my days and the barn

there has been quiet days of hard work and relaxation. storms and sun have been present everyday and i like it. most of my days have been spent in my vegetable garden, the rain has been challenging for growing things but i love how a garden slowly becomes what you have imagined.  i have also been cleaning out "the barn" it is attached to the house and if i did not have animals would be known as the garage but with beautiful placed stones for flooring and beautiful aged wood, we call it the barn. in the summer we clear all the hay that has been stored which we just used  in trade for farrier work for the horses, how i like this type of transaction.  i set up a dining table, chandelier, chaise and ottoman and still have lots to do, although i must confess i have a different vision for it, a long farm table, benches,  grey and natural linens. this year i hope to use it every night for dinner, rain or shine and i will be blogging from my old grey gate leg table often in fact i am right now. i hope to spend time reading from the large wicker wing back chair as i hear the sound of birds and feel the breeze from my shaded spot.  every morning from sunrise to sunset the view is different here on the hill and a year into living here it never ceases to take my breath away.  the barn doors open to this view and as i write you pink lined clouds and soft feminine hues let you know that the sun is very close to setting and in just an hour or so after chores tonight , i  will  be able to sit with a cup of tea and watch the fireflies and stars transform the sky.

In a few days i head to Montreal, what a treat this of the most unexpected kind. a friend i have never met and i have quickly become close too, has asked and invited me to go along to celebrate her fortieth birthday,  i feel honored to do so. It is never easy leaving the farm but thanks to another surprise my dear k will be watching over things, knowing that in doing so i will be more relaxed to enjoy our food and freedom trip as Tzurit has named it. I can't wait to share with you our time. i am very much looking forward to it and specially getting to know more about someone i feel as if i have known for always.

so dear friends i wish you a wonderful week.

*  i am not happy with these  horrible images,  i will do better.

* i just came back after putting the chickens and ducks in, the light is so beautiful and soft and nightfall is upon us, this space has made me very happy typing away looking out.  the daisies i see from  here look magical, okay i am off to feed the horses, shower, make something nourishing for dinner and sit out here with a smile in my heart for having accomplished much this weekend.

when i, become the predator

i do not mean to post and this photograph is meant for another one. yet here i am writing, with a heavy heart. I disturbed a nest in my attempt to photograph three little baby robins. they flew and fell and i let out a  big oh no as i completely tried to make things right again, i scooped two up immediately and put them in their nest but the third one i could not find. i  spent so much time looking and every time i gave up i found myself trying again and again till tears became to heavy to see clearly but then i still tried, still trying.  i prayed to mother nature to help spare this little missing bird. i started second guessing was there actually three. the parents calling out and frantic my heart sank and my soul crashed, i did this. Soon after the parents found it best to take the others away from their nest in the lilac bush as dark clouds and wind came mimicking how my insides were feeling, bringing even more worry to this tiny robin family who have been working all afternoon to get away from the predator which is me. I am broken, was it not enough to have them by my door laying, nesting was it not enough to see three little beaks with my own eyes. why is it i feel need to document so much. i truly feel awful and i know dear readers you will say it not your fault, but it is my fault nature she is fragile and is meticulously planned and i disturbed this plan when i became to greedy.

a walk in tall grasses underneath a warm sky

perhaps it was the fact that the night before i drove into the city, for an hour or so of neon lights, rushing cars, garments on hangers, and a prepared mocha, ah the city. perhaps it was the unexpected storm, wind blown branches and torrential rains but when i woke and went outside, i felt more alive, quickly recognizing that somehow i had been dormant. the morning was cold, much different than what it had been the day before, the sky was a mix of grey and soft peaches. i knew i would walk, as i let the horses out into their grazing pasture i followed. i walked through lush blades of field grass and wildflowers made heavy with rain. i walked as my pants took up  water and within minutes my steps became heavy. the apple trees formed dry canopies were deer had visibly laid underneath for shelter.  i walked, observed, breathed and photographed.  happy was i to have found my way out through the fields underneath a warm stormy sky, by the time i reached home i was soaked all the way to my shoulders and my boots stuck to my legs like suction cups to glass. the fire i  had started to cut the chill in the air earlier was there to greet me, how happy this made me.  as i hung my wet clothes and washed my face with honey i thought about how even when you do not think it is possible you can take something for granted and as this thought came into mind i made a promise to myself to once and a while go where there is paved roads and streets lights only to return in full appreciation of my surroundings and to always walk out into fields of tall grass.

the life outside my door

the weather is now a perfect. a big stunning storm came and took away all the humidity.   it has a been all about the outdoors here on the hill.  special moments that feel as if they have been choreographed just for me, like deers giving birth in our long grasses and even though only through binoculars can i experienced it, it is still incredible. baby swallows hatch and fly away as i hold my breathe hoping that  their mama does not leave one behind. discovering and eating tiny wild strawberries from the fields. picking my first few radishes and eating them instantly, my vegetable garden growing in perfect and not so perfect rows. butterflies, fireflies, finches, chipmunks with babies who be friend a birds . bouquets of wildflowers scattered through the house, daisies, bachelor buttons, corn flowers, yarrow, black eye susans and these flocks that can be seen everywhere even through town and by road side. there has been two wasp bites within seconds, medicine and sleepiness. lemonade, hammocks and walks in tall grasses. there has been evenings by windows, cool breezes and sounds of tree frogs and stories from radios. all this is the goodness that make's it clear , i live in the country down a dirt road, on a large patch of earth that feels so far from everything but more real than anything else i know.

my heart illuminated

it is late in the evening the windows are wide open trying to catch every breeze that comes up and through this hill. there is music playing and right now i hear the violin and cello more than all the rest.  the evening breeze she is a friend who comes when she hears your heart call, when she feels the words become caught between your rib cage and skin. it is incredible how quickly i fell into this piece of music,  a transporter of time. twirling away from you and towards you and for you. if i was daring i would walk out into the blackened sky feeling the earth with my naked feet, hands reaching for what my eyes can not see but the illumination in my heart would guide me and i would find you, fall for you. you would be staring back at me through the darkness that was time past, wasted,  i am not daring so i let the breeze and the violin stir in me as i feel natures breath on my soul,  my fingers open and i let it slip away..

*inspired by music i heard on a movie trailer by composer harry scott, perhaps i listened to it over hundred times.
* photographs a quick walk in the forest today before a menacing storm

the window and tall grasses

yesterday as i let the horses out into tall grasses, a breeze of perfect balance of warm and cool air came over me. i walked in the fields that have already reached my hips, with thoughts of gathering some wildflowers that have been popping up every where. as i took each step hundreds, thousands perhaps of crickets would jump ahead of me, as if they were walking along side, few even landing on me. i walked for longer than i had planned picking flowers as i went, thinking about where my heart is and how sometimes the beating is so faint and fragile and other times it is bounding so hard, a mix of restlessness and satisfaction.  i see birds bathing in front of me, horses run to stormy clouds, i hear my hearts voice calmed by were it resides. whether it is the power of a thunder storm, the sun brightly lit blue sky or fog that makes everything disappear i am happy here, being happy can also have moments of doubt, fear, and tinted melancholy and even heartache but each one of those feelings are a note and together are the music that is my life.  a life that i am falling in love with full heartedly like that window, when the light hits it just right, it is a song i want to listen to over and over again.

this song is so beautiful, i weeped when i first heard it, i want to live each "word"

the scent of lilacs

it is tuesday mid morning, after this mornings chores i find myself sitting on the chaise watching, well more like listening to i will meet you in st-louis one of the many movies k picked up for me at the library on his last visit, other's include dancing in the rain, paris when it sizzles and more such as these, he knows me well. i like having familiar voices in the background to my quiet living,  a bit of last week and the weekend i took care of my friends farm, she has seven horses ( i was saying nine till i counted:) i loved doing it, rising before the sun and driving down the dirt road and knowing that they and other animals counted on me. in the afternoon i would let them out into an orchard, how wonderful to open that gate as they gallop and disappear between the trees.  at sunset having them wait for me at that same gate as dusk settles in.

we have had such a mix of rain and non rain:). while i did chores the sweet smell of lilacs were in the air  how i love them so,  i decided to bring some in. It will rain they say for the next nine days, what a rainy spring. my garden has barely seen the sun and i can't help to think about farmers who are struggling but  as you know am grateful for all of it.

I have been caught in deep churning thoughts that have left my gut a little sore, but i know that good things i will come of it, dear friends good things will come of it right?

storm cloud, light & the cold air

when dark clouds come into view and the wind picks  up and horses begun to gallop you know it is time for mother nature to say something, wake you up and stir.  as fast as you possibly can you run to the coop and convince forty feathery creatures that they must go to bed a few hours early. you toy with fate as clouds feel as if they are closing in on you when you pick up the hose to fill water buckets leaving two inches for the rain to top off for the next day, trying not to break from routine. once your done you grab all possible flying objects from the yard ie, chairs, wheel barrows and tuck them away. you close barn doors drop windows from there chains. then you hear nothing a complete silence, not one chirping bird or buzzing bee, no rooster complaining about bed time. a moment later you hear the horses gallop and the  sound is eerily like thunder. you look at the clouds see sharp beams of light and hear the sky crack and then from deep within the forest you hear the rain and wind come up the hill a sound so intense,  but you stay still, tempting fate once again...

minutes later it is all over and you walk back out,  the rain and the light that still remains makes everything look like a dream and with it a cold air has come. you stare at your horse, he is like a black beast from one of your novels steam lifts from his being. as the night falls the stars that have been missing for days now light up the sky. the next morning you wake early not needing to turn the pillow to it's cooler side for everything is crisp so you lay there longer, awake yet asleep wrapped up in dreams and reality and suddenly the five hundred seeds you planted before the storm that where washed away don't make you sad, because nature she was telling you something and suddenly undertood, she was saying everything in due time.

stronger for it

i feel as if i start this letter to you with it is raining outside you might stop reading for i have said that often as of late but alas it is and right now as i look out a millions beads of rain stick to the window pane and in doing so it  creates the most beautiful light and although i would like to to speak more about that light, there is another kind of light i would like to speak off and that is the one that i feel inside (please forgive me if that sounds silly).  Yesterday and every time i read your comments, emails and letters i feel little beads of energy, inspiration and gratitude. those things combined help challenge me, push harder and trust my gut and when i do these things i feel lucky. lucky a word i have been using a lot in my life, specially lately. so even though i wrote just yesterday of heartache i also know how much stronger i feel after it.

Life brings us obstacles of course it does but in giving us those things that challenge, make us momentarily feel weak are also those things that help build braver guts, minds and hearts. I sit here typing these things and i look out into the living room, passed the crackling fire in the wood stove and i see cats & dogs lying about, i know if i was to get up my horses Tolstoy and Splash will be knee high in lush and very so delicious grass, chickens and ducks will be swimming and digging for any insects they could find and if i was to look in the mirror perhaps after all this i would not be as quick to look away but instead stare at the her i have become and the lines on her face and say but it was all worth it and I have no reason to need more than that.

so thank you for sharing with me bits of you, i am stronger you see because of it.

the scent outside and in the house.

it is monday, another week of rain promised, i am not sure how i feel about that. I love the rain i kept saying to myself last week as rain fell from morning till night but slowly i felt burdened by it. as if i would not be able to catch up with all that had to be done. i stared at my cultivated piece of land, my empty flower bed while my mind never stopped thinking. finally sun came on saturday, i was up before it was and out before it fully found it's place in the sky. running to the hardware store, then the farmers market and library. once home i cut the grass that grows so fast, specially after all that rain, i made rows in the garden and chevron striped lettuce beds ( why not). i moved horse pasture and cleaned out the barn. Oh this is what life is supposed to be enough physical activity to silence the mind ( calm it).   finally lungs were wide open breathing in the purest air i could find, one smelling sweet of newly cut grass and then, a call came and just like that all the thoughts that began to quiet down fully erupted and came crashing down. life played itself as it had so often before making sure a piece of the pie was left for heartbreak. i wiped tears walked out underneath the trees where the dogs lay gave them big hugs and then i laid in the hammock under the birch trees staring high through delicate leaves to  blue, blue  sky as i slowly swayed from side i found my center. a few moments later my neighbor loulie came with a bouquet from her garden of forget me knots and lily of the valley, it was lovely. we sat underneath the lilac tree sipping freshly made hibiscus and orange peel ice tea as the sun began it's decent.  now i am here writing this down staring out at rain while the loveliest scent of lily permeates the room telling myself  i love the rain, i love the rain, i love the rain....