Halloween Decorating

Halloween Decorating

On Saturday morning I started decorating the house for Halloween. I got up really early, when it was still pitch-dark, and sat on the couch in the Little House in my pajamas, drinking Coke and stitching up some dumb little ornaments for my Halloween tree–funny 

Bernie

Bernie

I finally got a picture of Bernie, the old stray cat I feed (and truly care about). The quality of the picture isn’t very good (I had to take it quick before he got scared), but he sure is cute. Rob says Bernie looks like 

A Summer Night

A Summer Night

Summer is my favorite season at Spruce Pine Cottage. It’s the green time, the lush, sultry time, the time when the rosinweed blooms and the garden is full of tomatoes. Box turtles come out in the rain. Nighttime is even better than daytime because there 

A Sweet Sunday

A Sweet Sunday

Rob was out of town on Sunday, so I got to have one of my little “Leslie days.” It was extremely pleasant. I started it with a delicious breakfast of popcorn popped on the stove. There’s nothing better than eating popcorn at dawn. As I ate, I read a cookbook …

Josie

Josie

Two weeks ago, our cat Josie got very sick. She had a 105-degree temperature. She wouldn’t eat. All she wanted to do was sleep. We thought she was going to die, but it turned out she just had a bad urinary tract infection. We gave 

Clean as a Whistle

Clean as a Whistle

Rob and I did nothing but clean our house this weekend. We cleaned it from top to bottom. We washed all the baseboards and mopped all the floors and brushed all the furniture and cleaned the windows and the windowsills and all the moldings. Of 

A Roble Orange and Other Good Stuff

A Roble Orange and Other Good Stuff

Last weekend went so smoothly it seemed sort of enchanted. Rob and I got so much done. And yet somehow, magically, we still found time to baby the cats and savor our homegrown citrus and have lots of dorky domestic fun. …

Pecans, a Pummelo, and More

Pecans, a Pummelo, and More

Fall is here in all its glory. We’ve got camellias and sasanquas blooming like crazy, and our beech trees have turned gold. Bright satsumas and lemons hang like ornaments, like Christmas balls. The ageratum has turned ghostly. In the late afternoons the sun gets so 

October Glory

October Glory

This weekend was a glorious one here in Quincy. The Korean mums put on a dazzling show, and the satsumas and lemons went about their slow business of ripening, displaying rich, soft shades of gold. The weather was so cool that I was able to