garden — Page 131

Empty Nester

June 19, 2017 at 9:37 am by Claudia

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

June 18, 2017 at 9:05 am by Claudia

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.

Thursday Thoughts

June 15, 2017 at 9:39 am by Claudia

In about three weeks, I’ll see my husband. I have yet to make the plane reservation but I’m planning on traveling sometime during the first few days of July. His show closes July 9th. Then, on the 10th, we’ll start out on our trip home.

And in the ‘we’re never home at the same time’ category, I found out that my next show at Hartford Stage starts rehearsals on August 11th. Sigh. I guess we’ll have about three weeks together here at the cottage. I’m, as always, grateful for the work, but not so entranced by another separation.

Taken about 6:30 this morning, as I was trying to get a good picture of the Catalpa blossoms:

The blossoms are everywhere. Since we’re due for rain on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I fear they won’t be with us much longer. The scent is wonderful. As I do my work outside, it hovers in the air. Beautiful.

Roses and roses and roses.

Each stage of the unfurling is beautiful. If I had the time, I’d park myself on a bench and take pictures throughout the day, capturing all the changes.

I mowed the front of the property yesterday. It was a beautiful day; low eighties with no humidity and sunny. Today, the corral and the back forty and I’ll be good to go for another week. Life seems to consist of checking the weather forecast and calculating when I will be able to mow.

Next week, I will be in Manhattan on Tuesday and Wednesday to do a little checking in on Anastasia and to work with a couple of the actors. Working with the actors is always a pleasure and seeing the show again will be lovely.

Do you ever find yourself wanting to say “I warned you” or “I told you so” when talking about the current state of things in the Oval Office? I do. (I’m only human.) There were so many warnings from so many people about what would most likely happen if he was elected. And it’s all coming true with an extra dollop of corruption, collusion and greed.

Those of us who live in or near NYC were on to him years ago. His corruption was well known – there’s a reason New Yorkers didn’t vote for him. As you know, I wrote about him over the course of four or five posts and certain readers were angry about that and stopped reading the blog.

He’ll be a less than one-term President. Let’s hope that happens sooner rather than later. There is too much at stake.

The shootings that happened yesterday – in Virginia and San Francisco – were tragic. My thoughts are with everyone involved. Violence and guns are never the answer to any problem.

Peace.

Happy Thursday.

Empty Nester

Blooming and Buzzing

Thursday Thoughts

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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