My day...

It is cold.  We’re having our first frost advice for tonight with temperatures in the mid 30’s at their pick low.  Pitiful… and ridiculous, that still this late in the season I’m going through yet another bout of poison ivy.  My last one, I hope, of the year.  Augrrhh!

My potted ferns are all inside now for the winter; safely tucked under the north and east facing windows…

This morning the house smelled of hazelnut latte and cinnamon buns.  I sat in the warmth of our sun-room made into a dinning-room and watched the birds as they engaged in their morning feast under a pink sky.  Not to mention maple trees and the hickory and oaks thinned and enchanted everywhere, calling you in strange hunting songs, like an old singing women with scrawny crimson arms….

The Privet residence is intricate and full of twists and sinuous bends, and as leaves start to fall down suggesting the colors of oaks and maples, all the little creatures who live there start to come out too… one by one they come—to experiment beyond their own freedom, to seek refuge.

I don’t know which of the two feral cats that have claimed our little white cottage as their own have found a bed in the settee I have in the front porch, but I can tell one of them sleeps there, for I keep finding cat’s hair and dirt on every pillow and cushion I insist on keep washing or replacing.  I suppose this pattern will continue and I might as well get used to the idea of no rewards whatsoever… for I don’t think that neither of these lovely creatures I’m feeding will ever let me pet them.

The last of the winds and rains that passed thru our garden last week knocked down the tall zinnias, which persist on remaining low to the ground.  Do you prune your zinnias at the end of the summer?  Or let them be?

 “Why must people kneel down to pray? 

If I really wanted to pray I’ll tell you what I'd do. 

I'd go out into a great big field all alone 

or in the deep, deep woods 

and I'd look up into the sky—up—up—up—into that lovely blue sky 

that looks as if there was no end to its blueness. 

And then I'd just feel a prayer.” 

(Anne of Green Gables)