LAST DAY in MAY...

"A garden is a grand teacher....

                                     

       ...It teaches patience and careful watchfulness.

            ...it teaches industry and thrift...

                                              

...above all, it teaches entire trust." -Gertrude Jekyll

"It was such a pleasure to sink one's hands into the warm earth...

...to feel at one's fingertips the possibility of a new season..."

- Kate Morton                                   

"To potter with green growing things...

                                     

...watching each day to see the dear,

...new sprouts come up,

                                        

...is like taking a hand in creation, I think.

...Just now my garden is like faith.

                                          

...the substance of things hoped for."- Lucy Maud Montgomery

"Sometimes just to touch the earth is enough for me...

                                                  

...even if not a single thing grows from what I plant."

                -Andy Couturier

Photographs 2026

                               

 

THE DAY...

MAY DAY by Sara Teasdale ( 1884-1933) Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1918. This poem was published in "Flame and Shadow" in 1920.

A delicate fabric of bird song

Floats in the air,

The smell of wet earth is everywhere...

Red small leaves of the maple

are drenched like a hand,

Like girls at their first communion,

...the pear trees stand.

Oh, I must pass nothing by

Without loving it so much,

The raindrop try with my lips, the grass with my touch;

For how can I be sure

I shall see again

The world...

... on the first of May

Shining after the rain?

Photographs 2026

THE CATS WHO VISIT.

"Cats make the perfect audience...." -Elle Newmark

I don't know how it happened. But one day, there was this lovely white cat who came down the hill to visit. For two years, I called her "White Cat", till I learned her real name, and Cordelia and I became friends for 18 years. Then the others followed....

     d'Artagnon

Hobbes

“Human beings are drawn to cats because they are all we are not — self-contained, elegant in everything they do, relaxed, assured, glad of company, yet still possessing secret lives.”- Pam Brown

Rona and Hobbes at the window

 

Teddy follows Rona

The Best Friends

Sweet Simon

                                         

Teddy

Patience (2024) Housemate of Cordelia

"Arise from sleep, old cat, And with great yawns and stretching, amble out for love..."-Issa,Haiku

                       Spencer and his fan club           

"The cat offers itself..."-James Burroughs

                             

Spencer and his brother, Smokey (2017) Mr. Spencer has been coming over to visit, for about 14 years. Faithfully shows up at 5 am, then 10 am, if it's sunny out, and between 4 and pm, and often at 11 pm before he heads for his home.

Smokey used to come bounding over the terrace wall. Funny, happy cat. We still miss seeing him.
       

Little d'Artagnon, with her lovely blue collar to match her blue eyes. Her collar has a little bell that rings "Ding-a-ling-a-ling". Have no idea, really, what her name is but d'Artagnon seems fitting. She LOVES Mr. Spencer. Follows him around like a little puppy. 

                                                        

,

Sweet Simon usually stays under his favourite bush when the others are around. 

                            

Edwina only comes around once-in-a-while. She loves the back steps, so much so, that Rona and Spencer have to wait their turn ...

"The smallest feline is a masterpiece..." -Leonardo da Vinci

Beautiful Cordelia ( 2026). She lived for 18 years and came every day. At one point, she brought her housemate, Patience. He was like a lion. He roared. They were the first of the cats who visit...and it's all so amazing still.

Photographs 2026