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Wednesday at the Cottage

June 12, 2013 at 8:33 am by Claudia

What’s happening around the house on a Wednesday:

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The clematis is unfurling its blooms.

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A beautiful moth stops for a rest.

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Time for research.

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I’ve taken over the kitchen table.

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The spirea is blooming.

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As is the yarrow.

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Second week of June? Like clockwork, the catalpa is full of gorgeous, fragrant blooms.

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But it’s been so windy, that many have fallen. Stop, wind.

And stop, rain, please. We’ve had long, torrential downpours for the past several days. The little leak in our bedroom has reared its ugly head again. I think it has to do with the chimney flashing, which has been replaced before and will have to be replaced again. Today is sunny, very breezy and I can see that some of my daylilies have bloomed.

I’m immersed in Shakespeare in preparation for my meeting with the director in NYC, which will take place next Monday. The table is covered in books and papers.Whenever I cover that table with something – be it my dollhouse project or reference books and legal pads, Don always says how much he likes it. I’ve noticed he very much likes to see creativity in process and what I might see as clutter, he finds stimulating and artistic.

Love that man.

By the way, for those of you interested in downloading selections from Don’s new album, Out Beyond the Breakers, we have the all clear from Paypal now. Everything is in order. If you’re interested, click on this link to Don’s website and then click on Store. You can download the entire album or single songs.

I normally wouldn’t have mentioned all of this again, but we did have a technical snafu, so I want to give you the latest news.

Don’s really good. His word and music are soul-stirring. As is his voice.

There. That’s all I will say. Except…thanks.

Now I plan to finish my coffee, go outside to see what is blooming, sneeze for the millionth time (my allergies are so bad this year!) finish my current Deborah Crombie novel, work on Act 2 of Much Ado About Nothing, and buy some more allergy medicine.

What do you plan to do today?

Happy Wednesday.

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Reading on the Porch

June 11, 2013 at 9:48 am by Claudia

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Hello. My name is Claudia and I love to read on the porch.

Let me put that more precisely: I love, love, love to read on the porch.

I’ve been this way since I was a child. I was one of those kids whose head was always buried in a book. Always. A stack of new-to-me books from the bookmobile was the best thing ever. All the possibilities contained between those covers filled me with joy.

I grew up in a suburb of Detroit, Michigan and we had a porch. Every house in our post-war community of small bungalows had one; some were rather small, like that of our next door neighbor, Linda. Others were fairly sizable, like ours. My family loved to spend time on the porch. We read, we played games, we chatted with our neighbors as they walked by the house. We drank lemonade. On hot summer nights, before we had an air conditioner, we often sought refuge there. We even watched fireworks from our porch.

I liked to read. And I liked the porch. So it only makes sense that some of my fondest memories are of life on that porch, book in hand, head lifted occasionally to say hello to someone passing by, but mostly, head buried in the pages of a book.

If I looked at the house to my right, I might see Karen sitting on her glider reading to one of her children. If I looked to my left, I would see Linda reading.

Linda, who was an elementary school teacher, loved to read. She often made trips to our public library and checked out lots of books, which she would bring home and proceed to read – on her porch. I can see her still, sitting in her aluminum chair, legs propped up on the wrought iron railing. We shared a love of gothic mysteries, those wonderful books by Victoria Holt and Mary Stewart and Phyllis Whitney and a host of other writers. When Linda finished one book, and she read voraciously and quickly, she would pass it on to me. In the years when I couldn’t drive yet, I was envious of Linda’s ability to drive to the Main Library in our city at any time she pleased. But I also benefitted from those trips because that pile of books she would bring home was for me, too. After we’d both read a book, we would talk about it, often from porch to porch. Our houses were fairly close together, so this was entirely doable.

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Linda was a great neighbor and I remember her fondly. I babysat for her son Kevin for many years (he was a handful.) Years later, after I had long ago left Michigan behind and my parents had retired to a home in northern Michigan, I was in town for a high school reunion. I had a rental car and decided to drive through the old neighborhood. Something made me stop in front of Linda’s house on the off chance she might be home. She was. It was so great to see her again. She happened to be house sitting for the people that lived in our old house, so she grabbed the keys and I got to walk through my childhood home again.

Linda was cool that way. Still is, I imagine. I used to hear the news about Linda through my mother, who kept up a correspondence with friends in the old neighborhood. But now that mom exists in a sort of twilight, I no longer hear about Linda. I think I need to contact her because she’s been in my thoughts lately.

After leaving Michigan behind and living in a series of apartments in other cities, I was thrilled when Don and I rented a Craftsman house in San Diego that had a porch. Oh, heaven. I felt like someone who had been stranded in the desert and had finally found an oasis. Loved that porch. Loved reading there.

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But this porch, with its bluestone floor and a rusty old glider that rocks gently while I read, this is the best yet. Because not only is it beautiful, it is surrounded by gardens I have planted, by a huge old maple that gracefully spreads its branches over the gardens and lawn. It’s not my parent’s porch. It’s ours.

This time of year especially, before it gets too hot and muggy, is the best time to grab a book and mosey on out to the porch. I sit and read for a while, look up at the gardens, watch the cyclists ride by, tuck back into the book, take a picture….I while away the hours there. I’ve done a lot of that lately.

What could be better than losing yourself in a book and being transported to another world, all the while feeling the fresh air on your face, catching the scent of roses on the breeze, with a sweet little doggie at your feet?

Do you read on a porch? Or a patio? On a dock by a lake? Or, glory be, in a hammock?

Happy Tuesday,

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The Gardens: Then and Now

June 10, 2013 at 9:29 am by Claudia

When we moved to the cottage, it was in the late summer of 2005. I was overwhelmed with the move and getting situated in our new home, so I held off on any planting until I could take my time and get to know the property. The one thing we did do was plant four tiny boxwoods in front of the porch, an area that was sadly barren looking. Here’s a glimpse of the boxwoods as they looked the following spring (2006):

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Teeny-tiny. I can spot the beginnings of my clematis right below the second post from the left and the newly planted Lady Elsie May rose bush on the far left. The tiny rose bush that you can see on the far right didn’t survive.

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Here’s what it looks like in this summer of 2013. I added the rose bushes, hydrangeas and spirea on the far left and all the plants that are around the corner in the side-of-the-house garden beds. The boxwoods have done terrifically well; I shaped them with my pruners just the other day. On the far right is the hydrangea that I planted last summer. I’m hoping it grows enough to balance the larger bushes on the left.

When the spring of 2006 arrived, I was raring to go. I couldn’t wait to start prepping the large garden bed. Always on a budget, I added just enough plants to make it affordable and manageable. Here’s a photo of me watering the garden – it gives you a nice idea of the beginnings of the large garden bed.

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Here it is today, in the spring of 2013; not a lot in bloom yet, but you can see how everything has grown. (I notice that I hadn’t yet planted anything in front of the shed.)

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I like a densely planted, free-form sort of garden – a lush look with plants spilling over each other. After 7 summers, we’ve reached ‘lush.’

In those first days of getting to know my garden, I started this journal:

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I wrote quite a bit in those days – logging in details as to the first and second years of the garden.

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I was just discovering the cycles of the trees and the plants. When did the Catalpa bloom? What about the peonies?

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Take note of the entry highlighted by the arrow. Salvia – dug up by Riley. The salvia was in a raised bed by the kitchen door and that boy loved to dig there. I miss him.

The cranesbill geranium and astilbe lasted a few summers, the creeping veronica lasted a bit longer. All of those plants eventually died. Who knows why?

Perennial gardening takes patience. Except for the pots of annuals and the little area in front of the dog corral that is grown from seed, every plant in the gardens is a perennial. For six of the last seven years, I have added a few more plants (remember I’m on a minuscule budget) each spring. Eventually, I put in two more beds on the side of the house. Slowly, over time, I discovered what worked well and what didn’t. We’ve reached an agreement of sorts, my gardens and I. We know each other. I agree not to use pesticides or anything that will harm the environment. The garden thanks me by growing naturally, allowing the proliferation of healthy bugs (and some not so benign) as well as providing a home for butterflies, hummingbirds and bees. If, like a couple of days ago, I see that the deer have been chomping on a few plants, I use Vicki’s all natural deer repellent recipe and spray all the plants.

Does that mean that there are holes in some of the leaves from caterpillars and bugs? Yes. It sometimes makes getting a good photo a bit more difficult but, in the end, I don’t care. Not only do I have a garden that I love, a place of peace and beauty, but I’m not polluting the soil or the ground water.

And here’s the kicker: after 7 years of planting, I’ve reached the point where I don’t have to spend any more money on new plants. The perennials come back every year like old friends, and I can trust that they will be a bit lusher, a bit fuller. I simply buy some annuals for the porch and the funky patio and that’s it.

Until I start a new garden bed.

Hmmmm.

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Oh, cottage and gardens, I love thee.

Cicada update: Just about a half mile up our road, where the woods are more plentiful and are next to the road, the sound of the cicadas is deafening. Don came back from an errand yesterday and told me about them, so we got in the car so I could give them a listen. Amazing. These 17 year cicadas, millions of them, are making the most incredible noise; the cicada buzz along with a high pitched drone. It sounds like something out of a science fiction movie! I even saw them flying around.

Wow.

I recorded them with my iPhone but I couldn’t figure out how to transfer that to the blog without a lot of hassle. Then I realized that all anyone has to do is search for Cicada/audio and you’ll have a good idea of what I’m talking about.

Happy Monday.

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Wednesday at the Cottage

Reading on the Porch

The Gardens: Then and Now

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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