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"A Lilac Story: Lilacs and Old Houses." Adirondack Letter #15 Dear Fourpeaks Visitor, Driving along our country roads late Spring we look with interest for each old farmhouse as it appears before us, alone in an open field, now fresh green, or by some ancient trees and subsidiary buildings. We're looking for purple lilacs, the most common, the easiest, the most persistent decorative plant in our Northern climate. Always right in front, occasionally a bit to the side, sometimes so big it all but covers the entranceway. The oldest of them reach the second story. The more vigorous fill the earth around with young shoots. The air is sweet and heavy with perfume from them. Lasting longer than the houses they were planted beside, we see them sometimes abandoned on the roadside by themselves, grown old and unruly now, a cellar ruin not far away. When we got this place years ago we found them at Sugar by the old foundation, coming out after bloodroot and trillium. Popple (our quaking aspen), an agressive volunteer, had started to overtop them, so we cut them out. We took out a pine too, and trimmed back a nearby maple to give them more sun. When they're in bloom, we think about the Perkinses, who built the place, planted everything around, and lived on the land here over a hundred years. Their aster bed comes alive late August. We heard their story from Burt Williams who had the next farm up, right where our jeep road crosses Stonehouse Road (named Perkins Road those days) and heads up to Ridge Camp below Rattlesnake. Their sugarbush was extensive. It ran a quarter mile up the brook to where the largest, the most ancient maples may still be seen at Logging Camp. We tapped those trees for years and made syrup not far from their old Sugar House. The pans are still there. We have Burt on two hours of tape from a tour he gave us in the early 70's. I'll transcribe it and get it online soon. There's another lilac by the old cellar at the Melvin Farm just below. We never noticed it till we moved in Gypsy Camp and started clearing around the old maples and butternuts there. We chopped out the undergrowth and cleaned around to give it room. It lives now just under a big maple and will probably fill in toward the cellar in years to come. There's a substantial lilac growing high on the river bank by the flats at the bottom of Stonehouse Road. Never was a house built there as it's a flood plain. But it extends over fifty feet along the bank and it almost ten feet high so it must be very old. Someone had to have planted it there as lilacs only propagate by root sprouting underground. Or maybe, like Paul Johnson's rare irises that made it there floating downriver two miles in the torrential flood we had in '99, our river lilac may have gotten there the same way from someone's front yard years ago. Choosing a lilac? First Summer we had The Cabin, I came back from a trip to Maine, the pickup loaded with stuff for the new place. Handmade cedar furniture (still there) and many plants in small tubs. Several red pine and blue spruce, a single larch (all still there and doing well) and some lilac. The lilacs struggled beside the camp porch for over thirty years, got no bigger than a few feet high and hardly bloomed at all. I mowed them down just last year and killed the roots. A fancy variety of French lilac--they just weren't right for our all too brief Northcountry season. This Fall I'll dig some plants from over at Perkins farm. Look for them to bloom in just a few years. The old-fashion purple lilac grows where people built homes and planted them around for beauty. We enjoy their blooms still. Sweet-smelling and vigorous, they say (much better than any gravestone), "We lived and worked here and loved this land. Remember us." Thanks for reading this. If you've ever been a guest here, go to http://4peaks.com/fgift.htm for an attractive offer to visit us again. If you've never been--check our up-to-date Availability Calendar http://4peaks.com/femail0.htm and make some time. There's a lovely quiet season coming up. Till then please visit On-Line: http://4peaks.com/ "Explore our 700-acre rest and play-ground." http://4peaks.com/fcamp.htm Upscale Camps in a Hidden Valley. http://4peaks.com/fotrails.htm Walks with views & Beauty spots. http://4peaks.com/fgstbndx.htm Meet our guests! (Photo Guest Book) http://4peaks.com/fk5stay.htm NEW! "Stay Awhile In Style" Your Adirondack Guide, Martin Schwalbaum Member Whiteface Mountain Visitors Bureau Member Lake Placid/Essex County Visitors Bureau ************************************************************* This is #15 of a really occasional Letter, "Hints of Balsam and Pine from our Corner of the Adirondacks," for Fourpeaks guests or anyone who ever inquired about a Fourpeaks Vacation/Getaway. To get off this list reply with "REMOVE" in the subject heading. ************************************************************* 
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