life — Page 76

Birds, Oils, & Memories

July 19, 2021 at 9:39 am by Claudia

A view from the kitchen window. If they haven’t hatched yet, I expect babies to emerge pretty darned soon. Thankfully, the rain has stopped. I’m happy not only for us and our water-logged property and for those who live in the Hudson Valley who have experienced flooding, but also for mama robin. She could use a break.

Finally, a day without a flash flood, flood, severe thunderstorm, or heat advisory warning – at several points we had all of those warnings at the same time.

Working on the next painting. I considered this basket vase a while back but concluded that the handle was a bit too complicated for me. I’m still tweaking everything, of course, and have lots of detail to add.

This morning, while making our second cup of coffee, I saw this card tacked to our bulletin board:

I saved it because it holds such happy memories.

Four years ago, after a somewhat late start, we started on our trip home from California – in our CR-V – where Don had been performing Escape to Margaritaville in La Jolla. That first leg on our journey was magical. We headed north through Orange County, then Los Angeles County, saw Stella for the first time, stopped in Santa Monica and swam in the ocean in the very late afternoon, and headed up the Pacific Coast Highway. We had no idea where we would stop for the night, but we knew we were very, very hungry.

As we drove through Malibu, our search for a good place to stop and have some dinner grew more and more frustrating. We finally found a little place called Gravina, an Italian restaurant. We had no idea whether it would be good or bad, but we were desperate. It turned out to be one of the best meals we’ve ever had. It was late, there weren’t that many people there, it was intimate and lovely and way more expensive than we’d planned. But we went for it and, oh my goodness, it’s such a strong memory for us. I’m thinking of all of these things as we prepare to say goodbye to the CR-V – hopefully, at some point this week. I’ll write a separate post about that car, a car that took us eastward on a new journey in our life.

I’ll miss her. When I stop and write even a little about her, I start to cry. I’m going to take some pictures of her today.

Stay safe.

Happy Monday.

Black Swallowtail

July 18, 2021 at 9:16 am by Claudia

This gorgeous black swallowtail hung around these coneflowers for several hours yesterday. Before the torrential rain came. As many times as I’ve seen them, I hadn’t noticed that the body had dots. Mother Nature is the best artist. Ever.

I’d like to thank this beauty for being so fixated on the flowers that I was able to get several photos.

We had unbelievable amounts of rain yesterday, starting off with a huge – and I mean huge – thunderstorm in the afternoon. It seemed to last forever, you could barely see through the sheets of rain, lots and lots of thunder and lightning. And then we had another one a couple of hours later – tons of thunder again. And then more heavy rain overnight.

I have had my fill, thank you very much. However, we have more in store today, so pardon me while I emerge from the cottage during the thick of it and let out a primal scream.

Mostly, I worry about mama robin. I mean, she had to have been bombarded by heavy, heavy rain. There she is, this morning, sitting on the eggs. The eggs, which, if I have counted correctly, should be hatching any minute. I pray for the safety of mama and her babies.

As Don said, she doesn’t look for praise, she doesn’t have any ego in it, she just does what her instincts tell her to do, and she is totally committed. Hero.

I started another Elly Griffiths but, as I read the first chapter which had some updates referring to what was the previous case, I realized I’d missed one of the books, as I’m reading them in order. I relied on a website which had the wrong information. Nevertheless, I will continue and then catch up with the book I missed.

I started another painting. I usually spend a couple of days trying to get the correct outline of the shape of that particular piece of pottery. After gazing at it this morning while having coffee with Don, I see that some tweaking needs to be done, so I’ll do that today.

Other than that, life is peaceful here at the cottage. We are content and at this point in my life, content is everything.

Thanks so much for clicking on Don’s bio! You’re the best.

Stay safe.

Happy Sunday.

The Scamp

July 17, 2021 at 9:37 am by Claudia

We mowed the front lawn and the back forty yesterday. Even though it was relatively early in the morning, it was so hot and humid that we were drenched by the time we finished. But we knew we had to get it done before the weekend, which is going to involve a lot of rain and thunderstorms.

I always love looking at the lawn after it’s just been mowed. Everything that wasn’t an early bloomer is blooming in the garden now. The brown-eyed susans just started opening. July in the garden is the best. By August, things will start winding down, but let’s not go there yet.

Anyway, we worked very hard and we were pooped for the rest of the day. I also yanked some weeds while I was at it.

This morning as I was sitting in the den, I heard a little noise on the porch. Couldn’t see anything. But I got up to investigate and sure enough, our little groundhog had been exploring. And by little, I do mean little, this one is on the petite side. He apparently felt rather scampish this morning because he was soon heading toward the edge of the big flower bed, where he munched on some weeds. When he got up on his hind legs and started to investigate a coneflower, I opened the door and told him to move on. At one point this morning, I heard Don say “What is he doing?” Apparently our unnamed groundhog had climbed up on the bench on the funky patio, where I have two pots of lavender and a brush that I use to clean out the birdbath. Don told me the groundhog actually put the brush in his paws and held it up! Boy, I wish I’d been able to get a photo of that!

We actually don’t see him very often and we’ve remarked on that. So this morning’s frolics were unexpected and amusing.

Because of all that activity, I had to go outside a couple of times, so I gave in and yanked some more weeds. In this unbearably humid weather, early morning is the best time to do that kind of thing and I often forget to.

Still haven’t begun a new painting. See: exhausted from mowing.

Hey, I have a favor to ask of you. We’ve noticed that when we google Don’s name, that box that appears on to the right of all the search results sometimes shows something from Rotten Tomatoes, which is a film site. And it says, “Don Sparks was…” We’ve written them several times about that and I finally got a response from a guy who said that their data provider always uses the passive tense. And that, despite Rotten Tomatoes challenging that, they won’t change. I investigated the passages on Meryl Streep and Harrison Ford, and sure enough, they are also in the passive tense. The problem on Don’s is that the third word is ‘was’ which most people would assume means that he is no longer with us.

So, we are wondering if clicking on Don’s IMDB site a few times would, in Google’s “mind,” make that a more active result for Don and eventually eliminate the Rotten Tomatoes reference. I hope this makes sense. Anyway, if you’re willing, you could search “Don Sparks” or “Don Sparks, actor” and when the IMDB site comes up, click on it. I’m going to do that several times today.

We just don’t want anyone to think he’s left us.

Sigh.

Thanks in advance.

Today, some painting, finally, and a lot of rain.

Stay safe.

Happy Saturday.

Birds, Oils, & Memories

Black Swallowtail

The Scamp

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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