Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Mockingbird Hill Cottage

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On Friday

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Yours truly is tuckered out. But more rain is due this weekend and stuff has to be done around here. There is a deadline of sorts, so on I go!

A beautiful day yesterday until the afternoon when sprinkles came and went while I was trying to finish mowing the front lawn before the deluge. (I did.) But that thunderstorm, when it came, was huge; thunder, lightning, epic rain going every which way, slamming against the windows, flooding the gutters. And afterward, the most spectacular sunset! It was a wowzer of a couple of hours.

Today: more mulching. Planting impatiens. Starting to clear the bed behind the kitchen which is usually weed-filled. No mowing, the ground is too wet.

More narcissus, this time in the big garden bed and another batch in the woods. They were here when we moved in, thanks to a previous owner. So beautiful.

Last night in Margaritaville, Alison, the female lead, was feeling under the weather. So her understudy got to go on for the first time. Her understudy, Keely, who is part of the ensemble happens to be married in real life to Paul, the male lead. So, she got to play opposite her husband and ‘marry’ him at the end of the show. Isn’t that wonderful? Smile worthy.

I ordered Monty Don’s latest book through Book Depository and it arrived earlier this week. I haven’t had time to start it yet, but this rainy weekend looks to be a good time. I love this guy.

I’m off to make my second cup of coffee.

Happy Friday.

 

Always Collecting

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Glory be, the sun is shining. It’s been a ‘gray’ situation around here for a number of days, so this is most welcome. Just the kind of day to recycle! (Kidding.)

Actually, I do have to recycle today, but you know I like doing that kind of thing. It’s very satisfying to sort things and toss them into large dumpsters.

Don and I are still trying to figure out which one of us will be traveling. He might come here. I might go there. We’ll see. I’m doing much better – still coughing, but not nearly as much as I was.

I found two more egg cups (I know there are more, but I took a couple out of the rotation for a bit and now I don’t know where I put them.)

On the left, a vintage Hankscraft double egg cup, which I love because it reminds me of Art Deco, and on the right, a pretty little egg cup in beautiful spring colors. Both of them were sent to me by Judy, a reader of this blog. The blue and green egg cup normally sits on a table in the den and holds a yarn needle that I use from time to time.

I went to a local antique shop and ended up buying some ironstone butterpats. Why, you ask? I’m not quite sure. I don’t collect ironstone, but butterpats have long intrigued me. They’re sort of the perfect collectible if you are short on space – in the same vein as egg cups and miniature pottery. They’re old and have lots of crazing.

This is the clearest of the Grindley markings. Some are very faint.

Also discovered yesterday – a small Wallace Nutting. I was taken by its size and the lovely autumn scene, hand tinted by one of Nutting’s staff artists.

Isn’t it sweet?

Written on the back:

Dec 22 – 193? It’s either a five or a seven.

I’m not sure where I’m going to hang it. It should be part of the wall of Nuttings that is gradually taking shape here in the office. There are three Nuttings there at the moment. The other is downstairs, hanging on the big white cabinet in the living room.

The collecting gene is strong in me.

Don told me that all the musicals on Broadway are singing something from Oklahoma!  tonight during their curtain calls. Today is the 75th Anniversary of the day that groundbreaking musical opened on Broadway – March 31, 1943. I love that musical. I coached the National Tour several years back. It’s extraordinary.

The cast is singing The Surrey with the Fringe on Top. What a lovely tribute. The American Musical wouldn’t be in the form it is without Oklahoma!  It changed the shape of American Musical Theater.

Happy Saturday.

 

Egging Me On

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We’re in that in-between time here in the Hudson Valley. It looks like the worst of winter is gone. It’s slowly getting warmer. But the landscape looks bleak.

It will be a few weeks before I can begin cleaning up the garden beds; that leaf mulch needs to stay there a bit longer to protect the plants. The waiting game has begun.

But I’m sure happy that winter seems to be on the way out the door!

More egg cups. It’s so hard to get a good photo of this little shelf that I found years ago in an antique shop. It hangs on a wall in the den, between two windows. There’s a table and lamp in front of it. And it gets very dark in that corner. Thank goodness for photo editing options!

Full transparency: this little shelf holds some of my favorite egg cups.

On the top shelf – One of my largest egg cups, a guy with a top hat. The head is a salter and is lifted out to access the egg cup. This would have been one of a pair of egg cups, one for salt and one for pepper. I suspect the little cherub next to it is really a toothpick holder, but I have made it an honorary egg cup because it’s so adorable. Then there’s Humpty Dumpty, with an egg that Don brought back from Prague serving as his crown.

Middle shelf – One of my favorites, the bunny artist painting the egg. (Middle-of-the night bidding war.) Next, a pig getting ready to dine on an egg (made for Tiffany). And then, one of my 1939 Walt Disney dwarfs, Grumpy.

Bottom shelf – Three more dwarfs: Dopey, Doc, and Bashful. And some little wooden ducks/chicks that I found in an antique shop several years ago.

The search for the remaining three dwarfs and Snow White is ongoing. It’s taken me 16 years to collect the four that I have!

In other news…Don told me the ‘critic’ from the New York Times  got so much backlash about his/her review of Escape to Margaritaville, that he/she felt compelled to write an op-ed defending the review. I don’t mind saying that I laughed gleefully when I heard that bit of news. It’s alright not to like something. We don’t all agree. But to write in a mean-spirited manner, to make it personal? That’s not what a respected critic does. That’s not what anyone who calls themselves a critic should do.

I cancelled my subscription over this one. I was already on the fence about it, due to all the “Hillary’s emails” crap they published leading up to the election, but this sent me over the edge. Bye bye, New York Times. And that sorry excuse for a critic can kiss my tush.

Happy Wednesday.

 

Lambs Like to Party

Lambs Like to Party

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