Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Where In The World Are We?



Jodi at bloomingwriter has thrown out a challenge to other garden bloggers. She actually made this challenge quite a while ago but better later than never!

Tell your readers a bit about your hometown, your state, province…something that really tells us where you are in the world. What’s really special about your community? Pretend you’re trying to entice visitors to the region, and remember—what might be obvious to you isn’t necessarily obvious to even the blogger in the community next door.

A tough time of year for me for this challenge. Right now I'm dreaming of becoming a snow bird and living someplace - any place - tropical during the winter months. But only for the winter months as Upstate New York is beautiful in the other three seasons.

You won't find Snowville or Lake Effect on any map. So lets start with exactly where is Upstate New York? This map shows most of what I consider to be Upstate. It is frustrating when I travel and people hear New York and all they can picture is NYC. I tell them we live where they keep the cows. We live much closer to Ottawa, Montreal, and even Toronto than we do to NYC.

The point on the map is Pulaski, NY. Pulaski is where our garden club meets and is more or less half way between us. Living at the east end of Lake Ontario makes winters a bit of a challenge. To understand a little bit about our winters here go read what I recently wrote about Winter on the Tug Hill. We are between Lake Ontario and the Tug Hill so our winters are much the same. Last year I had over 225" of snow. This winter has been much easier but we still have March to get through. But I'm supposed to be telling you why this is a great place to be, so enough about winter.

Spring, summer and fall are mild and beautiful here. We have all of the recreational opportunities afforded by Lake Ontario; State Parks, Lighthouses, Beaches, fishing and hiking.

The Thousand Islands are just to our north and we spent a day there last summer touring Singer and Boldt Castles.

The very large green spot on the map is the Adirondack Park, a short drive to our east.

We have many lakes and rivers nearby too numerous to mention here. Upstate is also rich with historical places to visit.

From a gardening standpoint we are fortunate to be members of a large gardening club where we can swap plants and stories. Small nurseries and friend's gardens are always available for tours. We can easily drive to Syracuse or Rochester for shows or symposiums and we'd like to make the Buffalo Garden Walk and annual trip!

10 comments:

  1. And we'd love to HAVE you make Garden Walk Buffalo an annual trip!

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  2. My husband and I had the chance to live in New York for two years. We lived at West Point and traveled all over New England. It was so beautiful. I can wanting to leave there in winter though. That's why I like NC--one day it snows, the next it's gone--and then Spring is here before you know it. I enjoyed reading your blog today.

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  3. My youngest sister lives in Sackets Harbor and my middle sister used to live in Watertown and now lives in Adams. And I've heard of Pulaski and probably your two towns as well. Stop by my upstate NY section if you haven't already.

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  4. Sorry to be slow in responding--just sneaked in from a deadline to read this, and added your link to the navigation 'homework' on my blog. An interesting and lovely place you live in...close to so many other neat places. I'm glad you took the time to do this, because it was obviously a lot of work!

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  5. I love NY Apple! Except in the winter :)
    Good job letting everyone know we're not just another pretty face. We are so far removed from, and unlike NY City it's not funny!!

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  6. I'm loving this blog because we're so close to each other you've done the work for me. I was really struggling with the whole geography bit...after all, I get lost going to my own bathroom. LOL.

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  7. Thanks for sharing about where you are in the gardening world. I have been meaning to post something about where I live but just can't seem to get the will with it looking so wintery.

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  8. Pulaski - the town many find refuge in when lake effect snow closes Interstate 87. I know, I've spent a night in the community center myself.

    Singer Castle is also familar. I knew a caretaker and have spent a couple winter nights "stranded" there too.

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  9. What a treat to visit a garden blog from upstate NY! Enjoyed your Garden Blogger's Geography Project. I spend time in the Adirondacks whenever I can--in the village of Onchiota. When I lived in NYC it would take us 7 hours to get up to Onchiota--one hour just to get out of the city and then 6 to drive up! Crossing over to Quebec was just a 2 hour jaunt.

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  10. Gardeners like you and Kerri have made us appreciate Upstate NY, Apple and Countrygirl - thank you.

    I think many of the 'edges' of the US work like that - the top edge has a lot in common with adjoining Canadian provinces [that works out near Vancouver/Washington State, too] and the lower point of Texas grows so many plants from Mexico... garden zones don't notice the lines drawn on maps, do they?

    Annie at the Transplantable Rose

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