Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Life in our little cottage in the country

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The Beginning of the Change of Seasons

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The view as we drove home from getting vaccinated. Just around that curve and down the road a bit is the nursery where I get all my plants.

We did have mild reactions, by the way. Nothing terrible, just feeling a bit achy, and not-quite-right. But, we got both vaccines at the same time, something we normally don’t do. I was a bit off all day long, Anyway, I’m feeling better today, as is Don. That’s good, as he has a gig this afternoon.

I may mow. We’ll see.

It’s turned much cooler – yesterday felt positively fall-like. I’m happy about that as the summer was far from ideal and I’m ready to move on.

I still see one or two of the groundhogs, but not very often. The babies are no longer babies and have found their own homes. I’m relieved not to have to monitor the garden constantly, but I do miss their playful presence. I ran across the photos I took of them when they first emerged with their mom and I got sad. Ah, well. I rarely see any of the rabbits either.

The groundhogs will start to hibernate next month. Although I’m ready for fall, there’s always a bit of melancholy attached to the seasonal change into fall and then winter. Don and I were sitting on the glider during a break from mowing and I looked out at all the trees and the green leaves and reminded him that we had waited all winter and into the early spring to finally see some green out there. And soon that will be gone.

But for now, my brown-eyed susans are still in bloom, lots of wildflowers are blooming, but the coneflowers are fading. The giant zinnias are still hanging in there and so are the Rose of Sharon bushes, both of which have plenty of buds yet to open. (I never know which plant names to capitalize!)

Even this fading zinnia is beautiful, almost sculptural. Time to take a walk around the property and take some pictures.

Stay safe.

Happy Saturday.

Garden Surprises

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Garden surprises:

I thought this endless summer hydrangea was not going to bloom at all this year, There was absolutely nothing but leaves all summer long. But a week or so ago, I noticed two blooms developing. And here we are.

Never give up, I guess!

And yesterday, as I was walking by the memorial garden, I thought I spotted something. I quickly went back and way up in the garden behind another plant was a tiny rose. I had a little bush up there that had died. In fact, I removed most of it – all of it, I thought. But there, in its place, was a tiny plant with some leaves and this:

An unexpected delight!

It’s been such a strange summer for the gardens and the trees. As I write this, it’s raining again. We had to snatch the opportunity to mow yesterday because a dry day is rare around here. Once again, the grass had grown way too long because it rains every day so we can’t mow. Mowing was exhausting, as we had to constantly stop to remove the grass that was clogging the chute. We might resort to cutting that section of the front lawn more frequently so we don’t have deal with so much tall grass. Of course, you can only do that if it doesn’t rain.

The good news: after today, we have over a week of dry weather in the forecast.

Woke up at 4:30 am this morning. So did Don. The a/c had shut off because I forgot to put it on the correct setting, It was too warm for me. Don says it wasn’t too warm for him, he just happened to wake up too early. Needless to say, we’re tired and a wee bit cranky this morning.

The enormity of the losses in Morocco and Libya is heartbreaking, I can’t stop thinking about these horrific tragedies within days of each other. Those poor people. We are seeing the evidence of climate change in hurricanes, fires, floods, drought, excessive temperatures (I’m sure I’m leaving something out of this list.) What kind of world are we leaving behind? And what are we doing about it? Not enough, and whatever we do now may be too late.

I’m in such a dark mood this morning that I could go on and on about the state of the world and our country. But I’ll stop there. Older and, hopefully, wiser.

Sometimes.

Stay safe.

Happy Wednesday.

Sunset, Garden Update & Painting

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The sunset Wednesday evening:

I’ve always loved that combination of a blue, blue sky and pink clouds.

We mowed the front lawn yesterday. Today, we take a day off from our mowing duties to recover. Tomorrow, the corral and back forty. The grass is still growing as if it’s spring, not fall. I’m not sure when it will slow up. But we do have a stretch ahead of us with no rain. Yes, no rain until next Friday. Whatever will we do?

A deer has eaten the tops off all the milkweed plants, which is problematic because that’s where the seed pods develop. In fact, I think he ate the pods. I can see only two plants that have retained their pods, so I’m hoping they’ll distribute enough seeds for more plants next year.

He’s also chomped on my coleus in the secret garden, which is so secret that he sneaks in there without me noticing. But at this point, I no longer care, just as I no longer do any weeding. Well, I do a little, but not much.

As to the garden, some little bits of information – despite my worry about the deer chomping on the David phlox and a bush or two, every plant recovered and new blooms formed. And the calibrachoa that lives in an urn on the porch and was eaten by a groundhog also came back and is in full bloom. My lesson from this is to refrain from getting too upset by these things. Though it’s frustrating, mother nature always tends to heal and restore.

The phlox is still in bloom, though waning a bit. The coneflowers are still purple and white, but they’re starting to look pretty tired. The brown-eyed susans are still going strong, even though they bloomed earlier than usual this year. My Annabelle hydrangea is looking downtrodden and the blooms are turning brown – the rain did a big number on that bush. The limelight hydrangea is beginning to turn pink. The spirea is in its second bloom. And my two Rose of Sharons have provided an endless supply of blooms. I think there are only a few buds yet to open but I’m so grateful for their big flowers and their height. They are in the memorial garden and boy, have they enriched that particular space! Tall zinnias are still opening in one of the beds – a late summer gift. My small hydrangea (endless summer) had absolutely NO blooms until about a week ago. And even then, only two. Go figure.

And the porch plants are still going strong. It’s not too long before I’ll be bringing them in at night because of a freakishly early frost warning. And then the dance will begin until I finally accept the arrival of cold weather and regretfully let them go.

I’m in the middle of a painting – still very much a work in progress.

The inspiration is a photo I took in one of our favorite places, the Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris. There’s still a lot more to go, but it’s been fun. Every painting is a learning experience, especially for an amateur like me.

Last night, we watched one of my favorite movies ever – the 1939 version of Stagecoach, directed by John Ford, and starring a cast of incredible actors, including a young John Wayne (before he became a bit of a caricature – he’s so good in this) Claire Trevor, Thomas Mitchell, John Carradine and a host of great supporting actors. We often google the actors before we close up and go to bed and some research on Claire Trevor (who breaks my heart in this movie, she’s so good) showed a picture of her standing before an easel with a paintbrush in her hand. A portrait was on the easel. Sure enough, she was a painter and had studied art as a young woman. When she was older she had more time to paint. An old Architectural Digest profile showed her Manhattan apartment with portraits she had painted hanging on her walls, including one of Virginia Woolf and a young Pablo Picasso.

She was really, really talented! She also supported the arts, so much so that the University of California, Irvine named their school of the arts The Claire Trevor School of the Arts. It focuses on the performing and visual arts.

She lived to be 90 years old. I’ve always been a big fan but the discovery of her paintings is an added bonus.

I’m surging ahead with War and Peace, no longer simply reading a chapter a day. I’ll probably finish by the end of September. I’m also back to The Deptford Trilogy, reading the second book in the trilogy – The Manticore. I have six books on order from the library, some of which won’t even be published until later this month.

Stay safe.

Happy Friday.

 

Lambs Like to Party

Lambs Like to Party

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