Mockingbird Hill Cottage — Page 1761 — Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Hot! Hot! Hot!

June 10, 2008 at 11:32 am by Claudia

It is very, very hot and humid out here on the East Coast. 97 degrees today with a heat index of 100+ – Is this the beginning of June? Hello – it isn’t even summer yet! We are fortunate to have room air conditioners and are able to keep cool. The plants are wilting a bit, we are wilting a lot and the dogs are bored out of their minds.

We are blessed to have our dear friends visiting for a few days. They are lovely, lovely people and we have such a wonderful time when we are with them. Easy, relaxed, lots of laughter and creativity – and they love our dogs. The weather is off-putting, but we will press on! I have just a few days and I am off to San Diego again. I will post a least one more time before I leave. Have a wonderful day and stay cool if you are in this heat!

Peonies

June 4, 2008 at 11:53 am by Claudia

They’re blooming! Like clockwork, the first week of June brings the lush beauty of newly opened peonies. Thank you to the unknown previous owner of this house who planted these beautiful babies. What pleasure they bring all these years later!

The porch has been swept, cleaned and straightened after my furniture refinishing project. It is a somewhat gray, rainy day – maybe the perfect day to sit on the glider and read. I’m currently reading The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffennegger. It was recommended to me by an actress I worked with in San Diego who insisted I borrow her copy. What a lovely, moving novel. I recommend it highly. I must finish it so that I can return it with great thanks when I fly back to the West Coast next week.

I’m off to read!

Back, but still coughing

June 2, 2008 at 5:15 pm by Claudia

Well, I’m feeling much better, still coughing with chest congestion, but the worst is over. While I was stationed on the sofa in the den, I watched the 3 starling babies get bigger and bigger. I was sure I would see at least one of them fly out of the nest, but they managed to pull off their escape without a witness. My husband and I were left with huge amounts of bird excrement to clean up – on railings, on the furniture, on the porch floor. When we noticed, almost immediately, the parents starting to build a new nest in the same place we had to say no more. We love the miracle of birth, but we are also denied access to the porch for a long period of time while the parents feed the babies and protect the nest. Our dogs cannot go on the porch – and they get really down. So we made the decision to board up all the openings to the eaves – something we wanted to do three years ago. It was all done before any major nest making started and I’m sure our starling friends will find a new nesting place. They do seem shocked though and fly back a couple of times a day to make sure we haven’t opened up the hotel for them.

I managed to finish the painting and refinishing of my cabinet. I used the wonderful tips from Cindy at Romantic Home. Thank you Cindy! I’m very pleased with it. I’m not sure how well the photos show it, but I used an aging technique and it worked well.