Mockingbird Hill Cottage

I’d given up on any of the Heavenly Blue Morning Glories flowering. Maybe due to the drought? Maybe a bunch of dud seeds? Except that the vines were growing and the leaves. Just no flowers. Yesterday I glanced outside and thought I was seeing things.

What??

Apparently there had been a bloom the day before as well. Here we are, in the middle of October with a frost not all that far off, and they’re finally blooming. The mysteries of gardening – you never know. I just pray that we have a few days, or even a week, before it gets so cold that they wither and die. There’s another bloom today (this was yesterday’s flower.)

Speaking of today, it’s much colder and quite raw out there. We’ve had more rain, which is good. Next week, we’ll clear the gutters and start raking – we’ve only held off because it’s been wet and rainy. Today is a good day to stay inside and nest.

I took this the other day as we were driving home from our storage space. This road is one we take when we’re almost home and it has the most beautiful view of the mountains and apple orchards and trees turning color. We frequently pull over and climb a little hill in order to capture the view.

I love where we live.

Both Don and I have decided that the next two weeks will be devoted to the Biden campaign. I am going to text every day from 4 until texts stop at 9 pm. Don will phone bank. There’s nothing more important, so that’s where we’re putting our energy and time.

We found an older guitar of Don’s (he has so many!) in the storage space. It’s an old Gibson – he believes he bought it when he was living in Omaha. That was over 40 years ago. He’s been polishing it up and just now left to have it restrung at a local guitar shop.

I found this pillow that I embroidered when we were living in San Diego. We were living in a Craftsman bungalow and this was an Arts and Crafts era pattern. I actually made it for the very sofa it is once again gracing. I remembered it a while back and was determined to find it in my grandmother’s trunk.

I’m glad it’s back. My little Winston used to put his head on this pillow.

Stay safe.

Happy Friday.

 

From yesterday morning. Heavens, the foggy, wet mornings of autumn can be hauntingly beautiful.

We did a lot of work at the storage space. We organized everything into two groups: keep and discard. And then we re-packed the space with the “keep” items in the back and the “discards” in the front, so that when Don gets a hold of a truck, he can load it easily and quickly and then we can either rent a smaller space and save some money, or, having cleaned out the shed, move everything back there.

It took about two hours. Then we drove home, showered, ate lunch and Don did some phone banking for Biden for a few hours. A couple of hours later, when text banking started, I put in about 3 hours doing that. We were quite tuckered out at the end of the day.

Today, my intention is to stay peaceful. That’s how I feel at the moment and that’s how I want to stay. I need it. I read my book for a couple of hours this morning and am going to read some more after I finish this post.

It’s a beautiful day and it might be the last warmish day we have for a long time. So I’m going to walk around the property, noting the changes, taking some pictures, enjoying the sunshine.

I’m waiting for a few items that need to arrive before I can do any more work on the dollhouse. I can, however, clean up my workspace and that’s on my agenda for sure.

Stay safe.

Happy Thursday.

 

I saw this huge spider web this morning. There was some rain overnight and fog this morning and it was glistening in the sunlight. Amazing.

We woke up early and Don pointed out the waning crescent moon that was in a line with Venus. So beautiful in the dark early morning sky. We see a lot of stars and planets out here in the country.

I texted for Biden yesterday and I’m going to do it again today. Don is going to do some phone banking. We’re doing everything we can to help ensure his win.

Yesterday afternoon, I looked outside and what did I see?

This young buck munching on the burning bush, right in the middle of the big garden bed. I motioned Don over to the window and I eventually took a short video of him – it’s on Instagram. I let him eat for a while and then decided it was time for him to move on. I opened the front door and peeked out at him, talking gently. He just stood there staring at me. But as I moved onto the steps, he took off through the corral area, scaring our resident groundhog, Shifty. Shifty had apparently been dining in the corral. All is well. Our little buck got some food. And Shifty eventually returned to the corral for more food. Soon, Shifty will be hibernating for the winter. We’ll miss him, as we’ve grown fond of him.

Today we’re headed over to our storage facility, which has been hiking the price of their units every six months. We’re sick of it. So we’re going to take an inventory of what we have there, reorganize it with the stuff we’re going to toss on one side and the stuff we want to save on the other. Eventually, we want to rent a dumpster and toss all the crap currently in the shed – and there’s a lot of it – clean it out and put everything from the storage unit in there. Nothing will go in there that isn’t mouse proof, however, because field mice are a fact of life around here. We have to find some pallets, as well, because we’ve learned the hard way that items need to be up and off the floor.

Exciting, right?

Stay safe.

Happy Wednesday.