Recently, I’ve noticed a little shade being thrown about the deluge of blogging in the ‘90’s. While posting every day is not something that I’m interested in doing, I feel so fortunate that Mrs. Blandings introduced me to so many lovely people. Christopher Spitzmiller would certainly be near the top of that list.

While our paths have not crossed for a while – in fact, most people with whom I’ve crossed paths for the last year share my DNA – I have so much respect for his work, and more so in how he lives his life.

If you don’t follow him on Instagram you’re missing snapshots into a very careful, but not contrived, celebration of the everydayness of living. While that can easily slide by with the swipe of an index finger – or a quick double tap – Christopher has created a beautiful and permanent record of A Year at Clove Brook Farm, his escape in upstate New York.

While the images have some Martha Stewart perfectness about them (he and Ms. Stewart are friends, after all), if you take the time to read the text, you’ll find a very personal tale of how he’s created this refuge for himself and his friends. Not all of it is shiny success and instant gratification. As with any of us, though perhaps on a different scale, he has had to wait, he has had to reconsider and sometimes he has had to redo what he’d already redone.

In the midst of my own kitchen renovation and garden evolution (which, let’s face it, was really more like resurrecting something from the dead), I’ve found his book to be both delightful inspiration and practical resource. It may be just the solace I need if the impending snowstorm has disastrous effects on my peonies.

p.s. If you’re an Instagram fan – quick! – follow Orangerie Garden + Home, Anthony Bellomo’s garden shop and nursery in Millbrook, New York. Bellomo is Christopher’s partner. The shop is heaven.

All photography featured here by Gemma & Andrew Ingalls

When I walked out to grab the newspaper Sunday morning there was a painted rock in the garden by the front step. Squarish and about the size of half a brick, its once dusky exterior is now bright yellow with two large blue dots. I don’t know who placed it there, but it’s a complete delight. While I’d like to thank the artist, the surprise and mystery add to the joy of it.

It was not my first unexpected treat. I have a friend who keeps dropping books without announcing her or their arrival.

“Read – or don’t! I don’t need them back,” said the note included with the first lot. There were a couple in the bag that I hadn’t read, did and enjoyed. I passed along a few others.

A woman in my writing group brings presents to every session. In addition to her story, she’s brought locally-made granola tied with a thin red and white striped thread, wonderful smelling spray hand disinfectant and creamy, rich hand cream.

Another friend texted, “I have an extra yard sign if you want it.” I did. We had a long visit when I picked it up, which was a gift itself. The sign in my yard is now spreading energy, though possibly less well-received than books or granola.

I’ve sent a few treasures out into the world myself. I find I am circling back again and again to the work of ceramist Momoko Usami. Her pieces are beautifully executed and often whimsically colorful. Sometimes they incorporate movement.

The engagement of lifting the lid on the Inro Box – or the leg of the sunbather – is a delight. I am enchanted by her Bird Cage Box. It’s impossible to not smile back at her clever lip balm. I won’t lie. I did buy this for myself when I ordered one for a friend.

Along those lines, last Sunday I bought more than 100 bulbs for the garden. (There’s a plan tumbling about for more boxwood, too, but as is the garden, I am slowing down.) I chose three different varieties of tulips that will bloom early, late and “very late” (with which I have a lot in common.) Let’s hope they will bring a little joy in the Spring, to keep and to give away.

Coming out the back door today I came across the big rabbit. I haven’t noticed many rabbits in the yard as there hasn’t been much here to munch. He turned up later in the fall when most of the leaves were already off the trees. He seems to live under my deck, which is a small rectangle off the back door with wide steps down to the brick patio. The sides of the deck are covered in right-angle trellis – square upon square next to square – and I’ve watched him slip under the bottom slat through a sliver of an opening that does not look as if it would accommodate a squirrel. (Though if a squirrel wanted in – whether he could slip under or not – he would gnaw his entry, even knowing he was unwanted there.)

The rabbit looks like a hare from a Chinese drawing, the type that you would see in a museum, with each curved hair of his coat defined, each whisker a distinct line. His body is full, though I don’t know if it’s fat or fluff. He is the size of designer bag carried by a woman who needs to announce either her rise or her arrival, depending on the indulgence of her spouse. If he stayed still for me to pick him up, I would need to use both hands. This is why his escape under the trellis is remarkable.

We’ve been running into one another quite a lot. I don’t know if he’s new to the neighborhood, or has just discovered the just-right shelter of my back stoop. Regardless, I like him. My arrival often causes him to startle, though his reaction is freeze and not flight. The sudden subtle movement of the tightening of his muscles makes me start and – embarrassingly – say, “Oh!”

When I recognize that it’s he I greet him in low tones. We both stay still and watch one another.  I ask him about his day and if he has children and if he’s finding enough to eat now that the grass is brown. He’s too shy to reply, but has been raised well enough to not run off while I’m speaking.

I know a gardener who shoots pellets or some such things at the rabbits in his backyard.  He is protecting his hosta and the new growth of his established garden.  I hate the cruelty and futility of this. Last Spring, I mentioned it to my friend who is a master gardener.  I expected her to reply in disgust, but instead she told me how she traps the chipmunks and baby rabbits in her yard and then drowns them in a large bucket.

“You do not!”

“Well, they could hold their breath,” she says with a shrug and a sideways smile.

My garden is new.  Just this last year I planted lilac trees to flank the stoop.  New hornbeams, that are nothing more than seven-foot tall sticks, stand sentry across the back fence gathering their forces to provide a screen to the house behind.  I did not get the tulip bulbs planted, so there’s no worry of assault there.

There are a few hosta on the side of the house, but they are a part of a section that is a jumble as my neighbor removed a tree that has changed the light.  They were noticeably shrinking by the end of the summer, the edges of their leaves brown and curled in upon themselves.

This is not what I see when I look at the yard. I see ferns by the feet of the faux bois bench and dozens of boxwoods stretching to make a low border around the beds. Hopefully by next year these fantasies will be reality, but for now they live only in my mind’s eye.

This is why the rabbit and I can be friends. The newness of my garden means there is no need for either of us to be hostile to one another. This may change. But for now, as I leave the house in the clear light of morning or come back as everything is in shadow, I look forward to seeing him.  His feelings toward me are unknown.