Obviously the heat wave of the past week has eased and my creative instincts have come out of torpor.

The photo shows my solution for repairing a favorite paintbrush that broke where the ferrule attaches to the handle. I splinted the break with two sections of a wooden skewer and taped it all together tightly. The new orange-handled fan next to it is ready in the event that the repair does not hold. That is called covering your bases.

Odorless Neutral Thin, a product of Eco House, has arrived in the mail. I washed a few canvases with a mix of the new thinner and Transparent Earth Red oil paint. We are getting ready to paint! 

A heavy gilt oval frame came out of the doll bins for a new life in its intended role; framing a piece of art. I cut some canvas board to fit, and am planning to paint a floral oil on a dark ground. This is called putting the cart before the horse.  

 My button basket got a thorough rummaging this morning as I looked for a round on which to paint a missing miniature for my elaborate antique chair. I gessoed a button of the right size.

Everything is drying and setting up preparatory to a fine painting session.

Usually I buy red geraniums. This pink one has taken the entire summer to blossom spectacularly. In another month or so I will repot it in fresh soil and bring it inside for the winter along with the best of my impatiens. Last fall I brought a pink petunia inside that lasted the winter and went outside again for a second summer.

Three varieties of Rose of Sharon are in bloom, a rose pink, a lilac blue, and this lovely white with red centers, all blossoming near the road for passersby to enjoy. I might have missed their beauty if I hadn’t walked down the road to photograph the old mill reflected in the river, and happened upon this scene on my return.

The river water is still and clear today. I plan to go back for more photos when the water is disturbed and the air is foggy. I hope to paint the scene in less brilliant  light.

On this sparkling morning the goldfinches are threading yellow loops from one tall sunflower to another in the back garden. I hoped the few thistles I allowed to bloom in the field might attract the finches, but saw none until this morning. Now here they are, sharing the blooms with a bevy of white butterflies!

A sunflower blossom and autumn joy sedum in an antique pitcher brighten my windowsill.

My grand pumpkin! Isn’t this as handsome as they come? Only one grew, although I’m sure I planted a whole packet, ordered from Johnny’s Seeds. Several pie pumpkins of modest size are ripening out amongst the zucchini leaves. Won’t they be tasty, especially using my sour cream recipe!  This golden knucklehead with all the warts is supposed to be a good eating pumpkin, too.

When the grandkids think they are lost in the back woods I ask them if they can find our house, which looks like this from the back. Here it stands, a sprawling old farmhouse full of quirks and charms on two and a quarter acres of land. The place was built at some unknown date before 1900, and  little by little over the past thirty years we have furnished it with shabby chic  antiques from a century ago. 

 Since yesterday, The Private World of Tasha Tudor has been lying on the bed in the Grandmothers’ Room.  Tasha shared a birthday with my mother, which both would have celebrated tomorrow. In honor of the occasion the Tudor family is offering the chance to win a hand-cranked ice cream churn. Wouldn’t homemade ice cream be a delicious treat? We expect very warm days this weekend.

 The perennials rushed into bloom this summer, leading me to expect an early frost. For all these thirty years we have heated with wood. Ten cords of stacked firewood stand ready for the comning winter.  but thus far the leaves remain green and we pick high-bush blueberries every day.  The balmy weather does not stop me from collecting  new yarns and needles for the winter’s knitting, or from exploring further into Barbara Walker’s  Treasury of Knitting Patterns , anticipating quiet hours in an antique rocker near one of the woodstoves, where I plan to knit a shawl in the Rose Trellis pattern using Lorna’s Laces yarns.

Sunflowers both pale and burnished bloom along with calendula and a few late red poppies. The tree hydrangea is beginning to turn pink. Phlox blooms  both pink and apricot. Autumn Joy sedum turns  a rich deep rose. To my bouquet I add a few sprigs of goldenrod and purple nightshade and oregano gone to flower. The colors are riotous.

I was ready to encourage her to smile but she forbade me. This is the expression she chooses and it arrests me each time I see it. When she comes home from the fair tomorrow I will present her with an antique shawl to wear around her shoulders. I will add to this post later on.

This was the most beautiful Foxglove of the summer…

Have I mentioned that recently for the first time I read the entire poem Endymion by John Keats? Would anyone like to discuss the poem with me? An astonishing coincidence occurred as I realized after reading the poem that the sailing vessel in the antique painting Maria spent a year copying is also named Endymion. She translates the name to mean lover of the moon. Remembering the paintings, those of you who saw them, can’t you imagine this ship sailing nobly in moonlight?