Beth Emmott

My friend, Sally, asked me about accordion books and I think an image explains it better than lots of words. She asked about a 16 page book and this is a 6 page one but I think she’ll get it!

I made this years ago for another friend, Mary—we met when we were 13, and I was riding my bike trying to get up nerve to say HI to the new girl and found out later if I had gone past her one more time she was going to throw dirt balls at me! We’ve been best friend ever since!

Mary’s Book

New Beaver Pond in Connecticut.

Spent the weekend in CT visiting Senter and Bitty. They live in a log home over looking a wonderful pond and fields, where they have created a sort of sanctuary for lots of critters. Birds of all sorts, deer, wild turkeys, muskrats, frogs and, it seems, a beaver. Back in the back pasture, which Senter keeps mowed better than most front yards, off to the right is a small stream that beaver have dammed up, creating a whole new environment. Of course this required a trek through the woods to see it.

We also took a trip to the Fisher Museum at Harvard Forest in Petersham, MA to see their forest dioramas. That was more than a trek through the woods, but it was a beautiful day, through small New England towns. I had read about the dioramas when I was at the Arnold Arboretum a few weeks earlier with my garden gals. The dioramas were created in the 1930′s and are incredible. They have to be seen to be believed.

Later that day, my nephew, Senter, came for the weekend. He has a Mooney airplane which he gets serviced in NJ once a year. As he lives in Alabama, he used the trip as a chance to visit his folks. That was a bonus to the weekend we hadn’t expected.

On the way home on Sun we stopped at Storm King in NY for a few hours. I’ll save that for my next post. Right now I’d better get busy with work.

This year my garden friends from Moore College of Art went to Brookline MA outside of Boston. Visited the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum on Wed and the Arnold Arboretum on Thurs. Sally couldn’t make it as she had horsey things to do and Jane had to leave early Thurs but here are Mike, me, Marge, Jane and Pam at the Arnold on a rainy day by the Smoke Bush!

(Several people have asked me about the use of the word Hoax. It comes from a friend, Joe, who used it for a trip which was mainly for fun. Our garden trips are educational but the true purpose is to have fun together. I suppose, today, getting away to just have fun is a bit of a trick.)

Last entry said “School’s Over” Now, May’s over. Been a busy time—all the stuff I put off until school was over. Dr’s apt and the like. Visited my Mom for Mother’s Day and Fletchie for his birthday. To NJ to see Pam’s exhibit. Her work just gets better and better.

We’re part of a group that has theme dinners each year and we did “Spring in France”— made a Mediterranean fish dish and everyone brought wonderful things. Had drinks in the garden but the roses were best the weekend before – mind of their own! Last weekend did a lot of cooking, food for a memorial day picnic, then house guests with dinner and a brunch, then another picnic. Lots of cooking for me anyway, anymore.

Had a quick Public Service Announcement Video to make in one day – not too bad but wish I had more time. Working on a pro bono job for a neighborhood organization, and teaching my self PHP coding. Revisiting our web site to add the video we’ve been doing. All in addition to my normal client work.

Next week I go with friends on our garden hoax to Boston. Will visit Holly and see Jane and Jane and Marge and Mike and Pam. Will miss Sally!

My goals for the summer are three fold: 1. Up my technical skills—working on php, 2. Work on creative skills—my drawing gets short changed during the school year, and 3. Get in shape. Been drawing and working on the computer—but getting in shape . . .

Well, the holidays are over and school has started. My first classes were yesterday. Right now I’m headed to VA to my Mom’s to dedecorate her house and to celebrate her birthday! My decorations at home are down except for greens around the door but it has been too cold to deal with that. This new header image is of those greens.

We’re driving down the Delmarva peninsula and it is still cold, but I hear it’s already over 50 degrees in Virginia Beach. So that’s good! Here the ponds are frozen and the fields which will soon have green things growing are all brown and stubbly but the sky is full of birds in “V” formation—I wish flying to Canada but that won’t be until around March. Yeah, I know, in Philadelphia, I still have to deal with Feb. and March but the days ARE getting longer and stuff is starting to grow. Really!

Get’s me making plans for my garden— the catalogs have been coming for almost a month now and we have been having snows that melt slowly watering the ground so I hope there will not be any dry spells this summer to turn my world into a dust bowl.

My back yard has a place that needs seeding but other than that it’s pretty ok—just maintenance and veggies. But the front – under the living room window, is a shady place that is just a mess of pacasandra and a stunted azalea bush that need work. There’s a project to think about.

Or perhaps along the side walk—we could revisit that as well. I like to plant seasonal things along my way from the house to the car. Then, if I’m busy at work and don’t have time to wander my garden, I don’t miss the changes.