Halycon Days

Ah, it was so lovely today. Over forty degrees and with actual blue skies and sunshine. I spent most of the day cleaning house. There's something about the bright light pouring in through the windows that highlights all the spiderwebs in the corners and the smudges on the switchplates. It's amazing how much better I feel about my house when I've spent some time with the old spit and polish. I suppose that's one of the first things to learn if you want to have a lovely house- clean it.

Normally I love rooms with color, but today I'm loving and feeling happiest about simplicity and big windows that let in lots of light. Maybe with lots of plants and gardens around.




Both pictures were taken Gene Stratton-Porter's Cabin in the Wildflower Woods, near Rome City, IN. The room is her solarium/greenhouse. It makes me want to repot plants and maybe start some seeds on the windowsill. Then curl up in her rocking chair with some crochet and while away the rest of the sunny afternoon.

I visited the Gene Stratton-Porter Historic Site i.e. the Cabin in the Wildflower Woods late last spring. Firstly, doesn't it sound blissful to you to live in a cabin in a wildflower woods? But almost more importantly, I wanted to see her cabin in the woods because of how I admire her, not just as one of the most famous authors of the early 20th century (her books sold millions of copies in the 1920s), but as a pioneering naturalist and ecologist. She fought against the draining of wetlands, like the Limberlost Swamp and took important documentary photographs of rare butterflies and birds in those wetlands. And her books, well, there's no cozier or comforting writer to read. I know that it's a fallacy to say that the past was a simpler, easier time, but her books really read like they're from simpler, happier times. Reading them now makes me feel like reading the Little House books did when I was a little girl- like everything is, or could be, right with the world.

Wishing you halcyon afternoons and spring flowers,

Rose