flowers — Page 135

Flowers, Birds & Perspective

August 21, 2018 at 9:42 am by Claudia

A surprise this morning:

And there are two more buds ready to open. These roses bloom early in the spring and then, when you think they’re done for the season, more leaves emerge. Then flowers. Such a nice later-in-the-summer surprise.

Yesterday morning, we were sitting on the porch having coffee and I heard this amazing bird call. I looked across the road. Since I had brought my big girl camera with me, I quickly got up and took several pictures. He was way up in a tree and the gray skies made a dark background, but here he is:

A pileated woodpecker. I’ve seen them around here before. They are large birds. And noisy! See the two little birds to his left?

Now, a cropped, zoomed-in version:

And one more:

Pretty good for a dark and gloomy morning!

Edited to add: No, the leaves haven’t all dropped off the tree. It’s a dead tree.

Let’s see…I mowed a bit yesterday morning. Not too much, just the corral and the grass surrounding it. Ran errands. Cleaned. Read.

It’s been cooler; still humid, but much more bearable when it isn’t in the nineties. It’s cool this morning and gray and darkish again. We were just out on the porch and I remarked to Don that if we didn’t know what time it was, we would think it was early evening! I’m starting to feel the beginnings of the seasonal change. I cling on to summer as long as I can because I know that after fall comes winter. But this has been such a tough summer weather-wise, that a part of me will welcome the cooler temperatures.

My second Snow White egg cup arrived in the mail yesterday from Australia. She’s safely ensconced in the cubby cabinet. I’ll take a picture of both of them later today.

From my chair on the front porch, one perspective:

And another perspective:

I love playing with the focal point of a photo and depth of field. And I really love my new camera.

Thanks, by the way, for all your great supportive comments about the cubby cabinet. It was a chunk of money that I hadn’t expected to be spending, but, in the end, it was very clear to me that I had to get it. I will never see something like it again. It’s truly one-of-a-kind. I haven’t regretted the choice to buy it for one second. I pass it several times a day and I smile each and every time I see it. You guys are the best!

Happy Tuesday.

Unexpected Delights

August 16, 2018 at 8:05 am by Claudia

After emerging into the sunshine following days and days of rain, I noticed this:

Tiny forget-me-nots and balloon flowers had self-seeded on the edge of the memorial garden bed.

What a delight!

This is why I have to be careful when I start to overzealously weed. You never know what you might be yanking out of the ground and believe me, I’ve had my share of “Oh no!” yanks.

Another view, a bit more ‘arty’:

One little plant and it produces a beautiful flower!

I was already aware that the balloon flower was spreading to the edges of a memorial stone that I placed in the garden in memory of our beloved dogs. So I looked a bit more closely and saw this:

A bud ready to open. Sometimes Mother Nature provides the perfect touch. I’ve had the ‘Sentimental’ Balloon Flower plant in the garden for a couple of years. That it would self-seed right here, right where I placed the stone…well, I couldn’t have done it better myself.

We watched one of Don’s favorite movies the night before last – The Taking of Pelham 123 – the original, not the bad remake with John Travolta. It’s such a great movie, so gritty, so evocative of the seventies. A cast of great character actors including Walter Matthau, Martin Balsam, Jerry Stiller, Hector Elizondo and Robert Shaw. Great soundtrack by David Shire. If you’ve never seen it, you should!

So last night, we watched one of my favorites, Charade. Elegant, funny, scary – it’s the perfect sophisticated murder mystery starring two of my favorites; Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant. It was directed by the great Stanley Donen. I’ve seen it at least 30 times – I’d venture even more than that. Also starring George Kennedy, James Coburn, Ned Glass and…Walter Matthau. With music by Henry Mancini, to my mind the best ever composer for the movies, it is a delight.

I realized this morning that both movies had a screenplay written by Peter Stone.

Today, we pick up the cabinet! I can’t wait to get it home. Then I have to think about lighting it because it can be darkish over by the bottom of the stairs. All in good time.

Happy Thursday.

A Done Deal

August 15, 2018 at 9:43 am by Claudia

Well, if you follow me on Instagram or if you received an reply to a comment you left on yesterday’s post, you know that I bought the cubby cabinet. I just knew I’d never see anything like it again. The dealer who has this in her booth is one of my favorites. She also has a booth at another antique center I frequent. She always has great stuff.

Here’s another photo of it that I took yesterday, right before they put a SOLD tag on the cabinet.

Some of you seemed to think this was a cabinet I could hang on the wall! Nope. It’s a piece of furniture that is 5 feet high and just over 40 inches wide. It’s only 8 inches deep. This will be on the floor. We’ve decided to put it where the little white desk (that has become nothing more than a catch-all) is at the bottom of our stairs. There is a little cupboard that is built into that wall. I open it maybe twice a year. When that happens, we can slide the cabinet out from the wall. And I’ll have the egg cups secured with museum wax.

It was either there or up in the office, but Don pushed for downstairs so that we’d see it every day. We don’t go into the office every day.

My neighbor is lending us her van tomorrow, so we’ll go pick it up in the late morning. We have to give the antique barn a heads up so that the dealer can remove everything from the cabinet, etc.

I’m thrilled. We’ll either put the desk in storage or put it out on the street and see if someone picks it up. It’s basically been a surface for us to pile stuff on that needs to go upstairs. It holds postage stamps and the little lamp and a photograph of Scoutie with glasses on. And a basket of paid bill receipts. All of that can go elsewhere. The chair will go in storage, as well. It will actually make our path to the bathroom much clearer.

Thanks for all your enthusiastic support!

Will I have to paint the cubbies a lighter color? Not sure yet. All will be revealed.

It really feels as if we’ve just emerged from a monsoon. I don’t know the total number of inches of rain that fell during the past five days, but it has to be quite high. Endless rain. Endless. I know there is flooding in New Jersey. I’m not surprised.

But it’s sunny today. I have to recycle and run some errands and, I’m sure, pull tons of weeds. But it’s also going to be humid today, so my weed pulling might be quickly curtailed.

I don’t want summer to end because it is my favorite time of year, but I will say this has been a very difficult summer weather-wise. Extremes. Nothing but extremes. More rain than I can remember. More high temps, starting early and continuing through the summer. And lots of humidity.

It would be nice to have several days without rain so that the ground can dry out. Please?

Happy Wednesday.

Flowers, Birds & Perspective

Unexpected Delights

A Done Deal

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

Archives