Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Mockingbird Hill Cottage

You are here: Home / Archives for flowers

Friday Musings

at by

I planted some calibrachoa and lantana in this galvanized container. It sits on the Funky Patio, which is looking a lot neater since I took this picture as I weed whacked yesterday. I really love the calibrachoa because it quickly takes off and spills over the sides of the planter.

Plus, cheery colors!

I woke up too early this morning, feeling edgy with my mind going a mile a minute. My eyelids feel gritty, as it was awfully windy yesterday and I mowed and weed whacked and trimmed and pruned, giving all the pollen floating around ample opportunity to irritate my eyes.

I’m close to finishing Lee Child’s latest and that will mark a ‘back to fiction’ victory. I’m going to start another book immediately. I have to. I can’t watch the news without feeling like my head is going to explode. I have to turn it off. I have reached a stress level that needs to be contained and quieted. Nevertheless, I’m making phone calls.

Meanwhile, bravo to the New York State Attorney General! Bring it on! (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, google it. It will come up very quickly.)

I’m headed over to Milne Antiques and Design this morning because I want to purchase one more outdoor chair. Rebekah (the owner) is going to take me to their warehouse! The chair will go in the secret garden area behind the kitchen or up on the back forty. Maybe it will alternate between both sites, depending on my mood. I quite like the idea of another ‘room’ out there, where I can sit and read and not be seen.

The black raspberries are coming.

Happy Friday.

Cast of Creatures

at by

I’m trying to figure out just how many of my little groundhog friends are hanging around the property. There is one, I know, that lives on my neighbor’s property. I see him running back home occasionally.

There’s Henry, of course.

Then there are these two:

The young scamp on the right and an older groundhog on the left. The older one reminds me of Henry, but that’s not Henry’s coloring. Is it his wife, Henrietta? I think these guys are the same two who were playing together the other day.

Then there’s this guy:

We’ve named him Nigel.

Then there are the bunnies and the birds and some creature who got in our trash can the other day.

Whoopi Goldberg saw the show yesterday afternoon. She’s a close friend of one of the cast members. Don got the chance to chat with her and he really loved her. She said, as so many, many others have said, that the show she saw had absolutely no resemblance to the show the NY Times reviewer described. We all know that, but it’s nice to hear it confirmed by Whoopie. And then she said “F**k the critics!”

The exact same words I’ve used many times. I may put it on a T-shirt.

The hydrangeas are getting bigger by the day. Soon there will be fluffy white blossoms everywhere.

The catalpa in bloom. It’s very, very breezy today, so I’m thinking a lot of those blossoms will be on the ground by the end of the day.

Mowing is on the docket for today. And some weeding. And some reading. And some biscuits, which I made yesterday.

Happy Thursday.

 

Flowering, Reading

at by

At the very beginning of spring, I noticed feathery leaves growing in the corral. They looked a lot like yarrow. I have some yarrow that self-seeded growing in the chicken wire fence garden, where I plant morning glories and zinnias. So I waited and watched them grow and when it came time to start mowing, I mowed around them.

Yep. It’s yarrow. I’ve tried to take a picture that shows you how beautiful they look in the corral, but try as I might, I can’t get one. This is the best I can do at the moment.

There are more plants growing along the fence line.

It’s like I suddenly have a mini-meadow. I hope they come back next year.

The lavender that I potted is quite tall now and flowers have started to appear.

The catalpa is in bloom. I’m sure the other catalpas up in the woods are also in bloom, I just haven’t seen them yet. I was on the porch yesterday and the scent of the flowers wafted my way. Heavenly.

It got windy later in the day and there are a lot of flowers on the ground. Today, we’re due for some rain and storms. And then there will be more flowers on the ground. Short lived, these blooms. I can’t rescue them, they don’t do well in a vase, but I’ll rescue my peonies if necessary.

Isn’t that a beautiful flower?

Rose update (these blooms last about two days, by the way.)

I mowed yesterday because it has to be done. I did pretty well and am feeling a bit better. There’s still more mowing to be done, but I’m pacing myself. I’m also reading the latest Lee Child on my iPad. A novel. I’ve been on such a long stretch of not being able to concentrate on anything other than nonfiction, so this makes me happy.

Meredith uses her iPad all the time and that’s what inspired me to dig mine out the other day. It had been so long that I had forgotten that I had my Kindle books downloaded there. It has a bigger screen than my Kindle (where that little piece of technology is at the moment, I have no idea) and I think it’s easier to read. Anyway, I was inspired to visit Amazon and I downloaded a few books, one of which was Lee Child’s latest Jack Reacher, which was published last November. I’ve read all of them, but hadn’t read that one. Lee Child’s style is so straight-forward. It’s in the first person and Jack Reacher is no-nonsense, so it isn’t so heavily written that I might drift away, if you know what I mean. I’m more than halfway through. Maybe this will be the breakthrough I need.

I can’t even talk about what is happening to our country and our moral standing in the world, or the cages in which immigrants are being held, or the separation of children from their parents. ICE equals Gestapo. Each day brings more assaults on the principles we hold dear, the compassion we should hold dear, the rule of law – much of it being done by ‘faux’ Christians. We won’t even get into the glorification of murderous dictators. Call your Reps. Demand change. And vote.

I need an escape. I swear, there are times I’d like to move to Canada. My mom was born there. Three out of my four grandparents were born there. Maybe I could just slip across the border?

Just kidding. Sort of.

Alternatively, living off the grid sounds increasingly tempting. And that is something I’m not kidding about.

Sigh. Anyway, if I write about it, I get more angry and I need to stay calm. Breathe deep.

Happy Wednesday.

Lambs Like to Party

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

Thanks for visiting! Feel free to browse, read and enjoy. All content is my own; including photos and text. Please do not use anything on this site without permission.

Disclosure/Privacy Policy can be found in the Navigation Bar under ‘About MHC.’

Also, I love receiving comments! I do, however, reserve the right to delete any comment that is in poor taste, offensive or is verging on spam. It’s my blog. If you’re a bot or a troll you’ll be blocked. Thanks!

Archives