The woods are bright and lovely lit,
And I will make this time to sit,
And smile at them a little bit…
And smile at them a little bit.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Light
Tag: garden
A Rosy Posy
About a month ago, someone plowed our garden spot. Then he tilled it. Then he harrowed it. Then he marked it into rows. Then he planted and planted and planted. Onions, cabbages, corn, tomatoes, all are out there. Everything is growing. The corn is two inches tall. Last night, I got this gorgeous posy:
It is more than just a clump of radishes.
- It is saving and scrimping to buy land.
- It is buying and maintaining a tractor.
- It is watching weather and planning ahead for planting.
- It is keeping a vegetable inventory, to know how much to plant each year.
- It is changing diet to fit what grows in our area.
- It is walking out to the garden every day to be sure things are okay.
- It is stringing irrigation hoses out there and paying for water when the rain refuses to fall.
- It is seeding it over in autumn with crimson clover so we either get a cover crop or else some venison.
- It is buying and maintaining a small tiller for between rows, later.
- It is researching through gardening books for help with pests and diseases.
- It is sharpening and oiling the hoe, shovel, and rake.
- It is pulling rocks out and chunking them into the ditch.
- It is winding twine round and round and round stakes to support plants.
- It is shredding piles and piles of newspapers for mulch.
- It is staying up late and going out with a dorky “headlight cap” on and covering tender plants before a surprise frost comes.
All of the above, and more, go into the first bouquet of the vegetable gardening season. And here it is, held in the hand that provided it, the hand of someone who, though he doesn’t eat many radishes, knows who does.
All My Men Have Been Good to Me – Dad
I wrote of my dad already, but left much unsaid.
A WWII veteran, my dad was a factory worker. He lifted heavy bags of plastic pellets into a machine that turned out knobs, duck calls, and laundry baskets, at high temperatures. He seldom took sick leave and came home exhausted every night. For that he received $100 per week and a party sometime in December.
Yet he had such energy left for tomfoolery! He played with us kids as if he were one himself. Airplane rides (on his feet), jigsaw puzzles, carom games, goofy drawings, and croquet were among his repertoire. He made the stand for our carom board, himself, without any plan or pattern. He also made several bookcases and two desks the same way. And he repaired our toys.
One play activity he initiated with us was about trust. Did he think it through and decide to teach us trust? Maybe not—he was having fun. He encouraged and coaxed us to fall backward into his hands, if we believed he was strong enough to catch us. Was that ever hard to do! And how insulted he acted when we were scared to try it! He never dropped us, though, and we learned something, I think.
When his family grew, he built an addition to the house, himself. Alone. He hired help with digging and pouring the basement, and with the rafters. All the rest he did with our help. We gained a new living room, bedroom, basement, and bath. It was hard, but he did it. He wired, plumbed, hammered, sawed, plastered, sanded, and varnished. And I still can back any nail out of any board, no matter how bent or stuck. Just ask my kids.
He kept a huge garden, too. Corn, tomatoes, beans, and cucumbers, I remember. Sometimes he hired it plowed in spring, sometimes he could only afford to burn it off and attack with a shovel. But he had a big-wheeled cultivator and we pulled weeds. And there is still something about pulling weeds that pulls me into the garden.
How I loved to sit on his lap while he watched television! Mostly I did not watch, but just nestled and played with his hands. I twirled his wedding ring round and round his finger and rubbed the calluses on his palms and ridges on his fingernails. Sometimes he would give me one quarter of one of his Throat Disks from their slender tin he kept in his pocket. He also had a smaller tin of tiny, black Meloids that were too spicy for me.
One thing bonded me to him more than any other. When I was very little, he would give me piggy-back rides. He sat on a big chair while I climbed up to grab hold around his neck, then he stood up and bounced me around the living room. What fun we had! The day came, though, when the ride was over, I slid down his back, and my leg caught on a screwdriver in his back pocket. I screamed. He was absolutely heartbroken. I had never seen a grown-up cry before and it riveted me.
Oh, to be that concerned about my own precious children!
An Odd Egg
What a difference in these two eggs! Each appeared during this flip-flop season we call “spring”.
Spring is such a time of turmoil in our area—flower and leaf buds popping out everywhere, new birth, chickens beginning the new laying season, tornadoes—I wonder how we survive it.
Spring’s natural beauty forces us to love her. The amazing fragrances and forms of blooming things, the pearlescence of eggshells and the fragility of baby chicks, the mew of kittens, the peeping of hidden frogs, all work on us, draw us to that perennial love affair with spring.
So we roll up our sleeves, kick off our shoes, and pull our hair up into ponytails to catch the sun on our skin. We pull weeds, freshen flags, mow too soon, plant too soon—anything to be outdoors, to come inside smelling like spring. We paint lawn furniture, divide potted plants, and attend herbal festivals, filling our lives with projects to prepare us for spring.
But no-yolk and double-yolk eggs most remind me of spring. My dad had a collection of odd eggshells that appeared on the same day as tornadoes. He always said the tornado scared the hens and caused them to lay odd eggs. I think he believed that. Maybe it is true. He labeled each shell with the date of its corresponding tornado and displayed them on egg cups, for which they were far too large or far too small. He always loved curiously humorous events.
He’s been gone, now, about 12 years. So much has changed. I doubt he ever guessed I’d be telling the whole world about his eggshell collection, one day. I doubt he ever guessed what an impact he had, in the daily humor of life.
But I do not doubt he lived life, squeezed everything he could out of it, love it, with one hand held palm-upward, trusting, waiting for some blessing to fall into it, be it only an odd eggshell.
And he was not disappointed.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Spring
Look what my camera did to a perfectly sultry spring dawn!
In the heavens He has pitched a tent for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion . . . It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is hidden from its heat. Psalm 19:4b-6
We are fighting a discouraging case of bronchitis here, but did have time to send a couple snaps of this glorious sunrise on this hot spring day. Enjoy!
Weekly Photo Challenge: Home
My Secret Recipe for a Home
Winter’s laundry hanging by the wood heater.
Homegrown bouquets.
Porch plants sharing spaces with us in winter.
A teakettle that whistles.
A coffeepot, not a coffee maker.
A few herb plants growing around the house.
A garden plot.
A rosebush or two.
Homemade curtains and crocheted do-dads.
Quilts made by someone you know.
Lots and lots of ancient books.
Art made by someone you know.
Little places for the little people you love.
A well-worn broom.
Floor lamps, pillows, afghans, lace, birding books.
Oh, and lots of love, laughter, tears, and prayers.
My Grandmother’s Quilts
I just want to tell you about my grandmother, Laura, this time. I am a grandmother, and when I was little, I always wanted to be one. When I need inspiration, I remember my grandmother, Laura. Life is so different, now, though.
I know she was elderly because she had arthritic knuckles, gray hair, and a craggy voice. She wore a dress at all times, and she wore shoes with thick, high heels that tied on, sort of like men’s dress wingbacks, perforations and all. Do they even still sell those?
She sewed all her dresses. And sometimes, as a gift, she sewed my mother a dress, too. And she sewed the first dress I ever wore when I was very tiny. I know she made these dresses, because she made a quilt for each of her grandchildren. She did not go to a store for fabric for these quilts. No, she used fabric scraps from sewing dresses. When she made my quilt, she was careful to use many scraps from my mother’s and from my dresses.
I look at the quilt she made for me and I see the dress my mother wore to church in summer. I see a dress my grandmother wore. I see my very first, ever, dress I wore when I was tiny.
I don’t know how my grandmother found the time. She babysat three children, to make an income, because she was widowed when my mother was six. She used her entire, small backyard as a strawberry patch and put up all those berries or traded them for peaches and crabapples to put up. She made her own soap on the wood stove in the woodshed for all washing needs, for clothing, dishes, and bathing. She heated with wood or coal. She did laundry in the woodshed using a wringer washer and hanging it out in summer or in the woodshed in winter, when it froze.
And she prayed. I mean, she really took time out to pray. She would tell us not to bother her while she prayed, she would go to her room and shut the door, and she would pray.
When we visited her, we played with her one box of toys, leftovers from when our aunts and uncles were little. We loved these odd toys that didn’t do anything except prop up our playtime. She let us watch while she made us rolled-out sugar cookies in shapes like stars, hearts, and flowers. When we asked for colored sugar, she told us it tastes the same. We didn’t believe it.
One wonderful time, I got to sleep with her because I was the oldest and probably would not kick too much. I got to watch her unbraid and comb her hair, which was far beyond waist length. Seeing my grandmother in her gown in the moonlight by the window, combing amazingly long and wavy hair, made her seem to me like an angel. I was in awe.
Then she broke the spell by rebraiding her hair. She never used a rubber band, but simply pulled a strand of hair and wound the end of the braid like a fishing lure. I was filled with questions, then. Why do you braid your hair to sleep? How does it stay in place with no rubber band? I don’t remember her answers, but only my awe and her amusement.
She died about 48 years ago. I still miss her. I still want to be like her when I grow up.
Here is the quilt she made for me. You can see light red and white tiny checked fabric on the bottom, just right of center. That was my baby dress. It had teensy rickrack on it.
Just right of that is a sort of black and pink tattersal with pink x’s. That was my mom’s summer Sunday dress for awhile. It had white lace at the neckline.
Parly out of view on the left is a white with black swirls. My grandmother wore that. There we all are, in one quilt.
Home's Cool! 