September– Hiking, Reading, Movies

September 2025                                                        Most Recent Posts:
Greenfield Mountain Farm                         August was a Great Month but HOT
Afton, Virginia                                                 The Only Good Thing About July

September this year was an unusual month for me.  Because I went west in the spring and came back to swelter in Virginia in the summer, I had already done all the “business” I usually do in the fall like annual doctor appointments,  work on the farm and the tow car.   So I spent most of the month hiking early in the morning each day as it was still in the low 90’s and upper 80’s right to the end of the month,  I then spent many afternoons reading and writing blogs in the air conditioning. My love to Willis Carrier.

One very unusual thing was going to see three movies this month.  I doubt that I see three movies in a year normally.  There isn’t much they put on the big screen that interests me.  But there was this month.

Since I was hiking every morning, I’m going to spread the hiking pictures throughout the books and movies.   I borrowed the book and movie pictures from the internet.

SEPTEMBER 2nd
TUESDAY

I began the month with new hiking boots.  I really hope they will be as good as the ones I literally wore out.

They look wet because I’m hiking early in the morning before the heat but the humidity and dew make the hiking wet.

I also started the month by finishing the book Isola by Allegra Goodman.  I read it on my Kindle   It’s an historical fiction book based on the true story of the 16th century French noblewoman Marguerite De La Rocque whose parents die and her guardian squanders her fortune, sells her mansion and lands and maroons her on an island in the St Lawrence River.   Gripping story on many best of the year lists.

September 4th
THURSDAY 

Early morning light hiking to the lower field.

Today I finished The History of Sound by Ben Shattuck on audio which I also read on Kindle.  This is a book of linked short stories and each one was read by a different author.  Some days I listened to them while hiking and I really enjoyed that and would recommend it as the way to “read” this book.  Each story is narrated by a distinct person.  One was read by Shattuck.  Very interesting.  It won the Mark Twain prize and was short listed for the Pen Faulkner Award.

SEPTEMBER 5th
FRIDAY

I ended my last post with a long picture of the view from my bedroom window.  Today, this is what I saw up close in my backyard.   Isn’t he darling.  Notice the jumper in behind him in the first picture.

It is so wonderful to have the windows open over night and in the early morning.  So quiet.  I’m so grateful for no sirens, barking dogs or cars.  How lucky am I?

SEPTEMBER 7th
SUNDAY

Early morning light on the lower field with the mountains in the distance.

I keep this field mowed because it is good bottom land though it is a distance from the house.  And if I don’t, the woods will move right in within the year.

Today I began a very big reading project.  I ordered a copy of My Faraway One: Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz Volume One 1915-1933 by Sarah Greenough and it came earlier in the week.

  There are 650 letters here selected from the voluminous letters they wrote to each other over his entire life when it only took a couple of days for a letter to move from New York to New Mexico.  Imagine that!  Greenough has selected the letters and annotated them.  The letters are 739 pages of the book.  A very helpful biographical dictionary of people mentioned as well as a Concordance of the Artworks by both Stieglitz and O’Keefe and an index take it to 814 pages.  A hefty book for your lap although it doesn’t look as big and heavy as it is in this picture.   It’s 2 1/2 inches thick.  My goal is to read a few pages of letters each day.

On the back of the title page with the publishing information there is also information about the jacket cover, photographs on various pages and the endpapers.

The flower on the jacket is a dried red poppy enclosed in a letter by Steiglitz to O’Keeffe on August 8, 1929.  Written on an accompanying card “Very very much love. Grown by me near the flagpole”.    I just love the details and annotations in this book.  Reading it slowly will help me savor it.  Having read 3 biographies of O’Keeffe it is much easier for me to understand it all.

Another fabulous thing about this book is its endpapers.   The front endpapers are a blow up of a letter by Stieglitz to O’Keeffe in his handwriting.  Some of his better handwriting from my experience.

The back endpapers are the writing of Georgia to Alfred.

NOVEMBER 8th
MONDAY

A morning surprise for both of us.

This is one of my many outside reading spots on days it isn’t too hot.  Or more likely evenings.

Today I finished Assembly by Natasha Brown, a slim powerful volume.  The narrator is a Black British woman on a treadmill in a country that doesn’t want her.  She worked twice as hard to get where she is at the top of a financial firm.  A coworker says it’s favoritism.  The book is a scathing look at race, class, gender and colonialism in Britain today.  I actually had no idea these problems were there too.  Clipped powerful prose.  I highly recommend its 102 pages.  Not sure why I took its picture with So Late in the Day by Claire Keegan    As you can see, they are both library books.   One of the things I LOVE about being back in Virginia is access to a library.   I love reading real books.

NOVEMBER 9th
TUESDAY

Today was the first of my three movies for this month.  I went with Laurie to see Hamilton with the original Broadway cast and it was beyond FANTASTIC.    What a genius Lin-Manuel Miranda is.  It was over 3 hours long with an intermission and for me it flew by.  I would love to see it again.  If you haven’t seen it, don’t miss it.  If you have seen it, tell me about your experience in the comments.

If you’ve seen it, you know that the part of King George was fantastically played by Jonathan Groff.  I am completely bummed that recorded stage productions are explicitly ineligible for Academy Awards, even though rule changes were made to allow some streaming films to compete.

SEPTEMBER 12th
FRIDAY

More fun in the back yard.  I hesitate to say there was a herd of deer but there were more than these four.  I hustled to grab a very quick picture when I saw them.

Clearly if I ever return to live full time at the farm and want to garden I’m going to have to have very tall fences.

This swallowtail is enjoying the fall honeysuckle.

NOVEMBER 13
SATURDAY

I can see the sun set over the mountains but I cannot see the sunrise.  By the time it gets over the mountains it is far up in the sky.  This morning  it is just high enough to shine on part of the field.

One my favorite benches is off to the left in this picture.  It overlooks a small stream which is at its smallest in the fall.  Early light blazes through.

 

This afternoon I met Laurie at our favorite restaurant in Charlottesville, Botanical Fare.  This is the only picture I took.  She’s looking very pensive.

Later in the day I finished Signal Fire by Dani Shapiro.  I have recommended this book to many friends, all of whom have really liked it as did I.  This story is of two distant but accidentally interconnected families living across the street from each other.  Each chapter is a different year jumping back and forth in time and between first person narrators but easily followed explaining their connection.  Very well developed characters and narrative structure .  You live in this book while reading it.

SEPTEMBER 14th
SUNDAY

Heading out for my hike

Returning

My common farm and hiking attire.  Couldn’t get a full shot since I have no one to take it for me but you get the idea.  Bib overalls, work tee-shirt.

On today’s hike I finished the audio of Orbital by Samantha Harvey.   I always have one kindle or book book and one audio going at a time.

Orbital chronicles a day in the lives of 6 astronauts on the International Space Station.  Each narrates various sections so you get to know them all and their interconnections as they discuss the fragility of human life as well as their fears and hopes as they observe the Earth’s splendor.  It deservedly won The Booker Prize in 2024.  The book is only 136 pages long and the Booker Committee said “it reflects Harvey’s extraordinary intensity of attention to the precious and precarious world we share”.  I listened to this on audio but will read it in book form.  It is quite powerful and deserves a reread.

SEPTEMBER 17th
WEDNESDAY

Today it rained so I Georgia O’Keeffed most of the day.  In the evening I watched the DVD Georgia O’Keeffe with Jeremy Irons as Alfred Stieglitz and Joan Allen as O’Keeffe.
He was excellent but she was not.  The movie really skimmed her life.  Because I know so much about her I was able to fill in the blanks but I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone wanting to find out about O’Keeffe.  It’s a very partial picture.  At some points I yelled at the screen about inaccuracies and assumptions.  Still it is a fine and believable performance by Irons and a wonderful job by Tine Daly as Mable Dodge Luhan.

I was able to get this folio copy of the book Georgia O’Keeffe by Georgia O’Keeffe, published in 1976, from my library.  I was AMAZED.  It’s huge 15” x 23” and beautiful. My hand gives you an idea of its size.  It’s probably the definitive book on her art.  She selected, designed, and supervised its creation.  It includes 108 magnificent full-color plates, some never reproduced elsewhere or publicly shown with her own text.  I spent the afternoon reading it. 

On line I saw a copy of this studio book signed by the author for sale for $3500.  If only I played the lottery. 

And lucky for me, another of the books either about or by O’Keeffe that I have ordered came in the mail.  I’m amassing quite a collection.  Anxious to read this one too.

SEPTEMBER 19
FRIDAY

It was NINETY ONE degrees today and stayed in the upper 80’s for the next few days at the END of September.  Please Fall come on…..

Quite some mushrooms.  I don’t know enough to know if I can eat them but they are huge.

SEPTEMBER 27
SATURDAY

Today I walked to the downtown pedestrian mall in Charlottesville and  had lunch at Timberlakes Drug Store at the old fashioned soda fountain in the rear of the store.  Timberlakes has been in operation since 1917.  Other stores of the era have come and gone and their buildings used by new and not so interesting stores but Timberlakes remains and I love that they are there. 

It’s a full drugstore with pharmacy in the front and the soda fountain in the back.

Sit at the counter or sit at the tables which may also have been here since 1917.

I pick a table, this is my view.

I have an ALT on rye toast (avacado, lettuce and tomato) and a chocolate malt with an extra scoop of malt.

After that I walked over to join Laurie for a showing of a really good documentary film about Georgia O’Keeffe done by Paul Wagner an academy award winning independent film maker who is from Charlottesville.

He wrote and directed and with his wife Ellen produced the documentary “The Brightness of Light” about the life and art of Georgia O’Keeffe.  The narration is done by Hugh Dancy and Claire Danes does the voice of Georgia O’Keeffe.  It has video footage and photographs of O’Keeffe and Stieglitz as well as wonderful photography of her art and the places she lived and worked.  

I thought it was very well done and would for sure see it again and buy a copy of it on DVD if I could eventually get it.  I’m lucky to have been in Charlottesville when this film was shown for a second time with a discussion by its creators.  I had just missed it when I was in Taos.   The Wagners always bring their films first and often to their hometown.  This link will play the trailer for the film.  If you have a chance to see it, do.

September 29
MONDAY

I close out this reading month by finishing the library book The Foursome by Carolyn Burke.  I made it before the due date!

  A very interesting book about two couples whose lives intertwined in the early 20th century.  Paul Strand was a photographic devotee of Alfred Stieglitz who was a generation older than the other three.  Strand was the first to meet Stieglitz who promoted his work as he did O’Keeffe’s.  Georgia O’Keeffe and Rebecca Salsbury Strand became friends through their husbands and later traveled to New Mexico together where both eventually lived.  It’s a group portrait of 4 intense people pulled together and then pulled apart.  I enjoyed this different look at Stieglitz and O’Keeffe and at the relationship they had with the Strands.

On this same day, while hiking, I also finished The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride on audio.  The book won the Kirkus Award in 2023.  It takes place in the Chickenhill Neighborhood of Pottstown PA during the 1970’s and the 1930’s.  Chicken Hill is neighborhood from which most folks would like to move on up.  Jewish Immigrants and African Americans share the problems of being at the bottom of the rung.  A bit of a murder mystery is part of the plot.   An excellent compelling read and extremely well written with a great ending.  I’d love to know if you’ve read it.

SEPTEMBER 30
Tuesday 

On the final day of the month I took advantage of Regal Cinema’s discount Tuesdays to see Downton Abbey:  The Grand Finale.

My friend Mary had wanted me to go with her and some other of her friends early in the month but I needed to catch up to the other two movies which I had not seen.  So I watched the last episode of the last broadcast season and then the two previous movies on my TV. 

In the finale, they did as nice a job as they could do without Dame Maggie Smith as the Dowager Countess Grantham but it just was lacking without her and her pithy comments.  Everything got nicely tied up in the end for all the characters.

And that’s a wrap on my September of hiking, reading and movies.    Let me know if you’ve seen any of these movies or read any of these books and what you thought of them.  Are you getting tired of my Georgia O’Keeffe obsession?