This picture doesn’t even begin to do my dear friend Jay’s meadow justice. His new house (which feels ancient and lived in and almost smoky with tangible good vibes even though they just moved in) is bermed into a hillside and the sloping greens on all sides are simply filled to bursting with wild baby’s breath, black eyed susan’s, zinnias, cosmos, feathery coreopsis, plain little daisies, queen anne’s lace, wild yarrow, sunflowers, branching asters, and the whole thing is chock full of bees. He planted it all, wide strides and a linen bag of seeds at his hip, feeding a rain of possibility across the fall-dark naked earth in last year’s chill, and now it’s this. To me it feels like magic, but he’s the kind of man who makes you see that magic like this beauty is just intention with a touch of wonder. After our last visit, just as we were leaving, his sun-kissed bride ran out of the house with one of her precious jars and a pair of Japanese shears in hand and said you must take flowers with you, take as many as you can. These are my kind of people, in every possible way.
Category: Beauty
Grammy
My cousin Todd recently shared this picture of my grandmother, my mother’s mother, that I had never seen before. I don’t know if there aren’t very many pictures of her when she was this age or whether they’re just hiding somewhere waiting to be discovered, but the only other ones I’ve seen have been sort of formal portraits, best-outfit-posed-for-a-big-occasion shots. But this is different, candid, something wistful, is she on the deck of a ship? Who took it? She looks so very much like my mother here, impossibly tiny and incredibly beautiful. And, I mean, the dress, hat, and shoes are totally perfect and wonderful. I love it so.
Mama Bird
After last week’s post about the birds coming back (and that one dastardly squirrel who keeps thwarting my efforts to keep him out of the bird seed… my next brilliant plan: grease the pole the feeder hangs on so he can’t get purchase??), it was perfect timing that I discovered the needle-nest of the young cardinals in love in the flowering quince up next to the house. There are three little bird babies in there, probably about to fledge out of the nest this week. The red feathered daddy circles the nest cheeping cheeping cheeping and the brown feathered mama answers, and they take turns bringing back those funny little bugs that look like leaves and feeding their little sweeties. Feather by feather, indeed.
The Catbird Seat
It must be getting on fall… the dogwood started sporting red leaves back in late July, we hear the geese in chevron flying overhead every twilight, and Jeff says the wooly bears started coming out last week (the fuzzies are apparently an ancient harbinger of winter). And the birds are back. After a summer of desolation at the bird feeders, the suet melting in the heat, the millet moldering behind its squirrel proof cage, the birds are swooping in again. Chit chattering all morning through to cocktail hour, fattening up their glossy summer plumage before it’s time to brown down. Dr. Russell the Cat Scientist is constantly taking data measurements and consulting his reference tomes watching them at the window, from the catbird seat.
Fairy Lights
At the beginning of the summer we strung fairy lights in our meadow, slung in lazy arcs over the triangle of ancient oaks that top the flat little rise before the whole thing goes sloping into queen anne’s lace and deer trails. The New York City free-craigslist picnic table Sweetheart and I snagged from a strange side yard in a Yonkers adventure is going strong (even with the repairs I made after Miss Lucy and Rav and I broke it dancing on it at the first party we threw, whoopsie), and we’ve been dining under the lights at least once a week since. How easy and wonderful and magic it feels to have it set up out there, ready and waiting for us. And something about it is pretty magical, as if you are in a room made of glow. And after Miss MoMo took the above shot during Dear Miss Ann Marie’s jubilee birthday dinner this past weekend (officially the end of summer, but not the end of lightmagic), I realized that everyone who comes over takes a picture…here are some of my favorite friend’s snaps from this summer under the stars, amidst the sweet and easy shine of the lights.
Thanks, of course, to mollyleddbetter, ammmr, mrsravenel, lucymcfa, aransler, likeyouwalkacross, mckaymc, and thefieldblog for coming to dinner and for being so beautiful themselves.
Brooklyn Garden Envy
This Brooklyn sidewalk garden on the block next to ours is exactly how I want my wild country side yard to be. Juuust out of frame: an apple tree (I have that), and this awesome mural (I don’t have that).
Sweetheart + Honey
Here is Sweetheart on his first-ever hive inspection, and he’s a natural. Just look at that frame full of capped honey! Xanadu is almost full, we are considering whether or not to harvest some (just a little?) before the fall nectar flow. Toto, we aren’t in Rockaway anymore.
Spy Rock
Miss Rav and Ann Marie and I had gotten a recommendation for a new hike: “it’s kind of a slog, but I swear it’s totally worth it when you get to the top. You’ll just have to see for yourselves” our sort-of-out-of-shape friend said, and that’s the ideal reference point for hiking advice for me. I don’t want trail-running triathletes to tell me something’s a walk in the park, especially if I’m of the mindset that the airbrushed alter-ego trucker hat that Rav gave me and a tribal necklace will be sufficient for “hiking equipment”. 
Our friend was right, the hike itself was a relatively short (5 miles round trip) but insistently steep trek ending with a sheer-rock-face scramble up to a bald point of granite, Spy Rock itself… we were pretty sweaty, but when we reached the summit, took in the stunning 360 degree views of the Shenandoah valley on all sides, and felt the breeze through our hair, well, it was totally worth it. 
And here’s a video Ann Marie took because it’s awesome. “Do you think we can hike to that rock outcropping?” “Maybe we can fly there”.
Walker Evans
Sweetheart’s mama and I went to MoMA on Friday, for f-r-e-e! We got on what was both the longest and quickest moving line I’ve ever seen, and made it the three blocks into the museum in less than 5 minutes. At one point we were actually running. Amazing! A new exhibit (American art Hopper to O’keefe) was opening that very day so the place was slammed, but lucky for us, our plan was to bypass that madness, scoot past a couple of pretty stunning Pollocks and go to the Walker Evans American Photography show. It was glorious. Stark. Telling. Honest. Graceful.
Slow Jolene
The impeccable Dolly sounds a little wild, but also totally mesmerizing slowed down from 45 rpm to 33. Looks like I’ll have to spend the rest of the afternoon listening to the record on slow speed.
Feather By Feather 