Vera Jane Cook's Blog, page 4

Chatter Creek Cottage: This One Is For You, Dad.

My father would have loved this old lawn mower that I found in the shed buried behind some Tiki lights. This is just a guess, of course but probably a pretty good one. I will never get to ask him that question, he was diagnosed with leukemia when he was thirty-two years old and he […]

Chatter Creek Cottage: A Sad Day

Before the tractor Parade got started on Lower Main Street in Calicoon we were just waiting on more of those fabulous vintage tractors to make their way through town. But then I got a Breaking News email and couldn’t wrap my head around the sadness of it all. The fact that someone on a No-Fly […]

Chatter Creek Cottage: A Rose by Any Other Name

Well, I was going to go out this morning and take a beautiful close up photo of these smashing white roses in front of the cottage but got pelted by rain, fog and humidity. It’s still beautiful in the Catskill Mountains though. Had a most enchanting drive from Hortonville to Livingston Manor on Saturday and […]

Chatter Creek Cottage: Lilacs

    I can’t help thinking about poetry when I see these lovely lilacs that grow in our side garden. When I was a teenager I loved poetry, most particularly Victorian poets like Shelly, Byron and Robert and Elizabeth Browning. I can still sit and read poetry aloud until all hours of the night. I […]

Chatter Creek Cottage: Now That’s a Farm Table!

And I didn’t have to search up and down Sullivan County to find it! That’s because I have a very talented neighbor who offered to build one for me. Well, there are people who say they’re going to do things for you but they never do. That’s not Shawn, aside from being sweet, handsome, gifted, […]

Chatter Creek Cottage: Mother’s Day

Oh, I remember my Mom, not just today but practically everyday. She was unforgettable. She gave me an outrageously silly sense of humor, her blue eyes, a love of dogs and music and long walks. My Mom survived a horrific child hood and learned to play the stock market.She became a millionaire by the time […]

Chatter Creek Cottage: Eclectic, Sort of Like Me

I don’t think you can really plan out exactly how you want to decorate your country house, I think it evolves the more time you spend there. I’ve never been one to be strictly contemporary; I find that could be cold, even stark and uninviting. Yet I have a contemporary end table in the library […]

Chatter Creek Cottage: Bradford Pear Tree on Northbranch Road

OMG, I’ve got a cursed tree! Here I thought it was so beautiful and then I went on line and found out it’s the most hated tree in the world, it’s gorgeous flowers smell like a beach full of dead tuna and it dies young and smashes up all over the yard. Well, I’ve loved […]

Chatter Creek Cottage: Can I make a Living Doing This?

Spent all day Saturday in the yard raking up dirt and planning where to put what flowers where, what bushes to plant along the fence, what hanging baskets to hang on the porch and what color dirt to put in the beds. Picked up a lot of mulch and threw it over the edge of […]

Chatter Creek Cottage: By the Fire

There is nothing like doing nothing by a fire. Well, not exactly nothing, sipping wine and eating Brie on a fig and olives marinated in garlic and lemon. I never think of much of anything at all in front of the fire. The fire captures me and I stare at it, zombie like. I am […]