Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Life in our little cottage in the country

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A Quiet Sunday

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I’m going to find a photo that I took of the Boston fern early in the spring and pair it with a recent one. It’s once again full and beautiful and I’m thrilled.

I had a painful night with ongoing back issues. I ended up coming downstairs and sleeping in my chair. I think I’ll do that again tonight. The bed, for some reason, isn’t the best place for me right now. Today I will take it extremely easy as I’m determined to kick this issue to the curb. I’m over it. Don is taking portraits at the Farmer’s Market. Plus, he’s been taking care of me. And he’s been watering all the plants. To call him a gem is an understatement.

I don’t know how many of you saw this, but late in the day yesterday, Nancy left a comment here. She said she had a strong feeling that she should visit the blog. I don’t know the details yet and they might be private, but she said she’d send an email soon. Whatever the reason, I’m just so relieved to hear from her!

At one point in the day yesterday, I questioned whether I should have written the post. I contemplated deleting it. I’m glad I didn’t.

Good news! Thank you for all your caring and concerned comments. We are a community and I’m damned proud of us.

The antique dollhouse is back up on top of the china cabinet in the den. I’ve done all I’m going to do with it for the moment. We also wanted to use our kitchen table for eating once again!

That’s about it. I’m wiped out from the sleep and back problems, but I’m so grateful that I did get back to sleep last night. We had a big thunderstorm last night with lots of rain so Don won’t have to water the seedlings (morning glories, zinnias, etc.) Looks like a beautiful sunny day for the Farmer’s Market.

I can’t even address the horrific news from El Paso and Dayton except to say our real terrorism threat is homegrown: young white men. The GOP is bought and paid for by the NRA.

I’m sick of the whole damn thing.

Happy Sunday.

 

Worry

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Today’s theme: Bugs in the garden. I love to take pictures of them. Some of them are deliberate, others are accidental bug discoveries, only noticed when I examine the photo.

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One of the wonderful benefits of blogging is making friends, finding people that you wouldn’t know otherwise, discovering kindred spirits. I have been blessed with many wonderful followers over the years. In the course of 11 years of blogging, some followers have moved on. Maybe they don’t read blogs anymore. Maybe this particular blog no longer interests them. Maybe I pissed them off in some way. Who knows? I do know that there’s an ebb and flow to the whole thing – just as in non-virtual life.

At some point, I will register that I haven’t heard from so-and-so. In a few cases, I’ll write that person to make sure everything is okay because the lack of contact is unlike them and I worry.

That’s happened with one longtime follower recently. A while back, I realized that I hadn’t heard from her in ages, either here or on Instagram. And she is one of those followers who always leaves a comment. That concerned me. I found her email address and wrote her, not because she needs to comment, rather because the very lack of interaction from her concerned me enough to reach out and make sure she was okay. I wrote her on June 29th. I haven’t heard a thing. This week, I sent a direct message to her on Instagram. No response. She wrote on this blog as “nancybluemoon.” When I searched the comments on the blog, I discovered that the last comment she left was on April 15th.

I’m not sure what I can do other than what I’ve done. I have no other way to get hold of her. And I’m very worried.

We’re all connected here. Even if I haven’t actually met you face-to-face, we’re friends. And Nancy has been commenting here on the blog for years. Obviously, I’m concerned that something has happened to her.

I guess I’m sharing this with you because it’s been troubling me and I feel powerless. I know her last name, but a search on Google doesn’t provide any information.

Moving on is one thing, but disappearing from both the blog and Instagram is concerning, not responding to my email is concerning. The email didn’t bounce back to me, so the address is still valid.

I know you can’t do anything. I just need to share my concern with you today.

Thanks.

Happy Saturday.

Yarrow, Unwritten Rules & Scout

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For the second year in a row, yarrow has self-seeded in the corral and I’m happy with that. There are, I don’t know, maybe 20 different plants? Yarrow is wonderful. It’s sturdy and the blossoms last for a long time. This all began years ago when I planted yarrow in the big garden bed. It didn’t last long there for some reason. A few years later, I noticed a plant here and there on the property. And now, there is this wonderful cluster of blooms just beyond the entrance to the corral.

I think there are some unwritten rules about flowers – at least on my property. The first is that the moment peonies start to bloom, rain will fall. And it won’t be a soft rain, it will be the kind of rain that pummels the blooms to the ground. The second is this: as soon as the Catalpa trees are covered in blooms, a strong, all-day-long wind will come that sends hundreds of blossoms to the ground. Which is what happened yesterday.

Can I just say how sick I am of wind? It seems like every time we get a day of rain, a day of heavy winds will follow. Like friggin’ clockwork. We are so over them. Yesterday, both Don and I were left feeling edgy and unsettled by the winds, which were relentless.

Thank goodness, today is calm. Because we have to mow and that was impossible yesterday.

Those of you who follow me on Instagram will have seen this, but I know some of you aren’t on IG. A longtime reader of the blog, Grace, messaged me the other day to ask if she could post a drawing of Scout. Grace is a wonderful artist and the drawing was inspired by a picture I took of Scout galloping down the little hill outside the corral. She loved to do that and at the end of the gallop she would jump up and over the threshold of the kitchen door – just like a show horse. I can’t tell you how much we loved seeing her do that, especially as she got older and had trouble walking. Somehow, in that moment, she was young again.

I was so moved by the drawing. Grace perfectly captures an older, yet still feisty, Scout.

Isn’t it beautiful? Grace is on Instagram as @alightinglightly and I encourage you to look at her other creations. She is an animal lover like so many of us and her drawings are exquisite.

(That darned watermark! I hope it doesn’t look like I was the artist! It just happens automatically with my photo editing software.)

Thank you, dear Grace. Don and I just love this. That’s our girl!

Happy Saturday.

Lambs Like to Party

Lambs Like to Party

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