Mockingbird Hill Cottage — Page 1095 — Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Splashes of Autumnal Color

October 9, 2015 at 9:28 am by Claudia

Yesterday was a gloriously beautiful Autumn day. We mowed all of the grass on the property, a very satisfying feeling, and then I took advantage of the warmth and the sun to take some pictures for those of you who have been requesting all things Fall.

10-9 house and leaves

10-9 top of maple

The top of the maple that’s next to the house (where the big garden bed is).

10-9 back of house

That’s the house you see tucked in there among the trees. I took this while standing in the back forty, which is up a hill from the house. That’s the mountain ridge that we can see from our cottage – the same ridge where we occasionally hike.

10-9 looking at shed

10-9 the other maple

The maple tree on the other side of the house, which is simply beautiful. Hydrangeas and porch to the right.

10-9 leaf caught in tree

As you can see, there’s still a lot of green; the colors have just begun to change.

I’ll have more photos for you as the leaves change and more colors are added to the landscape. I took a lot of photos of the gardens, as well – I love capturing the changes in all of the plants as we move away from summer.

Book review on Just Let Me Finish This Page today. Her Final Breath by Robert Dugoni – click here.

Happy Friday.

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Don’s Very Own Nirvana and Other Things

October 8, 2015 at 9:14 am by Claudia

Because miniatures are fun and moving them around is just like playing house when you were a kid:

10-8 don's nirvana

I call this: Don’s Very Own Nirvana.

This chair, a guitar, and all things Beatles? Heaven for my husband.

10-8 nirvana2

Oooh, setting up this studio is going to be a lot of fun!

Last night, we were watching Frasier and he remarked on the furniture in Frasier’s apartment, saying that he’d read all of the pieces were made by famous designers. I said that the recliner was an Eames chair. He had no idea about the designer’s name, but I could tell he liked it.

He also has no idea that he’s getting his own Eames chair – albeit, in miniature.

It’s been sunny and warmish around here; simply beautiful fall weather.

10-8 my girl

My girl enjoying the sun.

10-8 wildflowers&bee

A bee savoring the wildflowers that are all over the property at the moment.

I forgot to share two items that were in the box of minis that Barbara sent to me.

10-8 mini games

Two games. Aren’t they great?

I think some lawn mowing is on the docket for the day. It’s grown pretty long from all the rain we had about a week ago. I’m halfway through Her Final Breath by Robert Dugoni. I reviewed the first book in this excellent series here on the blog. This is the second.

I also stopped by my local library yesterday and brought home four books. There’s always a little pressure when I check out library books – especially if they’re new and have a limited checkout time. Oh boy. One of them is All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. I’ve heard nothing but wonderful things about this book, so I figured it was high time I took a stab at it.

Happy Thursday.

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Chatty on Wednesday

October 7, 2015 at 8:56 am by Claudia

10-7 mini rainbow

• Early yesterday evening I was outside with Scout. I looked up and saw this.

The sun was to the right (out of picture range) and was it the moon glowing under that cloud? I’m not sure, but that little rainbow-like slash of light appeared. Since my eyes are very sensitive to light, I thought maybe I was seeing something that wasn’t there.

But the camera saw it, too.

A lovely little moment in time.

• We bit the bullet yesterday and ordered heating oil. Gas prices are pretty low at the moment, so we thought this would be a good time to do it and sure enough, our oil guy told us that now was the time because prices were soon going up. High or low, heating oil is expensive.

The heavy gold quilt is covering the bed once again. I’m wearing my flannel pajamas.

I’m pretty sure it’s Autumn.

10-7 zinnia with web

Meanwhile, the zinnias just keep on blooming.

10-7 orange zinnia

• Design Sponge, one of my favorite sites, did a Guide to Ulster County, NY yesterday. That’s where we live. You might find it interesting. Grace Bonney, the founder of Design Sponge, recently moved up here – she’s not all that far from us – and has fallen in love with this beautiful area, just as we have.

We’ve got it all here. And this time of the year? Simply glorious.

• Housekeeping: If you’ve noticed the Cookie pop-up at the bottom of the blog, let me explain why it’s there. The European Union has a law that requires websites to indicate if cookies are being used on their site. Cookies, in case you’re not familiar with that term, are:

‘small pieces of data sent by a website and stored in the user’s web browser while the user is browsing that website…Cookies were designed to be a reliable mechanism for websites to remember information (such as items in a shopping cart) or to record the user’s browsing activity (including clicking particular buttons, logging in, or recording which pages were visited by the user as far back as months or years ago.” Wikipedia.

Every website uses cookies. Ads use cookies. The EU thinks anyone viewing a website should be alerted to that fact. And Google is now enforcing that law. So, any of us who have potential visitors from the EU have to have a ‘cookie warning.’

Blogger blogs already have one. The rest of us have to take care of it ourselves, hence the plug-in I added yesterday (on both my blogs.)

Oy. It’s a bit of a pain in the tush, since anyone who goes on the web for even a minute encounters cookies. You can set your web browser to not allow cookies, if it’s of any great concern to you.

But we do what we have to do, right? I’ve tried to make it as unobtrusive as possible. So, there you go.

I spent a chunk of time yesterday diddling around with all of this and it’s time I’ll never get back. Sigh.

• Book review of X by Sue Grafton on Just Let Me Finish This Page today. Click here.

• Whoops! Forgot to add that The Poisoner’s Handbook (starring Don Sparks) is now showing on Netflix! We saw it listed last night and Genevieve, one of my readers, also wrote me to let me know about it.

Happy Wednesday.

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Splashes of Autumnal Color

Don’s Very Own Nirvana and Other Things

Chatty on Wednesday

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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