Life in our little cottage in the country
I’m feeling a bit under the weather today – allergies, of course – so I’m just going to leave you with these photos of a male Monarch who happened to be exploring the coneflowers while I was outside yesterday.
He is beautiful.
Stay safe.
Happy Thursday.
Taken yesterday morning. I love seeing the morning light emerge through the trees. It’s one of my favorite things about our property.
It’s been a hectic and stressful week and I’m ready to relax a bit today. That had been my plan for yesterday but we had a zoom table read of the script and I was communicating with the director and with Ben (later in the day) so I had a lot on my mind. (I loved seeing Sally Field. That was neat.)
So, today will be a day of rest. Sort of. I have to wash the sheets and do some cleaning, but none of that has anything to do with the movie, so I consider it a day off.
We had a storm in the late afternoon/early evening yesterday and the temperature has really dropped. Though there might be a few days this week where we hit seventy, basically, we’ll be in the sixties and fifties. I’ve heard and seen Canada geese every day this past week, flying in huge Vs as they take off for the winter. Though, for some reason, some of them hang around here and we’ll often see them by the river in the winter.
And, while I was outside yesterday, I saw a surprise visitor:
I’m so glad we have zinnias in bloom for this beauty. It’s getting late in the season and there aren’t a whole lot of flowers blooming. It was getting windy as the storm was about to hit and the monarch was doing its best to cling on to the zinnias. Hope we provided the nutrients you need for your journey south!
I think it was about this time last year when we witnessed our little monarch emerge from the chrysalis. Another late-in-the season monarch.
I ordered a jigsaw puzzle to take with me to the city. I think it will be good to have one going so I can work on it in my spare moments here and there. It’s zen-like and very relaxing.
Okay. Time to get some things done around here. This week will be for making lists of things to take with me, things I have to buy (everything in the city is much more expensive) and things I have to do before I leave, including showing Don when and how much to water the plants on the porch and the houseplants as well. How to situate the blanket when making up the bed. How to empty the vacuum cleaner tank. How often to fill the birdbath. And on and on….
And good news – the strike has been averted with both sides coming to an agreement.
Stay safe.
Happy Sunday.
I saw this guy on the milkweed yesterday. He’s actually much more petite than this photo suggests. I walk to the milkweed every day, hoping to see a caterpillar. I’ve seen Monarch butterflies lay their eggs underneath the leaves in the past couple of weeks, but this is the first time I’ve seen one of these guys. By the time I managed to bring Don over to this leaf, the caterpillar had moved to the underside where he was happily munching away. I wonder where he’ll eventually move to make his chrysalis?
We mowed the entire front lawn yesterday – both sides – and we were exhausted at the end of it all. Both of us fell asleep in our chairs mid-afternoon. But it looks good out there and the temperature was rather mild, perfect for mowing. The mornings have been cooler lately, making me think of fall. I’m not nearly ready for it yet, but I have appreciated the cooler temperatures. This morning was foggy and misty and quite beautiful.
I plopped the red chair in the studio, but I’m not sure about it yet. I took this at a point in the day when the late afternoon sun was shining directly in the dollhouse. Without that, the chair gets lost in the shadows. Now, I’m not at all sure I’m going to use the modern IKEA-like low shelf unit – it takes up a lot of floor space and I’d rather find something more period looking. So, after I deal with that, the chair might work in a place more toward the front of the room. Or, I might find something else that looks a little more worn, an old chair that would survive paint drips, etc. Something the owner could plop in when she’s taking a break from painting.
In other words, I have more to do in this space. The red chair may end up back in the living room or it might end up in a future project, i.e., the Beacon Hill.
Decisions, decisions…
Don is up in the studio as I write this, recording a song. He’s been intrigued by Nordic Noir since we watch so many series produced in Scandinavia. So I nudged him toward reading some Nordic Noir. He just finished a mystery by Ragnar Jonasson that we picked up at Oblong Books, and now he’s going to start the very first in the Wallander series by Henning Mankel. It’s good to see him reading some fiction again.
I’m still reading Elly Griffiths – number 6 in the series, The Outcast Dead – and I have another one on tap. Then I might veer off and read the new John Connolly and, of course, the new Louise Penny appears toward the end of this month. But I tend to hold off on reading a new Penny because I want to prolong the pleasure; I don’t want to read it right away and then have to wait an entire year for a new Gamache mystery. We do have a Louise Penny/Hillary Clinton collaboration coming out in November (or is it October?) and I’m looking forward to that, as well.
Books purchased last week at Oblong:
Okay. Have to go.
Stay safe.
Happy Wednesday.
