Friday, June 29, 2012

doggie-dog weekend...

this is a very exciting weekend for these two, although you'd never be able to tell from their photos...i told them to say 'cheese' and this is what i got...

 


their new neighborhood friend, raj, is their house guest for the weekend while his parents are out of town...


quotable...

animal art...

you know what i love about pinterest? that i get introduced to creative ideas, beautiful fashions, divine spaces and talented people. like artist valerie davide. umm, can i please win the lottery so i can buy every single one of her animals drawings?...



 







all images via art davidson fine art

Thursday, June 28, 2012

currently reading...

up next for book group is an oldie but a goodie...the great gatsby by f. scott fitzgerald...



...of course we are reading this to refresh our high school memories and in anticipation of a little leo action this fall...



july photo challenge...


starting on sunday, the first day of july, i'm going to participate in fat mum slim's photo-a-day...should be fairly easy for me to do and keep up with, plus, it's creative, right?...


Tuesday, June 26, 2012

damn weeds...

the one thing i was most excited about when i bought my house was to finally have my very own yard & garden. i'm sure at some point i'll get sick of tending to it each week, but for right now i love it. what i don't love at the moment is spending an hour each night weeding. 




and then today i discovered that i'm not just doing any old weeding, i'm fighting an uphill battle with a severely invasive weed...the black swallow-wort...aka: the devil weed...






apparently this little sucker came over from europe to ipswich, ma in 1854...ten years later it escaped from the botanic garden and has been causing trouble ever since. it grows everywhere too; sun or shade, moist or dry areas, acid or alkaline soils. and, lucky for us, it has no known enemies since it's poisonous to insects and animals, so it's free to spread like wild fire. even more exciting news, it's spreads two ways; 1. by wind-blown seeds and 2. by underground stems that sprout into new plant clumps.


so, other than hand digging out the roots you can very carefully use round-up to kill these suckers. problem is, when they sprout up in the middle of your shrubs or flowers you're likely to kill them too. here's a little hand-out that was passed around my office about these little jerks...






Monday, June 25, 2012

for the birds...

i removed a ratty old bird feeder from the tree in my backyard earlier this spring...it was nasty looking. but now i'm sort of wishing i had something to put back in its place. so i checked out to see the selection on etsy, of course...






be still my heart...



it's no secret that sometime i wish i had been born a southerner, hence the reason i have magazine subscriptions to garden & gun and southern living. i've also always been in love with the vernacular of low country architecture, it's similarities to vermont farmhouses is what strikes a cord with me. but last night while i was reading through the july 2012 issue of southern living i discovered a different style of home, the dogtrot, and my heart skipped a beat. why did i not know about this style of home yet?






the dogtrot is indigenous to the south, of course, and typically consisted of two sides of a home connected by a 'breezeway', all under a common roof. usually one side was dedicated for the cooking while the other was dedicated for the living spaces. the theory is that the rooms were open by windows or doors to the central breezeway, and as wind/air currents ran through they'd be pulled into the living spaces... obviously this was a sort of eco-air conditioning before it existed. this floor plan shows the original general layout...


of course now all i can think about is someday building my very own dogtrot home in vermont. wouldn't it be fabulous to have a few big ceiling fans or a really great outdoor chandelier over a long farm table for some al fresco summer dining? i really like this image of a modern day dogtrot where they've added some large custom bi-fold glass doors to close off the dogtrot, creating more of a all-season space...might be more practical in a place like vermont where it's a bit colder.


i also stumbled across this blog, the house at sugar creek, where a husband and wife are restoring an 1800's lousiana dogtrot back to it's former glory...you can bet i'll be following their process from now on. 

Sunday, June 24, 2012

what's happening in westport...


while on my way to a very sweet friends baby shower today in little compton (where i got to see another lovely friend) i stopped over in westport to see what's been going on this summer at my parents house... the flower beds and vegetable garden look spectacular...

 
  
and then i headed down to the dock...


when i spotted these new gems at the entry...

 

and my stepdad's new floating toy...
 

and did i ever show you the shingle detail of an owl they had put in when they were renovating the house? it's a subtle design that you might miss if you don't look...


looking forward to spending a few more afternoons down there soon.

because i can't leave well enough alone...

pinterest is going to be the death of me, or more likely, the death of my bank account. so i came across this mudroom and loved the coral/orangey wall in the background, such a funky color splash....


...which of course got me thinking about this one mudroom wall i have. it's the only plaster wall among the wood paneling in the room (which I kind of want to paint white now instead of keeping the natural wood color). you can see if from the back yard only pretty much, but i still want it to make a statement...


...and then i saw this color combo on pinterest as well of urchin tones and thought it was the prettiest thing i'd seen. and now i want to paint that one dang wall one of these colors, likely the teal color...



...and instead of using the painting i have in there now, i've been dying to hang these photos of the dogs in their white frames (since the mudroom is pretty much dedicated to all things dog related). i like to take a special portrait of each dog to remember them by. the westie was my first love, mackenzie...then there's penny & maple who were photographed by li of fat orange cat a few years back...and then there's the one of hank from westport last summer...

 


...and since there's a bench seat in there i thought i could solicit dear old mom (aka: master seamstress extraordinaire) to sew me a custom cushion out of a funky fabric (TBD)...


don't you think that would look so wonderful? damn, now i feel like i have to paint the paneling white...see how my spending spirals out of control? i'll let you know how it turns out.

Friday, June 22, 2012

quotable...

my tongue for certain needs a gatekeeper...


Thursday, June 21, 2012

road sign envy...


from time to time i get a case of road rage, but it's mainly because i learned to drive in new york, and the term masshole is largely in part due to this states driving skills, or lack there of. i would like a bumbersticker for my car like this sign...