Root Glen at Hamilton College

On Saturday afternoon before the wedding, Nitsa's friend Maribeth, Walt, and I went for a walk in Root Glen, a beautiful seven- acre wooded garden and ravine located on the edge of Hamilton College in Clinton, NY.  I have been there before with Nitsa, but I wanted to go back while we were there, and see the gardens in  the fall. I have always been interested in Root Glen, because it is famous for its collection of tree peonies. In the 1920s Hamilton chemistry professor A.P. Saunders became well known for his work hybridizing tree peonies, and he is responsible for 73 named varieties, including the yellow tree peony 'Argosy.' Of course the tree peonies were not blooming, but I enjoyed seeing the peony beds nonetheless, and could just imagine how beautiful it must be in bloom. Maribeth said she has seen the tree peonies many years, and in fact her son's graduation pictures were taken in the tree peony gardens. I guess I will just have to come back sometime in May! 

We then took a short drive around the beautiful grounds of Hamilton College, which is where Nitsa works.  The day was so gorgeous, with cool temperatures and a nice breeze, leaves falling--it was a picture perfect autumn day.

Loved these redbuds against the gray and green building

The Hemock enclosed perennial garden

One row of tree peonies--use your imagination

Alex Gets Married

Alex and Tim

We went to Clinton, NY, this weekend, for the wedding of Alex, the daughter of one of my oldest and dearest friends, Nitsa. Alex married Tim, who is from New Zealand (they met when Alex was on study abroad in New Zealand), and now they live in Christchurch. Lots of Tim's family and friends came over for the wedding, so it was really fun to get to know them and now we all want to go visit New Zealand (although I know I will never do that because of the 17-hour plane ride). Nitsa's cousins had planned several events for all the out of towners, including the rehearsal dinner on Friday night and a brunch at her cousin Mimi's house on Saturday morning, so by the time we got to the wedding on Saturday night, it felt like we were all friends, which was really nice.  The New Zealanders were so friendly and happy to be there, and loved everything about the United States, which was nice to hear. In his wedding toast, Tim's father was very cute and thanked everyone for making them feel so welcome and said, "you're just like us!" The wedding was lovely, and Alex looked beautiful. Nitsa and I were pregnant together with Alex and Julia, and they were born 2 months apart. Nitsa and Alex lived here in Virginia until Alex was about 8 years old and so Alex and Julia grew up together. When Alex was about 8, they moved to upstate New York. Nitsa and I always loved this picture of the two of them after a visit to the pumpkin patch when they were about 3 years old. It was wonderful to see this beautiful young woman all grown up and getting married!

Alex and Julia

We have known Nitsa's family for a long time and it was great to see them all again and see her nieces and nephews all grown up!  We had a lovely weekend, so fun to share this big event with our friend Nitsa.

Nitsa (on right) with her sister Muffin

Nitsa with her cousin Susie and brother Bill

Me, Nitsa, Cynthia

Nana from New Zealand making her entrance

Alex and Nitsa mother-daughter dance

I Worried

 I Worried,  by Mary Oliver

I worried a lot.  Will the garden grow, will the rivers

flow in the right direction, will the earth turn

as it was taught, and if not how shall

I correct it?

Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,

can I do better?

Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows

can do it and I am, well,

hopeless.

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,

am I going to get rheumatism,

lockjaw, dementia?

Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.

And gave it up.  And took my old body

and went out into the morning,

and sang.

Computer Woes

I'm having some computer problems right now, as in dead computer, so blogging might be a little light for awhile until I get this straightened out. And because I'm a bad backer upper I have lost a lot of my pictures and other stuff. Needless to say I'm a little upset.  I'm going to have to get a new computer but that might take me awhile.  In the meantime, I'm trying to use Walt's computer but everything is different and it's just not as easy. I did manage to get outside and take some pictures of turning leaves, love this time of year. I bought some fall pansies the other day and need to get out and plant those.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gone Girl

I didn't really like this book.  A lot of people are reading it and talking about it and it has a long holds list at the library, so when I finally got hold of a copy I was looking forward to reading it. It is the story of a young couple from Manhattan, Nick and Amy, who both lose their jobs and move to the Midwest (near his family) for a fresh start. Supposedly they are going to help take care of his parents, but that never really happens. And then, on their fifth anniversary, Amy disappears. At first it seems like an abduction, but then Nick becomes a suspect and from then on the story takes a lot of twists and turns and you never are quite sure what to believe. The media is involved, of course, and is a factor in casting suspicion.  The narrative goes back and forth between Nick's voice and Amy's diary entries, and while suspenseful,  I felt the pace was off and there was just too much story. Towards the middle of the book I found myself wanting to just skip over the story to the end to find out what happened (I didn't).

And the characters are so unlikeable. And I am someone who likes to read about psychopaths and crazies, so it wasn't that.  I think you have to have some feeling for at least one character in a book, and I had absolutely no feeling for either Nick or Amy or what happened to them. The combination of unbelievable characters and poor writing made this a disappointing read for me.  My book group is discussing this later this month, so it will be interesting to see what they think, because I know some people have liked it a lot.

Columbus Day in DC

We had some French treats yesterday in DC chez Paul, a pain au chocolat et aux amandes, who knew they made pain au chocolat with almonds too? Best of both worlds, I was so excited. With a cafe creme, I pretended I was in Paris.

We went downtown to see a new exhibit at the National Gallery called "The Serial Portrait: Photography and Identity in the Last 100 Years." There were over 100 photographs by 20 different artists who photographed the same subjects--mostly friends, family, and themselves--over the course of days, months, and years. One panel was a group of black and white photographs of four sisters, taken by the husband of one of the sisters,  photographed every year since 1975. Also interesting were serial photographs of  the painter Georgia O'Keefe, taken by her husband, American photographer Alfred Stieglitz.

After seeing the exhibit (no photos allowed), we walked around the Mall for awhile as it was a nice crisp fall day (yea fall!), and wandered through the sculpture gardens of both the National Gallery and the Hirschhorn Museum, admiring both the sculpture and the fleurs. A nice day.

The Burghers of Calais,  Rodin

Hey, here's my guy Balzac again,  Rodin

Crouching Woman,  Rodin

Monumental Head,  Giacometti

And I loooove  this stainless steel tree. I'd like one of these in my yard please.

View of the National Archives

National Mall

Signs of Fall

I found my stash of yarn the other day and started in on a sweet little baby hat.  We've been going to so many weddings lately, there's got to be some babies in the future don't you think? It's funny how cooler temps make me want to start some kind of project. Knitting makes me think of my mom, and want to be like her. She knitted all year round, not just in the winter, and she made all kinds of  sweaters for all her kids and grandkids, and countless afghans that we all still use (I am sitting with a soft green one right now). I used to love Fair Isle sweaters and she learned how to make those just for me, and I can't even think how many Fair Isle sweaters she knitted for me. She even made one for a friend of mine after she admired mine. She made me and Julia matching sweaters, which I still have. But her signature item was the baby owl sweaters with the button eyes that all our babies had. I have her typewritten instructions for that and have tried to make that owl sweater (a long story, including my knitting bag and that almost-finished owl sweater being stolen from our car when we were in North Carolina several years ago), but haven't actually finished one yet. Maybe that will be something to work on this winter.  That was a nice tradition my mom had of giving those owl sweaters to new babies.  Oh, and she made all her grandchildren knitted Christmas stockings. My kids love theirs because they are the biggest stockings ever!

My mom's owl sweater, made for Brooks

Cute little cable owls

I definitely have to learn how make this sweater.

Friday Fleurs: Random Zinnia

Creamy Whites

It's such a dreary day outside today, so I thought I'd come inside and show off my beautiful white orchid (it's a Phalaenopsis).  I love the creamy color and texture of this orchid, I just want to take a bite out of it. This is an old orchid, it must be ten years old by now. I have two other orchids,  so I usually have at least one blooming sometime during the year. What I like about orchids is that they bloom for such a long time. My last one bloomed from February through September of this year. I water them once a week, and fertilize every other watering.

My Handy Rain Gauge

Garden on October 1

I am so bad about remembering what day it is, and it wasn't until yesterday afternoon that I realized it was October 1 and I hadn't taken my monthly garden photo that morning. And it's a good thing I took it yesterday afternoon, because it started raining last night and it's been raining ever since. So not much blooming in front anymore, just the sedums and a few random phlox and anemones.  Yesterday was beautiful, though, and I took advantage of it and got a lot done in the gardens. I cut back all my coreopsis, as it was blackened and ugly, cut back all the coneflowers and rudbeckia, deadheaded roses and zinnias, pulled out some vines gone wild,  and various other clean up duties. I need to do something about my sedums, though. I don't like how they are all sprawly instead of standing up straight. I guess I either need to stake them  or cut them back earlier in the season so they don't grow so tall. One of my go-to gardening books is Tracy DiSabato-Aust's The Well Tended Perennial Garden, and she recommends that sedums be cut back by about half when they are 8 inches tall. I do this with several of my perennials to keep them shorter, but need to try it next year with these leggy sedums.

Sprawling sedums

Chomp chomp, somebody likes my parsley

Then I decided to tackle something that has been annoying me all summer--my big blue hydrangea in the backyard. It is so overgrown and I have been reading about what to do. Well yesterday I just decided to go for it, and cut it way down.  Pulled out lots of dead wood in the middle. I just hope I haven't killed it. I know I won't get any flowers next summer, but if it comes back in any shape at all and is smaller, I will be okay with that.

Hydrangea--Before

Hydrangea--After

And finally, how about those Nats, our NL East Champs!! Woohoo, we are pretty excited around here!

Spectacular Hyacinth Beans

My hyacinth beans are in their glory right now.  They took awhile to get going, maybe because I planted them along my fence, behind a lot of other plants. But they are so awesome, I'm going to save the seeds and plants more next year. I even saw a hummingbird on them yesterday morning. I thought hummingbirds were supposed to be gone by now, but my hyacinth beans must just be too yummy to leave.