Autumn

Halloween is over with and the leaves are finally starting to fall.

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This pumpkin has a curious nose.

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One of the best bits of Halloween is getting candy… my daughter say they were allowed to eat as much as they wanted…oh my!

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The Winesap apples have finally arrived and are very crispy and tasty.

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I currently have an obsession with dried up dahlias…

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almost time to chuck them.

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A fallen leaf on 20th street.

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Stuff from a garden on Long Island

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and acorn cups.

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An arrangement of acorn cups and rosehips in a cup by my assistant (aged 3). Doesn’t it look like a weird clock-face in the acorn cup upper left?

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and the joy of fallen leaves…

Veg Therapy and How to Try to Keep Semi-Sane

In these unsettling and most peculiar times I look for diversions

IMG_8160.jpglike contemplating a lovely dessert with blackberries and figs

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or maybe quinces – but am not certain what I would do with the quinces. I like the look and the name but not the taste really.

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Apples are easy but the Winesaps won’t be here until next week.

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Teeny, tiny pears all sheeny with wetness.

IMG_8161.jpgThen I’m delighted by pinkness and buy dahlias which will only last three days – but lots of nice things last even less time than that.

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Oh my! what a dazzle for the eye!

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The mescalun looks as if it has been arranged – but it hasn’t.

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Romanesco is worth mediating on  – all Fibonacci and architectural – look at the little group of singers at the top in their soft green dresses under the coral overhang – or make up another story entirely. Or, according to Mee (the friend who did the cookbook) bake it inside a Godzilla cake and astound the kiddies.

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An orange nose has poked itself into the ghost gourds.

IMG_8180.jpgThis decorative gourd is all warty and weird – maybe it’s enchanted. In the end I brought the dahlias home and took their photo on the dining table.

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And that was my morning avoiding watching the news or doing any writing or anything remotely useful. And so we go on!

October

October is one of my favorite months – the beginning of the turning of the year and a little bit decaying and mystical…

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Nothing like an old baking sheet background for gloomy…

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This is a sunflower squash

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posing as a space alien.

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These are some pears

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and more pears

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and a pomegranate from a street cart and flowers from Bobby’s garden.

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Some meadow flowers hanging on to summer at the green market

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so joyful.

5135D877-5FF6-473E-A165-D58EC057EBBAbut pumpkin season is upon us

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and an eggplant with some sort of message –

when we get to the beach

IMG_8117.jpgI find a poor fishy who is unlikely to send any more messages…

 

 

Almost Autumn

I managed to get separated from my blog – or the log in to the same…

Anyway, my friend Gracie moved to Long Beach where people were training as life guards.

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The summer went well…

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Vinny the caterpillar and his chums ate a great deal of dill…

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which then formed seeds and I got a second crop.

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The wonderful butterfly flower self seeded itself on the roof

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add basil and mint to the old Moroccan jug.

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Hydrangeas continued to enchant

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and I dried some delphinium flowers.

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We managed to get to Robert Moses three times

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and the grandchildren continued to flourish.

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Robert suggested I do a needlepoint loosely based on an old Italian plate. Lesson learned: do not attempt anything with lots and lots of circles in it.

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A peach photographed on a baking tray

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Some extra lovely dahlias Margaret gave me.

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A photo from yesterday – photographed on a cookie sheet. The chewed leaf makes it look as if it ought to be an allegory of some sort – oddly medieval.

A Surreal Week

The light has been extraordinarily clear and bright this week.

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A nice leaf on the windowsill.

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Same leaf on the windowsill with the light reflected off a new tall building blazes in from the north in the late afternoons.

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Our dim little counter gets lit up – had I known the light would fall there I would have arranged a better still life.. This is sort of brownish in honor of the meatloaf that is about to get made…

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Light on the High Line on election afternoon when I was beginning to feel wobbly.

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Last licks of flowers from my son’s garden the day after…

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Apprentice flower arranger.

So the week continued with lots and lots of walks and sights seen.

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A house to desire in Greenwich village

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and leaves in the gutter

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not to mention the hats on 5th Avenue

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and heaven in the New York Public Library…

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and an intimation of mortality.

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But the light! – and a man leaving.

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All this emotion and seeing things required a little respite in the form of Tea & Sympathy where we ate

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very stodgy puddings and drank tea.

img_4592On the way home I passed the Chelsea Hotel which is undergoing an extensive and much needed renovation – for good or ill. Anyway lots and lots of changes. I’d better get used to it.