So Much To Be Thankful For

The amazing weather, a balmy 23 C. today, the golden light, breakfast outside in our dressing gowns, the storm windows washed and put on, the wood brought in and piled ready for winter, the pond gardens cut down, the garden on the east side of the house transplanted to the west side and visa versa, front porch washed, stone wall repaired, daylilies cut down, hostas also. The list goes on; and did I mention it's been heaven working outside and it keeps me from checking on the polls every 5 minutes; so very thankful they are beginning to trend the right way.  So many birds, geese honking overhead, bugs too. The studio calls but can wait 'till it rains. Happy Belated Thanksgiving all!

Yesterdays light across the pond, 2015

Pond light, 2015

Towards the pond, 2015

Promise Fills the Sky With Light

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

This mornings beauty, 2014

more of this mornings beauty, 2014

Thanksgiving Day

I have been trying to think of words that describe our fall light and how it makes me feel; this golden, glowing, caressing almost a blessing kind of light. How it fills me with such exuberance as when I was a child, making piles of leaves and jumping in, kicking leaves, toasting hotdogs over burning piles of leaves; that sense of joy. I was reading this poem of Mary Oliver’s' last week; she says it best.

"If I Were" by Mary Oliver

There are lots of ways to dance and
to spin, sometimes it just starts my
feet first then my entire body, I am
spinning no one can see it but it is
happening. I am so glad to be alive,
I am so glad to be loving and loved.
Even if I were close to the finish,
even if I were at my final breath, I
would be here to take a stand, bereft
of such astonishments, but for them.

If I were a Sufi for sure I would be
one of the spinning kind. 

From A Thousand Mornings, Mary Oliver’s new collection. All rights reserved.

Happy Thanksgiving 

On our drive yesterday, just outside Montgomery Falls, Vermont

Again,  just outside Montgomery Falls, Vermont

Sumac

Pennants waving in the breeze or perhaps gaudy prayer flags, the sumac are in their glory now; breathtakingly wondrous on a dull overcast day.  Photos never seem to do them justice. From the hottest reds, tinged with magenta, through the orange spectrum, into yellow and exiting by way of chartreuse. They wave and shout, Happy Thanksgiving. And the deer say "Thank-you, you are delicious!" Which means there will be short stumps of trunks by next spring. However, sumac grows like a weed; even the years the deer have eaten them to the ground the trees recover to put on the show another year.

Sumac leaves waving in the breeze

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I was thinking about all the things I am grateful for, doing my own thanksgiving you could say....so in no particular order, well except for JB making the top of the list, here are some of the things I am giving thanks for, JB, Zoe, my studio, family, friends, art, music, books, stones, water, beer and cigs, galleries, museums, Florence, my garden, FB friends and community, trees, my Mac, words, my strong and healthy body, love, my piece of heaven.