October in New England

It was a beautiful 70 degrees here today so I headed outside, with camera in hand, so I could share it with you! (brrrrr... the 40's are predicted for tomorrow!)


We're only on about a 1/3 acre lot, but there's a lot of color going on in our small yard...


Come on along and I'll show you some of it...


The backyard is ablaze with yellows, oranges, and reds.

Our sweet Suchi (Sooshi), who appears in my sidebar, is buried back here...

Every time we dig a hole to plant something, we find BIG rocks so over the years we've (and by we I mean hubby) built a meandering stonewall of sorts...

I actually don't use this birdfeeder anymore...

... but it's never been taken down. I truly like the convenience of the screen feeder off the dining room window (no trudging through the snow to fill it!)

I love our birch trees....

Fungus? Fungii?

One leaf hanging on ....

From behind the stone wall...

The girls thought this small strip of trees along our property line was a huge forest when they were little... They spent lots of time playing in there... And that's where our Suchi is now buried...

This is the maple tree that we lost a HUGE part of during a major ice storm last winter. Thank goodness a good portion of it survived because it's so beautiful...

There's still a lot of green in the yard. It's been a funny fall.. perhaps due to our extremely wet/cool early summer...

Another shot of the maple tree....

Wishing you all the beauty of autumn, wherever you make your home....

Donna

A whining Witchy Woman... and lots more tweaking...

About a week ago I told you all I was sooooo lazy that I didn't even give Witchy Woman a scarf this year. Well she has been whining non-stop all week, begging for something a bit more than her pointy black hat...


And truth be told, I do understand. I mean Halloween is her holiday...


So I dug through my stash and found a vintage scarf and black clip-on flower for under her chin...



I'm happy to say she is feeling like the belle of the Witch's Ball now...


Okay, back to rearranging and tweaking... The pink polka-dotted pumpkin/pewter candleholder have been moved from the LR pie safe to the DR hutch...


...where the pewter candleholder now sits on the shelf beneath my Nana's photo (I am the lucky recipient of all of her china so she gets a place of honor over the hutch!)....

...and the pumpkin sits atop a small hobnail vase.

And the lamp that used to be on the LR pie safe is now on the little table next to the hutch...

It's nice to have a choice between soft lamp light and bright chandelier light at suppertime (maybe some day we'll get a dimmer for the overhead)...

I moved little Pete the Parakeet (in his HomeGoods cage) from the kitchen to the little DR table...

And last, but not least, I gave the top of the recycling bin a mini-makeover...

The swan was moved here from the half wall in order to make room for the fabric pumpkins...

I placed some of my favorite old books and a bird's nest around the swan, and it gives the top of this little recycling cabinet a whole new look...

So thanks for joining me while I tweaked this, and rearranged that, and gave in to a whining Witchy Woman...

I hear it might be SEVENTY DEGREES on Thursday so I might get to play outside, planting some bulbs!

I hope you all have fantastic weather wherever you are!!!

Donna

October's cottage living room...

It was a beautiful day in New England today as the sun made a triumphant return after the weekend's first mini snowfall... October has visited the living room in the form of "lamp bandit" in the window, "Ratty" in the birdcage, and a cottage pumpkin on the c0ffee table.

(click any photos to enlarge)

While Spotty lounged on the sofa, I 'tweaked' a bit more...


I decided that the big vase of roses on top of the pie safe was just too much in between the lamps. I love the vintage mirror that we attached to the top of the pie safe, and the roses blocked too much of it...


There... I think this is better. It's less cluttered and shows off more of the mirror, which in turn opens up the room...


The vase of roses has been replaced by a small green music box that plays Evergreen... ("Love, soft as an easy chair"... I love the lyrics to that song!).


One of my shabby stuffed pumpkins from Ronda's Tempting Textiles sits in the tray on the trunk...


...atop a small sampling of the many Halloween and/or spooky books I read to the girls when they were little (are they really both in their twenties now??? Talk about spooky!)

Wishing you all happy October memories-in-the-making!!!

Donna

Vintage 'Cottage Blue' Rose Lamps...

Back in May I posted about my trip to Fairground Antiques in Swanzey, NH where I found these sweet little lamps...


At $6 for the pair I wasn't about to pass on them... I mean they're cottage blue with peachy pink roses! Does it get any better than that? I think not!


I've had them since April and figured it was high time I put them to use. I originally intended for them to be part of our bedroom makeover, but since that has yet to happen I thought I'd find another place for them in the meantime...

So here they are, with their little white Target lampshades, making their home on top of the pie safe in the living room.

They brighten up this little corner on cloudy (snowy!) days, like today....

...and give a nice soft glow to that corner of the room at night (I'm using oversized 40 watt candleabra bulbs in them)...

Of course when one does a little "tweaking" to one area, it leads to a lot of tweaking in other areas... For example, I had to find a new place for the lamp that was previously on top of the pie safe...


... and for the the pink polka dotted pumpkin which has now been replaced by the 'button' vase of roses (although the jury's still out on that one...)

Of course tweaking and rearranging is always fun, isn't it? So in my next post I'll show you what else got moved around!

Thank you to Cielo at The House in the Roses for hosting "Show Off Your Cottage Monday." Visit her blog to participate with your own post or to visit all the other cottage bloggers sharing something they love about their cottages!

Donna

They're heeeeeeere........

No, not poltergeists....

The first flakes of the season... And it's only mid-October!

Stay warm, everyone!!!

Donna (who is being dragged kicking and screaming into w-i-n-t-e-r....)

Autumn in New England...

The colors of autumn are upon us here in New England, even in our own little yard...


Pumpkins and mums have replaced the blooms of summer...


The vinca vine continues to grow like crazy, though, thriving despite the bitter autumn nights...


Sprigs of autumn leaves have been tucked among the few remaining impatiens...

... who have refused to give in to the increasingly cold temperatures...

"Jenny" and her friend have taken over the Adirondack chairs, and more autumn leaves sprout from clay pots where summer flowers once put on a show...

Wishing you all a delightful autumn and Halloween!!

Donna