Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Life in our little cottage in the country

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Rain, Digging & Reading

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A gray, sometimes rainy, day today. I’m thrilled. We desperately need rain and, although we’ve had a few gentle rainfalls since I’ve been sitting out on the porch this morning, I think we’re going to get some thunderstorms late in the day. Just as with peonies and catalpa blossoms, big storms seem to happen right as this is happening:

The hydrangeas are coming into full bloom. Heavy rain causes them to droop and there’s no way I can get all of them to stand up again, because I can’t reach in there! Hopefully, it won’t be too bad.

More flowers opening on the milkweed. I have so many of them this year. Milkweed flowers always remind me of millefiori paperweights. The glass flowers look very much like this.

I wasn’t called for Jury Duty on Monday (I’m pretty sure I’ll get called on Tuesday.) So I’m going into the city tomorrow morning instead of today. That way, I’ll get to spend Don’s birthday with him and also most of his day off on Monday.

I dug some more in the new garden bed. Besides nylons and socks (why??) I found these:

More pieces of the same china pattern and what looks like an old metal dog dish. One of those china pieces looks like part of the bottom of a teacup.

These daylilies are pretty spectacular: the color, the ruffled edge…beautiful.

And another rose bloomed the other day.

I’m just about to finish another novel! I finished the Lee Child last week and then I forced myself to start on one of John Connolly’s mysteries that I had in hardcover. I had tried to start it before, but I kept putting it down. That wasn’t due to the book – he’s one of my favorite writers – it was due to my being unable to concentrate. But one of the books I downloaded on my iPad was his newest, which just came out about a week ago, and I told myself I had to read this one first, as it was published last year and I think you need to read his books in chronological order. I’m looking forward to a rainy morning in which I can nestle into my chair in the den and enjoy and savor the last 100 pages of the book. It’s excellent.

Anyway, I’m so relieved to be reading again! I felt like part of me was missing during this dry period and I need  to read, just as I need food for sustenance.  Reading is now what it should be and what I desperately need it to be during these times, a welcome escape that settles my heartbeat, makes me breathe deeply, and takes me away from the awful state of things in this country.

Thank God for writers and books.

I’ll write a post for tomorrow and then I’ll probably take Monday off since I don’t want to haul my laptop in for such a quick visit. As for the rest of next week, we’ll see what happens with Jury Duty. They called numbers 1 – 75 for Monday and I’m number 134.

Happy Saturday.

Questions, Questions

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Yesterday, I started clearing out an area right below the kitchen window to make another garden bed. Yes, I know. I need the care of yet another bed like a hole in the head, but it’s an area that is always full of weeds and is right next to the entrance to the secret garden. It suddenly struck me that, instead of ignoring it, I could plant a shade garden there.

So I started pulling the weeds (there’s a lot of work ahead) and found the inevitable plastic bags buried beneath the ground, along with some nylons and some socks. Just how much trash is buried on our property?

I found part of a china plate. The gold design is raised. I have no idea how old it is and it’s in pretty good condition because it was inside the bag. No markings. Any idea about the pattern?

Don would like me to discover a bag of cash. Preferably a stack of $100 dollar bills  Somehow, given the humbleness of our abode, I don’t think that’s going to happen. But today I’ll start digging, so wish me luck!

The annabelle hydrangea is just about to turn white.

This plant grows on the far side of the house. It returns every year, and I’ve grown to like it. Is it a weed? I wonder, because it hasn’t spread and I don’t see it anywhere else on the property.

Those flowers will turn white soon.

It’s getting quite tall. Does anyone out there have any idea what this is? I’d sure love to know.

That being said, I’ve tried to be patient, but I’m starting to think my butterfly bush didn’t make it through the winter. I see a few leaves near the bottom, but I’m not sure whether they have anything to do with the actual bush. Do I yank it and buy another one? I would miss seeing all the butterflies who congregate there.

Questions, questions.

Happy Friday.

Beware of Shiny Objects

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Trump’s Executive Order is just a shiny object. Remember that. It has loopholes, and, in fact, Paul Ryan is bringing a bill to the floor of the House today that will allow for mass incarceration of immigrant families. Mass incarceration sounds pretty much like a concentration camp to me. Keep calling, my friends. I called my Representative (who I fervently pray gets voted out in November) this morning. And, there is no plan in place to reunite the children with their families. Parents have been deported, children have been moved to various parts of the county. How is a baby going to articulate his surname?

Trump’s MO: offer up something so egregious that any move on his part after that, no matter how substance-less, seems like a big improvement. I’m not buying it.

On to the garden:

The milkweed flowers are beginning to open.

Crown vetch, which used to spread all over the garden, is beginning to bloom. Crown vetch likes shade and when we lost a limb on the maple a couple of years ago, we lost the shade that the crown vetch thrived on. It’s still there in pockets of the garden, but not like it was.

I see a few bee balm flowers beginning to show themselves.

The bees are busy over in the spirea (and in the catmint.)

I mowed yesterday and am going to mow today as well. I have to get it done before the weekend, even though the grass isn’t all that long, because I might get stuck in jury duty next week. I’m hoping I’m not called or, if I’m called, it amounts to nothing. There’s a lot of my plate at the moment, not the least of which is that the show is ending in less than two weeks. I feel sadness creeping in, felt it last night, when I think of those lovely people, and the joyful experience they create every performance. I’ve never seen a nicer group of people and when I realized that when I watch the show on July 1st, it will be the last time I see them together, I cried. Don’s going to have to navigate a big change and although I can’t do it for him, I want to be there for him every step of the way.

Happy Thursday.

Lambs Like to Party

Lambs Like to Party

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