Longwood Gardens with my Gardeners.

My parents are Gardeners. This, yes, with a capital "G". They have beautiful gardens, they create them for others and they enjoy touring gardens for inspiration and enjoyment. I am a gardener. Some days I aspire to being a Gardener, but my aspirations have me spread too thin over many areas to earn a capital.
Still, I enjoy the inspiration that comes from being around my Gardening parents and their Gardening friends. They even take Gardening vacations. Yep.
 One of the Gardens I have heard my parents speak of for years is called "Longwood Gardens". I was picturing something beautiful along the lines of the gardens at San Francisco's Golden Gate Park- which years ago got me inspired about Dahlias. But I was mistaken. Akin to comparing Kennywood Amusement Park to Disney World. They both have roller coasters- but they are not the same. 
Longwood is beyond a garden. It is a Garden.
Built by Pierre DuPont and family in the early 20th century, but constantly evolving, Longwood was, for me, a wonderful surprise.

 We paid our money for a entry ticket and wandered outside and a path to the right. This patio area was featuring quite a pile of palms for July. But the arches surrounding the patio wall are roses. This would be magnificent during the blooming season!

 Directly behind the round arched rose patio was this incredible lane. I was amazed by the fine proportions, the hedge and plantings in front of it, it felt leafy and tall, yet open. And, boy oh boy, do I need an edger. My garden's edges are not. They are constantly under assault by creeping weeds and scratching hens. Come to think of it, I did not see any hens at Longwood.

 Middlest, with Yummie and Poppie at the top of the walk. 

 And me, an' my girl. 

To the left of this long walkway, beyond the hedges are "rooms". Gardens that have different themes and feeling to them, all enclosed by a tall hedge. I loved the wisteria room and this sweet little room was a private little fountain room.

The way out of the Wisteria Room was through this grand arbor covered in wisteria.

 Quite an awesome tree house!

This is called the "Italian Water Garden". The fountains were not steady flow, but variable, sometimes shooting high, and then more softly.

We made our way out to this little garden folly, perfect for a morning with a book.

Or a Renaissance Princess...

Modern Day Princess? With Orange shoes?

My Mum, standing at the entrance to Peirce's Woods.


This is the Flower Garden Walk. It is a deeply bordered walk, laid out by Pierre DuPont in 1907. It is a 600 ft. long flower border that lies down the hill from the main house. Currently, the walk is laid out in a color blocked flower bed that begins with white, moves to yellow, orange, red, and then blue and purple.

It was full of wonderful flower combinations, and some plants new to me, like the Gomphrena below, in a variety called "Strawberry Fields".  I'm not usually fond of red flowers, but this one is so charming! I will look for it next spring to put in my own border garden.

Verbena bonariensis, begonias and hibiscus. 

This is the color I tend towards in my selection of flowers. I love the blues.

 A rare treat! A photo of my mother and me.

Considering the scope and size of Longwood, (926 acres)  the main house is rather unassuming. I was surprised to see this pretty, but not huge home.
But, because I came to Longwood, evidently, to be surprised, when we walked from the house to the Conservatory, I was- you guessed it- surprised. The "Conservatory" is like Versailles, but with a glass top. It is vast. And, this is where the DuPonts would entertain. With a ballroom, plenty of guest quarters, and everywhere, gardens.

The Green Wall is a newer addition to the Conservatory. It is the area where the bathrooms are located, each bathroom an individual room, with natural light, door opening in the Green Wall. It was a hot day, and standing close to the wall, your skin could feel the coolness provided by the plants.

The rooms in the conservatory are so lush, and change with the seasons, just as do the gardens.

This is a really remarkable room. I am standing in the main entrance, where the carriages would have delivered guests. The stairs in front of me lead onto a sunken marble floor that is currently flooded with water. It can be frozen for skating, or filled with water plants, or as in one photo, covered in floating berries and fruit to create a work of art.

This is a photo of the floor with floating fruit, green apples and red? making this pattern for a Christmas display.

There is a courtyard in the middle of the conservatory, that is filled with Lily Ponds.

I am familiar with water lilies and I have seen lotus plants- our friends, the Nixons, have beautiful ponds with both, but I had never seen these enormous disks! They are 5-6' in diameter and hold up to 100lbs across their surface, yet are paper thin.

I would love to have a pond at Cowfeathers. But have not yet found the energy to start digging. These are too grand for my house, but they certainly suit the DuPonts!

There is a multi-year, gazillion dollar renovation being done on the Main Fountains. This is what they look like from the carriage drive in front of the conservatory July 2016.

This picture is what they looked like before they started mucking about.

We will have to go back and see what they changed. I would love to go in another season too. Autumn would be "fallnominal". YukYuk.

Thank you Longwood and my Gardener parents. A Disney World I can see visiting again and again!

A summer wander of Wing-N-Wing.

One of the joys of this summer was a road trip with Middlest to see my parents at their beautiful home on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Their home is called "Wing-N-Wing", which alludes both to a sailing term (that is beyond my sailing knowledge, which, let's face it, is limited to "boat" and "sail"), and the wings that live on their property, attached to chickens and geese. 
 Sadly, it has been some years since I've managed to make the time to visit. Fortunately, my parents are better than I, so we have seen them!
Their home is so beautiful, what a setting! As it is right on the water, they keep kayaks and a sail boat for water sport. Middlest and Poppie headed out at first decent wind, Middlest piloting the boat, and Poppie on board, lying down, as his long body doesn't fit so well on the small Sunfish. Middlest is a decent sailor, (as all my children have turned out to be) thanks to lessons on the Chesapeake Bay in summers past. I am impressed with their sailing abilities, but I was also impressed that my Dad could still walk after lying prostrate on a boat.

Really? Does NOT look comfortable. Go Dad.

Also on the water, is an Osprey platform, on which an Osprey family have built their home. Several years ago, when my parents were somewhat new to the area, they received permission to put up a platform for the birds, and we were so excited when their platform was chosen by a pair! Now, there are many, many birds in their cove, and several platforms in the area nearby. So the air is full of their circling, and they are a constant voice from above.
 I think this is one of the "teen-aged" babies. I could not get any closer without them flying off the nest. You can see another platform in the background across the water. It, too, has a family.

Also, hanging out on the dock, or in the garden, or at the pool, or helping with a puzzle is my parent's new dog, Willa. I found Willa for them at my work, through a top-notch rescue called "Columbus Cocker Rescue". Willa has turned into an adorable, sweet, polite little dog. Petite and pretty, she is a wonderful addition to Wing-N-Wing.  

As I sat looking out at the water, watching my child and father disappear by boat, and then the Osprey disappear by wing, I looked back over my shoulder at the pretty house and decided to go for a little landlubber's walk with my camera while I waited for the sailors.

The water-facing back of the house.

 My mom is a brill designer, and manages to create engaging, layered spaces in which you want to spend time. The massive outdoor fireplace at the end of their long, wide back porch expands the outdoor season for dining, or card playing well into the fall. As it was properly July hot, we did not light the fire.

 I went to go see "the girls". My parent's beautiful, prize-winning flock of Border Leicesters.

For a brief moment, I missed our flock.
Brief.

Isn't this the sweetest old-lady-sheep face? 

 Sailors are still out in the cove a bit.

Back from my widow-walking, to look for other beautiful things.

My walk to the pool was accompanied by Willa. I brought home some of the bonariensis (purple flowers on antennae) and I hope mine reseed well at Cowfeathers. I cannot seem to get plumbago to grow, as my mother does.

 Flowers are a deep and abiding part of my mother's life. When I was a child, the fridge was likely to be full of flowers when you went to search for food. When I was in high school, she bought a florist's fridge, and we got our kitchen one back. But, everywhere in my mother's house there are thoughtful bits of pretty and life. This green chippy flower bucket is an antique back bucket, with leather straps, so you can put it on like a back pack when you go flower gathering, full of Queen Anne's Lace, white Phlox and white Caladiums.

 On another table is a gathering of Maidenhair Ferns. I can never get these to stay alive, but my mom always has a few around, looking happy. The school bell is another relic of my childhood. It was loud enough to call me to dinner- back from the woods, the creek, or from horseback in my wild forest-faerie childhood.

 I love towels on a line. It means happy summer swimming.

 Willa took me out to the Knot Garden, and a tour of the chicken houses.

And finally, the sailors are back, and the geese and Osprey have the cove back to themselves.

Salem House Before and Afters- easy on the budget basement spruce-up!

 So, this is a blog that reaches into the recent past. Two years ago we purchased a small house near campus for our Eldest and her housemates. I christened the house "Salem House" both because of it's address, and because I hoped to make it a place of peace. "Salem", being from the word,"Shalom" or "Salaam", meaning "Peace".
I chose the house because of location, but it also fulfilled another desire- two bathrooms! It is a neighborhood of nearly identical houses, having been built in the Sears House boom of the last century. The houses are quaint and built with a single main floor bath. Salem had two. Someone had added a bathroom, a full bathroom, and it was pretty decent. (Unlike another house I looked at in the neighborhood that advertised two bathrooms, but one was a toilet and shower on a platform, just open in the basement. Ick.)
The drawback of this second bathroom is it is located in the back of the basement, down the stairs, through a little room, through the laundry room, past the utility area of the furnace and water heater and then the bathroom. It was dreary, dark, ugly and thoroughly uninviting.

Before

 The basement featured gray paint, (unlike the upstairs which was all the "fleach" color see previous Salem blogs) the gray of battleships and bargain bins. The floor was alternately the red of dried blood, and indoor/outdoor carpet of the same tone. The walls had paneling popular in the 1970s, and the ceiling was partly dry-walled and partly open. Some of the dry-walled areas were open where holes had been cut.

After

 My solution needed to be economical and cheery. So.... paint! LOTS of white.
I opened up the back of the stairs to allow light to come through, painstakingly scraped off the black gum of the rug backing, and then painted many coats. I gave the bright white stairs a colorful grape-colored painted "runner."

Before

I covered the dark red floor with a super-saturated purple/blue. I wanted a color that would cover the red, but also make a sharp contrast and statement in the small space.
The ceiling was a "stumper." It was unpainted dry wall, with several holes cut or punched through. It was dirty..but it was a ceiling. I wanted to use it, without having to replace the dry wall, so I came up with a solution by patching the dry wall where it was ruined with thin plyboard, then "coffering" the ceiling to keep my patches from standing out. Of course, the ceiling is low, so my coffering needed to be both inexpensive and shallow. 

After

 I painted the ceiling a soft celadon green and painted the "pine" paneling white, gave the top and bottom of the walls some trim and added some bits and pieces of furniture and art. The cool framed gold figures are actual rubbings from Italy farmed from my Mom's friend's garage sale.

After

Before

 When you leave the game room, you enter the laundry area.

 This was a plain cement floor, open ceiling to the joists with 60 years of homeowner decisions displayed in wire and pipe, dingy cement block walls an old broken dishwasher and 1300 lbs of hardened bags of cement. Several windows are broken, covered with plastic or duct tape.

 The floor has drain pipes running across it from the sink, laundry and furnace. But, it had a decent, if mucked up with paint, sink, and the cabinet was in okay shape too. Just out of date and ugly.

 When you walk past the sink cabinet, you can see the bathroom destination down the hall there, with the furnace, coal chimney and water heater to the left. Plus, a toilet drain pipe for good measure.

 The bathroom, once you arrive, isn't too bad. Yes, the floor is ugly, the walls are bland, and there is a plastic wreath decoration with a Hawaiian theme, but there is a decent sink and medicine cabinet and a huge shower.

 Your trip back from the loo is not a pleasant one either. Not a great start to the day, in my opinion.
So, solutions?
Paint. Again, lots of paint! Masking the flaws and enhancing the attributes, replacing the windows and getting creative.

 A new washer and dryer in white make it a laundry room! I carried the blue/purple floor throughout the basement and the colorful tied rugs.

 The sink cabinet got a coat of Bedford Gray, and the handles got coated with a bright nickel spray paint (why buy new?) Sink got a good scrubbing with steel wool to remove all the grime and paint. The wall needed a dose of happy and got it with a leftover of fabric from the bargain table at the fabric store. The long oak mantle was a $5 steal from a garage sale, as was the cheeky chamber pot used for laundry detergent. An antique mirror, not fine antique but definitely old, bounces around a bit of light and catches the eye. The ceiling is an eyesore, and a problem. But, it improved with a covering of woven wire with white lights poked into it. The lights make it more cheerful, and you don't see so much what above them. They are a "yellow brick road" to the bathroom.

 I chose to ignore the drain pipes as not worth the trouble to raise up the floor to cover them, making the ceiling even lower! But the furnace and water heater needed to disappear.  Four old wood doors from the Restore cost $50, and make for a mobile wall. The narrow space between the chimney fireplace and the toilet pipe showed the water heater in between, but some doors removed from the kitchen cabinets I was getting rid of, stacked nicely to fill that space.  The toilet drain was ugly, dirty and too far out to incorporate into my "wall". So, I covered it with hemp rope, which cleaned it up and made it less utilitarian.

 The bathroom was pretty easy. Paint. Paint floors, Paint walls, Paint ceiling, paint sink cabinet and medicine cabinet. Make it pretty, clean, simple and inviting.

 Return walk from bathroom to start your day should be a pleasant one!
And, not only does this basement feature a laundry sink, it also has a laundry folding table. Envy.
Once the concrete and dishwasher were removed, I painted the old work bench Bedford Gray, skirted it with burlap for storage underneath and tada! A place to fold laundry, or wrap presents....sure do wish I had this space at my house!

 That is the Salem House basement- minus the last remaining room in the house that has yet to be tackled. It's a doozy. Pink carpet, "pine" paneling, a fluorescent light fixture that the dry wall was cut to go around? Miles of television cable and a large pipe sticking out into the room - a pipe that goes no where, just sticks out- at about waist height. An adventure in creativity waiting to happen.

Samantha, from Rescue to Rescued.

I know it has been months since my last blog! I have so much to share. But first off, I thought I'd let everyone know that Samantha is doing very well. The photo above is from June! She looks even better now, and I just haven't even had the time to take a picture. Except for the day she found burrs on a grazing expedition and came home for supper with a forelock that was a ball of burrs. I took a picture of that. Then, I spent 30 minutes patiently combing out burr bits.
She is a happy, happy girl. She calls to me when I walk outside, and follows us around, comes when she is called, and generally seems to be enjoying her new lease on life.
Her health has continued to improve. She had quite a day with the chiropractor last month, and needs another visit soon, as she had a lot of damage in ligaments and muscle from her starvation time, and is still working towards being a well muscled and comfortable horse.
She has gained enough weight that I have tapered her fat supplement and converted her to grass hay, but her coat is glossy and her eyes are bright.
She and I are mostly working on "ground work" still, (meaning I am not riding her, but working with her on the ground) building stamina, trust and having fun. It is time to start riding her, but other than saddling her up a few times and walking around the wind mill, I have not done so. I am spending my time, instead, creating a relationship with Nellie, my new mount. I guess that is a subject for another blog!
So, breaking the seal on getting back to the Cowfeathers Blog....a half glass of wine and a blog? I could do that.
Thank you, all for your support and concern for Samantha. She is a sweetheart.
I realize that her rescue has made difficulties in our community. It might be convenient for us to pretend Sammie was ill, less awkward exchanges between neighbors. But I am proud to hear no pretense that maybe Sam was sick, and that it wasn't the fault of her caregivers that she fell to a deplorable condition. This did not happen quickly, nor by chance.
While I was given the task of trying to save Sammie's life, there are people left with the task of what to do now, how to proceed? I truly appreciate that this is a difficult task. When you attend the same church, work in the same workplace, go to the same school, and know.... how Sam was treated.
My prayers for you to have wisdom, and thank you for your kindnesses. 

No Warning Required- Sam update 1 month

One month has gone by since I picked up Sammie from her abusive owners, and I have watched her get stronger, become more alert and even show a bit of sassy attitude! She has been softly rubbed and groomed until all the dead hair has come away, leaving her a bit like a golden hide, but now is creating healthier skin underneath. I have monitored her blood work, her anemia, her electrolytes, her poop, her pee, weighing her food to carefully feed her back slowly from her starvation, and she is becoming the old Samantha I used to know.
So, no warnings this time. No sick stomachs caused by looking at her picture. Feel free to look what one month of proper care can do to even the saddest looking creature. She still has a long way to go, a few hundred more pounds of weight and muscle to gain, but I believe it will all come with time.

 Samantha, 1 month into recovery! 

 Rump is starting to fill out a bit, less like a dairy cow, more like a horse!

 She is trotting here, giving Youngest some sass, as she would like, very much, to graze on the grass. We did let her have about 10 bites after her glamour shots, but green grass is not really part of her diet, yet.

So, with that in your mind, if you feel up to it now, feel free to look back at the last blog about Samantha from 3 weeks ago, and see how far she has come.