my poplars

my favourite stand of giant, very old poplar trees - I love them, I love the way their leaves rustle in the wind 

When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all. 

A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one's suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death. 

So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. 

Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is & that is home. Hermann Hesse

daily bits of love

just a few bits of love and life from the last few days

I'm very inspired by visual bloggers - who capture their own daily bits obsessively like myself
and just a few who continually catch my eye

my funny eye
3191
fine little day
for me, for you
bloom-grow-love
pia jane bijerk

books, books & more books

the current bedside pile, all from the library (except one*) and the last fat pink buds of peonies

The Spectrum - Dean Ornish
This is Where I Leave You - Jonathan Tropper
Curtains : Adventures of an Undertaker in Training - Tom Jokinen
Lonely: Learning to Live with Solitude - Emily White
Born on a Blue Day - Daniel Tammet
Curiousity - Joan Thomas
Autobiography of a Face - Lucy Grealy
Notes from a Big Country - Bill Bryson *
If you haven't read Bill Bryson be prepared to happily pee your pants ... and he's written sooo many books. Hooray !

and two new cookbooks from the library (no photos)

Baked: New Fronteirs in Baking - Matt Lewis & Renato Poliafito
My French Kitchen : A Book of 120 Treasured Recipes - Joanne Harris

* this book borrowed from the vast & complete Bill Bryson library found at MLou's house

the haphazard gardener

snippets from yesterday's time spent flitting about the terracotta gardens here at 29 Black St.

Lost.

Lost in that very good way. Your thoughts gone, disappeared ... gone somewhere else and who cares where. Your mind a vacant lot.

Lulled by the sound of chattering finches. I toiled and tilled, dragged and divided, weeded and lovingly transplanted things. A flox with Burgundy leaves and pink flowers from the front garden, hostas (I now have three colours - all green, chartreuse*, and a half and half cream & green variegated - my next acquisition is the blue green variety), oriental poppies (who always protest loudly at being moved, they crumple and dry up trying to convince you that they've died- but they will come back, I'm sure of it) and a tiny half dead (from lack of sun) peony. Yesterday was a day spent, almost entirely, in a kind of heavenly outdoor meditation.

Meanwhile Doug happily mowed and mowed and then schlepped wheelbarrows full of soil to fill large ruts left by a tractor last fall (another contractor horror story bringing the total now to 14) dans the giant fenced in dog area and home of the newly formed petite pond and red winged black bird habitat. I've decided to call him Doug here, after all that is his name and I have posted his photo many times. As much as he did remind me terribly of Sam Elliot when I first met him with his handsome silver hair and very tall moustache - he is not a cowboy, he's a Prince (at least most of the time). He's the handiest, smartest man I've ever known.

Watching me gardening is like watching me houseclean (me and houseclean now that's a misnomer -yikes). I'm a flit-ter. I flit from task to task leaving my tools like scattered bread crumbs behind me and throughout the yard. Mind you it (the yard that is) is so huge, so apparently daunting (to moi at times) overgrown, neglected and jungle-ish that there are so many things that need attention I get distracted very easily. Distracted and me are the best of pals. But the times when I actually did perch for a spell–specifically at a large stone edged bed in the back garden that I'm working on. A bed situated under a large, about to bloom, flowering crab, in a patch of dappled sunshine and with a choir of birds singing to me–I was in heaven. I do love this house (I always have) and I do love this giant yard, I love the breeze, the sun, the birds, the thick expanse of greens - in every shade and hue imaginable and boy oh boy I sure do love that Prince (oATG)**

apres les beauty shots (above) I have conceded and actually pulled back my camera angle considerably so that you might see some of what we're actually dealing with (below). For all you naysayers who think I tend toward exaggeration when I declare the jungle like and tangled personality of les terracotta gardens - feast your eyes on a few of our before shots. And especially for our friend Rachel & the team from NuT, we know she'll be tickled with these views.

* chartreuse Pamela is also a favourite colour of mine in the garden
** oATG - of All Things Good

les office

a small collection of dogs - much loved & tres sweet petite painting by our good friend Chickory

A vignette from les Office of Susan Black Design & Associates. A mauvey, taupe -ish, pale brown*, bright sunshiny room on the second floor of this old brick house. The room that is command central, so to speak. The room with the massive teak topped desk and most beautiful 24" imac. A room with large, tall windows with extra deep sills (perfect for les lounging associates - who tell me, always, that they are merely power napping and/or brainstorming) and a gorgeous view of our little harbour where we can easily watch all of the comings and goings, lobster boats and big ships, kayaks and sailboats and spectacular sunsets every clear evening.

* a colour custom created by me - mixing together leftover chocolate brown guest room paint with a few half cans of nearly white this and creamy that. Ya know - waste not, want not etc ...

10:35 - as I type, there is a handsome silver haired man with a tall moustache outside mowing (happily) the lawns of 29 Black Street - Shut Up !! he enjoys doing all that yucky yard work (?) leaving me all the fun gardening type stuff to do. Thump a thump a thump ! be still my heart.

v is for ...

yellow tulips (last year's crop) from the terracotta gardens of 29 Black Street

V ... is for vignette(s)
&
V ... is for very happy

Another day drawing here at the *TTD. Things (design things especially) ... they are a cookin'. I'm off to the lands of bubbles & scent (my new fav and another patchouli blend) and then a lovely walk with the sisters as the sun comes up.


chocolate brown guest room