Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Life in our little cottage in the country

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Fallen Blossoms

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The catalpas have just bloomed and there are already tons of blossoms on the ground. Between the wind and the pounding rain and thunderstorms, they haven’t had a chance.

Let me just get this out and I’ll shut up: I am so sick of this weather. It’s been unbearably hot and humid for several days. I thought it was supposed to break last night, but no, we have yet another day of this before it moves on out. More thunderstorms predicted for today, heat indexes in the nineties.

I do not do well in this weather, which is why I could never live in the south.

Okay. Enough of that.

Don’s appointment went well yesterday. We ran a few errands on the way home; the natural foods store in town and one of the two art shops in the same town, which is just north of us. I’m sure we’re blessed with two such shops because it’s a college town. I hadn’t been inside the shop since last year and when I was there before, I was picking up Tombow markers. This time, however, I was buying oil paint so I explored an entire section that wasn’t on my radar during past visits. (It’s also the same shop where we had our vintage French lithograph framed.) Lots and lots of oil paints from many different manufacturers. I picked up a few tubes, along with a small sketchbook, and then had a lovely conversation with the woman behind the counter which was all about…you guessed it…oil paint and slow-drying acrylics, which she really loves.

I bought some paint at Michaels a few weeks ago, but I’d much rather do business with the small independent art supply shops in town. And I’m going to do that from now on.

Had a dreadful night with very little sleep, so I’m – as I say often – ‘on the edge of cranky.’ But we’re going over to Rick and Doug’s for the first time since the pandemic started to have some french toast and some maskless conversation, so I must stay un-cranky.

This will be the first time we have been in another person’s house without a mask – or in another person’s house at all – since last March.

Two weeks from tomorrow, someone has a big birthday. He happens to live with me. Let’s say it’s one of those decade markers that can be unsettling. I’m still trying to figure out what he wants to do that day. He keeps waffling, which I totally understand. I tend to want to stay home on my birthday.

Will we actually go somewhere and eat outside? I’m not sure he’s ready for that yet.

Oh, and I stopped the car in the middle of what is normally a very busy road to let a mama duck and her two babies cross to the other side. Thankfully, the guy behind me stopped and there was no oncoming traffic. They were adorable.

Stay safe.

Happy Wednesday,

Miniature Oil Painting

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We’ve been walking around in a kind of daze. 91 degree days which feel like 97 degrees are the culprit. The oppressive heat makes us both lethargic. Today, a few degrees cooler, still humid, with thunderstorms. It’s too early for this sort of weather and I’m over it.

The catalpa is in bloom. I’ll try to get some closeups later. It just started blooming the other day and there are already petals on the ground. The scent is so heavenly. Don said it kept wafting toward him as he sat on the patio yesterday.

We’re watching The Bridge, a series that was recommended by a reader – I think it was Fiona. It’s Swedish and it’s excellent. Thanks so much for the recommendation! (On Amazon Prime.)

Don has an eye appointment this morning with the retina specialist. So I’m writing this earlier than usual since I’ll be driving him there.

I did paint a bit yesterday. I painted the background for another Roseville painting. It will take a couple of days to get dry enough for me to start on the vase. In the meantime, I’m playing around with mini paintings for the dollhouse studio. That easel I ordered is in route to my mailbox, so I want to have a few canvases to display – one of them will mostly likely be ‘in progress’ so it can sit on the easel.

Anyway, here’s the first experiment.

It’s so tiny!

It’s drying at the moment. I’d love to have some of these paintings stacked in a corner of the miniature studio, some propped against the wall, and one on the easel. Maybe I’ll get around to framing one, if I end up painting one that I really, really like.

These are fun little projects that don’t take up too much time. I like painting both life-size and 1:12 size canvases. The artist who lives in the English cottage loves to paint, so much so that she transformed that little room into a studio. So she has to have some finished work!

Stay safe.

Happy Tuesday.

Morning Symphony

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It took me a while before I realized that these bushes, which bloom at exactly the same time as the wild roses, are not wild roses. It’s easy to look at the mass of white blossoms all over the property and assume they’re all the same thing.

These lovelies are dogwood – silky dogwood – and they grow along the edge of the property right above the Secret Garden. And in the Secret Garden. And also at the back entrance of the property as you walk into the woods from my neighbor’s meadow. They’re what I call ‘frothy.’

I haven’t written about them before and it’s high time I did.

We sat in the Secret Garden this morning, marveling at the natural beauty there. It just is. The only plants that have been brought in are the pots that I plant every year. Everything else is nature’s design. We listened to what I call our morning symphony. Birds singing, the bullfrog croaking, the occasional hum of a bee. Goodness, it’s beautiful there.

But it’s still very hot here. This will be our third day with temperatures in the nineties. There’s a heat advisory today. So we appreciate that time in the garden because all too soon we’ll have to shut everything up and run the a/c. Tomorrow will be a bit better, though it will also bring rain and thunderstorms as this front breaks up

Because of the heat, there’s been constant activity in the birdbath. I’m going to top it off after I finish this post.

Oh, and we had warning chirps again yesterday from the robins. I tried to see if there were any fledglings on the ground, but nothing stood out. Later, Don went outside and heard the same chirping and saw a brown bird fly from the ground in front of the shed onto the low branch of a tree. So mom and dad are still watching out for the babies.

I’m going to paint this morning. I’m not sure what, but I’ll play it by ear. Don’s going to do some recording. He’s writing a new song.

Oh, the catalpas are in bloom. Heaven.

Stay safe.

Happy Monday.

Lambs Like to Party

Lambs Like to Party

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