Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Life in our little cottage in the country

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Idling Until I Can Actually Do Some Gardening

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The crabapple blossoms opened a couple of days ago. We have several crabapple trees on the property and the look of the blossoms vary from tree to tree. But this is always the first one to bloom.

It’s sunny today but we’re to get a little snow tonight – about an inch at most and it will be gone quickly. I can count on about 3 fingers the number of times we’ve had snow during the first week in April. We’ve been living in New York for 20 years, so that tells you it’s rare. But mid-April? I can’t swear to it, but I think that’s never happened. Anyway, it’s went down to 29 degrees last night. From the looks of the forecast for the week ahead, it won’t go below freezing again.

Between babying my back and the bizarre weather we’ve had this month, I really can’t begin to clear the garden beds until mid-week. I don’t think I’ve ever waited this long.

We had a low-key day yesterday. Since it’s only the two of us, we don’t do anything special. We don’t eat meat, so it was the usual vegetarian dinner for us. (I try not to write about my feelings on this subject here. Suffice to say, I’ve been a vegetarian for 35 years.)

Don did make a sugar-free apple pie, so we had a nice warm piece for dessert. Delicious!

I did a little tour of the office/studio on IG the other day. Would you be interested in seeing those photos here on the blog? Let me know. I’d be happy to share them with you. What can I say, I was bored and restless so I started taking pictures!

I am in the middle of The Sea of Tranquility  and I love it. I am a big fan of Emily St. John Mandel. Station Eleven  was my introduction to her writing and it was excellent. I remember I borrowed it from the library and immediately after finishing it, I wanted to buy a copy so I could have it in my library. Note to self: You still haven’t done that. Get on it.

A couple of you asked what book I bought the other day. This is it. It came out in hardback when we were in the early days of lockdown and everyone raved about it. It’s supposed to be very funny. I held off on purchasing it for some reason and then, over time, forgot about it. But there it was, on the fiction shelves at Barnes & Noble, so I grabbed it.

Most of my TBR pile is now on top of my bookshelf in the bedroom, but I do keep 3 or 4 books in the den – a little pile on the floor in front of the dollhouse. That’s where Fleishman is in Trouble  lives.

Alright my friends. I have to help Don tape an audition, so I have to get going.

Oh, I forgot! Don posted a song that he wrote about me on YouTube. If you want to hear it, here’s the link.

Stay safe.

Happy Monday.

Saturday Thoughts

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I took this photo earlier this week and now, due to rain and winds, those leaves are on the ground. Both Don and I felt a bit blue yesterday because it got much colder and we had a strong sense that the temps had officially moved to ‘winter’ mode.

And we’re not big fans of winter, to put it mildly.

It’s windy today, but sunny.

I’m remembering a couple of questions that were raised during my travel posts.

One reader asked if it was hard to find vegetarian food while traveling. The answer is that is was surprisingly easy. The French and the English love their meat, that’s for sure, but we could always find a vegetarian option on the menu, and quite often, a vegan option. Even on the first night we arrived in Paris, jet lagged and exhausted, we wandered into a bistro down the street and the lovely man behind the bar said he could whip up a salad for us with hard boiled eggs and nuts and other sources of protein. And he did. It was quite tasty.

The world is changing. Vegetarian and vegan options are becoming mainstream. Don thinks that eventually, maybe not in our lifetime, but at some point, meat will be a thing of the past. Raising animals for meat is not all good in terms of the environment, and for both us, it’s not at all a good thing morally. We could never go back to eating meat. Nor do we have to, when there are so many wonderful options out there, so many more than there were when I first became a vegetarian over 30 years ago. I pray for the day when we no longer kill our fellow innocent beings for food. When I don’t have to see cute pictures of cows on the kitchen walls of those who think nothing of turning around and eating them. Or when millions of turkeys are no longer slaughtered so humans can celebrate “Thanksgiving.”

I also pray to do better myself, because though I am consistently vegetarian, I am not consistently vegan. And I still wear leather shoes.

Another reader asked what I meant about the trip being transformational. Well, it was transformational in a few ways. Moving beyond the borders of this country and visiting another country, another culture, is always transformative. We escape the bubble in which we live. We see the world with fresh eyes. We meet people, talk to them, get different ideas and points of view. We see a world that exists quite nicely apart from ours. We also learn about issues that are important to those who live in whichever country we are visiting.

My awareness expands. My world expands.

Also, traveling involves constant visual stimulation and a constant flow of information. Seeing the Seine at all times of day, learning about the history of Notre Dame, or the Tower of London, or the ancient and now gone theaters in London that were once gathering places for live theater. Talking to a cab driver about Brexit: “Well, we’re a democracy and we voted for it, so that’s what’s happening.” Talking to another cab driver about being born in the East End and being a true Cockney. Grappling with the fact that Paris was occupied by the Germans in WWII. That London was bombed repeatedly during the Blitz and seeing the evidence left on the walls of buildings, on the walls of the Tower of London.

I got a greater understanding of history, of the patterns that keep recurring, of the past and how it is echoed by our present. And that there’s nothing new under the sun.

The trip took us far away from the States and into completely different worlds. How could that not be transformational? Also, with all the stress and insanity of the past two years here in the U.S., it was an enormous gift to leave it behind for 2½ weeks and just be.  I cannot tell you how much that meant to us, how much we desperately needed it.

We were with each other 24 hours a day, every day, and we loved it. We travel well together. We miss that sense of being away from everything, just the two of us, completely and utterly engrossed in new sights, new sounds, new things, new people. To be honest, we’re still having a hard time adjusting to being back and, if we had unlimited funds, we’d be heading back there shortly.

I felt more free there than I have in years. I felt as if I had wings.

Anyway, I hope this answers those two questions. If you have more, feel free to ask.

One last picture of a sunny porch filled with potted plants. It’s going to get very cold at night this week, so these lovelies will soon be no more. That always makes me sad, but at the same time, I’m grateful that they’ve lasted this long. I fully expected to come home and find them gone due to some freak hard frost, which often happens in October.

Currently reading Michael Connelly’s newest, Dark Sacred Night. Excellent, as always. Lee Child’s newest just came out a few days ago. Susan Hill’s newest Simon Serailler mystery comes out on November 20th. And the great Louise Penny’s newest will be published on November 27th. I’m excited about all of them. The positive side of colder temps? Tucking into some hot cocoa and a good book.

Happy Saturday.

 

 

On My Choice to be a Vegetarian

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5-21 sunset

Last night’s sunset. It was so gorgeous that I felt compelled to get off my tush and go out to the porch to capture its beauty. “Even while cuddling with one’s husband, one sometimes has to make the decision to break away in order to do the right thing”- Claudia’s wise words for the day.

5-21 wild strawberries

Wild strawberries in the side garden. That’s ground cover that I planted in the background. Will an actual strawberry show itself? Stay tuned.

5-21 little white flowers

These little flowers pop up every year in the garden bed that’s right next to the porch – the one with the older hostas. Long ago, I discovered its name, but I don’t remember it any longer. It’s such a sweet little plant and was here when we moved in. It lives under one of the hostas.

Many of you have asked me to share more about my vegetarian lifestyle and the recipes we use, as well as what food we buy. I hesitate to talk about it for two reasons. The first is that Don does most of the cooking and his meals are usually something he whips up from various things he finds in the cupboards and refrigerator and there is no official recipe involved. He likes cooking that way and he’s very good at it. At some point, I can share a list of things we tend to regularly buy at the market if you would like. I’ve been a vegetarian for 30 years and believe me, there is SO much more available than there was when I first made that choice. It’s very easy to live this lifestyle and get the protein you need. In fact, I never worry about it.

The second reason is that my choice to be a vegetarian is very personal and is based on a moral imperative that I feel deep within my heart. And that moral imperative is not to eat any animal, be it fish, foul, cow, lamb – anything. I don’t believe in killing animals for food, especially in our modern society where there are so many possibilities for food, so many plant-based choices that allow us to eat humanely.

Whenever I share this with readers, I run the risk of offending them. I tend to avoid the preachy, knowing that the only thing that matters is that I’m living my life in a way that matches my heartfelt beliefs. This is my  choice. My husband often eats vegetarian meals, but he still eats meat occasionally. That is his  choice.

That being said, let me explain my beliefs. I don’t understand, nor will I ever understand, how people can admire the beauty of a cow or a lamb or a chicken and then turn around and eat one. I am unable to separate the beauty of those animals, the fact that they feel pain, that they think and live and breathe, from the act of killing them. None of what I believe is a misinterpretation of ‘having dominion’ for me. What makes me think I am superior? Because I have opposable thumbs?

Don’t get me started on hunting or the abundance of trophy deer heads I see on decorating blogs.

But again, this is what I  believe. And I believe it deeply, strongly and passionately – with every fiber of my being.

I’m not perfect. I wrestle with the choice to wear leather shoes, for example, or use a leather bag. I do my best to learn and grow on this journey.

So there you go. I started this journey when I was in graduate school. I had already started eliminating red meat from my diet when my elder brother was diagnosed with cancer – he had lymphoma. He made the decision to fight it with diet instead of chemo. He became macrobiotic. I was intrigued by macrobiotics and I embraced that lifestyle, as did my mother. I ate very healthily but eventually the demands of my teaching position in Boston with its long, unpredictable hours made it impossible to follow that specific diet, so it morphed into a sort of vegetarian diet. But I still ate chicken and fish. Eventually, my feelings about eating any  animal became so strong that I eliminated all meat. And I haven’t looked back.

Paul McCartney says he never eats anything with a face. I couldn’t say it better.

What makes eating a dog (which we understandably find appalling and disgusting) different than eating a cow or a pig or a chicken? How and where do we draw a line? How do we compartmentalize those decisions?

I simply can’t.

And now I sound preachy.

You see now why I don’t speak of this very often. It’s private and yet not private. If I could convert everyone, I would, because I would be saving animals. It is a major part of who I am today. But I speak of it quietly, behind the scenes. That’s the way I roll.

I still have further to go. And more changes to make.

That’s probably the last I’ll speak of it.

If, after all this, you’re still interested in a list of things we tend to use in our cooking, I’ll start to put one together and I’ll share it with you.

Happy Thursday.

ClaudiaSignature140X93

 

 

Lambs Like to Party

Lambs Like to Party

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