Good morning! Welcome to "Morning Musings".

Musings: to meditate, think, contemplate, deliberate, ponder, reflect, ruminate, reverie, daydream, introspection, dream, preoccupation, brood, cogitate.

Monday, June 30, 2014

Out and About - June


June has just whizzed by for me.  It began with sleeping bunnies in the garden....


Saturday, June 28, 2014

Our Artist Vacation - Day 5

Day 5 and we wake up in the lower level of my brother's and his wife's house in Cheshire, CT.  Their cat, Lucky, has been inadvertently shut in with us and has made his bed next to my hip all night.  I'm hoping his name is a portend of what our day will be like.  After Ken drives me the 45 minutes to Danbury he's going to call the dealer in Massachusetts to see what's happening with the minivan.  He had planned to do his own sightseeing in the area while I spend the day at the Friends of Gladys Taber (FOGT) Reunion at the Crown Plaza.  We already had a room here for the night rather than going back to my brothers because it puts us 45 minutes closer to home.  We planned to get home by mid-afternoon so we could celebrate a couple family birthdays and Father's Day.  I joined FOGT just so I could attend their reunion because Susan Branch was their slated speaker.  I have read bits of Gladys Taber's books and enjoyed them, but it is for Susan that I'm here.  When Ken drops me off the A Fine Romance van is parked along the curb and Joe Hall is speaking with a gentleman....

Thursday, June 26, 2014

Our Artist Vacation - Day 4


We woke up to the sound of rain. Today was the Tasha Tudor House and Garden tour!  I did this tour in 2012 and it had rained then, too, while I was on the tour.  Oh, well.  Last time our group lucked out and was in the house when it started to pour, but the house was so dark it was hard to see every thing I wanted to see.  We were not allowed to take photographs, so I had to depend on my mental camera to record every detail.  The photos and paintings you will be seeing were taken off the Internet, or scanned from books about Tasha by Richard W. Brown.  A few are from my last visit which you can read about here.  Afterall, how can one expect to talk about Tasha Tudor and not show pictures?!  

We needed to be in Marlboro, VT by 8:45. We got there in plenty of time and I didn't have any trouble finding the place this time, now that I knew where it was.  The family does not put out signs even on the tour days because they do not want passersby to just pop in.  People come from all over the world for this tour, and I'm sure would feel they had a right to sneak a peek for their efforts even if they weren't invited.  

You turn off the main road and travel a mile or so on this road....
2012

Monday, June 23, 2014

Our Artist Vacation - Day 3

Erik Satie

We arrived at the Readmore Inn in Bellow Falls, VT, at the end of a very rainy Day 2.  I never did get an outside photo of the Inn because of the rain and because it was shrouded in bushes and trees.  This photo is from Google street view and was taken when the leaves were off the trees.  I wanted you to see the size of this Victorian house.  It's twice as deep as it is wide....

Friday, June 20, 2014

Our Artist Vacation - Day 2

In order to see everything we wanted to on Day 2 we were on the road by 7:00 a.m.  We drove back into New Hope, PA and crossed the river to Lambertville, NJ.  This saved us from having to pay a bridge toll if we'd crossed at the closer Rt. 202 bridge.  We wanted a quick breakfast so we stopped at this Coffee Bar....




As we headed back north, the sky had clouded up considerably.   By the time we reached Catskill, NY it was raining and quite chilly.  We had hoped to tour the grounds of the Thomas Cole house, but had to settle for just the house tour.  *Thomas Cole mentions this song in an 1843 letter to C.L. Ver Bryck

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Our Artist Vacation - Day 1


In 2006 we spent 10 days touring various homesites/ museums of famous writers in New England.  You can find the first of nine posts about that trip here.  Last week, on June 10th, we headed north again.  The theme this time was artists.  We did not especially plan it that way, but we kept finding a connection to painters and sculptors at each of our stops.  Our first stop on Tuesday, after dropping Gabriel off at our son and daughter-in-law's house in Baltimore was Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, NJ.  Here is a photo my daughter-in-law sent me that evening of Gabriel enjoying the city night lights along the Inner Harbor....

Thursday, June 5, 2014

Beyond the Garden Gates - 2014


Last month we once again attended the annual garden tour in downtown Frederick, Maryland.  This year I thought I'd include information directly from the brochure for each house so that you can get a better feel for each garden.  I like touring private gardens to collect ideas for my own.  Won't you join me for some inspiration.....

Monday, June 2, 2014

View Outside My Kitchen Window - June



If you came of age in the 60's you recognize the song that's playing.  That's what I've been thinking about lately as I stand at my kitchen sink looking out my kitchen window--I will be 64 later this year.  I don't know when I started showing my age.  It seems to have crept up on me.  Ten years ago people thought I was 44, not 54.