Hello, spring!

Hello! It has been quite a long while since I last posted (six months!). Sometimes I am too busy with family obligations to write, and sometimes being on the internet depletes my spirit, but even in the best of times my natural tendency is to retreat to my garden, my books and little projects, and to keep my own quiet company. In 2018, I wrote only eleven posts--not a lot, but something. I have thought about closing my blog, and I have thought about posting more often. All I can say is, time will tell which way the wind blows.

 

Spring in New England is three parts silvery rain and one part cornflower skies and sunshine. I always forget this ratio in the middle of winter when I am dreaming about sunny days in the garden: pansy days,  strawberry days, lily and rose days. 🌼🍓  When the snow is swirling and the wind is biting, the imagination can only be decorated with blue skies and flowers. The guinea pigs, Honey and Blossom, imagine their cage is a parsley patch and dream of blueberries.

Today is cold and mizzling and of the kind that makes my joints and head ache. I had to go out anyway, because I made plans to do my Easter shopping (sunny days, at this time of year, are best saved for walks in the woods and gardening). I bought some lovely chocolates beautifully wrapped in foil and a few little gifts to put in my kids' Easter baskets--kids who are grown-ups now; the oldest is twenty-six, and the baby is almost thirteen!

My entire stack of books, at the moment, revolves around a single theme: gardening. I love every one of these titles and am reading them all concurrently--a little in this one and a little in that one each day. The Solitary Summer is Elizabeth von Arnim's second book. It was sent to me by a dear friend and I love it every bit as much as Elizabeth's first book, Elizabeth and Her German Garden. Both books are written in the style of journal entries and are considered to be autobiographical novels. The books are full of Elizabeth's gorgeous descriptions of her garden, as well as insightful, witty, social commentary that is still relevant today. (She is also the author of The Enchanted April.). I absolutely adore Elizabeth. But I am obsessed with Beatrix Potter.

And that is a topic for a future blog post. :)

In March I started crocheting this "neat ripples" afghan. I worked on it madly for a couple of weeks, but then the gardening books stole my attention, and also the Spanish television series "Grand Hotel", which (for me) requires reading subtitles, and the blanket has halted at half-done like so many of my other yarn-y projects.
 

This guy showed up at my feeder this morning wearing half winter and half spring plumage--much like my own wardrobe just now. I'm sure I look just as funny as he!

The kittens are almost a year and a half old now and still very playful and kittenish. This one is Rhys. He has the more serious and dominant personality. His eyes are brown, and he likes to curl up in a lap of an evening. Both cats have more than one nickname. We call Rhys "Squish" because he's squishably soft and goes limp when you hold him.

This is Wyatt, aka "Stripes", and "Wild Herb" (a play on the name Wyatt Earp). Wyatt is very sweet and affectionate. He is great friends with our boxer Presley and will curl up with him in the sunshine in front of the sliding glass door in the morning. His eyes are green. Both cats have four white socks.

We went for a few walks in the winter woods last month.  

As we walked through the Pine Forest, we were thrilled to hear the hoo-hoo-hoo-hooaawww of a barred owl calling from the top of a tall pine. I'm not sure if it was one of the babies from last spring, or one of the parents, but we were so pleased to get another glimpse of this magnificent bird.

 

One day in March, we went to the beach up in Gloucester.  Everything was winter gray: sand, sky, and water.

The tide was as far out as I've ever seen it--we walked and walked.

With the sandbar exposed, we got close to the lighthouse!

Back at home, we saw some gorgeous sunsets over the last few weeks, of an intensity I usually associate with October.

These two rascals make it very hard to keep the bird feeders filled. But they sure are cute, aren't they?

I loved this book so much that I renamed my blog in honor of it. ♥  

Six months have passed, but as you can see, things are mostly unchanged in my little world. Every day is different yet the same, and now it is springtime once again. :)

Recently, someone asked me if I am having a good Lent. Well, if  I'm honest, I've never cared much for Lent. Late winter/early spring is a difficult season for me, physically and mentally, and forty days of forced suffering is truly beyond me. Besides, I have never found that giving up the things I enjoy has increased my Faith, Love, or Thanksgiving; it has, however, added to my misery (and I am convinced that the kindest thing we can offer our loved ones on a daily basis is our cheerful presence). So, I am continuing to learn to trust God completely, and to give Him thanks always and everywhere for everything, and to be of good cheer. 

Wishing you all the delights of spring!

Love and roses,
Sue

Summer Journal: In My Own Backyard

I'm so happy to see my old friends have found me here! I'm sorry it has taken me a few days to reply to your lovely comments. We went away for the weekend to attend my niece's bridal shower, and I thought I would have more time before we left.

For as long as we have lived in this house--twenty years!--red squirrels have been living in our backyard. They are feisty, territorial creatures. I do love them!

Hummingbirds are feisty, territorial creatures, too, yet so delicate and fairy-like.

I planted five new English roses this year, bringing my rose count up to fourteen bushes! This one is Lady of Shalott:

One of my favorite roses is a beautiful salmon pink one called Boscobel. At first, her blossoms were so pale that I thought David Austin had sent me the wrong rose. She has grown a lot since I took this photo earlier in the season:

 The rose below is the Ambridge Rose. A camera really can't capture her ethereal beauty:

Hanging from a low branch on the pear tree across the street from my house is a basketball-sized, papery nest of a bald-faced hornet colony. Today, the Animal Warden stopped by. He parked his truck in front of the nest, rolled down his window, aimed a can of spray at it (briefly), and drove off.  I think the wasps laughed. I know I did.

Munstead Wood is a deep, dark, crimson rose with incomparable form and scent.

My neighbors down the lane planted two apple trees in their side yard when they bought their house. Those neighbors moved out a couple of years ago and new neighbors moved in. This year, for some reason or another, the new neighbors decided to remove one of the trees. It is sad, because the trees were so vibrant and healthy. Now the tree that is left is dying, we think of a broken heart. Many people don't realize that trees are communal creatures.

Our kittens Rhys and Wyatt are getting  B I G.

Wyatt goes by many different nicknames: Lightning, Stripes McGee, and Ricky Raccoon.

Over the weekend, we got to visit Rhys and Wyatt's sister Miss P (my sis-in-law's kitty). Do you see the family resemblance?  Her eyes are amber like Rhys's and her coloring is a blend of both brothers. All of them have pink noses, and white mittens and shirts.

"The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everybody that summertime cannot last for ever. Even on the most beautiful days in the whole year – the days when summer is changing into autumn – the crickets spread the rumor of sadness and change."~ Charlotte's Web by E.B. White

We are in those days now. I am savoring each one of them, although I know 'nothing gold can stay'. ♥

Love and roses,
Sue

Summer Journal: The Mount

Earlier in the summer, I read a historical novel called, A Lady of Good Family, by Jeanne Mackin. It was about young Beatrix Jones Farrand, the first female American landscape architect.  In the novel I learned that Beatrix Jones was Edith Wharton's niece and had spent time at her aunt's country estate, The Mount, in Massachusetts' Berkshire Mountains. Edith designed both the house and gardens at The Mount, and I imagine she must have been an important influence on Beatrix.

While traveling through the Berkshire Mountains one weekend, we stopped at Lenox, Massachusetts to visit The Mount:

Edith loved European gardens and architecture. You approach The Mount by entering a walled courtyard--the first room of many, as Edith envisioned life as a series of rooms and designed her home to reflect her vision:

"But I have sometimes thought that a woman's nature is like a great house full of rooms: there is the hall, through which everyone passes in going in and out; the drawing-room, where one receives formal visits; the sitting-room, where the members of the family come and go as they list; but beyond that, far beyond, are other rooms, the handles of whose doors perhaps are never turned; no one knows the way to the, no one knows whither they lead; and in the innermost room, the holy of holies, the soul sits alone and waits for a footstep that never comes." ~ from The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton

We toured the gardens first:

After descending a beautiful, wide double staircase to the garden, you encounter the first garden "room": an impressive alle of pleached linden trees known as a "lime walk":

At the end of the lime walk, to the left of the house is the French flower garden. It is a sunny, open garden featuring a central dolphin fountain and pool that is surrounded by mixed beds of colorful perennials and annuals.

Inside the house, Edith favored symmetry and natural light, which you can see in this photo of the gallery. This room was used as a waiting area for guests before they were received into the drawing room.

Edith disliked socializing and detested "small talk". She had an intimate circle of close friends, among whom Henry James was counted.

The drawing room still features the original plaster work on the ceilings--it is gorgeous. However, most of the furnishings are historically accurate reproductions, which means that visitors are truly invited in to Edith's world with no need to stand behind velvet ropes.

Through the doorway in the photo above, you find yourself in Edith's library, the only room with original furnishings (we had to stay behind the velvet ropes).

My favorite room in the house was Edith's bedroom. She did all of her writing in bed on a lap desk. Guests and household staff knew not to expect to see her until noon each day. She stayed in bed writing until 11 am. As she completed each page, she let it drift to the floor.

Edith began her writing career at the age of thirty-one with the publication of a non-fiction volume called, The Decoration of Houses. She went on to write forty books in forty years and was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize. She was awarded for her novel The Age of Innocence.

The view from Edith's bedroom window. I need white dotted swiss curtains for my bedroom and that soft blue-gray for my walls. : )

Breaking with tradition, Edith preferred a round dining room table with limited seating. She believed a dinner party should be an intimate affair, ultimately a gathering of equals, as this was most conducive to excellent conversation. 

We enjoyed our lunch on the beautiful wide terrace that wraps around the back and sides of the house:

Our favorite part of  The Mount was Edith Wharton's "secret garden", a sunken, stone-walled, Italianate garden. We visited the estate on a mizzling day, and the secret garden was several degrees cooler and veiled in silvery mist:

All of the flowers in this garden are white: astilbe, climbing hydrangea, and jasmine. The effect is wild peace.

Thank you for reading!

Love and roses,
Sue ♥