The Empress of Autumn

She is the spirit of the shop, my alter ego and a reclaimed treasure.

Les feuilles mort

Oh, yes they are!  A branch here, a branch there.  Autumn will arrive officially in two days. The upside is the dahlias. Holy Moly, they're abundant and big and striking!

My only dahlia lament is that I cannot find Cafe au Lait anywhere at the market.  What does this mean? New York seems to have an abundance of them.  Sarah at Saipua, Denise at Little Pheasant blog has them. Even Jaime, in Napa has them!  Are lamenting and whining the same thing?

Rabbit news is excellent.  The new Staff seems to be perking along.  Guess I'm glad that allergies hit this week instead of last week.  Or maybe they hit this week because of last week. Wishing for more sleep, less coughing.

Quickly and no photos

We almost lost ZuZu yesterday. We were told to keep her separate from her partner Georgette who the Vet feared might bother her incision. Her little cage was pushed up against their home, but when I came into the shop yesterday morning, ZuZu wouldn't eat, and she was limp. These were the same symptoms of our first rabbit, Pierre Louise. I was an inexperienced bunny owner and inspite of getting her to the hospital, she died. I think she died of loneliness.

ZuZu's incision was fine. She'd been eating the night before. I recognized the signs. I force fed her with a special formula, forced water, massaged her tummy and put her back in her house with Georgette. I called the Vet. I waited for an answer. Bring her in, they said. I couldn't drive 25 miles out to Littleton. I said I'd keep them posted and I'd take her to Angell Memorial if I thought the situation was an emergency.

I force fed her again. At two o'clock she gave herself a bath. Georgette groomed her good. She came back and all is well.

Whew! Rabbits have sensitive natures. They're home bodies, nesters, furniture re-arrangers, and depend upon their close relationships. Along with training a new staff when it has suddenly become crazy at the shop it's been quite a week. Two glasses of wine tonight. Cheers!

9/11, ZuZu Figs and Fall

My husband Joe left the house very early to help plant 3000 little flags around the Bunker Hill Monument. His slacker wife watched the ceremony at Ground Zero on tv in her pajamas, noting, as she drank her coffee that the sky out the living room window was eerily the same color blue as it was on that Tuesday morning ten years ago.
 I remember thinking, as we watched the news that morning, right after the first plane went into the Tower, that Katie Couric was doing a horrible job at reporting the event.  And then I realized that her children were probably somewhere in Manhatten.  Lord.

The sky is no longer blue this afternoon.  Clouding up and I heard there would be thunderstorms tonight.  A little more summer headed our way this week.  Steve's flowers around An Urban Cottage will be happy.

I need to pick up ZuZu at the crack of dawn and get her to her Vet in Littleton.  It's a forty minute trip from the shop, but she has to be there by 8:30 to have a growth removed from her shoulder.  The reason for the growth is inconclusive, but it has to come off and be biopsied. She's been a trooper, mostly.

Janet at The Gardener's Cottage displayed her lovely bowl of white figs last week and made me homesick for the fig harvest in California.  On Thursday, a plant vendor at our flower market had several bowls of figs for FREEEE from his trees at the nursery.  I was pretty greedy.  Aren't they beautiful?

I've been eating them with organic yogurt on my home made olive oil and orange granola with a little bit of maple syrup.  Kind of beats blueberries out of my pantheon of most favorite fruits ( or berries).

Tomorrow I'll get Fall started at the shop.  Take down those tired purple million bells hangers, replant the big pot with grasses and peppers and drag up the wheat from the basement. There are already pumpkins and crazy gourds at the flower market!

In the blink of an eye

there is a little microcosm, a universe with time to take a few pictures, have a few glasses of wine, go for a few swims and see Barney Frank speak at the Jewish Community Center.  Thirty hours was my blink.  Exactly thirty in Martha's Vineyard heaven.

There were horses and cows.

Sox the dog, good for nothing but love, love, love.  Perfect.

No photos of Barney, but let me just say, I'm glad I didn't have any questions.

I jumped into the water like Rossano Brazzi and Sophia Loren in Legends of the Lost.  I stayed in for an hour.  I didn't mind the kelp, or the rocks, or the wind.

And then we got onto the boat and came back.

Sunset off Penzance Point, Woods Hole

And then we drove home through the tall trees before hitting 495.

"Back to life.  Back to reality".