“Another sunrise, another new beginning. “ -Jonathan Lockwood Huie
It’s early October and sunrise is coming later and later. I miss opening the living room blinds before 6 AM and watching daylight emerge.
Late sunrises make for lazy mornings for me. Now only a few hummingbirds are showing up everyday. They’re all on their way to Marisol’s for the winter. Yesterday one of them was such a big guy! He was nearly as large as the first one I saw this year.
He perched on the feeder for a long time, sipping, slurping, sipping. He was sharing the feeder for a moment but then bullied his way into being the owner of that feeder.
There is another feeder for the timid birds. You need to provide at least a second feeder, that is all a hummingbird fuel stop proprietor can do about hummingbird bullying. Well, she can also try and reason with the bully but the additional feeders are her best bet.
Do hummingbirds travel at night?
Maybe they just sleep at night then refuel and travel only in the daylight. Maybe.
I’m curious too, why are there still a few birds coming through now. It seems so late in the season. Seems so cool after dark for hummingbirds. Are the late arrivals scouts of a sort? They still have so far to go.
When I see the birds today I’ll need to ask them those questions and likely a few more. But for now, again I see the sun’s daily performance begin. It’s the opening act, trying to turn the sky pink and orange on the eastern horizon. Apricot. Yes, the horizon color today begins as apricot.
“Embrace the seasons and cycles of your life. There is magic in change.”
“How lovely yellow is! It stands for the sun.” – Vincent Van Gogh
‘Sunflowers’ – Vincent Van Gogh – Image from National Gallery, London
When The National Gallery newsletter announced their reader’s favorite painting for March last year, she was more than pleased. She had cast her vote. Seeing the image of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers in the article swept her back decades, to the first time she had visited the National Gallery.
She stood before that painting in such awe and wonder. Seeing the sunflowers, yellow, with heads bent. Some are naked, with petals dropped, they offer only their seed heads. Some in full yellow bloom, and one so young its leaves still cling to its stem, fifteen of them in all, a rich circle of life, gathered and standing in their yellow vase. The painting is signed along the vase. Vincent. Yes, simply Vincent.
That was her first trip to London and she was thrilled to be there in the excitement of the city. Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, Green Park, Hyde Park, St Paul’s, Fleet St, The Tower and its Bridge. Westminster and the Tower of Big Ben. She knew she would return to London and the National Gallery for years to come and she did. Now, it has been nearly twenty years since she last walked those streets and she does long to see them again.
National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, London
“If you hear a voice within you saying, ”You are not a painter,” then by all means paint… and that voice will be silenced.” – Vincent van Gogh
“When you go for a walk, take seeds with you, poppies, rainbow chard, rocket. Plant them among the weeds in patches of wasteland. See what happens.” – Tom Hodgkinson
“Breathe Paris in. It nourishes the soul.” — Victor Hugo
Le Roussillon – 186 Rue de Grenelle, 75007 Paris, France
In the Rue Cler Neighborhood among the specialty food markets sits one of my favorite restaurants in this area. Le Roussillon Cafe, on the corner of Rue Cler and Rue de Grenelle.
It’s April in Paris and the weather is gorgeous. Le Roussillon Cafe is an open air restaurant, cooking in house with the freshest ingredients. The expansive windows when opened are like removing the exterior walls. My favorite tables line the open wall facing Rue Cler. You can people watch for a moment. People shopping in the street’s food markets, heading out, and some heading home. Sitting here you feel all of Paris. You feel the air of Paris on your face and you breathe Paris in. It nourishes the soul.
We ate here on several occasions on our visit to Paris. It was near our hotel so we’d stop here for beers during happy hour or a late lunch. This was the place we returned to for our last dinner in Paris. The Le Roussillon team welcomes you and they are friendly and helpful when choosing menu items. The food, house-made, is always fresh and delicious.
That last night I decided on Boeuf Bourguignon comme chez mamie / Beef Burgundy Stew – Like Grandma’s. Chunks of tender beef, carrots and celery in a rich beef burgundy broth.
Dished up in a bowl along side a serving of creamy mashed potatoes and topped with parsley and thin slices of red pepper for presentation. Served with crusty French bread.
You taste Paris. Belly Warming. It nourishes the body.
Oui, Bienvenue au Roussillon Cafe! & We will return for your speciality cocktails and desserts!
Please tell the chef ‘my compliments to sa mamie!’
à bientôt, j’espère!
Boeuf Bourguignon comme chez mamie
“Paris is not a city; it’s a world.” — King Francis I
“My mother has a favorite child & she told me so. She said all mother’s do. Their answer is likely the same as hers. Her favorite child, she said, is always the child she is spending time with at that moment, the one she is present with now. And on that day her favorite child was me.”
-Mother In The Kitchen-
Momma loved soup, loved making soup, loved eating soup and she loved sharing soup.
Springhouse Court, a gathering place. The light is streaming into the kitchen from the sliding glass doors. Those doors nearly make up the entire wall on that side of the room. The wallpaper is a yellow checked pattern and covers the lower half of one wall. Momma is in the kitchen. Prepping ingredients for a soup. You don’t see Momma in the kitchen much. Not since we moved to this new place. Not now that the kitchen is so much smaller than the gathering place she had before. Not now that she works for the phone company. The fact that she works there leans more to the reason you don’t find her in the kitchen often. But she still loves to make soups and soup is what I’ve always found to be the most comforting food of all.
When I walk into the kitchen I hear the familiar sounds of my mother preparing a meal. Oil sizzling in the soup pot. Water running in the sink, she reaches to turn it off. The soft thud of the knife as it strikes the cutting board. She cuts the beef into cubes. Vegetables in every stage of prep line the sink and countertop. Mother’s making beef soup today. Specifically, beef and vegetable soup. Rolling the beef cubes in the seasoned flour she asks, “Suzy, will you please bring me those onions? I am about to get ahead of myself over here and I don’t want to forget the onions.” I bring the diced onions to her and smile. Mother uses that phrase ‘get ahead of myself’ or ‘get ahead of yourself’ a lot and a comical image of just that always goes through my mind. The image makes me smile.
In hurried preparation. Mother is moving from sink, to stove, to fridge, back to cutting board. Her smile lights up her face and those brown eyes smile at you too.
And she asks …“Suzy, do you know What?” She asks this same question to all her children and grandchildren. She always says your name before the question. My reply- always the same. And her answer never fails and you know the answer but you never let on. You never let on because you want to hear it, and just as importantly- you know she wants to answer it-so you say “No momma, What?’ And she answers, “I love you. That’s What.”
“I love you too Momma.”
Next to the wall phone, hanging on the same wall as the yellow checked wallpaper, is a framed cross stitched handwork sampler. In her stitches it declares ‘Good Cooks Never Lack Friends’.
The light streaming into the room is interrupted, flickering. Clouds move across the sun’s path. I look to the sliding doors. The doors lead out to the front patio with a small picnic table and just on the other side of the patio is the ornamental peach tree that she planted with my father so many years ago.
Still today, I find one of the best things about memories and Sunday’s soup is you can fill yourself up with their loving goodness and warmth again on Monday.
Momma & Daddy With Tree They Planted-Springhouse Ct
“A Mother is Always The Beginning. She is How Things Begin.” -unknown
“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.”
-John Muir
Stopping In A Desert Garden
I found you hidden in this place. A garden spot. This garden in the desert. Thirsty and dry. The desert attracts people. Draws people.
I’ve always felt a power in the desert. It’s sun charging everything with its brilliance and warmth. It naturally conserves its resources and quenches its thirst at night. It fills me with joy.
Brad said the desert is boring and only brown, but the colors of the desert do go beyond brown. Beyond the tones of umber and chestnut. There are greens. Greens in the colors of spring grasses and dried sages. The purples sometimes will stretch themselves to bloom in blue. The dead heads of blooms will fade from dirty white to a luminous shade of wheat grass. A speck of yellow always jumps from gold when lit by the sun. Rarer hues of crimson and apricot offer their faces in the smallest of weeds. A silver twinkles when moonlight plays in the desert dirt.
The beauty of a garden offers comfort, it whispers softly, gently.
Suzanne painted it once. The desert. She called it the Colors of Love. She used the same artist’s palette as in the desert here.
I’ll meet you in the desert garden at the end of this day and we will drink awhile. Sleep awhile. Tomorrow, after coffee we will recharge in its sun and then we will continue our way home. Safe Journey.
“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” -Lao Tzu
“There is nothing so American as our national parks…. The fundamental idea behind the parks…is that the country belongs to the people, that it is in process of making for the enrichment of the lives of all of us.”- FDR
“What a country chooses to save is what a country chooses to say about itself.”- Mollie Beattie
“Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of life…Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine into trees.”- John Muir
“This will all make sense when I am older.” – Olaf, Frozen 2
Gigi’s New Christmas Stocking A Handcrafted Treasure by LaLa
Christmas morning plus four days, the house is quiet again. Still and quiet but I’m missing the kids, the commotion, the hugs, the laughter, and yes, even the squeals and screams.
I’m awake early, looking for something for breakfast. Too many sweets, too many foods, indifferent, undecided. Conflicted, I open the freezer.
Oh No!, Wait! Oh What? Oh My!!! Magic!? Could it be?
There! There-look…in the freezer! Tucked in the front corner!
There on top of the frozen sausages and next to the frozen pancakes….it’s right out of Disney’s Frozen.
I believe…Yes! It is. It’s Anna!
Naturally, on occasion I’ve found Mickey Mouse hiding under the sofa or Donald Duck under the recliner … but this, Anna in the freezer? This is Pure Magic!
Breakfast with Anna! Thank You to the GGK’s for this wonderful after Christmas Breakfast Surprise! It is so Great & It is so Grand being YOUR Gigi!
“When you’re older absolutely everything makes sense.” –Olaf, Frozen 2
