Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Mockingbird Hill Cottage

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Home Again

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The first of the bee balm has opened. I like seeing that splash of red in the garden.

I got home around 4 pm yesterday and immediately watered all the plants on the porch. While adding water to the birdbath, I myself was watered, as we had a sudden summer rain, seemingly out of nowhere.

As always, I was glad to be home. Home is the best.

I saw this little guy yesterday on the edge of the woods. He’s part of the dragonfly family, which is apparently much larger than I knew. Once I start googling these things, I find myself off on a learning adventure. So many different kinds of dragonflies!

And the first of the coneflowers have opened. I love coneflowers; to me, they are the perfect cottage garden flower.

Today? Guess.

If you guessed mowing, you are right.

And some grocery shopping and some reconnaissance. My dear friend Rick (I was at his retirement party a few weeks ago) and his husband Doug are considering a move back east. Both of them lived for years in NYC and they love the Hudson Valley as well. So they’re thinking about buying a house outside of NYC and also having a little pied-à-terre in the city. Yesterday, Rick emailed me about a property that happens to be very near our cottage, and we ended up talking about it via the phone for an hour or so. I told him I’d drive by and scope it out for him. And maybe, just maybe, I can meet with the agent who is going to look at it on Sunday and check it out for Rick and Doug. Obviously, Don and I would love to have them nearby – it would be wonderful. But even if they end up being an hour away somewhere in the Hudson Valley, it will be a heck of a lot closer than San Diego!

Happy Thursday.

Empty Nester

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I’m an empty nester.

I noticed that the robins were feeding those babies less frequently. The day before yesterday, one of the robins constantly cheeped at me, so I know there were still babies in the nest. Yesterday, in the morning, I heard one of the parents cheeping again and I looked outside to make sure there were no predators in the area. All was well.

Later in the day, I went out simply to see if I received a warning of some kind.

Silence. No mama. No papa.

So I went over to the nest to discover it was…empty.

They’ve fledged.

I imagine the cheeping I heard yesterday had to do with getting the last of the babies to fledge.

I got sad. I’d become used to the constant warnings from the mama and the papa. It was too darned quiet yesterday!

I found myself wondering, where are they now? Where did they go?

Sigh.

I’ve also noticed that the brown thrashers, who had a nest in the brambles/wild roses right outside the kitchen window, have disappeared. There was a period where I saw them all the time, getting worms from the ground, flying into the brambles, flying back out for more food.

It was just last week that I realized I hadn’t seen them recently.

They come. They make their nests. I get used to seeing them. And then they’re gone.

This is the way I feel when I start to see the bunnies less often, as well.

I feel like my little family has dispersed, they’ve left home.

I cannot tell you how steamy it is here. Yesterday (and today) I woke up to steamy windows and so much humidity! Yesterday it was 88° and felt like 96°. Today I had to flip on the A/C as soon as I got up. We are supposed to get storms later in the day. It feels like August instead of June!

Tomorrow, I head into Manhattan to watch a performance of Anastasia  and take notes, so I’m spending the night in the city.

Happy Monday.

Blooming and Buzzing

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On a cloudy, occasionally rainy day yesterday, I took this photo of the cottage to give you an idea of what is blooming on this side of the porch: red roses, hydrangea blossoms have opened, though they’re still green, and pink spirea is in full bloom.

I planted the spirea and the annabelle hydrangea at the same time, having no idea how big they would become!

The hydrangea has pushed the spirea outward and the spirea takes up a lot of real estate, as well.

See?

I like that, actually, because my favorite kind of garden is a cottage garden, not a manicured one.

Both the pink spirea and the catmint have constant bee activity. Once I got close to the spirea, I was amazed by how many bumble bees there were. They were everywhere!

One of the things I love about gardens and gardening is the discovery. In this case, the discovery of all this activity, the buzzing, the flitting from one blossom to another, that isn’t apparent until I stop and watch and listen. There’s a whole world going on there. We have all sorts of bees around here and I’m glad they’re thriving.

Very humid today with the possibility of thunderstorms and the same is on the docket for tomorrow. The driveway and lawn are littered with catalpa blossoms that are slowly falling from the tree. Even though the skies are gray, it’s awfully pretty around here.

Happy Sunday.

Lambs Like to Party

Lambs Like to Party

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