a country weekend

Country weekends are much the same-- the frog pond, wildflowers, farmers markets, wading, moss, ferns...But it always feels fresh. There is less noise there. Cell phones don't work, internet is slow and shaky, there is more space to breathe and think and not think. When I was young I did a lot of camping, backpacking, hiking, sleeping outside. I've never once slept outside of our house in the Catskills, but lately I've been feeling the urge for a campfire and a night of stars. I'm too domesticated, I want to let things go.

a country weekend

After the four hour drive, up Weaver Hollow Road, then a steep plunge down to our house.

frog pond at dusk

 I walk the property, making sure all is well.

buttercups, rocks, lichen and brook

the blue hills of the western Catskills

forget-me-nots

 Water and wildflowers, wildflowers and water.

the waterfall

 Wandering, gazing, pondering.

frog pond by day

orange hawkweed a/k/a devil's paintbrush

Ferns, lichen, moss. Stones, bluets, blackberries. Every day in the same places I would seen new things, things anew. There were friends and family, lovingly prepared meals, country roads, farmers markets, my favorite used books store, a gallery opening for a dear friend. I exhale, take a deep breath, breathe.

weeding, reading, and wildflowers

  Summer feels compressed this year. Spring was late, and

all my flowers seem to bloom two weeks past their usual time.
 Already people are talking about autumn.                                  

 Wasn't it just a couple of weeks ago that I was photographing peony buds?

Summer evenings are  a joy, reading on the porch, watching robins and rabbits 

through twilight, the sounds of neighborhood children playing outside after dinner.

 My flower bed has gone from being calm and distinct 

to a weedy tangle, and somehow I missed the transition. 

It's been many years since I've done much gardening.

 When my children were young and my life overfull,
 tending a garden went from pleasure to chore. 

But now it's becoming pleasure again, in small bits. 

For one thing, I've been weeding in the evening. 

Many people do their gardening in the early morning, 

but I am not a morning person, and if I try to force it, well, it becomes a chore again. 

But my evenings are mostly my own, and these days I spend them reading.

 So I take a break from my books and weed for a while.

 It's quiet and shady and sometimes even meditative. 

  

Best of all though, are the wildflowers in the country.

                                       

They don't need weeding,

and their petite charms are beyond anything I could cultivate.

I hope that you are enjoying summer (or winter if you are on the other side of the globe).

xo, Jen

a country weekend

wildflowers along the stone wall

standing behind the waterfall

a barn with a rocket

a barn with a crocodile

the road to town

a visit to Bibliobarn

and more wildflowers.

wild roses

 Purple flowering raspberry shrubs grow wild all around our house in the Catskills. Rubus odorous is a member of the rose family. I love the way they look in all their stages of growth. Their berries taste like a slightly tart raspberry. Of course I rarely see the berries--most of them get eaten by birds and other wildlife.

 They remind me of a scrubbier version of the lovely rugosa rose that grows wild around the beaches of New England. I took this picture in Maine. Their warm pinkness and sweet smell contrasts beautifully with the rocky beaches and chilly north Atlantic waters.

a country weekend, arrival

My arrivals at our country house follow a pattern. Day or night I first check on the waterfall. I hear it as soon as I get out of the car, framing why I love the Catskills, wilderness and wildness set among rolling hills and dairy farms. The waterfall is fed by snowmelt and rain, so by the end of summer slows to a trickle, but big rains last week had it roaring.

Then I unpack the car, go in the house, open the windows, 

and if it's daytime go back outside. 

I arrived Friday late afternoon so had plenty of time to explore.

I walked to the frog pond to make sure the frogs were there.

So many species have become extinct in recent years that I worry, 

but there were tadpoles and frogs in every stage.

They leap away at any movement of my shadow.

Next I investigated the wildflowers.

Forget me nots, tiny and delicate,

that perfect blue with the yellow center, takes my breath away.

Everywhere I looked there were layers of nature.

I picked some flowers and ferns

and went into the house to put them in water.

I chose a couple of my nature books 

and took them, along with ice water, raspberries

and Denise Parsons' (of Chez Danisse) new book 

After the Sour Lemon Moon, and went back outside to read.

"The train pulls slowly to a stop. I tug my suitcase down from the rack above and exit into the blue hour. It is quiet. I can hear myself breathe."

                                                                               from,  After the Sour Lemon Moon

 Yes, I can hear myself breathe.

green land, pink sea

Spring was late this year, but I've been savoring it. 

My Massachusetts yard has become a rabbit refuge. 

Yesterday two of them were playing leapfrog.

Who says dandelions are weeds?

The wildflowers in the Catskills are enchanting. 

I haven't gotten up there as much as I'd like, but will make up for it this summer.

I'm really into blue flowers right now, and purply blues,

I need to plant some delphiniums.

Another picture from the wedding. The bride and bridesmaids

leaving her family apartment.

Below are their bouquets.

Flowers and ceremony decor were done by Fleurish NYC,

and they did a great job.

My peonies haven't bloomed yet.

They remind me of globes--

green land, pink sea.

a country weekend

There was the farmers market of course, and an auction, many barns, paint samples tested on the house with final decision based on those barns, great books finds at Bibliobarn (the treasure being Hiroshoge's Fifty-Three Stages of the Tokaido), an epic fall into a ditch while taking a picture of a roadside sculpture of a cat, lots of wandering… I have much to share with you, but right now I'm tired and just want to say hello. Oh, and there were wildflowers!

Hope you had a good weekend.

xo, Jen

mind your frocks and trousers

last summer in the Catskills

Today was the first day that felt like spring,

the freshness, the possibilities...  

Last summer I got deep into the wildflowers in the country,

 and I can't wait for this year's crop.

Meanwhile, I found this hand-bound book, 

Wild Flowers of New York, published in 1912.

The illustrations are lovely, and the prose is informative and delightful. In discussing wild strawberries and blackberries, the point is made "...school children who gather the luscious strawberries from the low vines that trail through many of our fields, or the equally delectable blackberry that is to be found in thickets, along walls or by the roadside and whose thorns are often the cause of severe reproof of the parents when the child returns with frocks or trousers sadly in need of repair."