Home Sweet Home – Page 2 – Feather By Feather

Lucky Spring

Found this little guy in a patch of dark rich soil that had accumulated at the corner of the woodshed, in theory from years of sawdust and leaf mold and right in the spot where the badger knocked over the grill last summer. Maybe that was the tipping point. Ash and leaf and earth and dirt and dust become soil. It takes a while for the hard clay of this ground to turn into the kind of fertile anything that will encourage growth beyond wild asters, but, like most things, with the right combination of work and the fortune of circumstance small wonders can spring forth. Can you call it luck? I’m not sure what is more miraculous, that a tiny patch of delicate clover sprung from the nothing of a cool and shady previously inhospitable corner of my world, or that I noticed the little shoots yesterday in the midst of my big-doing-striding-purposefully-around the domain rehanging a broken clothesline and picking up the wreckage of winter… and that the tiny majesty stopped me in my tracks and I turned around to bend over the patch and take in its sweet small gentleness, and among them, there was this: a tiny four leafed clover. Good things are happening and good things are going to keep happening.

Snow Day, Snow Birds

Six inches of snow yesterday in our quiet little farmhouse world, Mama and Daddy got “stuck” here in the name of icy road safety, so we spent the afternoon holed up at the kitchen table nestled by the woodstove watching the songbirds have a total freakout at the bird-feeders (which D and I had judiciously refilled on Sunday when it was 65 degrees out and the bees were flying). Flurries of sparrows, titmice, gold finches cloaked in brown for winter, blazing red cardinals and their dun lady friends, (Robert) downey (jr.) woodpeckers, red winged blackbirds, and the occasional bad grackle and squirrel are all swooping down and around, 30 at a time (!), a serious all-you-can-eat buffet. And this morning, Mama found the tracks of a solitary wanderer among the ice diamonds on the front porch. It’s probably safe out there in the world, but we’re going to keep it quiet, snuggled in, and snowbound for as long as we can. Time to go refill the feeders.

Happy Valentine’s Day

So, yes, I know that Valentine’s Day was over a week ago, but but but there were literally FEET of snow on the ground on the actual mostromanticredrosebannerdayoftheyear so, I wasn’t allowed to actually break out my valentine until just this weekend, when the temperatures inexplicably were in the low 70’s. Let me just say: after an incredibly long winter of incessant snow-fall, shin-deep city sidewalk slush, and muddy-pawed squirrels tirelessly breaking into my birdseed, 70 degrees on the naked skin feels totally, utterly, soul-rising-in-the-body-like-sap-in-a-maple incredible. But, I have to say… it doesn’t feel as incredible as the revving and rumbling motor horsetremble of my very own gorgeous gas powered lady sized Stihl chainsaw. Which is what I got for Valentine’s Day this year. To be fair, Sweetheart and I actually got it for each other (and we’ve decided this is how we’re going to roll on Valentine’s Day from here on out: an excuse to buy the big-ticket-thing we’ve both been jonesing for together), but, per usual, even though it’s “ours”, he’s letting me take the reins, letting me wear the orange-kevlar-pants, only yelling from the side (he has to yell since I’m wearing safety ear-muffs) “PLANT YOUR FEET! DON’T SWITCH YOUR HANDS WHEN YOU TAKE OFF THE CHAIN BRAKE! DON’T LET THE CHAIN HIT THE GROUND”. Bellows which, honestly, are sweeter than any sweet nothing whispered into a naked ear by a moon-eyed-cassanova. Be still my beating heart, it’s revving at 2.3 HP, fully oiled up, and ready to take on the world.

You look good, Virginia

And back in the bosom of the sweet sunny south, where it is pretty much never a kick in the guts and when, after a day of glorious physical labor stolen from the computer desk, after filling the bird feeders with dark seed and fresh suet and watching the menagerie return one by crimson-feathered one, when the sun is setting over these mountains, beers are are only $3.

Festive Nest

Get ready for the revelation: I really, really love Christmas. I love everything about it. The magic and light glow and mystery and anticipation and sweetness and memory and legend and quiet mornings and flannel nightgowns and music. Oh, the music. This year Mama was generous enough to give me/probably ecstatic to be rid of a classic old Case Logic box full of Christmas CD’s…an entire childhood of Christmas mornings, all the classics, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, (and mine-and-everyone-with-a-lick-of-sense’s fave) Vince Guaraldi, a crazy harp and dulcimer album that you can only buy on cassette now (but does have a few streaming mp3’s) and a few awesome new ones, like Hawaiian Slack Key Christmas and the Nashville Mandolin Ensemble. We also have a pretty decent selection of Christmas music on vinyl, The Nutcracker, some Colonial Williamsburg gems, and the piece de resistance: a Natural Mystic label Christmas Sampler that Sweetheart found on the street of our old Brooklyn neighborhood, which is awesome right out of the gate leading off the A-side with The Temptation’s incredible version of “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” (“hey, Rudolph!”). Can you blame me if I’ve been ending every day since Thanksgiving with a glass of wine by my beautiful tree, with the lights low and Christmas music quietly streaming from the stereo? You know it’s getting close, though, when the Holiday spirit creeps out of cocktail hour onto your computer to serenade you whilst you work. So if you, like me, are just owning it and getting real with your Christmas Cheer, here are some choice streaming and downloadable festive tunes from around the web.This incredible Christmas in Sweden album (downloadable!) from Anna over at Door Sixteen. It’s scratchy and poppy and full of Scandinavian joy.

The Oh Hellos Family Christmas (downloadable!) from Noisetrade.

aaand, the entirety of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” (streamable, for now!) on Hulu.

If that doesn’t get you to cocktail hour, then there’s this: 48 minutes of jazzy-fabulous Christmas Joy.

Stay Merry, Stay Bright.

Thanksgiving in Snapshots

You know it was a good time if you literally only took one picture of the whole shebang and it was this total WORK OF ART (I suppose I decided that the vision of dear sweet Ravenel deglazing a skillet of aromatic and reducing roux that becomes the base of her incredible cider gravy while a boozy put of mulled cider bubbles in the background and Nick tears bread for apple and herb stuffing and a pecan pie cools off slowly by the woodstove was worth saving for posterity’s sake, and I suppose I’m not wrong). Out here in the world of the internet, though, while one hand laments decorative gourd season and the other pins gilded pumpkin tablescapes that could/should never exist outside of Martha, I sort of like that this was the only snapshot I thought to take. When you’re dancing in the kitchen, there’s no time to stop and stage photographs. But, because you asked, here are a few shots I scooped up from a few dear ones who thought to take a moment and capture some loveliness while I was making sure everyone had enough wine. And that the bird was ready at the same time as my hairdo.

The leaves are almost too much

At the tail end of this weekend, my mama and I stood in the driveway waving goodbye to our dear old friends that had come down for an incredibly warm and wonderful visit involving a lot of cooking, lolling, eating, wine, and laughing… we were waving until they were out of sight, basking in the surprising late afternoon warmth and marveling at how the light just changes *snap* with dastardly daylight savings time, becomes like amber, crystalline, special. So, we decided to take an impromptu hike, as much to get our blood going and feel the cool breezes on our cheeks before cool becomes downright cold as to get up close and personal with the incredible fall leaf situation that’s happening right now. Per usual, I don’t know if I’m specially attuned to it, or just didn’t notice it before, or whether this year it really does seem more spectacular than ever, but the leaves are almost too much to handle. They are simply incredible. Especially when it’s a last minute thing and you just sort of decided to hike a few miles into the mountains and it just feels like the best luck and most excellent choice-making all in a row. Mama, I love to be here with you.

The Clouds of Michelangelo

Just stumbled upon this wonderful never-before-seen video one of my favorite (wanderlust) songs, Joni Mitchell’s “Refuge of the Roads”, directed by Miss Joni herself and interspersed with super 8 home movies and awesome Joni-in-the-80’s fashions. Click that ‘ol link. It won’t let me embed the video for some reason. Do it, if you know what’s good for you. Ok… now that you’re listening: For me this isn’t one of those songs that you put on when you’re actually on the road (unless you’re stopped at a strange new cottage in Berkeley and it’s rainy and there’s coffee and they happen to have Hejira on vinyl), but rather one that you listen to in the darkening twilight once you’ve finally made it home. The exact right space between wishing you were travelling again, bittersweet you’re not, and quiet and triumphant and content that you’re home. And here at home, as it gets dark earlier and a stream of fall storms cross over the mountains, twilight has been getting out of control. These are some Michelangelo clouds (muscular with gods and sun-gold) if I’ve ever seen ’em.

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.