Home in the Finger Lakes

We are deep into spring planting, and my hands have been spending far more time in the dirt than on my keyboard lately.

There was a time—not all that long ago, really—when nearly every family had a flock.

I found a photograph of Sodus Center that I’m pretty sure was taken sometime before my grandmother was born.

There is a kind of cooking that doesn’t ask much of you.

Last fall, I wrote about the push to unseal New York’s institutional records and the work of Dr.

Every year, at some point in early winter, I catch myself standing in my house feeling like a stranger in a strange land.

Winter sowing always starts before I’m ready.

These soy wax fire starters feel like tiny bundles of winter in the country.

For more than a decade, this story has followed me, through archives, along quiet roads, and down long pine driveways leading to places New York would rather forget.

Every town has its own way of doing Halloween.