the boy swims, the berries are sweet

I was feeling a little guilty about all the peony love lust in my last post, so please say hello to this charming mountain laurel, so lovely in her own modest way. Speaking of flowers, here is a nice flower/decorating link from Design Sponge: best of floral inspiration--each picture links to a sneak peek (a look inside someone's home). My favorite is the Glasgow home of Fiona Douglas of Bluebellgray. I adore the red rose cushion. And the words bluebell and gray.

 I continue to make these whimsical little collages. I work on them in the evening, while listening to jazz radio. Despite years of painting and writing, I have never found creating things theraputic, but this is fun and relaxing, and I get a kick of out putting together words and pictures. Look at the strange little phrases (sections in a book) from the above Mysteries in the Bird World:

Islands of Birds--Effects of Musketry--Timid Damsels--Meaning of Montreal...
It's all so strange and wonderful.

Typed ingredients for plum conserve here, and a bit of an old grammar book: What adjectives do you use to name the qualities of a book? a rose? a ball?


Tomorrow I go to Vermont to bring home my son for the summer (remember this?) and we are going to visit a dear friend at a farm where they make goat's milk cheese. I hope to have some good pictures of goats for you next week.

the other world

Last week's flowers (from my garden!) still look pretty good. I thought one peony was perfect with a bit of salvia and mountain laurel.

It's been raining for days, and the peonies are getting weighted down and rusty around the edges, so today I picked several in various stages.

This table is on a little sheltered area of my deck. I go in and out this door several times a day, and in the evening I sit out here and read, so I will be able to spend a lot of time with the peonies.

I am slowly letting go of the store. It will be open until mid-August, but it's hard to be there. Fortunately I have other passions.

Creating. 

Putting together a proposal for a book. 

I'm not quite ready to discuss it, but there are clues on my book shelves,

                                                 

and in this poem:                

                                   

                                        You Ask Why

                You ask why I make my home in the mountain

                 forest.

                 and I smile, and am silent.

                 and even my soul remains quiet:

                 it lives in the other world

                 which no one owns

                 The peach trees blossom.

                 The water flows.

                                  Li-Po (705-762)

Art and Flowers

Making funky little collages on the covers of battered, falling apart antique books. 

From My Book of Golden Thoughts: 

"It is the Height of Art to conceal Art." from the Latin

What does it mean? And what a strange attribution...

Peonies require no explanation.

a little love

I have neglected my Massachusetts garden for the past few years. It's mostly trees and shrubs--low-maintenance, but I do have a few beds. This year I am paying more attention, but I really haven't done much--a little feeding, weeding and pruning...and they are looking so much better--more so than can be explained by my occasional ministrations. More than I deserve. Maybe it's all the rain.

I have developed quite a collection of old natural history books, and just listed a couple of them in the Etsy store. It's hard for me to part with books, but really do I need another book of insects? Even if this one was written by the State Entomologist of New York. Will it be one of those books that I will one day miss? Yesterday I was in a used books store looking for a copy of a book I donated to that store.

This one is on rock gardens, published in 1929 by the man in charge of the rock garden at Kew in London. I think it would still be useful to someone who wants to develop a rock garden. The nice part of selling books on Etsy is that the people who buy them love them. I just sold a book called When Patty Went to College, to a woman in Canada who said she'd been looking for it for a long time. So we are both happy, and the book will live on, loved.

weekend in the Catskills

When I was a child in Maryland, our neighbors, who were Quakers, invited me to an outdoor Meeting, under a tree. I thought of that when searching for a phrase more original than "a religious experience" to describe my time outside this weekend. Admiring wildflowers. Wading in the brook. The roar of the waterfall.

An old tree stump takes on a new life as a home for ferns, moss and insects.

A woodchuck popped her head out of this tangle of fallen tree, saw me and disappeared. She popped back out a few times, while I waited quietly, but not quietly enough apparently, because she always spotted me. Selfishly, I hoped to see her venture out and about.

In the store I was like a school child with spring fever. Now that I've decided to close, it's hard to be there, though I talked to friends and met nice people, including several on their first visit to the Catskills. People tried to talk me out of closing, but it's time, I said. 

do you know where your water comes from?

Did I ever tell you that much of New York City's water comes from the Catskills? It gets there via gravity--basically just rolls downhill. No massive pumps or filtration. It starts with rain and snowmelt.

The water from our waterfall goes into the creek and continues downhill to the Pepacton Reservoir, and from there 130 miles to the city via aqueducts, tunnels and pipes.

 There are all kinds of restrictions on land use, to keep the water pure. New York State and City have bought a lot of the land that wasn't already part of the wilderness park.

See how clear the water is? Our own water comes from a well.

Villages were flooded in order to build two of the reservoirs. You can imagine how difficult and controversial that was. Here is an excerpt from the documentary "Deep Water" that gives a flavor of the history of that massive endeavor. 

As I write this I realize I have no idea where my Massachusetts water comes from, even though I have lived here almost 7 years! I am leaving soon for a 4-day weekend in the Catskills. The Pakatakan Farmers's Market (which I wrote about here) will be open and I hope to get a waffle there.

I hope you have a great weekend!

Jen

book love & postcard fun

A German bird guide. I don't read German,

 but it has more that 50 beautiful color illustrations.

Keep, sell, or give away?

If you read German and like birds, it's yours.

Book bundles in the store.

 Alternate bookcase #1: a 19th century cradle.

Alternate book case # 2: an antique cranberry scoop. 

Listing postcards folders in the Etsy store.

I wrote about my postcard conversion here.

What's your take on the subject of old postcards?

 I see that some clever people are posting two pictures side by side on their blogs. Can anyone tell me how to do that?

Jen