Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Life in our little cottage in the country

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Heading On Out

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As I write this post late in the afternoon on Wednesday, Don is mowing the lawn. Now, I love mowing the lawn, but I have to say that I’m awfully tired at this point in the day because I’ve been on the go since early this morning, running errands, packing up bags of stuff, buying groceries and sundries, walking around the garden to imprint it in my memory, as I prepare to leave for Hartford.

I’ll be gone five weeks, but fear not, I plan to come back home to visit – hopefully, in a week and a half. I want to see my husband, the cottage, and the garden. Mostly, I want to spend as much time with Don as I can before he leaves for month of rehearsals in NYC.

Current hollyhock status. This is such a pretty version of this old-fashioned flower.

Morning glories.

Our very tall butterfly bush. Can you see the orb in the photo?

Zinnia.

The limelight hydrangea is so much bigger this year!

Big, fat hydrangea heads. My annabelle hydrangea blooms earlier in the year and by this point it’s beaten down by the heavy rains we’ve had, so it’s nice to have a second chance with the limelight.

Our local guy who tends our oil burner and does the plumbing came by today to check out where to set up the propane tank and to take a look at a section of the baseboard heating that I wanted trimmed. It extended into the area of the wall where the stove will be so I got down on the floor and checked it out a few weeks ago. Happily, the pipe that comes up from below the floor is actually under the window about 5 inches in from the end cap, so I thought it would be easy to trim off some of the housing and move the end cap over so that it doesn’t restrict the placement of the stove.

So, Gino came over (I wasn’t here) said the placement of the tank would be okay and to code (it has to be 5 feet away from any windows and we have a lot of windows!) and then looked at the baseboard heating, worried for a moment about the pipe and whether the pipe would have to be moved, and then confirmed what I already was pretty sure of, that it would be no problem. When Don told me that, I smiled knowingly.

As we get closer to the arrival of the stove (I don’t think they’ve finished working on it yet) Gino will come over and take care of everything, then he’ll  connect the line to the stove.

Gosh, I hope all this happens while Don is still here! He has to get several of his friends to come over to move the stove into the house. The shippers just leave it on the driveway. I’d feel better if he was handling it. Fingers crossed.

Okay. Have to go.

I’ll see you on the other side when I’ve arrived in Hartford.

Happy Thursday.

Flowers, Shakespeare, Storms and China

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Now, doesn’t that put a smile on your face?

Act Two: check. Act Three today.

I managed to mow the front lawn and the corral amidst sounds of thunder before this rolled in:

This was seriously stormy weather, with lightning and really loud cracks of thunder. It came and departed pretty quickly, however, and gave my gardens some much-needed rain. More on the way tomorrow and Saturday.

As per usual lately, there’s too much to do and too little time to do it in! As I sit here drinking my coffee, I’m a tad overwhelmed by it all. But I’ll make my lists and have at it.

I forgot to show you this. I glued the pieces together the other day. The stray piece doesn’t fit yet, so I’m waiting for the discovery of more pieces so that this little guy has a home.

Sigh. The garden is so pretty right now. I’m really loving it. And the scent of the phlox is quite intense.

Coneflowers, phlox, bee balm – the perfect plants for a cottage garden.

My friends Rick and Doug sold their house in San Diego in four days. They’re moving out here by the end of October.

We can’t stand it, we’re so excited! One of my oldest, dearest friends is going to live only a few miles away. Truth is stranger than fiction.

Happy Thursday.

Text Work, Subtasks, Butterflies & Bugs

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Act One of Midsummer: check. Today, Act Two.

The eventual delivery of the O’Keefe & Merritt stove has set up all sorts of subtasks. Isn’t that always the way?

Cleaning under and behind the stove. Cleaning the walls. Deciding to paint the wall before the stove arrives so we don’t have to move the stove for future painting. Picking out a paint color. Deciding I need to paint the trim around the windows as well. Don picked up the yellow paint yesterday, along with the primer. I need to buy some TSP and trim paint today.

Don came in the house yesterday and told me that he had decided that we needed to open up access to the back of the house, where the propane tank will be. So we opened up the fence, then we assessed the area directly behind the kitchen and decided we needed to pull all those weeds and perhaps put some gravel down so that there will be a flatter surface for whatever we put the tank on. Which means I may have to buy some gravel. And Don bought some pavers to make a little path in that area.

Then, as we stood outside, I asked Don if he thought it would be a good idea to take down the fence that we originally put up to keep Scout in the lower part of the corral when she began to have difficulty walking. At first, he said no because he considered it part of the Memorial Garden, but then he rethought the whole thing and we took it down.

It looks so much better! We reminded ourselves that our memories of that section of the fence are not happy ones, as Scout often fell there when she lost her balance in her final days. The memorial garden is not the fence, it’s the plants and the ribbons and the prayer flags.

I tracked this beauty to the butterfly bush, late yesterday afternoon. Since he was completely absorbed in the blossoms, I was able to snap a few pictures.

Beautiful.

Then, as I was walking around the house, I saw these tiny bugs on the milkweed plants.

Aren’t they incredible? The markings and colors are beautiful!

A closer look. I’ve just identified it. It’s a candy-striped leafhopper. They’re pesky little eaters that often feed on plant sap. I’ve never seen them before!

But they’re pretty.

I’m off to make another list. I leave a week from tomorrow, which is too soon.

Happy Wednesday.

Lambs Like to Party

Lambs Like to Party

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