Dear Neighbor . . .

 

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 FRIDAY, September 26th, 2025
3 Estate Lane, Nova Scotia
20*C/68*F/ cloudy 

Dear Neighbor,

Hello on the very balmy morning. I believe this is the warmest morning we have had all week. We did get some rain in the night as well, so that is good. We very much needed it. Every little bit helps.

It is very quiet in here this morning.  Eileen is still sleeping, and the cats are drowsing. Although the sun is up, it is very cloudy and darkish.  It is supposed to be cloudy pretty much all day today, although it will not get much warmer.  Probably because of the cloud cover.

Eileen and I have been having a really nice week together. She still has her CSS visits, so except for yesterday, she has been out for a while each day.  They come here to the house and pick her up. The other day she had a cooking class. They made Taco Bowls and Apple Cake. Here she is enjoying her Taco Bowl after she came home.  She really had a great time at her class. She is usually a very smiley and easy to please individual. Today she wants them to take her to check her mail. Hopefully she will be able to get into the Post Office to do it. They are on strike. Again.

Yesterday we drove up to the Dollarama in Greenwood. It was a very pleasant drive along the winding country roads and the colors of the leaves are spectacular at the moment.  We enjoyed out walk around the store. I picked up some Halloween Candy and she got herself a little craft kit.  We then went to the grocery store to get a few bits to make pizza for our supper last night. With pineapple on it coz that's how we roll!  It turned out really nice.

Last night we watched a funny film. Cheaper by the Dozen with Steve Martin. We both quite enjoyed it.  

 

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It is hard to believe that we are already facing the end of September, with there only being (not counting today) four days left in the month.  It's gone ever so quickly. Is it just me or does time seem to be speeding up?  The days just keep whipping by and rolling off the calendar. I wish they would slow down a bit and let me catch my breath. 

Next weekend will already be the Autumn Conference of my church and it doesn't seem long since we had the last one. I do enjoy them very much. Hearing all of the talks and the music as well. It is always so very uplifting. 

I listen to some of the music from the Spring Conference on my iPad each night in bed. It is very comforting and relaxing. I have my favorites.  This is my Beloved Son is one, as is Welcome Home. 

Oh, who am I kidding. I love them all. Listening to these and other hymns in bed is a great way to end the day.  To end the day with songs of worship to my Heavenly Father ringing in my soul is in no way a bad thing.

 

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Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss's cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For summer has o'er-brimmed their clammy cells.

~John Keats (1795-1821)

This very much reminds me of the morning we are having. Puddles lay thick on the road in front of my wee home, from the rain of last night. (A good thing) I can hear the cars sloshing through the ones on the main road as they pass, and the air feels very close.  Humid and damp. This is something we have not really felt all summer.

As I read this poem this morning, I was reminded of how very blessed I was to have been able to visit and walk the pathways that these romantic poets walked. There was a museum to these great writers in the Lake District which I visited once. Not many of them lived to be of any great age. Keats was only 25 when he passed away from tuberculosis . . . not much of life to have experienced at all.  So young. But at the height of what would be those years of our lives that are filled with yearning and romance. 

How wonderful is it that over 200 years later these words he wrote live on still to delight the souls of modern men! (and women)

I recently purchased this book, The Country Commonplace Book by Miranda Mills. From the back cover:  This seasonal touchstone is packed full of quotes, book lists, recipes, poems, and observations on the natural world, to help you connect more deeply with yourself and with nature.

I cannot remember where I first took note of it, but when I did, I thought to myself that is a book I would really enjoy. I love books like this that encourage us to slow down and connect with the world around us. A curation of the things of the year that bring joy to the soul.

I have not been disappointed.

From Wikipedia:

Commonplace books (or commonplaces) are a way to compile knowledge, usually by writing information into blank books. They have been kept from antiquity, and were kept particularly during the Renaissance and in the nineteenth century. Such books are similar to scrapbooks filled with items of many kinds: notes, proverbs, adages, aphorisms, maxims, quotes, letters, poems, tables of weights and measures, prayers, legal formulas, and recipes.

I really love this idea of keeping a book along the length of the year to annotate all of these things which bring joy into your life and home.  

Perhaps that can be a goal of mine for next year.  You know how very much I love to write and journal things that bring meaning to my heart. I do have this blog, but aside from that, I do keep a written journal, but thinking that it could be even more seasonally focused has inspired me here this morning. I am excited at just the thought of it. 

Let us hope that the thought of doing so does not go the way of many of my other thoughts and get lost in the ether  . . . 

 

 

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There is a crow making a very plaintive sound outside at the moment. I wish that I spoke the language of crows so that I could know what he is saying.  It is not a typical "caw caw" that you usually hear. It sounds very plaintive. I have always enjoyed listening to the songs and calls of birds, even though I am not very good at distinguishing them. My sister is much better distinguishing what they are one from another. I think I was away from Canada for far too long. Oh, I do recognize the common ones, such as the crow and the screeching of Blue Jays, but that is about it. I can tell what a magpie sounds like, but do we get magpies here in Canada? I don't know. They are very common in the U.K.  But. I remember being very excited the first time I saw and listened to one over there. This was all very new to me, never having seen or heard one before. I used to see several outside of the Care Home that I worked in, frequently. I was very curious about these big black and white birds that seemed to gather on greens and open spaces. I learned that they were magpies.  This was the first of many birds uncommon to North America that I would fall in love with.

I think my favorites were the Pied Wagtails. Little black and white birds with long tail feathers that wag when they walk. But I think I loved the music of the blackbird and the song thrush most of all.  Oh and the British robin. 

There was a song thrush that sat on the rooftop chimney of the cottage next to ours on the Manor Estate in the evenings and would sing the most beautiful songs as the sun was lowering in the sky. 

Birds, I just love them.

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I am not sure what all I will get up to today.  I will get some breakfast for Eileen when she gets up. Probably leftover pizza from last night. Our family does love having leftover pizza for breakfast.  I do want to bake something. I had wanted to bake a cake last weekend but didn't really get one made.  Cookies, but no cake. I do think that cakes and weekends go together very well.

Usually I would be going with my sister to take my father to the mall with his friend Maryann, but I noticed yesterday that they are doing some works on the roads in that area and they make it quite limiting as to where you can move in the car comfortably without having to wait for lengthy periods of time.  I am not sure they will be going, and, in any case, Eileen is here, and I am not sure how long she will be out with her CSS appointment today. 

So, I will just putter around here all day. I have been working on a tiny doll from a pattern I ordered on Etsy quite some time ago. I have all of the body pieces sewn together and stuffed. Now I just have to sew them together and make her some clothes.

I also will have to make us some supper as well. I have taken out chicken.  Has anyone noticed how very tough chicken breasts from the store have been these past six months or so?? There is nothing that will tenderize them.  They are like chewing an old boot.  Terrible. I have bought some from the chicken farm up the mountain and will cook them today to see how they fare in comparison.  Hopefully they are a lot better. Fingers crossed.

I will have a busy day regardless. And with that I will leave you with a thought to take with you through the day.

A thought to carry with you  . . . 

☾ ° ★° * 。  

• ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ • •。★★ 。* 。
° 。 ° ˛˚˛ * _Π_____*。*˚
˚ ˛ •˛•˚ */______/~＼。˚ ˚ ˛
˚ ˛ •˛• ˚ ｜ 田田 ｜門 ★

*Even in the mud and scum of things,

something always, always sings.

~Ralph Waldo Emmerson

 

In The English Kitchen today  . . .  Sole with Crispy Fresh Breadcrumbs. A simple fish supper for an Autumn Friday.  Simple ingredients put together in the most delicious way.

I hope your day is a good one my dear friends. May you be truly blessed with all you stand in need of, mentally, temporally and physically. Don't forget!

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And I do too!