the sun will be up soon. edgar is restless this morning, ready to wander around the lake. but i'm waiting for the sun. i was happy to get the morning sun earlier this week. it found my face as i was getting ready by the mirror yesterday. a perfect little dissection, bouncing through the triangle of windows until it landed softly on my eye. it felt special enough to take photos.
the studio was busy yesterday. my parents came to clear up the gardens while i kept the sewing room humming. my father snuck up to the roof (he's almost 74 and i hate him on the roof, but thankfully he still has his surgeon's steadiness) to clean the eavestroughs and secure a loose shingle. i can't complain about the wonderful clean up they did, but i also can't really look at the yard. the abrupt change is too much for me. it's naked and bare and stripped and empty. i love the wildness that happens in my gardens, and i miss the tangle of growth that weaves all along the little white house. and now it's shorn and tidy for the winter.
crabby is still with uncle d'arcy. yesterday morning he thought we should take another day to see if we could find a way for her issues to improve. so this morning we will wrestle with the decision.
and the day is an early morning gray now, so edgar and i will soon head out.

i started making quilts in 2oo4. i had always collected fabric, and i'd noticed the cotton quilting batting at the fabric store. i was drawn to it. so i bought a little packet. my aunt lent me her sewing machine, i sewed squares together for a top and sandwiched it all with a piece of fabric on the back. i had to play around with the edging, sorting out what worked and what didn't. but i had figured it out. i made a few baby quilts, but the large bed-sized ones started in october. gala, our great dane, had died in july. and after a search we'd found a puppy (edgar) and i needed to pay for him. i started making quilts all day. i had little sales from my living room. my friend and i drove around to little gift shops and b&b's selling them. and that was the start. i only have a few of the early quilts. but, i'm exceedingly hard on them.....they stay out on the porch swing all summer. in fact, there are two out there still, in november. they get washed almost daily because of edgar slobber or kitty puke. so the early ones have faded. some of my favorite fabrics were in them, fabrics from the beginnings of my fabric collection that i bought purely because i loved them, not ever thinking i'd make anything with them.....i didn't think i knew how.
last summer i was doing a little tour of suburban garage sales, scoping from the car and moving on if all i saw was baby clothes and plastic toys. i stopped at one that turned out to be disappointing, until....i started to hyper-ventilate. literally. i thought my heart was going to explode. i couldn't talk. i don't think i've felt this way since i was 14 and the cute boy i liked was walking towards me in the hall. there was one of my very first quilts. never been washed. with the original little paper tag i'd hung on them. with my original price of $175. this was one of the quilts we'd sold to a little gift/antique shop. i usually take $60 as a garage sale limit.....it was all untouched in my pocket. there wasn't a garage sale price on the quilt, just my original price, in my hand-writing. but i lost my head. i found the proprietess, offered her $60, told her it was all i had. and she accepted. and i ran to the car, shaking.
this is a photo of our bed this morning.....the old/new quilt smiling in the sun, with all my favorite old fabrics looking fresh and bright and new. i love this quilt, even though it wasn't one of my favorites then, it still gives me butterflies now when i see it. and i smile.

i don't think there is a better vet in the world than ours. uncle d'arcy. he's supposed to be retired....his daughter and son-in-law took over the practice years ago. but he's still there a couple days a week and when we're lucky, he's there. we were lucky this morning.
before this morning's story comes out, i'll tell you a few earlier examples of uncle d'arcy's extraordinary kindness. my first great dane, dora was my everything. i hadn't learned the heartbreak of losing a great dane yet. i was 29 and dora and i had been together since i was 21. when i lived in paris, she was the main purpose for return visits home and finally staying home for good because i couldn't bear the distance between us. on christmas eve, i noticed she was limping. i phoned in the afternoon, but the answering service didn't get the message to the vet until later in the evening. he called immediately and asked if we could bring her in at 8.30 the next morning. christmas morning! remember, it was just a limp. we took her in and he took xrays. and he let us know she must have just slipped on the snow and ice and twisted it. that all was fine. he hugged me and wished me a merry christmas. and then 2 days later on the 27th, phoned the house to talk with my dad to tell him that there was actually a malignant tumor in the bone and he didn't want to ruin my christmas and wanted my father to break it to me. even then, when i was so shocked and sad, i was warmed by his kindness, always thinking of the animals and their humans. dora lived for another 11 months because of the wonderful care and advice he provided.
our next great dane, gala, was as dear to me as dora. she was a bit of a wild child, but her last 8 months she was unable to walk. she had a cart and we got along pretty well. except, that although she was fairly immobile, her stomach twisted. this is often fatal for large barrel chested dogs and great dane owners live in fear of it. i recognized the signs very early. again, i called late in the evening and we were told to bring her right in. the operation lasted four hours as they cleaned food from her stomach, and repaired all the damage. this time it was his son-in-law who worked through the night and then had a full clinic the next day. they let me be at her side constantly the next couple of days. and when she was somewhat stable but refusing to eat, they let me take her home with an iv. we worked for days to find something she would eat. but her kidneys and bowels weren't responding either and the fluid we were giving her through iv was not effective. so, i woke up after a week of doing all we could and knew there was really only one choice. i phoned the clinic, and uncle d'arcy was at our house an hour later (the clinic is half an hour away). he put her quietly to sleep on her own bed in the front living room window.
this morning when we walked in with little crabby, coated with diarhea and smelling disgusting, he understood immediately what we've been dealing with. and in his gentle and professional way examined her and soothed her. and offered wonderful advice. i'd been bathing her every couple days, but it upsets her terribly. and i thought last night was our last one together and wanted to just leave her be. but uncle d'arcy gave us options. she appears otherwise healthy, so he suggested we leave her with him over the weekend. he will give different treatments to see if he can improve her food absorption. and then on monday morning, we will discuss her options. he said he will be brutally honest with us monday morning. once again, approaching a difficult situation with kindness and warmth and making it much better than either tom or i expected it could possibly be.
so thanks to our wonderful uncle d'arcy, crabby may be coming home with us on monday. but if she doesn't, we know that she has had the kindest man trying everything to give her comfort.

my mother gave me a christmas cactus. such a charming old-fashioned plant. it was blooming magnificently when she gave it to me. last year, or maybe the year before. and once the blooms were finished i neglected it terribly. it stayed in the living room window next to a horse skull and a jar of shells and beach glass. but now it's miraculously blooming again. all the tips are bursting into red flowers. i remember my grandmother had a christmas cactus in a planter in her living room. and she would share cuttings. remember women giving each other cuttings from their favorite plants?
tonight, crabby has been sitting on the table behind the sofa with her head in my hand. she just wanted me to hold her little face. we still aren't sure what the future holds for her, but we can't imagine that she'll be with us much longer. i think tomorrow's appointment with our wonderful vet will make our decision. so it's been a quiet little night for our family. tom playing guitar while i list items on etsy, sharing the sofa with edgar, and holding crabby's head. but in my heart, i think it's our little farewell evening.

the presses!!!!

i've been given the liebster award by 2 lovely women....lisa from in my wild eden and demie at paraphernalia. i'm honored and smiling and thinking of all the lovely blogs i want to give it to in turn.

the liebster blog award is given to up-and-coming bloggers who have fewer than 200 followers.

liebster is german and means sweetest, kindest, nicest, beloved, loveliest, cutest . . .
the rules for the liebster award are:
1. thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to you.
2. reveal your five personal nominations and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
3. copy and paste the award on your blog.
4. have faith that your followers will spread the love too!

i am passing this award on to five blogs that i look forward to reading....

tracy at beautiful day. her beautiful spirit comes through in every post. her love of life and all that makes it artful comes tumbling out of her amazing photographs and words.

angy at brown paper packages. i love the energy that comes from her posts about her day to day life. warm and fun and i always look forward to her comments on my own blog.

petra at indivisualism. not only do i love her blog name. and her given name. but i love her eye. her photographs are magnificent and she is wise and perceptive

lilli at mothwise. i've only recently found this lovely blog full of ethereal photographs and bursting with emotion and authentic sincerity.

carol at ophelia unraveling. this blog is filled with carol's gripping poetry and witty observations. i find myself going back to read and re-read these poems. and carol....well she's just plain awesome.

jen at country weekend. a wonderful woman with a lovely little shop in the catskills and a blog full of wonderful observations.

emilie's daughter. i've just recently discovered this great little spot full of recipes, design ideas, photographs. i had to add it.

yep, i chose a couple of extra people. i never can quite follow directions. thanks again....enjoy these wonderful blogs!

i used to have a little flood of joy every time i turned on the tap. the water gurgled out like it was falling from an old kitchen hand-pump. it tumbled and rolled out of the spigot. and it was a soft little movement that caught me emotionally every time. one of the simple little things that would make my day. everyday.
i knew johnny was coming over to change the kitchen tap with tom that night. and i knew that changing it was truly necessary. i was at the bookstore. and suddenly i wondered if changing the tap would change my beautiful tendril of a waterfall from the old spigot.
i went straight to the kitchen when i got home. tom was proud of their work. for it was a major job, taking out cast iron pipes, working from the old cistern under the kitchen, along the limestone walls to bring in new pipes. and when i turned on the tap, the water rushed out in a pressurized chute. tom knew before he saw the disappointment in my eyes. he'd tried to find a way to make it tumble. but it wouldn't. so i'll try to always remember the way it used to be.

we had a busy weekend. i had more things on my schedule than i usually commit to. and by 7 pm sunday night, tom found edgar, stella and me fast asleep in this little grouping. he said we were like this for more than an hour. i love naps.