Category: Happiness

Off to the Races

lucymcfafoxfieldinstagramThis weekend we hosted an 18 person slumber party at our house, friends flung back into our orbit from New Orleans and New York, Washington, Richmond and Los Angeles, all to come see us and the horse races, to toast champagne, try their hand at moonshine, eat fried chicken and enjoy the glorious southern spring in all of its almost-unbelievable beauty. The air was crisp, the sky was clear, the horses were swift, and the company was excellent. What more could a girl ask for? Oh yeah, for the day to end with 30 people singing and playing music around the campfire.aranslercampfiremusicinstagram

Infinite thanks to Miss Lucy and Miss Abby for these pics, they have great eyes and hearts.

At the end of the day

RainbowVirginiaNo post yesterday and just this shorty today because, well, we got a load of dirt delivered and spent the better part of yesterday day moving it from one side of the house to the other. The late bloom of spring keeps pushing our garden planting back (we got frost just on Monday!), and now as it finally warms up, the push is on! Sweetheart and I worked, sweaty, dirty, happy, until just before sundown, when one of those sky-opens-up-feels-like-summer-warm torrential rainstorms came blowing in from the west. Our little plants got a watering indeed. And when it was over, as soon as it had begun, the setting sun made a rainbow. The end of a good day, and one we hope to replicate exactly today. Lather, Rainbow, Repeat.

Happy Birthday, Mr. President

MonticelloThis Saturday was Thomas Jefferson’s 270th birthday, so naturally, we went to celebrate it at his house. Monticello is smaller than you might imagine, a mansion on a hill, sure, but gentle in its proportions, the elegant, perfectly appointed rooms small by current American standards. My love affair with TJ has been long and generally University-of-Virginia-Statute-of-Religious-Freedom-Declaration-of-Independence based, but (especially in light of my recent bent of homemaking, garden digging, and general musings on having things just the way I want them) his house really had me in a swoon. A parlor full of antlers, bones, and special weighted clocks, a bedside hothouse with tuberose and gardenia, maps and feathers and natural specimens, a dumbwaiter hidden in a fireplace specifically for bringing wine from cellar to table? Mr. Jefferson, you are my kind of guy. And Albemarle County was in her effortless spring splendor, you can see why the man picked this spot, his little mountain, Monticello. Happy Birthday.MonticelloWindowMonticelloTulips

Summer Feet

CountryFeetWhen I was little, not little-little, but, tomboy little, 8 or 9 maybe, around this time every year, as soon as it started to get warm enough outside, I’d start going around barefoot. Little by little, short bursts to get the mail, into the backyard (carefully avoiding the deep bed of prickers fallen around the holly trees), across the driveway, ours smooth black asphalt, working up to our dear neighbors ohmygod EXPOSED AGGREGATE the ultimate bane of bare feet. The first liberation of winter white little toes, carpet-soft heretofore be-slippered paws that had been swaddled in socks and winter boots for months. I called it “getting my summer feet”, my 8 year old notion that if I started getting the bottom of my feet prepped in April, by the time June rolled around I’d have leathery indian feet, ready to go in the woods, play kickball on pavement, traverse hot sands, climb seaside and riverdeep rocks, go clamming, and repel splinters and blackberry thorns with ease. Today is the first day it’s been warm enough to go outside barefoot, and as I stepped outside to water our newly transplanted bulbs and yet to sprout seedlings, I thought: Ouch. It’s been YEARS since I’ve let my feet loose from their high-heeled-and-pedicured-city-street-subway-stair-walking duties. YEARS since I had summer feet. And then I thought: YES! The countrification of these feet begin today! Summer feet: 20 years later, now with hot pink nail polish.CountryFeetGardening

The Indians

NewOrleansIndianChiefThe tambourine and stomp and chant came up the block from around the corner like a distant heartbeat, getting louder and louder until the chief came around the corner. It being far after Mardi Gras, I certainly never expected to see a Mardi Gras Indian on this trip to New Orleans, let alone a Big Chief. Without his retinue, in daylight, he was ever more resplendent than I could have imagined, the strut and swagger and waft powerful and mythic, otherworldly posturing earthy-real humanity at the same time. The beginnings and traditions of the legendary Mardi Gras Indians of New Orleans are shrouded in mystery like so many technicolor feathers (origin stories and pictures way more awesome than mine are to be found at The House of Dance and Feathers, an indian-curated museum to the art and majesty of these chiefs), but the one truth apparent to me as a visitor and outsider is that they are beautiful, powerful, and rare to see. This chief had come out to trumpet that the Indians would be masking that night, St. Joseph’s night. We just happened to be there at the right place, and not the wrong time, and after sun-down, the tribes met to march and encounter and shake their feathers and assert their might and be beautiful. Out of respect I didn’t want to use my flash to take pictures, so, that’s that:NewOrleansChiefBattleMardiGrasIndianIndianChiefNewOrleans

The Secret Best Thing Ever

CaneSyrupSecret Best Thing Ever: Cane Syrup from Ravenel’s family farm. Dark and sweet and funky in the rummy way of Molasses (which makes sense since this is what molasses is before it gets hot, boils down and goes rogue), but with the lightning quick pour of hot Aunt Jemima. Sugar Cane juiced by mules (named Molly and Weezer) in the ancient manner, bottled in an old Hurricane (with the label drawn by Rav’s dad) perfect on buckwheat cakes. Secret Best Thing Ever.

SNOW DAY!

BigVASnowOh, hello and good morning! This is the view from my bed today. A little less than a foot, it seems, and the world is beautiful. We made sure to stock the birdfeeders before it all started so today we are being treated to a swooping ballet of snowbirds coming in for a breakfast. I simply can’t get over the Cardinal and the Jay.
BirdbathSnowJayCardinalSnowCardinalJaySnowNipsey Russell agrees, it makes for quite a show.RussellSnow We are the only people we know that have power and it may go off (never fear for us! we have the woodstove and a passel of food chosen for the exact purpose of cooking it on the woodstove) but alas, it might mean a few days of card games and playing music instead of being in this online space. That seems ok.

The Owl and the Pussycat

lear-edward-the-owl-and-the-pussycat

The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar…

Sweetheart comes home today! This and so many other marvelous things coming up this week! A sweet furniture DIY (or as we like to call it SSPOI- “slap some paint on it”), some awesome garden projects, a little buzz, some found art, and a few birds, of course. I’m putting the finishing touches on a few things and sharing them as they come along, so in the meantime please enjoy this, the awesomest video of new friends ever (note the resemblance between Fum the cat and Mr. Nipsey Russell).


Thanks to sweet Rav for sharing this video. Owl and Pussycat from here. Oh the runcible spoon!

Para Comer: El Pez Gigantesco!

MexicoFishingBoatYou know it’s a good sign when you pull into the roadside pescaderia and see a boat. Still dripping from the briny waves, towed by an extremely muddy jeep (begging questions about just how and where this particular barco puts out to sea), with an iron handed fisherman transferring gigantic long fish into a bucket to be transferred directly into your lap to be transferred directly onto the flames of an open fire to be transferred directly into your mouth. It’s certainly a good way to cut out the middle man.MexicoCodFishMexicoFishEyeTwo things. Firstly, the color of the interior of this fish case. I might move in. Then, LOOK at that fish-eye! Now that is a fresh fish. A fresh 16 pounder plucked from the waters that very afternoon. How much? 200 pesos. $15. You’ll scale it and clean it for us? Um, ok, sure, that sounds good (inside we’re saying: OHMYGODTHISISPARADISEANDWEBOUGHTALLTHEWHITEWINETHEYHADATTHEFUNNYGROCERY!!!). We’ll take it, after all, we’re having seated dinner for 19 in the Weekend at Bernie’s dreamhouse.PhillyKHelmsTheGrillSweet Philly K (my favorite, pictured here as an ancient fisherman-scientist, “The Old Man and the COBE“) dressed her up in spangles of orange, lime baubles, onion bracelets, and strange dark peppers, we rolled her like a 10 cent Havana cigar, and roasted her over the open flames for an hour. Para Comer, El Pez Gigantesco!

thanks again to E.B.P. for the last photo.