garden festivities

There will be a garden festival this Saturday in Margaretville, the little town in the Catskills where my store is. Birdhouse building, seed exchanges, green market, food, music and garden related goods. I look forward to seeing Main Street lively, after the long, quiet winter.

 I don't do any gardening in the Catskills--our property is hilly, rocky and wooded, except for one small area. But lots of people have farmhouses and cottages that are garden-friendly.

 I do a bit of gardening in Massachusetts. After my trip to the nursery Monday, I planted an assortment of containers.

I do have a couple of beds that I added snapdragons to, as well as some blue-flowering perennials. 

I'll take pictures of those later this summer.

The past few mornings I've had my coffee on the deck. It's chilly enough for a sweater, 

but I like to look at this flowering cherry tree. Those blossoms won't last long. Of course, then there will be something else, which is one of the wonderful things about gardening. 

flowers make everything better

The cure for a gloomy mood? A trip to the nursery. There's a fine one close to my house.

  I filled a green wagon with plants for my garden and deck.

 Pansies are the garden memory of my childhood--I always planted them around the birdbath.

They come in so many colors these days--it's hard to choose.

The Boston Marathon route is close to my house, so after the nursery I walked down for a look. Schools are closed today--it's Patriot's Day in Massachusetts; Revolutionary War reenactments and such abound. The Marathon is very festive. The little boys in the picture above are holding out cups of water for the runners.

 It's at least 80 degrees--crazy hot for a marathon. These girls are handing out ice pops.

They have a cooler full, and cut them in half. People also bring orange and banana slices for the runners. They set up their camp chairs and picnic and clap and cheer. All kinds of people run the marathon, not just the fast and fit.

 As I walked home buds blossomed and leaves unfurled before my eyes. It is finally spring in New England.

My viburnum is blooming and I brought a bit in to fill the kitchen with its glorious scent. Flowers make everything better.

volunteers

Viola growing through the cracks between the bricks. With a dandelion next to it. Just think of all the possible metaphors. I am betwixt, between, bewildered, about what to do with my little store. Right now I see only pavement. I'm searching for the flowers.

edited to add: I woke up today, feeling better. Just so you know. More later.

around here

A better look at the Curious George print from my last post, when I was more interested in showing you my paint craziness. (as always, click for larger view of pictures)

Eating at my desk, which I rarely do, but the green bowl looks so nice with the green vase, which tells me I am spending way too much time with the home decor/styling tsunami on the internet. Am I the only one who thinks large curd cottage cheese is significantly better than small? And yet it's hard to find, so when I do, I grab three cartons. At least.

Reading poems by my long ago, far away friend Galway Kinnell, one of my favorite poets.

Collage.

I have been lusting after the blue flowers everyone has been posting on their blogs and finally I have my very own blue flowers to share. I am imagining a flower bed that is 50% blue and deep purple flowers, 30% pink flowers and 20% white flowers.

Last weekend I didn't go to the Catskills because I was in New Jersey with 30 or so of my favorite in-laws. Unfortunately I missed a visit to the store from Ashling, a blogger friend who lives in the northern Catskills. (My place is in the Western Catskills, and obviously I need to write a post on Catskill geography). Read her blog, Confessions of a Would-Be Mountain Woman here. I won't be there next weekend either--my husband has invited his buddies for an all-night poker game. (They do that a few times a year, and I prefer to stay far away.) So any dispatches will be forthcoming from Massachusetts, where I am currently sitting in the above-pictured chair. That sentence put me in a state of cognitive dissonance...

Jen

 I will not tell you how long those paint swatches have been on the wall of our second floor hall. All those blues and greens that I love so much.

Perhaps I should paint palm trees like Curious George did, as pictured in this print I just happen to own. But I think I'm going to go with a crisp white. Not linen or oyster or French vanilla. Greek white. Swedish white. My house is full of color and too much stuff. It's time to simplify.

So I probably shouldn't have bought another coffee table book. I couldn't resist Bringing Nature Home, Floral Arrangements Inspired by Nature. You can read about it here.

the thing itself

the thing I came for:

the wreck and not the story of the wreck

the thing itself and not the myth

the drowned face always staring

toward the sun

the evidence of damage

worn by salt and sway into this threadbare beauty

-Adrienne Rich (1929-2012), from Diving into the Wreck

moss on bluestone, Catskills

last weekend, in the Catskills

Sunday morning, after the snow melted and before the rain started, I saw a mink run down the hill (fast) and disappear into the creek. 

Which got me to thinking about critters that live in our woods and water. Black bears, which everyone but me has seen, foxes, wild turkeys, deer, beavers, porcupines...  And the smaller creatures who burrow in nature's nooks and crannies, such as the hole in that tree root.

Small caves and cracks in the slabs of bluestone make a good den.

There is even life in the crevices of the stone wall. Spiders, insects, snakes...

I keep an ample supply of used field guides and natural history books in the store.

  Business was slow again this weekend, but I saw some of my favorite people and had good conversations with a few who are feeling optimistic about the recovery of our little village.

I put together book bundles--vintage paperbacks organized by theme and wrapped in twine.

Arranging books, as well as reading them, is soothing and even mood-elevating.

 More and more of them are making their way into the store, and people seem to like that.