Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Mockingbird Hill Cottage

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Leaving On A Jet Plane

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This morning finds me feeling sad and emotional. I’m headed back to San Diego today. My little break with the family is almost over. Now I am looking at another 2 1/2 months away from my loved ones. These past ten days have been wonderful; but now I look at my dogs’ sweet faces and wonder how they’ll cope with me being gone again. Don says that Riley has been like a different dog since I’ve been back. Will he become depressed again? Scout is lying at my feet as I type this; how will she do? I love them so ~ they are my children. I absolutely hate being away from them.

Don is blue, I am blue – can I just say that I will never do this again? By this, I mean being gone from my loved ones for such a long time. I travel for my work off and on and I don’t mind being away for a few weeks. But not this long again. Ever.

Scout is feeling better. Her blood work came back clean and we are grateful. Both dogs have had Lyme disease and Scout’s levels are still high, so she will go back on antibiotics. Both dogs will take a joint health supplement and we have some Rimadyl for days when one or the other feels sore. (Riley has hip problems.)

My plans to have hanging pots on the porch and pots planted were dashed by a lack of plants at our local greenhouse. Makes sense, since I am doing all this about 3 weeks earlier than usual. So Don and I have decided he will go to the greenhouse in about 2 weeks, take camera photos of the hanging plants, send them to me, and I will choose the “appropriate” plant. But my pots, my window boxes….they will remain empty until July. I’m not happy, but what can I do?

This morning we are getting a new storm door for the front door. This house has no storm doors and we’ve been wanting some since we moved in. I persuaded husband that it would be especially nice this spring and summer. So, first the front door – next month, the side door!

I snapped this photo of the light from the skylight hitting my quilt the other morning. Lovely.

Have a wonderful day. I’ll be blogging from Mockingbird Hill Cottage West when next we meet.

Around the House

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I’ve been mulching, mulching and mulching some more. I’m doing a lot of things in the garden that I would normally do a few weeks from now. Since I’m leaving for San Diego on Wednesday, I don’t have that luxury. The beds have been cleaned out, the mulch is spread, the plants are emerging, the hose has been hooked up, the glider has pillows ~ tomorrow I will buy some hanging plants and plant some pots for the porch. I’m holding off until then because we have another cold night tonight. After that, the rest of the week looks warmer. Oh, I will miss working in my garden this spring. This is my favorite time of year, and I love nothing more than walking through the garden checking on my plants, watering, weeding ~ everything. I’m embarrassed to say it, but I get teary at the thought of being away from all this.

Thought I’d share something we did to make the porch safer for the dogs. The open arch leading onto the porch is lovely, but we knew it needed a gate or some way to close it off so that the dogs could spend time on the porch. Neither of us was up to building a gate or even knew how to. We bought a small section of picket fence from Lowe’s that was in the clearance section.


We tried propping it against the posts, but then I bought these and attached them to the posts.

Now we just slip the “gate” right into these and all is secure. Plus, the picket fence suits the look of our porch, don’t you think?


More later.

I’m as corny as…

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We’re having a lovely Saturday weather-wise. After yesterday’s storms, we woke up to a rare August day of sun and low humidity. The dogs got their walk, some mowing was done, I worked at the store, my husband got to play some guitar on the porch – and we going to have another meal of fresh sweet corn-on-the-cob. Nothing is better than fresh corn in August! (You have to understand that I’m a girl who cut out a photo of corn-on-the-cob slathered in butter, along with another photo of a baked potato with butter and put them on the bulletin board in my freshman dorm room. Now this was many, many years ago; dorm food was pretty terrible – basically starch and badly cooked starch at that. A girl like me pined for good home-cooked food!) Anyway, I digress…dinner and the Olympics are on the docket for tonight. I plan to crochet away on my project and enjoy the competition.

I hope you all saw the opening ceremonies – they were simply the best I have ever seen. Spectacular! Impeccable and brilliantly conceived and executed. All I can say, even now, is Wow!

More later.

Lambs Like to Party

Lambs Like to Party

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