We Took to the Woods

Getting ready for a weekend in the country used to mean packing my car with auction finds. Now that I am closing the store it doesn't seem smart to put more things in when I am trying to get everything out.

I am looking forward to the day the store is closed and I have time to do other things on my weekends in the country. 

Today I will go straight to the house, sit outside and read. Late spring is my favorite time of year--it stays light past 8:30 now.

I'm taking along a book called The Garden of Reading. I thought it was a collection of short nonfiction pieces, but it's stories by a wonderful array of authors as diverse as Colette, Eudora Welty and Stephen King.

I have been re-reading books for something I'm working on, and highly recommend these memoirs by smart, strong, interesting women: The Road From Coorain, by Jill Ker Conway; West With the Night, by Beryl Markham; Out of Africa, by Isak Dinensen; and We Took to the Woods, by Louise Dickinson Rich. Enjoy your weekend!
Jen

book memories

 This is the gardening book my mother used. I found it at the local book exchange. Seeing it gave me such a feeling of deja vu, that I had to bring it home.

 This edition was published in 1968. Fashions in gardening have changed. You don't see many massed pots of marigolds these days.

 "Pruning is more of an art than it is a science, but it's an art that's quickly learned. The first thing to learn is that there is a difference between pruning and butchering." I agree with the principles stated here, though I'm not sure any art is quickly learned. I think pruning is more craft than art. Landscape design can be art, but is pruning ever truly inspired?

 I also picked up this copy of Black Beauty. I am trying to reduce my possessions, and always take more books to the exchange than I bring home, but I never come home empty handed.

I was a constant reader as a child. I lost myself in books, and found myself there too.

sharing

I received this sweet magnet made from an old photo by Annette of Chasing Lightning Bugs. Don't they look like they are having fun? And they are near a military academy, so maybe they were visiting their fellas.

I was reminded me of a book giveaway Monica of ink & chai did (here). I am borrowing her idea and giving away these books.

Just mention in the comments which book you would like (and maybe include a second choice). International friends included. No hoops to jump through, but preference will be given to people who have visited here before.

The books are:

ten poems to change your life, by Roger Housden
Birds in Fall, by Brad Kessler
An Appetite for Passion Cookbook, by Laura Esquivel
The Bookseller of Kabul, by Asne Seierstad
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, by J.K. Rowling
the new work of dogs, by Jon Katz

Edit: All books except Harry Potter have a home. Please let me know if you would like it or if you would like a surprise book. This was fun--I'll do it again soon.

Jen

a visit to a farm

 We visited our dear friend Monica on a farm in Vermont. That's Monica, with one of the many goats and 5 dogs who live on the farm. Monica is 80, and she's on the go all day long.

We saw the whole goat cheese making operation that begins with the milk from these ladies, pictured with my son Luke, and another of the dogs. 

The farm belongs to a couple who moved there when they were first married--they bought the land, lived in a tent, and built everything themselves--cabin, house, outbuildings, gardens...and had two children who are now 10 and 13. Monica was the father's nanny when he was a child---she came over from England to live with his family. We got to know her when my children were young and she lived with a neighbor-- she became like a grandmother to my boys. She loves animals, and has visited the farm most springs to help when the kids (baby goats) are born. This year she's been there for several months, and is getting ready to retire and return to England. She has kept in touch--returning to London almost every year for a visit, and is looking forward to drinking tea and playing cards with her friends, and taking busses everywhere. 

What I found most interesting about the farm was the way all the animals mingled. Here's a cat keeping pace with a dog.

A dog hanging out with the chickens, who are truly free range.

Chicken in the herb garden.

Dog and chicken in the shade.

Chicken and dog visit baby pigs. 

It was all very Charlotte's Web.

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.