...a blue glass tulip light
One of a pair of rufous-sided towhees - I think they're called northern towhees now. They love to scratch around under the suet feeder.
Christmas lights - wonder when I'll take those down?
A white covered sea of honey locust pods
Hello January...
And speaking of time, this little unframed oil painting below is 113 years old. I bring it out every Christmas and prop it up near the tree. It's my Aunt Dorothy almost a year old in 1900. I love the simplicity of the scene with the baby entranced by the lit candles of the charming Edwardian-era Christmas tree, with her presents below. Her parents were artists and this was painted by her father.
Both parents died tragically young of diphtheria while on a visit to Paris only two years later. My aunt was raised with her cousins and she eventually followed in her parents' footsteps, studying painting and illustration at The Carnegie Institute in New York. But she took a different path. The story is that one day she happened to see an artist in a ladies' store working on a mannequin which inspired her to begin her own business of repairing and refurbishing mannequins. She painted their faces, outfitted them with new wigs, and limbs if needed! Can you imagine such a business today? Store mannequins are very different now, but in the mid-1900s my enterprising aunt managed to keep 18 employees busy and the city of Baltimore well supplied with updated mannequins. Here she is with some of her "ladies".
I think she still looked a lot like that baby in the high chair mesmerized by the Christmas tree! She's been gone for many years now but she lived a long and fulfilling life and is remembered fondly by all her nieces and nephews. Time to put that baby away till next year...
That's all I have to say.
Fall is on its way so I have to enjoy this while it lasts!
I hardly ever bake, much less when it's 95 degrees outside and not much cooler inside. Colorado summer days can be quite hot but we're a mile closer to the sun, right? Those hot days lead to a great peach crop harvested on the Western Slope of Colorado and eagerly awaited by all of us on the other side of the Continental Divide. I was so hyped up by all the TV ads showing luscious ripe fruit that I made a peach pie. But since I hadn't planned ahead and let the peaches ripen for a few days I had to wrestle those babies to get them sliced and pitted. There are no severed fingertips in the photo below.
So I decorated the top real cute with these fancy cutters I got at Williams-Sonoma.
It was a pretty good pie and probably the last thing I'll bake 'till Thanksgiving. But who wants to think about that? For now I'll enjoy the summer heat and the last peach which is now ripe.
Peachy!
...and I can't actually show you but I can tell! See this birdbath fountain below? Yes, I know it's a crummy photo but iPhones aren't great at at zooming in. Notice where the chickadee is - that's the bubbler that brings the water up through the fountain. A lot of birds prefer to drink right from the bubbler but they bathe in one of the bowls below it.
Today I was sitting on the back porch frittering the afternoon away when I glanced up and happened to notice what I thought was a really large bumblebee in the bubbler. At second glance I was astonished to see it was a female Broad-tailed hummingbird. Taking a bath. In the bubbler. Whooee! How clever of her - just her size, too. I was too awestruck to remember to grab my iPhone, and when I did I was seconds too late. Bath over. Here she is a few minutes later getting all sticky again at the Black and blue salvia. Another bad I-photo.
I get hummers daily at this time of year and I'd never seen one even get close to a water source, much less take a bubbler bath. I guess they get plenty of liquid to drink from the flower nectar but their little bodies must get sticky from it too. I wonder if they would like the mister? I think I'll set it up and find out.
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