I’m a bit under the weather and have been for the past few days with sinus/allergies. So today, unlike the past few days, I’m going to take it easy. Don went to pick up our groceries yesterday and we still had not heard from the store about what was in stock, etc. He didn’t get the text until he was well on his way there – half the time, they text me instead – so we didn’t get some things we wanted and Don made some dubious substitutions. So he ended up going to our local supermarket anyway. The whole affair, getting groceries, disinfecting, etc., took far longer than we had planned.

So, it’s back to just going in person to the darned store. Yesterday was a day when I found everything hard. Just plain hard. And I tried to explain it to Don later in the day and ended up crying. I finally realized that, in addition to feeling unwell (I also pulled a muscle near my neck), I was experiencing a delayed reaction to the loss of our tree, the pruning of other trees (our big maple needed it, but it doesn’t look the same anymore) and all of the activity on our property this week. So I cried it out and felt a bit better.

This morning:

Two more Rose of Sharon blossoms opened.

Yesterday:

Don found this old bottle on the property. He also found two large liquor bottles, but I haven’t taken a picture of them yet.

In addition, remember the white pottery I found on the other side of the house when I was digging out the garden bed under the kitchen sink window? You may not, but this photo might refresh your memory. Don found another piece way over on the other side of the property:

That gold design is raised. I have several other smaller pieces, but none yet that have any indication of the makers mark.

I’ve found several pieces of pottery on the property over the past 15 years – one is a fragment of a yellow Harlequin plate by Homer Laughlin, several ironstone shards, a green handle from a teacup, and the most amazing find (I pray I find the rest of it someday) very old pieces of transferware from the 1830s that I glued together.

A reader named Michelle helped with this mystery – it was made by Enoch Wood & Sons, a company that was in business in the 1830s but not any later than that. Part of their Belzoni series, named after a famous Egyptologist. I would love, love, love to find more pieces.

We’re also obsessed with ‘mudlarking’ the process of scavenging for treasures in river mud. There are a lot of mudlarkers in Britain that we follow on Instagram – especially those who work along the Thames.

There’s a book out by one of them and we’re going to order it.

Maybe we’re Mockingbird Hill Cottage Mudlarkers…

Stay safe.

Happy Sunday.

I told Don I feel like a hermit who had to go through an encounter with other human beings (even a nice one, such as with our tree guys) and must now retreat from society. The day with all the tree cutting activity and the necessary interactions with the guys left me feeling exhausted and longing to retreat back into my little compound here at Mockingbird Hill Cottage. That really hit home with me when we drove to a neighboring town yesterday to pick up a book order. We had been working on cleaning up the property right before we left, and the drive was lovely, but I was tired. We got out of the car walked through the town, picked up the books, and when we had circled back, Don said “Let’s go home.” Even the little trip and the chance to walk on sidewalks didn’t do it for us. All we wanted to do was go home and stay home.

Is this the new normal? Am I becoming a hermit of sorts? I don’t know. But as we watched some of Rachel Maddow last night, a segment in which she spoke of Orange Man’s new Coronavirus advisor – a guy with no background in epidemiology, by the way – who thinks ‘herd immunity’ is the way to go, really hit home. She mentioned that the elderly are impacted by younger family members and by trips to the supermarket where they interact with all ages and I turned to Don and said, “Let’s order our groceries online. Now.”

We had been planning on taking a trip to our local supermarket. But somehow, this whole week, which has been an intense one for us, including Don’s visit to the doctor, has been too much and we cannot contemplate any sort of interaction with another human being.

So Don is going to retrieve the groceries around noon.

Does this make any sense to you? It’s where I am this morning.

Our books. Love the sticker, which says: Small Town Heroes Shop Local.

I have a Jane Gardam in there, Old Filth. Don has another Maggie O’Farrell.

This little town is proudly displaying Black Lives Matter signs. And signs like this one:

It does my heart good to see this. To remember there is good in the world, though it can be hard to find during these times.

Okay. I hope you are having a restful holiday weekend. We plan to do the same.

Stay safe.

Happy Saturday.

Yesterday was a long day, with a lot of activity. We’re ready for a quiet weekend, though it will certainly be filled with the sound of motorcycles, especially as it’s Labor Day weekend. Cyclists love to use this road and do it frequently. Last Sunday, there were hundreds of cycles going up and down this road and I thought I might go mad.

Anyway, back to the trees, which was the focus yesterday. The three guys who were the crew for the day were great. This is a small, family-owned business focused not only on the removal of trees but on saving trees. The owner and his son are arborists. When they arrived they had two big trucks, one armed with a basket used to reach the higher parts of the trees, one with the wood chipper attached, and a little vehicle that had been dropped off the day before. They used that little vehicle all over the place, it had a scoop that could pick up big logs. Unfortunately, we’re going to have to tamp down the tread marks it made all over the former corral and beyond. There was no helping this, as we’d had a lot of rain in the previous 48 hours. But, no ruts on the front lawn, which was our biggest concern. They managed to prune the big maple from the area where we usually park my car, instead of driving on the lawn.

They arrived about 9:20, and by 11:00 they had completely removed the part of the large maple that fell during the hurricane – and it was huge  – and had also taken down the two dead ash trees. We couldn’t believe how quickly they worked. They also saw that there were a couple of trees that had previously fallen up in the back forty and they asked if we wanted to get rid of them. Yes! So they did.

They charge a day rate and everything that can get done during that time is done, and that includes pruning. They pruned the big maple by the house, removing branches that were covering the porch roof and coming perilously close to the chimney. They removed dead branches within the tree and pruned some of the low hanging branches to relieve some of the weight. They were completely responsive to my desire to leave some shade for the hosta bed near the porch and they honored that. I had them remove a long limb that arched over the big garden and only had leaves on the very end because I always feared it would fall either on the garden or on my car. They pruned the catalpa. They pruned the other half of the maple that was remained standing. Parts of the half that fell were rotten by the way. They removed a broken branch on the maple that is on the other side of the house and then proceeded to prune it beautifully. And then, because they finished earlier than expected, they took down the remaining parts of the long dead shag hickory that is down on the corner of our property. We had asked them to but then we thought they might want to finish early so we said they didn’t have to, but they insisted on it.

They were amazing, so good natured, and so willing to listen to our concerns and input. They were out of here by 3:20. So they were here for 6 hours, minus an hour lunch break. They did all that work and cleaned everything up in five hours. There are still some big logs here and the owner is going to come and get them.

Much of this is stuff we’ve known we had to deal with for many years and we always made the choice to postpone it, usually because of available funds, sometimes because I couldn’t bear to see trees cut down or pruned. We had the weeping willow taken down years ago but that was because its roots had invaded our septic system. Our hand was forced when that massive half of the maple fell. Money is still a major issue, but it was well spent. These guys were fabulous and our property and the trees we love so much will be, are, the better for it.

It looks so much better around here. We have some cleanup to do; wood chips in the garden, tread marks in the corral, but really, all my fears were for naught. We would heartily recommend this company to anyone.

And the icing on the cake was totally unexpected. When the guys wanted to back their big truck into the space right by the funky patio, they (and Don) moved the birdbath, the chairs, the planters, etc. next to the house. After they left, Don and began to move everything back. We lugged the heavy base for the birdbath back into position. Then we went back and carried the bath over to the base. I saw something green hanging from it, but I thought it was a leaf. It wasn’t until we got it into position that I noticed what it really was:

It’s a monarch chrysalis! The first one I’ve ever found here on the property; in fact the first one I’ve ever seen in real life. I am absolutely sure I wouldn’t have noticed if if we hadn’t moved the birdbath because I don’t look underneath as a rule and it’s relatively tiny. Was it the caterpillar I saw the other day? Who knows? Anyway, I was so, so thrilled to see it. You can bet I will be observing it daily. What a miracle.

Today is an impossibly beautiful day and we’re going to do some work outside and then we are going to make that little drive to our neighboring town to pick up a couple of books we ordered. We’ll actually walk down some streets!

Stay safe.

Happy Friday.