Coming to love a mountain

I grew up without it on my horizon. 

I didn't understand its allure. 

But then I moved to within sight of it. 

And I understand the hold it has on those it watches over. 

Legend says that those born within its shadow

may try to leave it for a time

but will always be drawn back to live in its presence once again.

I finally understand.

Building a nest out of rose leaves and twigs

As the sun has won the battle with the clouds the past few days, our world has turned from dreary winter into gorgeous spring.

The sparrow couples have begun their nest building activities under the eaves outside my studio window. Chirping and warbling, the sparrows have obviously taken Snow White's advice to "whistle while they work". Some gathered materials fall to the deck below. Amongst the dried twisted twigs are sprigs of freshly picked green sprigs of rose leaves... and one fallen feather.

I feel a kinship with the sparrows. We, too, have built our home of "rose leaves" and "twigs"--"twigs" of foundational structure and "rose leaves" of inexpensive adornments and "pretties" just because.

And, like the sparrows, we've done it as a couple--partners in building the nest we call home.

Autumnal Gratitude

One of the blessings of living where we do is that we have a very long growing season for summery vegetables (March through October). However, this also means that we don't get our true autumn color in full force until much later than a lot of you. Our best colors don't happen until after Halloween and this week has been spectacular. It has really been helpful in getting in the mood for Thanksgiving.

There is something about needing to get all cuddly and cozy that makes me reflective and draws my thoughts inward to introspection. It is quite appropriate as Thanksgiving is upon us, as I should have thoughts of thankfulness and gratitude during this time of year anyway.

As the nights have taken on a slight chill, I've enjoyed building fires in our fireplace. Our cottage is quite homey with only one main living area where the fireplace is, so when the fire is lit we are all together enjoying the warmth. Suzette, in particular, loves fireside snoozing (photo at right). The other kitties lounge around the living room just enjoying being with us as we watch television or read. Sometimes Hubby putters on the laptop from either the sofa or chair. I am grateful for my cottage living room and its fireplace for being the heart and hearth of our home.

About a week ago, Hubby went around and put full spectrum light bulbs in all the lamps in the living room as a little I-love-you surprise for me. I really struggle with the lack of sunlight as the days grow shorter. The full spectrum bulbs help prevent me from taking off to Hawaii on a wild hair (I've been sorely tempted in years past, trust me). One full spectrum bulb is in the reading lamp over the chair. I often sit there with the shade swung over my head like a levitating glowing hat. It's absolute heaven (although Hawaii would be better). The kitties all love this lamp as well and will slip up onto the chair anytime we've vacated it. Such sneaky little furry deviants. So even though we have little armchair wars with the kitties, I am very grateful for full spectrum light bulbs and a loving Hubby that remembered them.

We've had some rain this month, but our winter rains are still to come. That's why the hill up at the end of the street is still in its brown barren cloak. The cows have grazed it down to stubble and brown dirt. But as the rains come over the next few weeks, this hill will turn a beautiful shade of green. If we're lucky, it will be green by Christmas and will stay that way until late April or early May before it turns a golden yellow. We don't have white Christmases here. We have green Christmases, and I am grateful for green Christmases.

So on Saturday, as I was transplanting the winter veggies into the raised planter boxes in the back garden I was doing so in a very reflective autumnal mood. I noted how the sun was so low in the sky and how I missed the days of summer when I could garden until 8 or 9 o'clock in the evening. I miss the dragonflies buzzing overhead in a darting canopy catching mosquitoes and gnats on the fly. I miss the hum of summer activity in the garden. But I also felt a deep welling inside of gratitude that I am able to have a winter garden with spinach, lettuce, onions, broccoli, celery and parsley. I said a silent prayer with each transplant that we will soon be enjoying their bounty. And, yes, I was very grateful.

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Where Can I Turn For Peace?

Things in our lives have been what Hubby has dubbed "code red status", as of late. "Code red status" isn't made up of the little stresses that just come along with everyday life. "Code red status" is made up of the big stuff that hopefully comes infrequently into one's life, and if one weathers it well one is a better and stronger person for having experienced it.

The current state of affairs in our lives has caused me to reflect on a favorite hymn entitled "Where Can I Turn For Peace?":

Where can I turn for peace?
Where is my solace
When other sources cease to make me whole?
When with a wounded heart, anger, or malice,
I draw myself apart,
Searching my soul?

Where, when my aching grows,
Where, when I languish,
Where, in my need to know,
Where can I run?
Where is the quiet hand
To calm my anguish?
Who, who can understand?
He, only One.

He answers privately,
Reaches my reaching
In my Gethsemane,
Savior and Friend.
Gentle the peace he finds
For my beseeching.
Constant he is and kind,
Love without end.

Text: Emma Lou Thayne
Music: Joleen G. Meredith
Scriptural reference: John 14:27; 16:33 and Hebrews 4:14-16

No "code red" phase is forever. As my great-grandmother used to say, "This too shall pass..." But for now it is comforting and consoling to have inspiration come from various sources like the hymn above.

It is also comforting and consoling to be blessed with the home that we consider our refuge and haven from the storms of life. Rosehaven Cottage is the place where I physically, emotionally, and mentally retreat to in order to regain my strength so that I may meet the challenges I face. The time spent under the shade of the plum tree is most precious at "code red" times like these.

Interestingly, every person is capable of having a place like Rosehaven Cottage. It may come in many forms, sizes, styles, and locations but it can still represent the same thing in each person's life--a refuge and a haven. My most heartfelt desire is that everyone could create what we have created--for it truly is something that one creates and doesn't just happen by chance. It doesn't make the trials of life go away, but it certainly does make it easier to exit those trials a victor.

Home At Last!

I am finally home after 10 long days of being away. It's the longest I've ever been away from Rosehaven Cottage. The trip was full and enriching, but nothing is like coming home to my soulmate, my kitties, and my garden. Like the monarch at left, I sipped from sweet nectar but the trip left my wings a bit worn.

I've decided that today is going to be a restful day although I'm very tempted to go out into the garden and just start digging in and installing new planter boxes that were inspired by a class I took on the square foot gardening method. I've employed the method already, but they had some new and inspirational ideas that I am so anxious to implement in the Rosehaven Cottage gardens. "All in due time," I tell myself.

For now, I will rest and get over the "lovely" cold I acquired while away. Maybe I'll watch an old classic movie and eat chicken soup. That sounds like a good plan.

I'm posting some of my favorite photos that I shot while away. I've uploaded more onto my online photo galleries for those that want to see even more. I'm including the links to the appropriate galleries beside the photos.


My Auntie J. brought a box of peaches to my Auntie A. that were so gorgeous sitting on Auntie A.'s front porch I had to photograph them. Auntie A. has a large produce garden with many photographing opportunities awaiting me. I love to shoot photos of produce (I think fruit is so beautiful).

Click here to see more photos in my "Beautiful Produce" online photo gallery.



Auntie A. has a lovely cottage of her own, and I was so intrigued by the lamp shining its golden light out one of the windows [above left].

A sweet little neighbor's kitty (we suspect she was pregnant) was quite timid [above right]. But despite the hoards of kids running around, she desperately wanted to connect with me and my cousin's daughter. What a precious little thing she was. I actually was able to hold her as she purred and purred.

I was also able to add to my "Fallen Fruit" photograph collection as well as my "Candid Portraits" photograph collection. My camera got a workout this trip.

Old Friend Wanderlust...

Wanderlust has often called out to me in my life. Sometimes it's been because I am suffering from the winter blues and am dreaming of a warm beach on a tropical island. My husband knows I've reached my limit when he finds me browsing internet travel sites at midnight in the darkness of January looking at internet airfares to Mexico and Hawaii. There are times that we've had the funds to indulge my need for sunshine. We've gone to that far off tropical island. And let me tell you, indulging one's need is often worse than continuing to tough it out in the dreary cold. It makes it so much harder the next time around.

Sometimes the wanderlust has come, because I can't stand one more day of a summer heat-wave and want to escape to a cool shoreline north of here. I've indulged myself in that arena as well. Once, when I was single, a dear friend and I decided we'd both beat the heat and took off after work on a Friday evening in my un-air-conditioned Honda Civic hatchback and headed up the coast of California to the cooler northern climes of Eureka. It is one of the best memories. I felt like I'd really taken control of a situation that seemed so out my control. Who can control the weather? Well, I felt like we did that weekend! And it felt so great and empowering.

Wanderlust has been a familiar feeling for most of my life. So it has been foreign to me to have this nesting homebody feeling that has come over me the past few years. I suppose it comes with age for many people. For me, it has also come with the reality of actually putting down roots in a home, naming that home Rosehaven Cottage, and knowing that it will be my home (in all probability) for the rest of my life. It is a comforting feeling, this nesting thing that has grown inside me. It has brought me in tune with the cycles of the earth and nature; with the changing of the seasons; and with the changing of myself as I change seasons in my own life.

But old friend wanderlust peeks in now and again. As a result, I am flying out in a couple of days to visit my aunt and attend a week-long continuing education experience that I've always wanted to participate in but haven't. It will be a wonderful opportunity to visit with my aunt, get valuable education in preparation for my volunteer teaching that will begin again in September, and I will also have the wonderful privilege of being the photographer at my cousin's wedding reception. But I leave my dear husband (and best friend) at home with the kitties, the garden, and the fish in the pond.

Prior to marrying my soul mate almost 10 years ago, I considered myself a very independent and empowered woman. So why is it now so hard to leave when I wouldn't have batted an eye a decade ago? Why am I obsessing over vacuuming every nook and cranny and dusting places I haven't dusted in forever? I've done my umpteenth load of laundry today. I've scrubbed the windowsills (when do I ever do that?). I've mentally churned all day.

I think it's because when it comes right down to it, I'm finally content in my life. I finally feel a sense of belonging to something, to someone, and to the very soil that I till and sow my seeds within. It is hard to be transplanted, even temporarily, when I've finally grown roots.

Living Life in Technicolor

A friend recently shared with me that previous to a recent spiritual journey of self-discovery her life was just going along and then after finding what she'd been looking for suddenly her "world was in technicolor". I realized that what she had just said encapsulated in a few words what I feel my life has been like as of late.

My life and my world here feels as if it's in technicolor.

Yet, there are times when I get so caught up in the whirl of life that I forget to just take a chance to look around and enjoy what I've been blessed with--the "technicolor".

This week has been like that. Then I received an email from my husband who was working from home in his office right next door to my studio (aren't we the "new millenium couple" emailing each other from adjacent bedrooms?). I'm not sure what prompted him to write the email titled "Why I love our home", but it was just what I needed to get myself grounded again in what really matters.

I won't share the entire email here because some is very personal but there were some sweet phrases that I thought I would share.



Why I love our home...

I love the fact that we don’t have residential neighbors in back. We have lots of little critters that use it as a highway and hunting ground.

I love how quiet our street is. With exception of the occasional motorcycle we don’t have a busy street.

I love where we are situated in relation to everything. We are ideally located.

I love how big the lot is. We have the largest backyard I’ve ever lived in and your gardens are always spectacular [even though the back garden is still a work-in-progress].

I love the color. We have a wonderfully light yellow and white house which invokes cheery and happy feelings for the house in which we live.

I love the cracked driveway. It means that we’re not pretentious.

I love the windows. Kitties love the windows too.

I love the studio. You have designed a great place in which to design, build, manage, and enjoy the art that you do.

I have my own office. I love having my own place where I can work; it’s nice that Dee Dee likes to sleep in her little box next to me too.


I'm so grateful that he took the time to write these things down and share them with me. I needed the perspective. I tend to focus so much on what needs to be done that I often forget to look at what is complete and whole just the way it is.

I tend to do that with the back garden. That's why I decided to share some photos of the gardens even though they are still works-in-progress (aren't all gardens really just that anyway????). They're far from where I eventually want them, but in the meantime I've found ways to have little serene meditation areas that I can enjoy right now like my spot under the plum tree by the pond.

And maybe that's the whole trick to this gardening thing anyway!