ANTICIPATION

Anticipating MUSICA? You got it! Hi Everyone!!! For the last 35 years I’ve experienced Spring as being in a constant state of anticipation, WAITING for the end of winter ~ even though I loved winter, snow, the fire, the sweaters, & cozy dinners, I have to say March in New England is the longest, greyest, coldest, never-ending month ~ sometimes I just wanted to slap it ~ April is almost as bad, but the anticipation is there anyway, waiting for it to warm up, for something to come out of the soil, camera ready to catch the smallest bud, calling friends to announce the first daffodil, thrilled on the first day we could open the windows, for the first outdoor dinner, everything-everything! So exciting! So this makes me wonder how you’re all doing? I hear about weather attacking the country here and there, & I know some are feeling it! But look at it this way: It’s all just free anticipation. So much to look forward to. I love that word… And happy to say, it’s been my word here in California too! All winter! It makes life so exciting ~ I can’t wait to wake up each morning and look outside to see the day’s weather, wander through the garden looking for what’s new, gasp at beauty, settle in with my tea, my cat, my pen, my brush, to work on a new page for my (our) new Summer book … and every day something in the garden blooms that wasn’t there before ~ and I’m right here for it! Between my art and the garden, I feel so lucky. Winter is relatively easy here, chilly, sweater weather, but I get to be out every day, windows are always open, we sleep cold, delicious under the covers. I saw a King Snake the other day, my first, I kept, very respectfully, a mile away from him even though he is known to be harmless to people and eats gophers. He’s a shocking 3 feet long , and the other day he undulated himself right out across the lawn while I was watering. Calmly, I did nothing. Black with white stripes. Unforgettable. I haven’t seen him since. But I am aware. Which is good. Honestly I like knowing he’s there, just please, I beg silently, do not come up in the toilet. Egrets graze in the back fields, they eat gophers too. I love all things that feast on these underground terrorists. It’s true country living! Sometimes I turn on the music first thing, loud, dance over to make tea, dance over to Jack (for forehead-touch/brain-exchange), dance to the shower, dance to the art table. Then I have to stop the musica or I’ll never get anything done!New Book, and new art for my wonderful new Summer Book. Yes, I did originally say it was a revision, but I also added sixteen new pages; what used to be 128 pages is now 144. And I couldn’t help remembering you all have the original book, so, more and more excited as I went along, I practically changed the whole thing … reworked some pages, gave other pages new art, put in different quotes, and replaced some pages with new recipes; now there’s so much more garden, tea, jam-making, watercolors, ideas, stories, and quotes . . . I mean 30 years is a long time, the world has changed since 1995, I had a lot to share. We NEED a new Summer Book, and here it is! Well, kind of, this is my mock-up, the pages aren’t hooked together, the real thing is at the printer!

Green! I’ve decorated the inside of our house all in green to match the garden and I made this book green too ~ much greener than it used to be, for the same reason! And because of my inspiring surroundings, I made it for love of the earth and everything that grows on it.

But don’t worry, there are other colors too, something for everyone! Have you preordered yours yet? You can, right HERE!

Oh yes, been cooking too!

Recipe-testing on Shelly and Holly! (Sister and Niece came to visit, more later!)

And just for you, a little preview. xoxoxo

I’m excited because there’s going to be a book-signing welcome-home event here in the lovely town of San Luis Obispo in early November, and you’re all invited! I’ll tell you where and when as soon as I find out those important details! After that, Joe and I want to go on a book tour, heading north first because we never go to Oregon and Washington or even Northern California and hope we can do that this time. I’ve never seen Vancouver! Something else to look forward to! And we’ll see how it goes, maybe drive back to the island and stop along the way at bookstores. Maybe one near you!

Another surprise is coming soon. It’s so hard for me to keep my mouth shut but if I give you all the surprises on one day, what will I have to say next time? Actually I’m not sure I will ever run out. I need a garden club. That’s my next quest. I’m going to try and make one. Maybe I’ll follow in the steps of Vita Sackville West and give garden walks someday. I think a garden club might include someone to warn me about buying Butterfly bush BEFORE I fall in love with everything about it and plant this invasive plant, apparently capable of destroying the world, in my garden.

Like the original Summer Book, this revision is still imbued with the spirit of New England Summers because that’s where this book was born, and also, I brought as much of all my favorite places to California as I could. Look over the trees, that’s the sun going down back there, every sky is different, all so beautiful.

And beautiful in New England, where my heart has been for so many years, no messing with that, but the new Summer Book benefits from having the land of perpetual summer as inspiration. (Or perpetual fall, I haven’t decided.) There are restaurants on the ocean here in California too! Probably never as pretty as this one!

So come with me and I’ll give you a little tour of my passion! I’ve been planting and working in the garden the entire time I’ve been painting and writing. Widen the photo and you can walk right under othe rose arbor and go look at the picket fence garden! Took forever for these roses to bloom. The anticipation was glorious!

Here’s a close up of what you see when getting close to and walking under the arbor. Thank you God. No other words.

New art for my Summer Book, because, after 30 years, so many secrets for the good life! But the biggest and best, I’ll just give away right here: It’s only one word! Look. That’s it. See everything. Take time to notice, watch the grass grow, see the moon rise, hear the water gurgle into your tea cup, see the afternoon shadows, note the butterflies. Turn off everything, and give yourself some music. Listen. Smell the flowers. Turn your senses on. It’s all right there. One other secret, Give. Don’t hold anything back for later, give it all away now. And don’t forget you. Surprise yourself. Invite yourself to an outdoor restaurant for lunch. And take your best friend. Eat ANYTHING you want. I could go on all day. Nurseries are heaven, and filled with beauty. You never know where you’ll find that little spark that lights up your creative heart. Life, my darling darlings, is for the living.

Look at those scented sweeties!

Some for me and some for the gophers and lots to make bouquets out of!I did this and my heart doth knowed it wanted sweet peas. And so. Seeds. And voila. That’s how easy it was. My heart dideth also knowed it wanted sweet peas in Martha’s Vineyard. But that was too bad. They don’t grow there. So my heart doth changed its mind and wanted hydrangeas.

 As I walk toward the sofa, the first thing I notice is the bright colors of the sweetpeas out the windows . . . the cheeriest sight. I’m such a homebody.

In person the colors are much more vivid than in these photos . . . Those colors are almost too much for the camera in my iphone. Like looking at the sun. Blinding. Oh! Yes, I got a new bird feeder, see it on the right …?

Remember this bird feeder? I know lots of you got one when I showed it the first time . . . what do you think? I’m pretty sure they’re sold out now, I couldn’t find them, but this is the one I got today! Because of the little solar-powered windows that light up & because everyone says they’re easy to fill!

This is our butterfly garden… all yellow, purple, orange, and fuchsia flowers, some just planted and still tiny, along with three large Julia Child Rose bushes, lots of catmint, and one of my favorites, the lovely Princess Juliana geum ~ and a wee angel drinking saucer for the butterflies to sip from.

 Did you know a third of the food we eat depends on a pollinator? Yes, we need those birds and insects, bees, butterflies, & hummingbirds. My garden is my small way to give back and hopefully make more, while enjoying every moment. My hedges are bird motels, the welcome sign is out. I can see butterflies flitting from where I am sitting right now, that corner window on the right. 

Coming in from the wildflower orchard after a few hours of weeding (after watering, a little muddy, but I needed to soften those roots!). I do it for the beauty, for strength, for Vitamin D, peace of mind, fragrance, buzzing and chirping, smiling, singing,stress relieving, cat-rolling and petting, and self satisfaction. In love with my dirt. Do I know what I’m doing? No I do not! But that’s why we have Google!!! So much easier than it once was! Once I had a little upstairs apartment, and the only dirt I had was in a window box. I could open the kitchen window to tend the plants in the box that was on the outside; I grew herbs there and I have to say, even THAT tiny thing made me happy!

I have to stop … just remembered, my dad sent me this photo a few years ago (and captioned it)… it’s a freezing cold spring day on Martha’s Vineyard, which, coming from Arizona, was his big complaint. From right, that’s Shelly, Dad, Jeannie, me, Joe, Billy & Bob (friends). I love that my dad wrote that note. Makes me laugh every time I see it.

I’m finally finishing planting the perennial gardens, the plants are small, I anticipate that soon they will catch hold of their new soil, curl their little roots around the bits of compost we have provided, grow big, and fill in all the dirt places. If staring made plants grow, it would already be done. 

This is the new wildflower orchard, that is the peach tree we planted out there before it was an orchard. So many little peaches on it, I think we’re going to have a bumper crop! Behind are the wildflowers, then my obstacle course (explained later in this post), and behind that are acres of cabbage belonging to the neighbors.

Close up, the orchard looks like this. And everyday new seeds reveal their secrets. There’s something out there now, tons of it, I have no idea what it is, some is a little taller than others, watching with much anticipation to find the first one in bloom. Two other things coming soon, the gardenias have little buds (now if they will just stay on!), and we must have 50 agapantha blossoms almost ready to pop!

Up close and personal with agapanthus. All ours are blue, but I just planted 3 new white ones in the perennial garden.

Out to dinner the other night and took my hostess a bouquet of wild flowers. (The jacket is there partly to stop the vase from falling over in the car!)

Close up of a “Five Spot” wildflower. I never saw one of these before, but the delicacy and the detail is just wow. There are some amazing teeny flowers out there, but you have to look closely!

This is my favorite variety of baby’s breath, Gypsophila elegans. So Doris Day, wild and free, blowing in the wind. I love seeing the more formal gardens right next to the cottage gardens, everything, kind of mixed together. And a surprise around every corner.

Joe built stairs from the front deck down to the picket fence garden ~ they’re behind those bushes on the right . . . 

Here he’s just getting ready to install them . . . Simon aka Big Boy, is helping.

He even built a hand-rail so none of our friends, or me, kills themselves going down the stairs!

Look at him. I was walking round and round when he was doing this. I saw this perfect little rose and brought it to him, next time I saw him, he was wearing it. . . My guy, charm personified.

We found this metal bench at our local garden store … I like metal because black widow spiders prefer wood! And I prefer no black widow spiders! We also added a couple more rockers . . .  I found the perfect cushion for it on Amazon , and it didn’t cost an arm and a leg … (just in cases ~ I would tell you anyway, but legally they want me to remind you that our Studio will get a small percentage every time I put up a link for an Amazon product, so here it is! But of course, only get what you fall in love with!) . . .  the cushion comes in different sizes, this one is 48″ wide, it has ties too, looks flat as a pancake when it arrives, but with a little shake, in a few hours it puffs up to this! I JUST got it, so I don’t know how long it will last, but now the bench is perfect for my new garden club meeting. When I figure out how to start one! Problem is, I will need to figure out how to keep it only to 6 or 7 people… otherwise we will get nothing done!!!

And now, in the evenings, I have this . . . And there is a new bird feeder on the branch of that tree, too out of focus to see, but very entertaining. Notice, Sammy?I LOVE our birds, and having feeders, and the wonderful app on my phone called Merlin Bird ID ~ Just point it into the air and it will listen, identify, show you pictures of the birds it hears and you can look for them. It’s fun! and Free!

This was about 5:30 AM this morning . . . I could hear them from inside the house! 

My walk is getting more civilized all the time! Although it will always be dirt as long as I’m here. Paradise has enough pavement as far as I’m concerned. So this is the driveway side, I walk all the way to the back . . . and make a left. When I walk up and down the tops of the driveways (they go up because we’re in an ancient river bed) on both sides, my watch registers those as stairs! I’m recording 7 sets of stairs a day now , and around 10,000 steps! Fat little California quail, with topknots on their heads, run quickly ahead of me.

These are our cottonwood trees, whispering above, and they really do whisper when the leaves rub together in the wind . . . it’s beautiful to walk under them! I love the dappled light . . . Here, I’ll take you with me for a moment . . . Listen!

Side 3, by far the most uncivilized part of the walk . . . Gopher holes, weeds, bumps, uneven ground ~ a tripping obstacle course, very good for strengthing balance. Carrying phone in case I have to call 911! (Plus it has my book in it! I’m listening to The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Study on Happiness ~ really good, is making me HAPPY!) The back of the wildflower orchard is on the right … you can see the cottonwood trees back there… Egrets shop for gophers in the fields on my right . . . our mourning doves sound just like the English variety when they coo “my toe huts bet-tee,” although without the Bet-tee, their toes just hut. At night we sleep with owls hooty-hooting. . . .

 I look to my left and see this . . .rows of cabbage . . . 

And bluebirds hang out where I turn at the bend in the road which I nicknamed “Bluebird Corner.” Little groups of them, on the fence, on fence posts, on telephone lines. They are wild country birds and don’t come to feeders. We put a bluebird nesting box out there years ago ~ I think these are the descendants of those first nesters and this is their home.

Then it’s back across the front of the house past the arbor to the long driveway . . . to the other driveway, up that, back down, and again!

For a change of pace, I can choose to take the long walk . . . the lawn path that goes from one side of the property to the other, where I can turn and reverse the walk for new views. Someday, if we ever sell our house on the island, we might put a small lap pool behind the hedge on the right. What self-respecting 1970s double-wide “hotel” with one guest room doesn’t have a little skinny pool out back?

Welcome to the Hotel California . . .

So that was book fun, and nature fun, and now for some people fun! Here’s one of our first Hotel California guests . . . my niece Holly ~ up in the morning, writing in her diary, with Jack watching. Note her fingernails. She let me do that!

We had such a wonderful visit! I took her to my favorite Italian restaurant and we shared Tiramisu. With all our hearts.

Not JUST dessert . . . We had dinner too!

Then Shelly came and we got silly! Because we’re family! And we’re good at it!

After a wonderful visit, Holly had to go home and back to work. Then Shelly, Diane, and I went to an afternoon concert in a tiny place, outdoors under the sun in Baywood Park with the BEST musica (Jill Knight and her band) … which we sang along to (so now you can’t hear HER) and no one cared! It occurs to me they should change the name of our generation from Baby Boomers to “the FUN people.” Because we are! You should have seen everyone dancing. Even me! It was such a happy day and wonderful fun! You would have loved it!

Time for me to go! I hope you enjoyed this update . . . sorry I was MIA last month, but you know, the book! Never worry! I will return for as long as I can, and this world we made together will always leave the sweetest little mark in the DNA of the universe. In short there’s simply not a more congenial spot
For happily-ever-aftering than here in Cam-el-lot. Right? And a huge Thank you to you darling people. Love you dearly. Happy HAPPY June!!!

PS, Ooops, I almost forgot, two things I think you’ll LOVE on Netflix: First and foremost is the new series called Etoile! They just finished season one. Try not to binge-watch it. It deserves to last as long as humanly possible. I can’t say enough good about it! Smart, AND beautiful! And the other one, good too, Sirens.