artifacts

it's amazing the things you can find while digging around in your garden. i wonder how old this bottle is. i wonder what swamp root is. i wonder who had to take it. and why. and when. living in this very old house and suddenly finding evidence of its other inhabitants and their lives always leaves me a bit awestruck, wondering for days afterward what life must have been like at this place one hundred, even two hundred years ago.

silver surprise

over a month ago, i hurriedly bought a pair of pants in a department store chain. they're more casual than what i normally wear, so i never even took them from the drawer until this morning. i put them on, then sat outside with coffee to read the daily news. suddenly i felt poking in my backside. i reached behind me expecting to find an insect of some sort but instead found buttoned back pockets which i didn't realize existed - and tucked deep inside each pocket, a jewelry card with a sole silver earring attached.

i photographed the earrings as i thought about what to do with them. should i keep them? return them to the store? what good to them or to me is one earring of a pair? and it happened over five weeks ago!

what do you think? what would you do?

bovine predictions

growing up, we lived across the brook from a dairy farm. early on we learned that cows lie down when it is about to rain. here, we see a herd of indecisive cows, some up and some down - and i guess they collectively were right in their weather predication. even though it was humid and overcast and the skies threatened the entire after-noon, it never did rain.

the unusual request

so a few months ago, out of the blue, i get this email from a guy named colin at the unusual suspects asking me for an interview. i hem and i haw and i outright stall because, quite frankly, i've never had a request like this before. eventually tho, ego gets the better of me and i acquiesce and answer his questions. and here's the result.

by the way, his is an unusual blog - little snippets of pop culture with links to the bigger story. movie reviews and commentary. an entertaining style of writing - and he posts not once but twice a day. i check it daily and have become a follower. go look around and maybe you will, too.

and why the photo of the pansy? no reason. i just like it, that's all.

right on time

with the early spring we've had in these parts and with plants blooming earlier than usual, it's encouraging to see elderflower blooming here in mid-june, right on time. above is the flower as it appears on the bush. below is the close-up, taken with the macro lens. that whole big fluffy soft flower head is made up of hundreds of these minute little flowers.

spoiling the view

a few times a week, i pass this. a rag, i think. it's hanging off a tree at the top of someone's driveway. and i bet it's been there for a least a year now. what is it, do you suppose? a marker of some sort? a remnant from a rowdy party? something blown in by the wind? whatever it is, it's unsightly and i fight the urge each time to yank it down and throw it away. but i'm afraid if i act on the impulse, someone may go careening down the hill after missing the sloping driveway.

summer solstice

"whatever is dreamed on this night, will come to pass."

a midsummer night's dream by william shakespeare

sweet solstice dreams, dear reader

three!

a big birthday weekend for the little girl. note the chocolate cake-y fingers holding up the candle denoting the new age. as it always does, time continues to fly faster than i would like - and the beat goes on.

nifty gizmo

i've been waiting and waiting for this to come in the mail - and today, it did! now, what is it?? take a guess!

in the wind

yesterday in a store, as we passed the display of hanging plants, the little girl spotted pinwheels amongst the leaves and flowers. she was captivated with their shiny brilliance even before the wind set them in motion. we spent much too much shopping time blowing them and watching them twirl around. in the end, we bought several and placed them in garden spots and in plants around the yard where they will spin with wild abandon all summer long, much to the delight of both the little girl and her grandmother.

graduation weekend

in a small town like this one, high school graduation is a source of community pride and celebration. for eighteen years, we've seen these young people everywhere - on playgrounds and school buses, at the supermarket with their parents, in church, at the library, on the ballfield and at the beach, getting haircuts, scooping ice cream, bagging groceries, taking our orders and washing our windshields. suddenly one day, they're young adults, leaving school and leaving us, as they should. i just love that the entire community comes together with such pride to celebrate this momentous right of passage with our young people.

almost time for tea

spent some time at work on this unusually chilly saturday and, after a few hours, felt the need for a cup of tea to warm myself. i checked the stash i keep in my drawer and found the tea bags and the packets of sweetener - but, alas, i was out of powdered creamer. off to the staff room i went, confident i'd find some there that i could borrow and replace on monday. but look, all i found was this gigantic bag of every kind of packaged sweetener you can imagine. but what good is that with no creamer, i ask you?

june grumbling

when you've been at work for twelve hours and you're tired and thinking about the two more hours of work you have at home, when you're hungry because you got so busy you forgot to eat lunch and all you've eaten was cheese & crackers at the meeting and you know you're now missing dinner, when you still have eleven miles to go before you reach home, this is not the vehicle to get stuck behind in a series of s-curves. particularly when your dashboard light comes on to let you know there's something amiss with one of your tires.

coffee break rituals

sad to say, i'm pretty compulsive about a lot of things, and coffee preparation is one of them. pictured here is the cup i always use at work. after i pour my coffee, i add creamers, one by one, tapping the bottoms to get the last drips of cream from each. when the first one is empty, i stuff its foil top back into the tiny container, put it down, then start on the second creamer. i do this four times, packing each fluted container into the previous empty one, making a stack, as shown. next comes two yellow packages of sweetener, with the empty sleeves crumpled, then packed into the topmost creamer of the stack. a swish with a spoon and i am done. the lid snaps on just so, with the sip hole lined up at a ninety degree angle to the cup's handle when i hold it in my right hand.

now if people would only make available a pint container of cream for my coffee, i wouldn't have to go through this compulsive ritual. well, the plastic part of it, anyway.

works like a charm

a beautiful holiday weekend, with perfect weather to be in the garden. pictured are iris in full bloom. with crutches, it's pretty easy to sit in the garden with a camera and take photos.

it's tricky, however, to work in the garden with crutches, and the most i planted was two tiny chamomile plants, assisted by the little girl. she wanted her own trowel and, after inquiring about my pink gardening gloves, ran inside to her toy basket to fetch the white cotton gloves she uses for pretend dress up. she dug and she planted and, when it came time to water, she chanted the magic words our family has always used to urge plants into growth:"tut-tut, it looks like rain" - a quote from winnie-the-pooh.

we'll soon be drinking chamomile tea because those magic words - they always work. the iris is living proof.

they're back!

despite our best efforts to eradicate them year after year, the non-so-pretties are back again. and i almost am.

out of commission

haven't been blogging because i haven't been taking photos. it's not easy to negotiate the camera from crutches. it's temporary though and won't be for much longer. stay tuned!

ghost tree

a couple of times a week, i head west to work and, on my way, pass by this obviously dead tree,sitting just at the edge of a big cow field. it's been there for many many years, tall and stately and reaching high into the sky. it looks majestic in summer, stark white with so much lush green surrounding it. and in winter, its lightness is a contrast to all the other grey and black trunked, leafless trees. i'm not sure what kind of tree it is but i like it. i also can't imagine why it hasn't fallen yet.

new year in spring

when my dad was alive, if he was asked his age, he used to say he was older than dirt. this phrase came to me last night as i was adding a forty pound bag of garden soil to the perennial bed, and it dawned on me that this may well be the dirt that i am older than.

hidden away

this elusive native woodland plant grows in dampish shady spots in the woods. the flower of this plant is called jack-in-the-pulpit. that hooded part is the flower - fascinating, albeit not very showy, i'm afraid. but take a peek below and you will see the solitary "jack" standing upright in the "pulpit" under the hood. see?

odd that i found more than a dozen of these, scattered in the woods at the edge of the yard. i have seen these plants only a few times in my life and have no idea why there are suddenly so many. i do hope they haven't been here all along and i just never noticed!

violets

roses are red but violets are not blue - they're purple. these are one of my favorite flowers and fortunately, i have a whole section of lawn devoted to them in the springtime.

inquiring minds want to know

sitting at a gas station, waiting for my receipt and wondering why their bathrooms are called "rest rooms". of course, it's a room. but a place of rest? really?

dustweb

perhaps you can't see it here, but i spotted it the minute the i walked into the room: this thin floor-to-ceiling filament glistening in the morning sunlight streaming in the window. i have seen these before, long phantom strands that show up at a moment's notice. what is this thing? is it web? dust? and how could it materialize overnight? i saw no evidence of any living thing having created it. unless perhaps it was a result of my own negligible housekeeping these fine spring days.

mothers' day magic

i've looked forward to today with some trepidation, since this is my first motherless mothers' day. so, in an effort to be positive about the day, i decided to search until i found some small sign that my mother was with me still, if only in spirit. and find it i did - or so i thought.

early in the day, i walked into church behind this elderly woman who was wearing a replica of my mother's fisherman knit sweater, the one that she always wore and that i now possess. i held the woman's arm as we climbed the stairs, i commented on her lovely sweater, and wished her a happy mothers' day. smiling, i found my place in a pew. it was mothers' day - and my mother was with me.

as sometimes happens, my eyes misted over a few times at the church music, thinking that i had so badly wanted a sign from my mother and i had been blessed with one. then, as the mass was ending, i listened in disbelief as the choir began to sing this, a piece i love, which means so much to me, which i had posted on serendipitous the night my mother died.

which i swear i had never heard sung in our church before. ever.

between the storms

i happened to glance out the window just in time to dash outside under an umbrella to chase this shot. and then the rains came again.

forget-me-nots

really, how could i forget forget-me-nots when they are all around the house and all over the yard? this clump was found blooming by the house's granite foundation, yards and yards from the nearest garden, which must be where they came from. and look - see the fly?

black flies

what is this, you say? it's my windshield, twenty-five miles from the car wash that i'd gone to thirty minutes previously. black flies splatter on the glass as i drive, each tiny body making a p-p-p sound as it hits. this spring, black flies are thick in the air around us, infiltrating our noses, entering our mouths as we talk, getting stuck in our ears and taking up residence under our hair at the back of the neck. dreadful little biting creatures, they'll only be around for a few more weeks, thank goodness. then the mosquitos will take over.

time lost

over the weekend, i spent some time with a friend i'd not seen in forty plus years. we had a long and lovely afternoon of talking and sharing and attempting to get caught up not only with each others lives, but also with the lives of our mutual friends, back in the day. the visit made me wonder how rich and rewarding our friendship might have been all these years if we hadn't disconnected when we were younger. it was a happy afternoon with easy conversation and i still smile today thinking about it. i'm really glad to have my old friend back in my life again.

may day 2010

the first day of may and i had to hunt for a mayflower (which april showers bring!) to photograph. they've almost gone by, which is very unusual for this time of year. it took me fifteen minutes in a pretty big patch to find this lone flower. it smelled heavenly, though! happy may day!

snow petals

there's snow in our forecast these past days - and today i thought i saw it! but upon closer investigation, it proved to be only petals from the myriad of white flowers on this tree, floating down and covering the grass, just like the snow.

earth day weekend

saturday morning clean up and a trip to the transfer station. shown are only a few of the magazines to be taken there. because i'm so conscious of the amount of paper i purchase and use, i try hard to find the information i want and need on the internet as opposed to in print. but old house magazines are my downfall. there's something about opening a new magazine for the first time, turning the pages, seeing a photograph, studying its details, reading the article - as much as i would wish it were so, it's just not the same on a computer screen. when i feel guilty about being a paper-consumer in this way, i rationalize that magazines like these are my only paper indulgence. and then i remember post-it notes...

toms

all week i've been hearing turkey calls from high up in the woods. then this afternoon, there he was, gobbling and strutting his stuff for the ladies right in my own back yard. and he even brought a buddy with him! i grabbed for the camera and the telephoto lens and began to shoot out the window so as not to spook them. and then i remembered: just a few hours earlier, i had inserted the screens back in all the windows. so this shot is not clear since it's through the mesh of the screen...but i thought you might enjoy seeing him anyway, in all his puffed up glory!

best laid plans

the little girl was here this afternoon, quite unexpectedly. gone were my plans to wash windows, work in the garden, and dine late in the evening. instead there were sandboxes and shovels, spiral slides and hanging bars, and water in a spray bottle to water the flowers and wash the house. later, chicken for dinner with veggies to dip and milk in a cup. the serendipitous day ended with a splashy bath, a towel-ish snuggle, and a lovely soapy smell to her damp hair.

it was way better than washing windows.

fern, unfurling

vacation week and lots of time for walking in the woods and experimenting with the camera. like this fern, i am really trying to unwind.

easier said than done, however...

out of the blue

overnight, a surprise - it snowed! a thin blanket covering the green grasses, pale clumps on tree buds, white mantles over blooming azaleas. all my daffodils are bent down under the weight of the heavy wet snow. this snow melts fast, though, and will soon be gone. here it clusters and drips off a forsythia branch, already in bloom. more snow showers tonight and perhaps tomorrow. ah, me. here's to new england springs!

remnants

who was here? looks like some forest critter had a picnic on this old tree stump just at the edge of the woods. i love to find signs of life like this in the woods but am continually surprised and a bit disappointed that i rarely happen upon the animals that are leaving them.

more tree flowers

above: this must be of those red maple flowers, i think, and still on the tree. miniscule pink flowers with stems and stamens and petals and pistils. don't forget to click to make it show big! what this is below, i do not know. all i know is that i found it on a tree by the side of the road, not very far from this place.

tree flowers

late this afternoon, i wandered to the woods with camera in hand. the forest floor is still covered with the browns and grays of winter but tiny shoots of verdant green have begun poking through the remains of last year's leaves. and everywhere i walked i saw the vibrant pink of these tiny flowers, the spent precursor to the emerging leaves on the red maple trees, high above my head.

clay date

long have i waited for the day when i could introduce clay to the little girl. our first session was spent making blue and yellow hot dogs, snowmen, and pancakes. note the rolling technique, pictured. i think she's got it! it was good grammie fun - and thankfully, she never once tried to explore the clay by tasting it!

lupine

i love the way young lupine leaves catch and hold the raindrops. it's the real reason i have so many of these plants in the garden.

first flowers

every spring, these crocuses are a surprise. they're right in the middle of the lawn and i swear i didn't plant them there. how they materialized remains a mystery but i sure do love to see them come back year after year after year.

fun with food

somewhere on the internet, probably on a blog (one of yours?), i read about carrot flowers. so easy to make: just cut wedges all around the length of a carrot before slicing. they added a festive spring touch to the easter dinner table. much prettier than the carrot pennies i usually serve. lest you think the wedge parts of the carrots will be wasted, they'll go into the pea soup i'll make from the easter ham bone in a day or two. pea soup is an old easter tradition around here. and carrot flowers is a brand new one!

easter sunday

happy easter!

easter tale

here's my small collection of rabbits, normally scattered about the house, but reunited each easter for the day's celebration. now, i could tell you a tale about rabbits - but a far better easter story is one i blogged three years ago. yes, it's one more click, but if you like intrigue, you'll love this story........

if you care to comment, please do so here, not there!

if you celebrate, happy easter.

if you don't, happy spring.

april first

with so many good april fools' jokes on the internet, you'd think i might have been in a suspicious frame of mind today. but seeing this under the windshield wiper of my parked car struck momentary fear in my heart, even though i knew i wasn't illegally parked. turns out it was a promotional gag by an establishment in the area. i was so impressed with their creativity and the fact that they "got" me, i considered stopping in to tell them. but april fool's on them - i'll just blog about it instead!