Everything’s coming up roses… or it would if the dang sun ever stayed out. Still it is a  joy to be at Bee Cottage for a bit. And as roses ramble, so does this post…

I put the photo below on Instagram a few days ago. I’m still getting the hang of Instagram. My niece is here visiting now. She will help her poor ol’ Auntie.

Roses at Bee Cottage, via Instagram

We planted more roses in the garden last year, all David Austins, and happy to say horrid storm Sandy did not  phase them. They’re full of buds. Looka here.

Roses at Bee Cottage

Can’t say the same for my grape arbor felled by the neighbor’s tree. All winter it looked like a bird with a broken wing. Pitiful.

Bee Cottage, broken arbor after hurricane

The guilty tree.

The guilty tree, rent asunder by hurricane Sandy and crashed upon the arbor

I let it stay that way ’til spring. My friend Alex Hitz said his grandfather once told him, “Son, you do what you can do, and sometimes you can’t even do that.” Well this was one of those times.

Bee Cottage, broken arbor after hurricane

Until last week. Finally it is restored thanks to the heroics of carpenters Basilico and Juan. The silver lining is that with the big, overhanging beech(?) branch gone, there is more light and air for this magnificent kousa dogwood.

The neighbors' kousa dogwood

My heart goes out to those less lucky in that historic storm’s path, as clean-ups and repairs continue all around the northeast.

I mean WTF with the weather?! It was rainy and cold for much of my three weeks in Europe, and it is rainy and cold here in New York. It’s all in the papers there and here about how the birds are confused and the flowers are flummoxoned* and the bees are bamboozled. Joking aside it really is worrying.

*Flummoxoned is a word I have only heard used by my husband (His Grace, for new readers). I think he made it up, but I like it. It is flummoxed with an extra syllable of angst, and yet you somehow think things will be all right.

Doing what they can for birds, bees, and flowers is the wonderful Madoo Conservancy in Sagaponock (more on Madoo gardens coming soon), where I went to a party the other night, which was outside of course. In defiance of Mother Nature I wore a festive summer frock, by golly I did.

Froze, I did.

Also there in festive summer frock was adorable Kelli Delaney Kot, whose all Hamptons-all-the-time KDHamptons.com has become indispensable to anyone even thinking about the Hamptons. It is interesting, fun and well done. Like her. And lo, there is a reprise of a profile she did of Bee and me last summer wherein I am wearing a doo-rag. (I did not know they were going to take my dang picture. It is an Hermes doo-rag, but still. There is no going back from it once you put one on.)

Another thing about the storm and the the newly liberated dogwood is that it now peeks over and sees its cousin kousa at the front of Bee Cottage.

Bee Cottage. The dogwood at left is complimented but that of my neighbors, at right.

Don’t look at how that ivy needs trimming. That’s another thing I can’t get to yet.

But wait, here comes the sun… dappling a window sill at Bee, looking out under the undefeated grape arbor.

I posted this pic, too. I am clear into double digits on Instagram now.

Window at Bee Cottage, with the restored grape arbor in the background. The bone dragonfly was a gift from Nina Griscom. (The Rose and the Dragonfly -- sounds like an English pub. Or a Stieg Larsson novel)

You have to be diligent about dead-heading roses in rainy weather. Which is going to stop soon. I’m sure of it.

Deadheading roses at Bee Cottage