Whenever The Wind is High

conduallyIt was very spooky at the Daly Farm this week.  All the Little Britches ponies and riders were dressed up for Halloween.

That’s Connor on the left, dressed up as a firefighter. Connor is riding Dually, who is very pleased with his  wizard costume.

conor1It’s been an exciting couple of weeks for Connor, his sister, Em, and their parents.  They’ve just adopted a puppy named Kailey.   Here’s Em and Connor and Kailey on the right.  I wonder if they know that there is a scary witch’s shadow to the left of EM?

Name Your Life

scarehouseIt was a spooky, rainy weekend here in New England.  I took this photo of my house the other night.  See all the rain spots on the lens?  Or are they actually ghostly orbs?

Devin is working on her college applications and last night she made the mistake of telling me the topic of one of her essays.  It was something like: If you had to come up with a title that would describe your life up until now, what would it be?

Devin joked that she was considering calling her life Of Mice and Bats.

Town and Country

toc_cvr-regA few weeks ago, I received a call from my book publicist. He told me that he had just given my agent’s phone number to somebody at Town and Country magazine.  Town and Country had an idea for me, he said. He actually used the word “collaboration.”  It was something they wanted me to write. They would be in touch by the end of the day

Bridge of Sighs

One of the reasons I haven’t blogged in a few days is because I’m still having problems with my camera. The camera that I loved so much, but dropped in a puddle. So today, I decided to take a few photos with my iphone camera. I am always pleasantly surprised at the quality of the iphone photos. The color is often quite nice. If only it had a zoom. But here are a few shots of what I call my “Bridge of Sighs.” It’s the bridge I drive across on my way home from New York City. When I reach the far side of the bridge I feel like I’m home. Then I sigh.
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The River Hag

Yesterday I went to Steep Rock twice. In the morning, I took Mark. It was sunny and so chilly that I had to wear gloves. Perfect riding weather. We came across my friend Helen and her son Rowan on the trail.
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Helen competes in triathlons, and her son is obviously a swift little fellow. Mark is still on the tubby side and we were left in their dust. My friend Leah started jogging past and we kept pace with her for awhile because Leah and I needed to chat. Eventually, I said goodbye to her and I steered Mark over to the old railroad bed that runs along the road.

Haunted Houses

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HAUNTED HOUSES
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Parental Discretion Advised

I love to be scared, but if you don’t, I advise you not to click on this video. I found this ages ago on youtube. I was looking for “ghost” videos.”

One thing I learned when I moved up here from New York, is that EVERYBODY believes in ghost, and many have seen them in their own homes. In New York, you can ask just about anybody if they believe in ghosts and they’ll likely laugh at you. Here in CT, you can ask anybody, no matter how learned or intelligent; you can ask a nuclearphysicist if he believes in ghosts and he’ll tell you about the one that strides through his hallway every night at exactly eleven.

Get Ready to be Scared

Okay, as I started to explain in my previous blog, I often ride my horse Mark in a local land preserve called Steep Rock. For more on Steep Rock, just look at the right hand side of this page and under “Categories” click on “Steep Rock Diaries”. Not everything there is about Steep Rock, but it’s all about local stuff.

Ode to Autumn

We’re having such a beautiful fall in New England. The trees have never been more brilliant, everybody around here agrees. Was planning to go out and take some photos for my blog but realize that nobody wants to see another foliage shot. So I decided, instead to post John Keats’, Ode to Autumn, which I learned recently was the last poem he ever wrote. It’s a beautiful poem, and maybe because when I read it this time, knowing he was soon to die, it seemed to be a little sad and foreboding. There’s all this abundance and ripe beauty, but the gathering swallows give me a chill.

Pongo Returns

As many of you know, our beloved Pongo died last month. Yesterday my friend Leah picked up his ashes from the vet where we had him put to sleep. The ashes came in a small tin canister. The canister was in a bag from the pet cemetery that cremated Pongo and our other pets who have grown old and died. They always include a plaster imprint of the dog’s paw, with the dog’s name stamped in it, along with a small heart.