I have two posts up today. In addition to this post, if you scroll down one post or click here, you’ll see I’m giving away two pairs of tickets to the Country Living Fair in Rhinebeck, which takes place next weekend, June 5-7. If you’re interested, make sure to leave your comment before Sunday evening at 9:00 pm. There’s a fast turnaround on this one!
A few days ago.
Today.
Gorgeous. Mom, this rose is for you. Heartfelt thanks again to Martha, who gave me this bush last year in remembrance of my mother.
Henry has kids. Yes, just after I posted about him on Wednesday, I saw two little ones dining on some of our grass. Sometimes the kids are out on their own. Sometimes Henry is out there with them. Adorable.
Or perhaps I should say: Henri a des bébés.
Can you imagine them in little bérets?
Oh yes. The poppies have opened.
They are so breathtaking. And their bloom time is short. So I take tons of photos because I know they’ll be gone before I know it.
At the same time the poppies open, the catmint is flowering as well, so there’s a lovely purple and orange combination going on in the garden.
And, as I walked around the porch, I saw this:
The clematis is blooming, too! Glory be. The garden has said yes to Spring. I planted this clematis several years ago, but it didn’t start taking off until the weeping willow came down. The willow had blocked the sun which caused the clematis to grow lots of leaves, but no flowers. Now, it’s making up for lost time. Welcome back!
Don, Scout and I sat on the porch last night and watched the sun set and listened to the birds and talked about our life and our gratitude for our many blessings. We looked around our property that not all that long ago was covered in several inches of snow and marveled at the miracle of spring. We’re grateful for our marriage and the strong love we have for each other and for Scout. We’re blessed with friends and family and work in our chosen fields. We’re living our dream. Though at times it can be a stressful struggle to make the mortgage payment or pay those unexpected bills, we’ve managed to do it and we’ve managed to do it as freelancers, never sure of each month’s income. Our parents helped us as we started out on this dream of ours. For that we are forever grateful. We’ve made our choice and are holding fast; life in the country in a lovely little cottage with our beloved animals around us, with green things growing and blooming, with music and laughter and a lot of hard work. We’re coming up on the tenth anniversary of Mockingbird Hill Cottage (in August.) It doesn’t seem possible, but it’s true!
Anyway. We’re grateful. We’re thankful. We’re blessed.
Happy Friday.
I have never actually seen a poppy flower in person! I wonder if they don’t grow well in my area…I have never even seen them at the garden centers. Wow, they are so pretty. Brian and I took a walk around our neighborhood last night, but no sitting out on the porch for us – the mosquitoes have invaded already. Unfortunately, they are terrible in my neighborhood. Have a great weekend, Claudia!
Oh, those darned mosquitoes! They aren’t here yet, but we’ve had a lot of rain lately, so they may be arriving shortly. The poppies are really big, Melanie – not like small California poppies. These are Oriental poppies and they’re quite impressive!
Claudia, these are some gorgeous photos today! I love flowers and these close ups just show their beauty. You are blessed and it’s nice to take some time to reflect on that isn’t it. As stressful as my life can get at times, I’m so grateful for my family, my sweet Charlie Kitty and my home. I am truly blessed also. I’m also blessed with friends like you.
hugs,
Linda
And I am blessed by your friendship, Linda. Thank you!
Your flowers are just gorgeous Claudia..We all need to stop at times and reflect on what we do have instead of worrying over what we don’t have..Oh how I wish I could go to the fair..instead I will do what I can do which is go wonder around the local antique mall and out to lunch to celebrate my 62nd birthday today..
Happy, Happy Birthday, Nancy! I hope your day is filled with love and laughter (and maybe a few antique mall finds!)
I so enjoyed reading your positive post Claudia. Like you and Don, we too enjoy our little bit of heaven – not actually in the country, however it almost feels like country being in an older neighborhood with beautiful trees, many birds and the wildlife. Recently, yet again I dragged Bob to look at a modern condo in a pristine development (with a few tiny newly planted trees) and several elderly people dog-walking on a hot afternoon . Yes, we’re elderly too, but Bob (turning 75 come July – I still have a hard time with that!) still refuses to acknowledge this, ha ha! I would like less outdoor work, a home on one level, all new and sparkling appliances, paint and hardware etc., but what a lot I’d have to give up too. Sitting in the gazebo, usually with a glass of wine and a light supper, since coming back from Europe, has been lovely. . . . . . . . we’ll be here for some time I think.
Enjoy the flowers, the animals, and this one precious life my dear.
Hugs – Mary
That gazebo would be very hard to give up, my friend. However, I also look around and think how hard it will be to keep this up when we get older. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, I think. Glad you’re back home enjoying your sweet house.
A very nice post to end the week and usher us into the weekend. Love your description of the family sitting on the porch and celebrating quietly the life you have. Continue to be blessed.
You too, Wendy.
Your flowers are gorgeous Claudia…especially the poppy! One of my favorite ones! I bought two new clematis this year…don’t know if they will bloom or not…here’s hoping. But, I loved the grateful part of your post the most. I get those grateful feelings the most when I’m out on our deck. Hearing the birds, and other critters…seeing the flowers and trees…our little piece of heaven. These feelings of gratefulness are getting more frequent for me…is that a sign of age I wonder? Enjoy your day! ;)
I wonder if it’s a sign of age? If it is, it’s also a sign of growing older and wiser and realizing what is right there in front of us, what we have been blessed with. I don’t think I was as cognizant of my blessings when I was younger. Have a wonderful day.
Good morning Claudia – your photos of the flowers are just beautiful! I love your reflections on life in general. We all have so many things we take for granted each and every day. And we all are blessed immeasurably and sometimes in our busy schedules, we forget to take the time to stop and actually acknowledge the blessings we do have and express our thanks for them.
Tiff and I are headed out to visit Johnny this weekend in Texas. Here’s hoping we don’t run into any bad weather and/ or water problems.
You, Don and Scout have a great weekend.
Judy
Safe trip, my friend. I’m glad you’re going to be able to visit Johnny. If there’s bad weather, you gosh darned better take cover! Wishing you a wonderful weekend, my friend.
The poppies are beautiful. They always remind me of crepe paper when they are bloomed. They almost don’t seem real.
We do take so much for granted, don’t we? And, as someone else said, so many times we think of what we don’t have instead of what we should celebrate. There is a saying: “There are some people who would love to have your bad day.” All relative in that big picture our our lives.
Each day we can enjoy sitting and taking time to reflect is a very good day, indeed! We all should put that on our “to-do” lists much more frequently.
All relative, indeed, Chris. That’s rather like our conversation last night. It’s easy to think of all the things we need to repair or save up money for or….but in the end, we are blessed and our ‘negatives’ are something many people would be happy to co-exist with, if that makes sense.
And I am grateful for your blog Claudia. Thank you.
And I’m grateful for you, Cindy. And all my loyal readers.
As always, I am so happy you post pictures of your flowers. I have yet to make it to the garden center. Hopefully I will this weekend.
When you first talked about Henry ( Henri), I thought perhaps it would be a duck! When my last three girls were little, there was always a male and female that would come to our pond and swim. Once, there were even eggs! The girls called the ducks Henry and Sally and made up stories about them and their ducklings. It still holds true with them today!
All of the stories, pictures and tours always make my day. I never go away from reading your blog without learning something new. Example: Today I will be wondering what Henri would look like with a beret! Don’t know if that is considered ‘learning’, but it gets the imagination going!
Have a lovely day!
Hugs to all,
Deb
If I was artistic – I mean in the drawing and painting category – I would draw a groundhog with a beret. Wouldn’t that be fun?
Happy Friday Claudia! The idea of groundhogs in berets is perfect! Love that idea. Your flowers are so beautiful. Hope you and Don have a wonderful weekend. It’s my 35th wedding anniversary on Sunday!!
Oh, goodness! Happy Anniversary, Vera! You should be very proud indeed. Have a celebration and do some kissing and hugging, too!
Well, Claudia, it sounds to me like you and Don really have your priorities in the right place, as the saying goes. You’re happy and grateful for what you have, and not looking to get more than you need. You’re even doing what you can to care for the planet and kind to the other creatires who live here, creatures without voices of their own. IMO, the world could do with a few more like you. OK, had enough of this mush fest? LOL. Have a wonderful weekend! PS – I just had a thought. Maybe Henry is really a Henrietta?
Thank you so much for your kind words, my friend.
I’ve thought about Henry vs. Henrietta. We have no way of knowing and, frankly, he’ll always be Henry/Henri to us!
Good afternoon Claudia. I really enjoyed your blog today. You and Don are lucky to have such an happy marriage. I always said that my first marriage was due to inexperience (I was 17) the second was optimism (I was 31 and he was 22) and if I married again it would be stupidity. However, then I met John. We lived together for 10 years, working together too 24/7, and I still said I didn’t want to get married. Then I was diagnosed with MS, and I told him I would understand if he wanted to call ‘time’, after all, it wasn’t what we’d expected. For a reply he immediately proposed, and to my surprise I accepted. We had a wonderful wedding, made even better because all our friends thought we were already married! We’ve been together now for nearly 27 years and married for 16, and I’ve never been happier. He cares for me with such love, and we still make each other laugh all the time. Talk about 3rd time lucky. PS Are you sure Henri is Henrietta? Just asking, obviously you know him/her much better than I do. Blessings
Okay. You made me cry Lesley. That is one beautiful story. You have blessed each other with a deep and profound love and a commitment that has stood the test of time. Blessings on both of you.
3rd time lucky for Don, too. He was married twice before. Third time is the charm!
We have no idea re Henry/Henrietta, but as I said elsewhere in these comments, he’ll probably always be Henry to us!
Beautifully radiant photos of your bursting blooms, Claudia! The poppy pic is stunning! Thanks fo the magical macro!
Happy weekend!
xo
Poppy
You are most welcome, Poppy! And by the way, your namesake flower is gorgeous! These Oriental Poppies have huge blooms! Have a wonderful weekend.
Lovely post today Claudia. Your garden, your memories and your love for your family and your gratitude for your life. It’s easy to overlook the simple things and you’ve helped me to remember today.
Blessings,
Betsy
Thank you for your kind words, Betsy. Have a wonderful weekend.
Yes, my thoughts…Henri is probably a Henriette?!
I wish I had more of your attitude of gratitude. I have to work on it because I have a ton of problems which have a lot to do with my physical health and I also just think I’ve allowed my life to get too complicated (although some of it isn’t my doing, such as living next to The Worse Neighbor Who Exists On This Earth…he’s an interloper, doesn’t even own the property and it’s finite as he’ll eventually be forced out with death of a family member but, until then, it’s a lot of tension – this is what happens when you move back into a conventional urban/suburban neighborhood with houses too close to one another, so be glad you have your piece of land there, Claudia…I very much miss the half-acre I had with my former home).
Dad was high on ‘counting your blessings’ so, in his honor and memory, I try to accentuate the positive although I often fail. Everybody has problems…it’s a lot about how we choose to react to them, of course. Just running through the ‘gratitude lists’ in one’s head, or writing out blessings in a journal can be very empowering because the list gets very big, very fast. Dad would say it’s too easy to forget what you have so, like what you and Don did at sunset is a great way to revive the list…akin to spoken prayer. Or, heck, just open the newspaper or turn on your computer to the home page…the articles, for the most part, can make you want to retreat right back into the safety of your house, close off from the big, bad world…and will most always cause me to say, “There but for you go I,” and be reminded of how very, very lucky I’ve been and am.
For instance, I was in Houston as a brand-new resident in the early ’90s when similar flooding occurred. I watched the water lapping at my sliding door frame as the sunken courtyard of the home I was temporarily staying in filled with water in pouring rain. Watching water rise is a very scary thing. A growing, ominous, uncontrollable horror. The cars parked on the street were submerged in water up to the base of their driver/passenger doors. I had no one to call, no way to get out…even if I’d HAD a car, the street was impassable…and I didn’t know north from south, east or west. I was alone in an unfamiliar, one-storey house, with four dogs and a cat. The rain finally stopped, it took my husband nine hours to get home from work, being cross-town, on the other side of the city; the house across the street from us was invaded with water and had to be pumped out (that pump ran for DAYS afterward). I’d only been in this huge metropolis for a day or two; I was younger and resourceful to a point, but I could have wound up in a really, really bad situation, so this is just one example (of many) I’m reminded of…when I’ve had an angel on my shoulder (and after I’d used up my nine lives, twice or thrice), which makes it easy to feel relief and thankfulness.
Husbands and wives…so interesting: I have come across several wives who are Hubby’s #3, and I’m one of them. A friend would say to me, “We might be the third wife, but we’re the final wife; it stops here!” I’ve tried to ponder the ‘phenomenon’ of it…#1 didn’t work; #2 was transitional; #3 sticks…why, though; is it because they finally know what they’re looking for and have a basis for comparison (I don’t mean for that to sound disparaging). I’d never been married and was urged by many friends/family NOT to marry a guy who’d already been to the altar twice…but you know when you know. I knew. I’d been through enough to know what I was looking for, too. And that was 27 years ago. We’re opposites, he and I, but we’ve lasted. (We were engaged a month after our first date and got married 90 days later. Everybody thought we were doomed.)
Wow, sorry for the long comment. Your post, as is so often the case, rings a bell for me!
Don married 1) too young 2) for the wrong reasons, and 3) for the right reasons. I,like you, hadn’t ever been married. The irony is that my sister married a man who’d been married twice before. She married before me and I was counseling her to be very wary. “He’s been married TWICE before!” But I really liked him in spite of all that and they’ve been married for many years. Then, when I met Don and he said he’d been married twice, I had to hold back a laugh! Serves me right. Anyway, it’s a non-issue. I am the one who has benefitted from those previous marriages. He’s older, wiser and learned from his mistakes. Yay!
Timing–it was meant to be!
Lovely, lovely photos!
Roses are my favourite “indoor” flower and poppies are my favourite “outdoor” flower. I’m going to try some blue Icelandic ones this year – we are on about the same latitude.
How exciting that Henri has a family! And mini berets! Sounds like a children’s book in the making..
That’s what I was thinking! Two bad I’m not an illustrator!
Speaking of sunsets, that rose is the color of a sunset. Beautiful photographs, Claudia, as always.
Groundhogs are such funny little creatures. Word will get out that yours is a “safe yard.”
You’re right, Nancy. It is the color of a sunset!
It’s fine if word gets out. Though I think the area under the shed is taken! (By Henry and clan.)
Wonderful thoughts for a Friday and wonderful things to be thankful for! I am glad that things are working out well for you. I love my poppy – very similar to yours – and also take lots of photos! xx
I just went outside Amy and several of the petals have fallen. By tomorrow, there won’t be any of that vivid orange left! They go so quickly, as you well know.
Love your Poppies. We have that same Poppy that’s been in “our family” for over a hundred years now! It started with my great-grandparents. My grandparents got a start from them. My mom got her start from my grandparents (her parents), and now my brother has it growing at his house from starts he got from my mom! It has it’s own little history, which is why I love this particular kind of Poppy so much.
What a wonderful poppy story, Debbie!
As always your photos are lovely. I just finished putting annuals into pots yesterday. Today some perennials. I finally found (after years of searching) perennial carnations. They are my favorite flower.
Henri maybe Henry but there must be Henrietta close by.
Sorry for the typos. My compuuter screen crashed so I am using my Kindle. This is like texting. My hand shakes that sometimes I hit a key more than once.
Counting our blessings always has a nice cozy feeling to it.
Enjoy your weekend Claudia. My son and his girlfriend are coming today to help me do some things around the house I am still not well enough to do. I count my blessings every day for them.
I edited it for you, Trudy. If it’s like texting, then there will certainly be typos! Texting drives me crazy because I hit the wrong keys all the time!
Have a wonderful weekend with your son and his girlfriend!