Tag: Home and Garden

Tidings of Comfort and Joy…

On By newenglandselkieIn Christmas, Home and Garden, Maine, New England, Period home, photography, Slow living, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Early holiday greetings, Friends! I have once again let time slip away from me since my last visit to the blog world. I apologize!

This year more than most, I feel like the holiday season arrived at the door before I was ready. I have been trying to fit everything in, but it’s been some loong nights! One of my biggest Christmas wishes is to some day have enough time to do all the projects and crafts and baking that I would love to do! In the meantime, I do what I can in the weeks leading up to the holiday.

Those who know me best know that once December 1st rolls around, I become a pinch of Buddy the Elf, a dash of Clark Griswold, and a bit of Tasha Tudor. Whatever room I am in has either the Westminster Choir or Bing Crosby crooning in the background. The kitchen smells of spice, orange, and cranberry most evenings. The closets are stuffed with wrapping paper rolls that will likely crash into the head of anyone who dares crack the door open. The candles in the windows hold vigil each night. And the greens are everywhere…the trees, jugs of holly, sprays of boxwood, cedar, and juniper…

The trees are like memory boxes opened just once a year…ornaments recalling previous trips, beloved pets, momentous occasions, anniversaries, favorite hobbies, tattered childhood projects…They are also a celebration of history and the outdoors…apples and oranges slices similar to Williamsburg decorations, starfish and mussel shells in a nod to our coastline, dried flowers from the garden, birds nests and tiny twig woodland creatures…

This year, I tried to experiment with ornaments as gifts. In the autumn, I collected the last of the blooms and greenery and tries to press them into clay. Success was variable, depending on what I tried to use, but I was quite pleased with some of them. I’m hoping that in our fast paced world, a homemade gift is still appreciated. They were certainly made with love.

Which brings me to the heart of the season…finding joy in all the preparation, and the giving and receiving of love. I think that the reason that I enjoy Christmas so much is that it is a time to reflect, appreciate the simple things, and take the time to reconnect. Spending time with family is the greatest gift of all.

So I’d like to take a moment to invite you in for a Briar and Bramble Christmas. No matter where you are or whom you are, take a moment to find comfort and joy in the next few days. Thank you for being here. I’ll leave you with a post that I had written for friends last year…it is still relevant this December-

“As Christmas approaches in this most troubling of years, I can’t help but think of how the world has faced adversity around the holidays in crises past. Despite wars, natural disasters, personal losses, or financial hardship threatening to “cancel Christmas”, it always comes. If people open their hearts to the season and those around them, whether near or far, it always comes and brings a little light and cheer. So while everyone has experienced some adversity this year, great or small, find a bright star somewhere. My heart breaks for all the families with empty seats at the table, and I will hug my loved ones a little closer…even if it’s in thought rather than deed. Those who know me best know how much I love the holiday season. So I never considered anything other than decorating as if were any other year and as if the whole family was coming, as had been planned for the last (now, two) Decembers. It will be quiet here at this home we have come to love, but I’d still like to share our preparations. Come on in…”

So please, take a tour and you are most welcome to our home. Be safe, be well, and Merry Christmas!

Projects, People, and the Passage of Time…

On By newenglandselkieIn cottage, Garden, Gardens and Orchards, Home and Garden, Maine, New England, photography, Uncategorized2 Comments

Hello Friends…finally settling in to put up a few blog posts…I apologize for my lack of updates. I had unrealistic expectations this summer! I had hoped to be posting weekly- keeping up with the changes in the gardens, updating the project reports, and sharing recipes and decorating ideas as we hosted friends and family. This is honestly the first day in a month and a half that we have sat quietly. And that’s only because of a steady rain. We need it though…my husband and I (and even our pup) have been navigating a restless sea this summer. Each little wave crashing over us has been it’s own summer swell.

Some have been lovely…we have been able to open the door of Briar and Bramble to guests finally…and family and friends have filled the house with laughter and love. Some of our visitors came looking for quiet calm and a moment of peace in their hectic lives. Some came looking for adventure along the midcoast. Friendships and familial bonds were reaffirmed, and new friendships forged (Bramley bonded with all his visitors…both two and four legged!).

The gardens, porch, and patio have been constant comforts. They have hosted lobster dinners and cakes by candlelight, lazy breakfasts and board games, and they became the place to watch bumblebees, birds, chipmunks, and meteor showers. The phoebes fledged from their nest in the porch eaves, and for two weeks straight, we listened to the juvenile barred owls screech to each other in the night once we turned off the string lights and doused the lanterns.

I have found joy and solace in my gardens…coaxing then to grow, delighting in each new bloom, obsessively fiddling about in evenings ‘til dark…weeding, watering, deadheading, trimming, harvesting…I find it calms me after constant stressful days at work. My summer routine has been to come home, reflect on the day with my husband, cuddle Bramley, and then throw on my wellies and head out into the garden or the meadow.

Ah…the meadow. Many of you may be familiar with the struggle of the meadow project. It has slowly evolved from a jumble of felled timber, to overgrown brush, to stump field, to parched and barren dirt and weeds…to a wildflower meadow. But…that’s a story for another post.

So there has been much happiness this summer at Briar and Bramble. We are so thankful to have this sanctuary to call home and to share with those we hold dear. But I have a confession to make as well.

I’m tired.

I am blessed to be able to live in a beautiful home and to create my version of a life pulled from the pages of a magazine. But I will be honest…it is work. I wanted to give my guests (and myself and my husband) an experience…a perfect, peaceful, old fashioned New England summer vacation. (I sound frightfully like Clark Griswold…just wait til we hit Christmas season!) Hopefully, that’s what they had. But I have been a bit like that proverbial duck who looks placid on the surface while paddling furiously below the water line! I love being the hostess and custodian of our home (with my husband, of course!), but I tend to put a lot of pressure on myself to try to make everything beautiful. And our list of projects only gets longer, despite finishing many of the tasks we had set for ourselves. Add to this the daily stresses of the outside world, work, schedules, and unforeseen events such as a loss in the family, and well…I’m tired. So many of us come into the blogosphere to present a perfect picture. I can tell you that creating that and living it is wonderful and rewarding and one of my most treasured achievements, but it’s work! The rain, then, is a welcome respite and reason to sit and recharge.

And there is no place that I would rather be.

(I’ll follow this by a few additional brief posts showing some of our recent projects, the meadow, and a few final thoughts from recent days. Thanks for stopping by…)

Blooming at Briar and Bramble

On By newenglandselkieIn cottage, Garden, Home and Garden, Maine, New England, photography, Slow living, Uncategorized1 Comment

Wishing you all a very happy June! It’s been very busy here…any time at home is spent working on projects or planting. There’s a new landscaped lawn we have been working on and a new potting bench area. My to-do list constantly gets longer rather than shorter, and even the extra hours of sunlight each day are not enough. But, I did want to start a (hopefully) regular posting of what is “Blooming at Briar and Bramble”. I hope that you enjoy the gardens as much as I do!

Busy as Bees…

On By newenglandselkieIn cottage, Garden, Gardens and Orchards, Home and Garden, Maine, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Wishing you a good Sunday morning here from the porch of Briar and Bramble! There is birdsong in the air (and the distant traffic), the leaves are that almost fluorescent shade of yellow-green, and the clouds are thickening over the Bay and turning a shade of blue that mirrors the surface of the water. I have started my summer tradition of a lazy Sunday breakfast on the porch this morning, and thought it was about time that I give an update.

I’ve had several blog posts started in my mind…I just haven’t had time to actually compose them! Early spring is a busy time here…the weekends are spent working on the big projects that we have envisioned for the house and the property. Although we have several acres, when we first moved here in 2019, the cleared areas consisted of a tiny bit of front lawn, a patch of weeds and stony dirt behind the house, a front “field” of tree stumps, and a vast sea of poison ivy and Virginia Creeper. The house had been recently renovated when we found it, but had not been consistently lived in for years. So nature had taken over again. Or really, poison ivy had claimed it in a hostile land grab….

So, we seem to have started a yearly April and May tradition of pulling up vines and attempting to reclaim land. It’s not fun, but it’s absolutely worth it. (Despite the perpetual itchy rashes…we have tried multiple poison ivy relief products too. I don’t have any advertising deals on the blog site, so I can tell you in an unbiased manner that basically nothing works. My best advice is: try not to scratch. 🤷‍♀️

Anyway- this year, we had some professional help. We had the stumps removed and buried and the front field cleared. It was a massive relief to get this done. Last summer, we watched the stumps try to regrow, and a tangle of scrub brush seemed to come from thin air. It was disheartening to know that we couldn’t keep up with it ourselves. So….my dreams of a meadow are much closer to reality now….roughly an acre has been cleared, and we spread wildflower seed and Blue Seal Equigraze grass seed. There are patches of green just starting to emerge from the expanse of brown. We desperately need rain though. Our hose and best intentions can’t keep it watered.

A few other projects are also either completed, or are at the “hurry up and grow” phase- the front yard has been extended and planted with grass seed and lupine, a partially shaded culvert in the backyard has been cleaned of underbrush and planed with a partial shade wildflower seed mix, several more lilac bushes have been put in (thanks to a friend who needed to thin hers out), and we now have a wisteria arbor. (We foraged our woodlot for sturdy winter blow downs and built a rustic frame). Finally, the patio that we created last summer got a new burst of color…I repainted the chairs in a cheery sea foam green and our DIY screen door was put up. (The screen door will get its own post at some point. It was a discarded frame that we found along the side of the road. We had a lot of laughs…and a few groans…transforming it into a useable piece!)

This past week, I have spent every free moment visiting my favorite garden centers and planting the gardens. I’ve been impatiently monitoring the weather and the temperatures for weeks now- watching the perennial beds slowly come to life, and coaxing seed trays in the guest bedroom. (That’s another separate post…it will be all about good intentions and glossy internet articles vs what happens in real life…)

Writing this reminds me that I have new yard project to begin, a car to wash, weeds to pull, flowers to water, and a cake that needs decorating…life at Briar and Bramble can be as busy as a bee’s….but we still take Sunday mornings to enjoy it!

(Sorry for the unintended blogging break…thanks for reading…I’ll be posting more often in the summer as garden blooms unfurl, patio and porch lights twinkle in the evenings, and the sailboats dot the bay…🌸)