Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Life in our little cottage in the country

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Day One Hundred Twelve

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I’ve thought each of the last four days was Friday and now it’s truly Friday.

Lots of rain and storms headed our way today. Don is currently out running errands. He’s picking up some hair clippers we ordered so I can cut his hair today, as well as stopping to get some produce. Exciting, right? (These days this kind of thing is  exciting.)

I did a lot of work on the dollhouse yesterday, finishing one of the side walls:

One more side to go. I also have to ‘grout’ the blocks of stone and seal the whole thing. I like the way it’s turning out. It all depends on my attitude. If I’m not as patient as I would like to be, it seems to take forever. Yesterday, I was calm and patient and it flowed beautifully. But it is tedious, nonetheless.

This arrived yesterday for the kitchen:

It’s the same as the one in Hummingbird Cottage, but in green. I’ve been visualizing this stove on the same wall as the mustard-colored Welsh dresser. This little cottage will have plenty of color. I’m going for a slightly cluttered and cozy cottage, the kind the British do so well.

Today is my sister Meredith’s birthday. I am forever grateful for her presence in my life. She is an extraordinary person and I love her with all my heart. Happy Birthday, Mere!

Stay safe.

Happy Friday.

 

Flowering, Reading

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At the very beginning of spring, I noticed feathery leaves growing in the corral. They looked a lot like yarrow. I have some yarrow that self-seeded growing in the chicken wire fence garden, where I plant morning glories and zinnias. So I waited and watched them grow and when it came time to start mowing, I mowed around them.

Yep. It’s yarrow. I’ve tried to take a picture that shows you how beautiful they look in the corral, but try as I might, I can’t get one. This is the best I can do at the moment.

There are more plants growing along the fence line.

It’s like I suddenly have a mini-meadow. I hope they come back next year.

The lavender that I potted is quite tall now and flowers have started to appear.

The catalpa is in bloom. I’m sure the other catalpas up in the woods are also in bloom, I just haven’t seen them yet. I was on the porch yesterday and the scent of the flowers wafted my way. Heavenly.

It got windy later in the day and there are a lot of flowers on the ground. Today, we’re due for some rain and storms. And then there will be more flowers on the ground. Short lived, these blooms. I can’t rescue them, they don’t do well in a vase, but I’ll rescue my peonies if necessary.

Isn’t that a beautiful flower?

Rose update (these blooms last about two days, by the way.)

I mowed yesterday because it has to be done. I did pretty well and am feeling a bit better. There’s still more mowing to be done, but I’m pacing myself. I’m also reading the latest Lee Child on my iPad. A novel. I’ve been on such a long stretch of not being able to concentrate on anything other than nonfiction, so this makes me happy.

Meredith uses her iPad all the time and that’s what inspired me to dig mine out the other day. It had been so long that I had forgotten that I had my Kindle books downloaded there. It has a bigger screen than my Kindle (where that little piece of technology is at the moment, I have no idea) and I think it’s easier to read. Anyway, I was inspired to visit Amazon and I downloaded a few books, one of which was Lee Child’s latest Jack Reacher, which was published last November. I’ve read all of them, but hadn’t read that one. Lee Child’s style is so straight-forward. It’s in the first person and Jack Reacher is no-nonsense, so it isn’t so heavily written that I might drift away, if you know what I mean. I’m more than halfway through. Maybe this will be the breakthrough I need.

I can’t even talk about what is happening to our country and our moral standing in the world, or the cages in which immigrants are being held, or the separation of children from their parents. ICE equals Gestapo. Each day brings more assaults on the principles we hold dear, the compassion we should hold dear, the rule of law – much of it being done by ‘faux’ Christians. We won’t even get into the glorification of murderous dictators. Call your Reps. Demand change. And vote.

I need an escape. I swear, there are times I’d like to move to Canada. My mom was born there. Three out of my four grandparents were born there. Maybe I could just slip across the border?

Just kidding. Sort of.

Alternatively, living off the grid sounds increasingly tempting. And that is something I’m not kidding about.

Sigh. Anyway, if I write about it, I get more angry and I need to stay calm. Breathe deep.

Happy Wednesday.

The Weekend

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Hello, friends.

I’m back from the city. It was an intense weekend; wonderful, heartbreaking, and everything in between. Having my sister with us for three days was a blessing. It would have been a blessing no matter what, but it kept us from getting too morose. We talked a lot, the three of us, and we are so comfortable with each other that we can say pretty much anything. We also laughed a lot. I needed that.

Don took this photo of us. I really love it. I really love her.

Don and Mere in Bryant Park. Don really adores my sister. He has good taste.

The carousel in Bryant Park, which is utterly charming. I had to show you the bunny.

Mere and me in the Community Garden.

Saturday was like a day in August. It was close to 90 degrees and unbelievably humid. Even my Florida-dwelling sister was over it. We had breakfast together that morning at the diner, Don went off to his matinee, and Mere and I took the subway down to Soho. Purl Soho is there, a very well-known yarn and fabric shop.

She? She’s very happy to finally visit Purl Soho.

Mere has been on a yarn diet for a while now, but she treated herself to some yarn that she couldn’t find anywhere else, for a pattern, I believe, that she got from their website. It’s a gorgeous shop with impossibly high ceilings and a very creative staff. I’d been there before, but it had been several years.

These hoops are just inside the door.

They’re filled with Liberty of London lawn fabric – the same fabric that is used for the dress on the Maggie Rabbit I made for myself and for Mere. I have plans to make a couple more, plus another stuffed kitty in Alicia Paulson’s line, so, even though we were about to leave, I turned around and went to the back of the store and purchased some.

That fabric is so smooth and silky. Simply gorgeous. I’ll show you the fabric patterns another day.

We tried walking around Soho, but it’s so ridiculously trendy and expensive these days that there really wasn’t any other shop we wanted to visit and we were so uncomfortable in the humidity that we headed back to the apartment, where we cooled off and talked about anything and everything.

Then we headed to the theater. The show was fantastic, as always. This time, though, it was both glorious to watch and heartbreaking as well. As I said on IG, I’ve been working in the theater for over 40 years and my resume is as long as your arm. I’ve never, never seen any show inspire such joy as this one does. I’ve never seen an audience respond in this way. It makes a difference in people’s lives. They come back again and again.

It should not be closing. That it is  closing is a travesty.

Don kept this a secret from us. Jimmy was there for the curtain call.

He played Margaritaville (and we all sang along) and also did a wonderful duet with Alison Huff of Come Monday. Meredith was thrilled. She loved the show, she loved the cast – especially Don, of course – and she had a great time. I watched her reactions throughout the show and it was clear that she was delighted with the entire experience.

We went backstage to wait for Don and Don told us to follow him and, suddenly, there was Jimmy.

Yes, I finally got to meet him! So did Mere. He’s a great guy.

We went out for a bite to eat with Don and went back to the apartment and then it was Sunday and Mere had to leave. So did I. I dropped her off in the taxi line outside of the Port Authority Bus Terminal so she could cab it out to LaGuardia. I went inside and got in the bus line and headed home, where I found myself crying for the entire bus ride. It was the first time I’d had to myself where I didn’t have to pull it together for everyone, and it hit me. I couldn’t stop crying.

I cried again this morning. And I’ll keep crying.

Happy Monday.

 

Lambs Like to Party

Lambs Like to Party

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