I wish I had a river

I couldn't bear to leave my flowers from Bow Street behind, so they made the four-hour drive to the country with me, listening to podcasts (I'm so modern) The Moth and Judge John Hodgman.

Saturday we had friends over for dinner, great fun except for the part where Bob sliced his finger on the mandolin (onions not music) and had to go to the hospital for repairs.

But we carried on--there was pumpkin soup, gingerbread ice cream and a typically eclectic Catskills mix of folks--half gay, half straight, lives filled with journalism, art, Harley Davidsons, vegetable gardens, the Bronx Zoo, poetry, and a delightful five-year old named Ruby... 

The high hills were frosted with snow, and the raw days of November have arrived.

 I am stockpiling books for the winter. Loved The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt--great writing and great story. I also enjoyed Elizabeth Gilbert's The Signature of All Things (Victorian botanists. Lots of moss.) Deep hefty books filled with engaging and eccentric characters--you might want them on your own winter list.

On the way home, the flowers and I listened to music, songs that remind me of my California years.

big iron

Colorful adobe houses. Prickly pear cactus.

Walking across the bridge into Nogales, Mexico.

Saguaros

 Javelinas

Vistas

My favorite things from southern Arizona. I've drafted detailed posts on these subjects, and will surely get back to some of them, but for now a sense of how different it was, strange and wonderful--both desolate and welcoming. 

No picture of how hot (97 degrees in October) and dry (as someone, said, you don't need a towel when you get out of the shower).  The Javelinas and Saguaros, were everywhere (along with roadrunners and rattlesnakes) and so amusing. The border crossing was disturbing, but the best taco of the trip was from a cart in Nogales, Mexico. 

I'm off to green, cool, wet, upstate New York. 

Enjoy your weekend--

Jen

windows, Barrio Viejo

The Barrio Viejo (old neighborhood) in Tucson is filled with charming adobe houses painted the colors of Easter eggs and Jordan almonds. Tucson is only an hour's drive from Mexico, and that influence is everywhere--food, architecture, music, art, clothes... I was in heaven with a taqueria on every corner. People were very friendly too. I took a lot more pictures of the houses, and will post them another time.

I can't decide if I want a lime green house with pink trim, or a pink house with lime green trim. And a yellow door. (And if the house is pink, what shade?)

See a great slideshow of colorful towns here.

Tucson to Tumacacori

Goodbye cactus, canyons, taquerias, roadrunners, baby scorpion...
Back to cool, green, rain.
(More soon.)

no flowers in the house

I can't take part in Flowers in the House today,
because I left home, which looks like this,

this

this

and this

for a place where the things I might pick

 look like this

this

this

and this. 

But don't you miss it--the tales of Jane, Gus, Lucy and friends and flowers will make your day a good one.  

p.s. I am mostly internet-free this week, but will catch up with you when I'm back in the verdant northeast.

Catskill cabin cabinets

Remember these cabinets I saw at Brimfield and went bonkers over? (here)

 I was just breezing around on pinterest, saw this picture and thought, boy those look like the Brimfield cabinets. Turns out they are--and they're in a cabin in Big Indian, in the Catskills! Lots of pictures here and here. It's just the kind of kitchen I pictured them in. I drive through Big Indian on the way to our house--maybe one day I'll track them down. I think the designers, Jersey Ice Cream Co., did a great job with the whole cabin. It's warm, rustic, funky, calm and comfortable.

gathering

I collected a basket of lichen, moss, and birch bark for a future project.

Maybe I'll arrange little deer in it for a personal portable forest,

or make a diorama like the shoebox ones we made in grade school.

I'd like to make some crazy outsider art version of a diorama. And...

I'd like to get away from earth awhile

And then come back to it and begin over...

... I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,

And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk

Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,

But dipped its top and set me down again.

That would be good both going and coming back.

One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

                                   from Birches, by Robert Frost