I always bring in the last good-looking foliage and seedpods to make an autumn arrangement. This time I forgot about watering it after the first few days. So I remade it as a study in brown.
Have a pleasant Thanksgiving. I'm not the cook this year, so it will be very pleasant for us.
Whenever I get bored, I change up the items on top of this pair of Chinese wine tables. Or on the glass shelves we added on the bottom to provide more display space. Recently I wanted something to punch up this room and bought this pair of lamps at a new antique mall in town. Mark is less than thrilled with them because they limit the size and number of pieces of art that can be put on the wall behind them — which is why I saved the pair of smaller scale lamps that had been residing here.
I put this grouping of objects out at the beginning of October. I wanted something that felt like Halloween but didn't include typical items. This group showcases a Japanese incense burner, a squash-shaped box of unknown origin and a Chinese ceramic piece that was likely used as a roof decoration.
I immediately fell in love with this piece when I saw it at an art show at a friend's farm the summer of 2021. It's an actual dried pumpkin covered with lead bullets and sculpt metal. It's called "Pumpkin Mine" and is a comment on the marine mines used to blow up ships. I'm still not sure why I am so drawn to it. I'm not a violent person and neither is the artist — a friend — who made it. But it certainly has that eerie Halloween feel.
This big wooden bowl full of Honey Locust pods comes out every autumn. When we first lived here, we rarely got pods from our three trees. In recent years, we are buried in them. We fill a lot of big bags with them and send them off to the county dump.
As a means of turning these lemons into lemonade, I saved the longest, shiniest, most velvety pods for display. They live in this bowl year-round in the basement except for their month in the sun every October.
I don't know why anyone in the U.S. expects women to celebrate the Fourth of July this year.
Our government — via the Supreme Court — has just demonstrated that they do not consider women citizens with the full rights of men. Our independence has been dramatically curtailed and it's going to get worse. There is nothing for us to celebrate.
We need to elect more Democrats at every level of government, especially in state legislative races. This is where the biggest threats to women and democracy will be. It's clear the court wants to mess with the validity of elections. Trump came close on January 6th but that was just a preview.
If you are not already reading her daily, check out Heather Cox Richardson's "Letters from an American" for clear and insightful explanations of what is happening in American politics, along with a dose of context and history. An excellent way to be informed without going ballistic over the news.
"What the woman who labors wants is the right to live, not simply exist — the right to life as the rich woman has the right to life, and the sun and music and art. You have nothing that the humblest worker has not a right to have also. The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too. Help, you women of privilege, give her the ballot to fight with."
Rose Schneiderman (April 6, 1882 – August 11, 1972), a social justice activist, suffragist and labor union leader in the early 20th Century, popularized the phrase "bread and roses" in her many speeches.
Her words inspired James Oppenheim to write the poem “Bread and Roses”, which was later set to music. It remains a labor anthem to this day. Here is a short PBS documentary on Schneiderman; a woman whose work made a positive impact on our lives before many of us were even born.
. . . but today is Fastnacht to me. That's "Fast Night," the German celebration on the day before Lent begins. My maternal great-grandparents emigrated to the U.S. from Germany in the 19th Century and this was one of the few rituals that our family maintained from that side of our heritage. Like Mardi Gras, it is a day for costumes, eating and partying.
On this day my mother always made Fastnacht keuchles, a raised and deep-fried "donut" that was square in shape and pressed together in the center, rather than having a hole in the middle. Then we dusted them in cinnamon and sugar or powdered sugar. Using up lard, butter and sugar before the long period of religious fasting began was the reason for making sweet treats.
The NYTimes has a story about a small community still celebrating this festival. One of the townspeople, pictured in the article, was wearing a mask that reminded me of one I have. I will bring it out today in memory of those long-gone childhood days spent in the kitchen with my mom.
A roundup of flowers in my house in cold weather.
It was a rare occurrence that I was able to bring Hellebore flowers from my garden into the house in December. All of my other indoor blooms were hot house flowers. I love Cyclamen for the intensity of their color and the fact that I can buy small plants that don't overwhelm a display.
Pomegranates are one of my go to items for display and not just at Christmas.
I wanted this area to have a Christmas vibe but be able to work after the holiday as well. Thus I made the centerpiece a large glass box filled with warm toned textiles.
The box is holding a part of my collection of hats from India, Pakistan, Turkey and elsewhere.
Quirky necklaces and an Indian carved figure are also in there.
The hats are pieced and embroidered and many of them are as interesting on the inside as the outside with stitching or Russian cotton lining. The display on these tables will continue to look good through Valentine's Day.
Two friends stopped by with flowers for me when my sister died.
As those flowers started to fade, I added the best ones to the bouquet I got for the dining room table.
I added the rose and some tiny mums from one gift bouquet . . .
and lilies from the other gift flowers.
I got a ridiculous amount of pleasure from re-arranging things, adding more evergreens from my garden and even a couple of big leaves of Arum italicum.
As flowers continue to fade I removed them and reduced the bouquet.
But I think it still looks good as the flowers mature and change.
This little bouquet has been moving around the house since the fall when I clipped a stem of Coleus and one of Kale.
I added a couple of evergreens and moved it into my bathroom after the Hellebores died. I was surprised to see how well it fit in with this bowl of beads from the nearby antiques mall.
The same items have a completely different feel when the white Hellebores and pale blue vases are replaced with this darker display.
I always have some kind of arrangement by the kitchen sink and in the bathrooms year-round. Given we were having one or two people over on Thanksgiving and on the weekend, I made sure those highly visible locations all had something in place. The Hellebore niger flowers that I cut and brought in on Nov. 11 are finally starting to fade. At the opposite end of the space is an antique jug with seedheads of Begonia grandiflora.
I have had good luck with the hardy Begonia and love the papery quality of the seedheads.
My bathroom has a dried arrangement in a Delores Fortuna vase.
The Lotus pod was purchased but the pale Hosta leaf and dark Bergenia leaf are from the garden as is the stem of seedheads. They look familiar but I can't remember which plant they came from.
I splurged and bought an assortment of foliage and blooms from the cooler at my favorite local grocery store to use on the table Thanksgiving Day.
The pale peach Hyacinth has just the right amount of scent that it was not a problem at the table. The stems that look like Astilbe were labeled Solidago. If that is what they really are, I'd love to grow them. They are a beautiful rusty orange with tiny flowers opening to the same peachy color as the Hyacinth.
I'm putting out Christmas items next so things will look quite different next Monday.
A few weeks ago, when we closed up the Tea House for the winter, I decided to re-use the vase and its contents that had been on display there. The ivy had faded and started to dry out, so I added more dried items: A fern and a Hydrangea flower.
I always get pomegranates as soon as I see them in the grocery store. I love their shininess, as well as the way the red echoes the trim on the gold screen on the wall. They are my not-so-subtle nod to Christmas waiting in the wings.
Soft faded colors always look good with the big guy.
Hope you all have a safe and satisfying holiday.
My youngest sister, who is an artist, gave us this little ceramic "studio god" many years ago. Rather than guarding our creative work areas, we put him in this empty space next to the back door of our house to watch over our entire residence.
Once upon a time, there was some kind of walkie-talkie by the front and back doors, but only the space remains. Locust leaves, caught in cobwebs, perfectly define this as an end of October moment.
. . .
My sister, Pat, currently makes beautiful silver jewelry based on medieval chain mail.