles west of Syracuse. It’s a tree farm, the 34-year-old’s baby, really. He bought the business from his parents some…

So that’s where socks go to hide

The strange sound started in our LG dryer more than a week ago. It whined. It whirred. It sounded, well, broken. After shutting it off — oh, I am that smart, at least — I poked around the back of the stack, and noticed that the metal part that attached the exhaust hose to the…