PLANTING ROSES, FINDING CLAY

All pictures from Internet

Some time after we built our first house, way back when the children were very young, we brought a great bucket of rose cuttings from the huge, floppy-armed grasping old floribunda by Mammaw’s back porch.   The next morning, the kids and I went out and started digging holes around the two walls of the house not already gussied up with a row of boxwoods.

About 8 inches or so down, we struck a layer of gummy white stick-to-the-shovel stuff.   We proceeded to trace it sideways and out into a circle, and it was about 14/16 inches wide, and ran N/S as far as we cared to dig. It was a very pale gray, and we figured it went down several feet below that section of the yard.   If it had been a foot wider, I imagine it would have probably been discovered when they dug the foundation. 

The kids got out great bucketfuls of the clear, clean clay, and modeled and sculpted and smeared it on the outside of flowerpots and the birdbath and lots of lawn stuff.   It was just the most malleable, wonderful material (except, of course for the odd little hunk of dirt or rock, brought up in the excavating).

We bagged up some and they kept it moist and took it to school for other kids to see.  It didn’t have the distinctive smell of schoolroom clay---that one of several ingredients which make up the unmistakable scent of learning:  that blackboard and chalk and mint and rubber erasers and little children fresh in from a run in the cold, and maybe strawberry lifesavers and apples.   Occasionally perhaps there’s the lost fragrance of the cheapest toilet water the kids waveringly chose for Teacher's Christmas present---the kind that comes in bottles with a little maelstrom of glitter or a faded plastic daisy inside.

We kept digging that clay up for years, and as far as I know, it still stretches on forever, from way out at the barns on the South, far and away to the woods a half mile north across our fields.  It also may flow for miles in both directions, and might account for the hundreds of pot-shards that the boys found all in the fields over the years---as soon as the first rain after First Turning, they’d walk and look for hours of the day, finding bits and pieces of past lives---some with scribbles and incisings, some with little corners or swoops of patterns and pictures, mostly indecipherable from such small samples, but occasionally recognizable as a bird’s wing, a snake, or the arc of a moon. 

 The finding had been so long ago, that I didn’t think to mention it when we sold the house after moving here, but I don’t suppose the young man would have had any use for it, or would even care to know.

So it was privately, exclusively ours, and lent a little aura of cachet to the children’s standing at school---their own CLAY MINE.   I have no idea why I thought that stray thought early this morning, but there it is.   Memories, no matter how insignificant or fleeting, are the WE of us.

And the roses---they still flourish.  Last time I was there, the immense brambly arms with their blood-red burden reached up and up, scraping the eaves and barricading the windows like Sleeping Beauty’s hedge.

SHEER WISHFULNESS

 

Inspired by the sunshine, the dozen pairs of sheer curtains still in the package since Christmas,  and the words of a wonderful blogger, I’m headed upstairs to take-down-the-old and get ready for the new.

From Kelle Hampton of Enjoying the Small Things: 

I have this made-up theory that detours me from housework--if you can't do it all, don't do any. Don't cross stictch that on a pillow because it will get you no where in life. I think big a lot--sometimes too big. As in, any attempt to clean house must include full overload. I want to do it all in one day--every room, every cupboard, every floor, and if I don't have one 8-hour block of time dedicated to extreme home makeover, I often think "why bother?" I also have this other theory about cleaning--if you're not "feeling it," go buy something new for your house. Don't quote me on that one either because it's just really bad psychology, and our economy doesn't need that kind of thinking. And, for the record, I'm not talking a new fridge for inspiration. Something little--like a dish towel or a candle. It's based on that whole "If you give a mouse a cookie" philosophy in that a sweet new toss pillow might just make you want to make your bed. And then pick up your clothes. And then rearrange your room, dust your dresser, frame new pictures. I once dusted every mini blind slat in my bathroom, spurred by the purchase of new guest soaps.

   The wide sunny windows should take on a lighter, airier flair when we hang their new, gauzy petticoats:

 The sitting room upstairs still looked mostly like THIS last Spring, a little too dull for the NOW:  

What I’m hoping for is a newer, brighter, neater look with the new whiter-than-white sheers---the old ones ARE ten years old, and unbelievably grey when held against them.   That should make a still-cozy but Springified refurbishing of the reading corner when we're done.

(Sans recycle bin, of course---how did THAT get there?)

Of Further Developments, moire non.

CRACKERS

Here’s MY morning greeting today.  It’s sorta a composite of a lot of subjects---the usual flirty little cream and sugar, the big ole heavy green cup that reminds me of fragile lilies of the valley, despite its size and heft---even though the impression of actual flowers is slight, I always think of them, and imagine I smell that elusive fragrance---the design could well be an image drawn in a sketchbook on a lazy Summer day.

Then there are the frog and TWO salamanders---I don’t know quite WHERE Lucy came from; she just appeared last week, snugged up to Larry as if they have plans for the future---if not a DATE, then at least an understanding.

And the raptor---well he’s been hanging out somewhere over in the vicinity of the toytub, left behind by our littlest after their Christmas visit.   That child’s paleontological knowledge is ASTOUNDING for four, and his interest in dinosaurs has been unfailing since I can remember.

  Occasionally the little figure makes his way upstairs, to be found hanging on the birdcage, or lounging nonchalantly beside the can of seeds, or after Christmas, standing threateningly close, peering like a candy-shop kid into the cloche holding two little carolers and a street-lamp.   You could all but see the fear in their faces. 

And all this little tableau makes sense, in our own round-about way:

We got a new (well, technically a used one) canary for Christmas.   He’s a little sweetie, knows his name, loves the sunny spot when you open the front door to the afternoon beams, and would absolutely kill himself eating crackers.  We have to limit his bites to a tiny corner a couple of times a day, and that smart little dude will take the bit from your fingers, hop over to his little tub of seeds, and stick the piece vertically down into the middle.   It’s like planting a tree in sand, and he’ll stand there and bite off bits til it’s all gone.   Guess he doesn’t want to lay it down and bother with getting a mouthful of seeds with each nummy bite.

So, this morning, after Chris did the uncover/feed/water/whistle-a-while routine upstairs, I can just SEE his mind mulling the possibilities---and so my coffee-setting today.   After I moved Green Guy and checked my cup for crumbs, we settled into a nice morning.

Hope yours has been lovely!!

BEANBAG, REDUX

I SO apologize for my tardy, sketchy, erratic postings, and I thank you all for your patience.  For today---a post from a couple of years ago, with fervent hopes that I'll take it to heart, divest of hindrances, and get myself in gear again.

I've been neglecting my duties here, of late, and can only plead busy or distracted or recuperating from the holidays or chasing after a two-year-old, but those can encompass just so much. There's just not much circulating in my fuzzy brain lately, and it's one of those silly things I've contended with all my life---I rarely have an original thought, I think.

I can read the numerous blogs I enjoy every day, and pick up one little idea and just run on with it til the cows, etc., but it seems so inane to copy a thought or a saying or a circumstance, and prink around with it enough to pass off as my own. So I never want to do that. Still, the ideas and the memories are elusive these busy times, and I suppose it's what you might call a dry spell, for want of a better term.

Years ago, I subscribed to about ten of the smalltown papers around the state, just for the news and the fun and the different reporting styles and society doings. I've spoken of one of them in a post last year: http://lawntea.blogspot.com/2009/01/hometown-news.html and the avid readership of all the local publications was surprising.

Once, one of my favorite papers had a little typo which was just too good to miss. A dear, dedicated older woman of great spiritual strength and impeccable character wrote the column for her little area of the circulation---a little community with hardly a name, let alone a zip code. She always closed her column with a Scripture verse, with a few words of encouragement and enlightenment as she was led.

One week, the verse she chose was Matthew 7:3, concerning overlooking our own faults whilst we speak and think harshly of others' sins. And her writing might have been a bit shaky---so many of the smalltown "reporters" mailed in their copy on notebook paper, jotted down between hanging out the clothes and putting on a pot of greens for supper. Or, perhaps, the typesetter was not quite up to par that day---anyway, the line which appeared in the paper, bold-face type and printed for the world to see, was:

"And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the bean that is in thine own eye?"

That was just the most charming, endearing, hilarious thing I'd read in a LONG time. I told it to my family, friends, Sunday School class, and would chuckle or smile at the oddest times when I thought of it. The kids and I made a thing of it---if one of us was not feeling well, we had a bean. If we didn't want to do something, we were hampered because of our bean.

It grew into a long-term silly phrase---I'm sorry I can't help you/volunteer/go/sell magazines/ drive the Cub Scouts/hold an office---I have a bean in my eye.

And so, my lallygag of late has no excuse; I'm sure I'll do better soon and be more regular in my correspondence, as soon as I divest myself of this pesky bean.

PRESIDENTS' DAY

Remembering scents of chalk and chewing gum and the grind of #2 Ticonderogas, the deep, almost-noon odors of snap beans and cornbread and long-boiled macaroni coming from the lunchroom, mingled with the rubber-crumb coffee-ground stuff they sprinkled down to sweep the floors, and the nearer waxy-sweet smell of Crayolas, on February mornings of Ago.   And when the teacher passed around the vinegary, iodiney  flaps of white paper with their purplish-outlined images---Heaven.   There were ALWAYS sheets to commemorate the PRESIDENTS on their birthdays, and the only two that we recognized in that way were Washington and Lincoln.

February 12 was always a BIG ax, with a rail fence, or perhaps a large top-hat, and then on the 22nd, we were handed round the sometimes-still-warm-from-the-mimeograph sheets displaying a little hatchet and a stem of cherries.

Sometimes there was a flag on each, and always their names, spelled out in outlined letters, so we could color them in, as well.

The Lincolns went up on the wall above the blackboards until they were replaced by the  Washingtons, and those fluttered merrily til Easter baskets.   Or maybe Kites.

CHICK CHIC

I just visited one of my favorite blogs, and was pleasantly surprised to see that their lovely English drawing room was brightly decorated with a magnificent collection of colourful roosters.   I’d not have been surprised at some Staffordshire dogs or china spaniels, but somehow, my reference to the bright birds has always seemed to be as part of an Early American Hutch, or a long rail encircling a Country Kitchen, or even trooped along the big old warming shelf of a huge black stove.

But in that chic, elegant golden room---roosters reign from several quarters, casting their colours into the seaside sun.

I have this theory about roosters---of the ceramic or china or anything-in-the painted genre:  Did anyone ever START OUT to collect them?

It seems as if they might have acquired one by chance---perhaps a special one, one which caught their eye by dint of glowing hues or cunning expression or posture or size.   Maybe that first chick-in-the-nest came as a gift, or by inheritance or perhaps at a souvenir shoppe or antiques store.  And next time they saw a mate for it---maybe the matching hen, or another by the same company, they just felt they HAD to buy that one, to keep the first company on the hutch/sideboard/credenza/shelf/other-door-needing-a-doorstop. Then someone saw the pair, decided for the next holiday gift to “add to their collection,” and they were off and running.

A regal one here, a long-tailed one there, here a chick, there a fowl, everywhere a red hen, and the chase was on.

Just like those aunts who coo over that next pair of Hummel children, or the teacher who sweetly accepts yet another Precious Moments bell---were they becoming curators of a museum not of their own making, and caretakers of great numbers of graven objects they didn’t know they chose?   And they WERE choosing, most of the time, seeing just the right one on a weekend, finding the perfect match at a tag sale, unable to resist the expression on the charming little face. 

    The dusting and the polishing multiplied exponentially; the storage shrank with each acquisition, and the sheer numbers branched the décor out from kitchen shelves to den walls to porch nooks, with the speed and volition of a NASCAR.

I love to see those bright ranks of Chanticleers, marching across the screen---the owners have a flair for arrangement and design, and the shiny chicks just brighten a room.   Just the colours must cheer their

mornings and shine up a cloudy afternoon, and the plates and bowls make a welcoming table for almost any occasion save a funeral feast (though if anything could be cheering, it would be those festive fowl).

 

The regal ranks stand in every room of the house, looking perfectly at home in kitchen, dining room, drawing room, and stand patiently contributing their flair and fest to the whole place.   One blog-day is dedicated to “You show me yours . . .” now and again, and I click from screen to screen, admiring and enjoying the colours and poses and cheer.   And most of those guys don’t just look like a barnyard strut; they look as if they’ve just conquered a small country.

But I STILL wonder---does anyone go out, say on a Saturday Yard Sale day, drive slowly past each table-strewn lawn, and in the absence of a flirt of tailfeathers or a bright uplifted comb---do you just keep going?   Or do you pass by the punchbowls and Limoge at an antiques store, just to sprint past the woman in the eyeshade and Keds, to beat her to that tall crowing prize? 

Can any collectors dispel such a silly notion?

Asks Rachel, known far and wide as the Dish Junkie, and who can hardly type for the tempest of teapots nudging her elbows.

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Addendum:  A comment from the very people whose collection and post inspired this---the HATTATTS:

"Oh, we have absolutely loved this post.

We can definitely tell you that our 'collection' came to us a a job lot and we are always at pains to tell anyone who asks that we do NOT collect cockerels, chickens, roosters, chicks, turkeys or any
 other fowl!!!

One of our mothers began many years ago with a single bird and, from that point on, her collection multiplied at an alarming rate. At its height she was the recipient of not only ceramic birds but tea towels with chicken motifs, chopping boards, milk jugs, sugar bowls.....indeed, if a cockerel or chicken motif could be applied to anything or made into anything then that is what she acquired. As the collection grew, pieces of furniture had to be given over to their display, shelves had to be erected to house them and kitchen cupboards groaned under the weight of them!!!

When she died, we did not have the heart to simply get rid of them all, so we selected those which could be housed on the Victorian buffet. We have been careful to ensure that they are not added to in number ever since !!!!!

However, strangely......we are now rather fond of them!!!"

BRIGHTS

An errant ray of sun is peeking through the haze of the kitchen curtains, past all the gnarl of the leafless grapevine, and the yellows of the waiting coffee corner are brightening the whole room.

We seem to be accumulatinig cream-and-sugars at an astonishing rate, and the creamer today is the "Hollandaise Boat," for the big cups require more milk than a usual one.

And Frog and Salamander are also bright little companions almost every morning, for their gaudy camo is a match for pert nigh any china.

You've just GOT to make the most of a day with a blast of sunshine and such a lovely little vignette, arranged by the hands of Somebody Who Loves You, to greet you with First Cup.

And a BRIGHT, BEAMING happy sunny weekend to EVERYONE!

PS   Sweetpea and I went for a long walk after breakfast, crunching through piles of pine needles, avoiding the mud of dippy sidewalks, plunking rocks over the bridge-rail into the little creek, and coming home to a pot of cocoa.  The sunshine and chill mingled to make this first "real walk" of the year a pleasant one.

VALENTINE'S DAY 2012

We had our little Valentine's Day celebration a day early, for it was Caro's day off, and she would be here for dinner---indeed, she COOKED most of it, including a gorgeous 9x13 of "shells,"

stuffed with ricotta, spinach, and herbs, and topped with a sausage marinara and mozzarella.   Mario would have been PEA-GREEN with envy.

And speaking of Green, Sweetpea and I "did crafts" for the better part of the day, and we somehow ended up with the Spring-iest collection of decor:   Yellow hearts, with everybody's faces drawn on, and all strung on a pretty green satin ribbon across the bookcase.    A couple of dozen pipe-cleaner hearts in assorted colors were linked sorta drunkenly across the top of the kitchen pass-through, and a long rectangular paper-doily was festooned with a dump-truck, drawn and colored and with a neat yellow construction-paper tailgate and five little wheely-pastas Elmered across the bottom, like the track-treads of a tank.

The table was set with Fifties square Melmac plates and salad bowls, in several shades of green---one guess as to who chose the "china."    Our only concession to the REDS of the holiday was the thin red vinyl cloth which started life as a big "door-cover" for Christmas, and has been clipped and snipped and re-shaped many times and pressed into use for whatever holiday or birthday requires RED.  Caro supplied some pretty heart-covered plates and napkins for the desserts.

We had a lovely big bowl of Romaine salad, with a tangy vinaigrette and homemade croutons, and a bowl of low-cooked snap beans---the salad missed its moment in camera range, and the beans turned out a Safeway-canned-bean blue in the picture.

There was also a little pot of "geddi," made with a McCormick packet and a can of Hunt's sauce, for those with simpler taste, 

and a beautiful bowl of marinated mushrooms with olives, grape tomatoes and little cubes of Fontanella.   The tiny mince of celery, onion and green pepper in the dressing made a delightful crunch.

A quick shot of my plate---I don't stop for inconsequential things like focus and distance, etc.

Desserts were Red Velvet cookies, a little white-on-white cake, some just-from-the-oven pink-frosted sugar cookies,  a pan of FF brownies and some of those crispy chocolate-covered Keebler finger-stacks,   The little cookie stand was arranged by Sweetpea.

We're in the midst of a gentle, drifting-down white-out, with all the bushes and lawn and trees getting frosted over as thickly as dipped pretzels, and I wish you all a warm bright SWEET Valentine's Day!

HOMEBODIES

This haunting angel is one of many photographed by Janie at Southern Lagniappe.   I was struck immediately by the name---straight out of Faulkner, and by the age of the young woman---just twenty-seven, and by the words “daughter of” on the stone.    My imagination jumped to several women I have known, forever known as daughters of, for they lived out their entire lives in the house they were born in, cared for by or taking care of, their parents. 

Some were not well from birth, in body or mind or both, and some were simply what was known as “dutiful daughters” to the people who had raised them.    Every small town seems to have one or more of these sweet women, home by choice or chance or need, and I remember well the ones who were my friends.     One dear soul, for forty-five years the teacher of Cradle Roll at her church, referred to her Mama as a “semi-invalid”---always; I assumed it was the family’s word, and certainly not a medical term.

I knew her mother, and understood the exact derivation---she lounged her days away on the daybed or the long metal porch "glider," watching her STOW-ries, receiving visitors with a wan smile and a limp hand, and enjoying having her meals brought on a tray, but became remarkably energized and able to sit upright at the Eastern Star luncheons, bridal showers, weddings and quite a few funerals and dinners-on-the-grounds.    Somehow putting on a pretty hat conveyed extra strength and vigor to her demeanor, and though she couldn’t possibly be expected to bring a covered dish, her enjoyment of the collations and buffets and prettily arranged "luncheon plates" was always remarked upon amongst the hostesses.   My Mason/Dixonary should have a picture of Mrs. Snow beside the word “Tolerable.”

In my little heart-town of Paxton lives Mary Calyx (CAL-ix) Diebold---her Mama thought "Mary Alice" was too plain, and she saw calyx in a book and thought it was some kind of flower, not a PART of one.  

Mary Calyx wears blouses and skirts---great wide gathered or gored ones, with plenty of room to get on and off her bicycle without her slip a-showin'. Her gray Soft-Spots and turned-down white anklets can be seen pumping that big Schwinn all over town, especially to the site of any local happenings.

She will never learn to drive a car---her nerves won't allow it. A thick headband holds her wiry browny-gray hair back from her face; a big ole shelf of it sticks straight out over the tight elastic where it touches the nape of her neck, and depending on when she trimmed her bangs last, a spiky ruff sometimes stands across the top of her head like a turkey-tail. 

We’ve all known them---these soft whispers of women.  The quiet demeanor and unobtrusive persona of many a Mary Calyx has graced the lives of almost everyone in the South.  They’re homebodies---not necessarily by choice, but linked to HOME by a physical or psychological thread which holds them like a magnet to the nest.   Perhaps they’re the last chick IN the nest, coddled for their late-in-life arrival or pedestaled as the baby-of-the-bunch.   Maybe Mama and Daddy chose THIS ONE for her domestic skills or shy manner or just because she coddles THEM, and will be an asset in their age.   In some cases, they exert a soft coercion to keep her close, uneducated, shorn of the capacity to choose her own way.

  Like Cousin Glee, hip-joined to her Mama, they go to WMU, Missionary Society, Club---where they murmur and sip and listen, sorting Scripture cards or quilt squares, sampling the tiny sandwiches and asking, "Now, did you use lemon or vanilla puddin' in the Bundt?"

Their hair, clothes, powdery skin---all seem to be made of dry fabric, as if they spend their days pinned on a line in the wind.    And their SELVES are as elusive---sweet and unknowable, like wisps of clouds disappearing as you gaze.

BEANS, BRITS, AND BUGS

Yesterday, Sweetpea’s Mama had a day off, and it was an odd Monday, without Our Girl in the house.    I took advantage of the day a little bit, to get some tabletops cleared and polished, all the accumulated-out-here groceries stashed in the cool store-room, quite a few loads of laundry done, and as much clearing-out of the utility-room drain as a whole quart of Liquid Plumr would accomplish.

The cold of Sunday night and the bag of leftover-from-the-carving ham bits just called for setting a big pot of Pintos to soak for Monday, and so the house was filled all day with the scents of bubbling beans, savory, smoky ham, garlic and onion and a good little bit of L&P and some Louisiana Hot Sauce, just like Justin Wilson used to make.

Didn’t you just LOVE him?

Caro slept in late yesterday, for her nights leading up to that HUMONGOUS House-Party that was our city were filled to the brim with making three-times-usual of their output.   We set 4:30 as our time to meet downstairs for a glass of Peach Tea and Sunday night’s Downton Abbey---we’re both hooked.    It was just lovely, to have the supper done---I’d made the cornbread, and cooked a pot of rice, and she’d made up her usual five or six TUPS of her meals for the coming week, and we’re always welcome to sashay up the stairs for a serving of anything available.

She and I just sat and watched our show, with all those good scents wafting, and the table set for Chris’ arrival, and the beans still simmering on the big black Franklin.

Of course, the hour-long-program took TWO, for before we started, we immediately had to discuss who-do-YOU-think the unknown man IZZZ, and interruptions for “WHAT DID HE SAY?” and all sorts of questions and comments to each other, with whoever was driving the clicker pausing whilst we thoroughly discussed, re-wound, and/or went all the way back to Episode ONE to confirm a fact or conversation.   

Then, when Chris came home, we all sat down to bowls of beans, each fixing a bowl to personal taste (mine stirred with lots more L&P and hot sauce, then crumbled cornbread stirred in, a slice of crisp sweet onion on the side), Caro with hers taken out of the pot to cool a bit before we sat down, and Chris with separate bowls of beans (minced onion and cornbread), and a little rice with a tiny smitch of butter stirred in.  

The conversation was about her work, his work, my day, as always, segueing into one of our usual zany offshoots with everybody chiming in.   We reminisced about Sweetpea's first encounter with a frog last year, with Caro re-enacting SP’s caution as she headed out to work, with wide eyes and breathless voice imitated exactly:  "BE CAREFUL, Caro!!  There’s a FROGGGG out there!”

Then from there, it was all downhill.

Me:  “At least it wasn’t a bug---last Fall, she yelped and ran when just a FLY flew past her arm, and then I couldn’t even get her to watch Miss Spider’s Sunny Patch any more, because there are animation BUGS in it.”

Chris:   “But she still likes that one about the Stinkbug that goes to camp.   What was his name----HERMIE???”

Caro:   “No.    STANLEY was the Stinkbug.   Hermie was the worm.”

Me.   “I thought Hermie was the Love Bug.”

Caro:   “That’s HERBIE---a Volkswagen.   But somehow you’re making YOUR KIND OF sense.”

And on THAT hopeful note, moiré non.

MAGGIE DREAMS

A sweet note just now, from my cousin Maggie, down in Alabama, to brighten these cold climes.   My sunshine outside today belies the chilly temperatures, and yesterday’s icy drizzle was a gray day only to get-in-out-of and into warm comfy clothes, with a quick trip to the kitchen to send the scent of brewing coffee through the house.

Maggie’s garden may well be doing all these lovely things, for it’s far south of us, and because she has a touch---for plants and flowers, a capacity for love that’s absolute and complete, and a talent for the perfect bend to put her sweet face right on the level with the littlest ones, assuring their total thrall and devotion to this dearest of Grandmothers.   

And she always writes in columns, slender bits of pure poetry, though she intends a mere newsy letter, and a  description of the simplest, most ordinary things becomes an ode to the joys of seeing and experiencing and believing.

Just a note from my Dear Maggie:

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX 

Dearest,

Each morning I step out

into a dew-speckled

garden, each drop a

rainbow-studded

diamond adorning

rosemary, tiny lettuces,

pencil thin asparagus

shoots raising their

heads to the sun, baby

carrots growing beneath

the earth, lemon,

orange, and cherry red

tomatoes--a whole salad

bar bedazzled in

morningʼs solar glory.

(Dreaming again)

When February greets

us, as it has, with

sunshine and warm

days, I get lost in a

daydream--thinking of

spring and anxious to

plant a little garden spot.

I can almost taste the

tiny asparagus drenched

in olive oil and sprinkled

with lavendar sea salt.

Folks are saying, if this

warm weather remains,

we will have bugs and

mosquitoes galore in the

summer, but I so love

the warmth of the

sunshine on my face that

Iʼm simply savoring the

beauty of the days.

I just got back from the

early service at church--

stopped by the river on

the way home to sit a

spell and listen to the

waters rushing over the

rocks. Came home and

watched deer roaming in

the woods behind the

house. Now have a

very large pot of

spaghetti sauce

simmering on the oven.

Smells lovely. Oh the

joy of the day!

How are you

sweetheart? Would love

a short note.

Love you to the moon

and back

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX 

Joy of the day, indeed!!  

Sands and drops of the ocean, Maggie---moons and stars.  And the Simple Savor, which is greater than all.

CILLA AT SEVENTEEN

Sis sent me this picture from her Family Wall, after reading my memories of Aunt Cilla and Uncle Jed, and, as Sis said Daddy would have said about the picture, she's "just about the prettiest thang you've  ever seen."

Those shiny little shoes, and the dress, the Cupid's Bow lipstick---she still has a girl's side-part in that stylish bob, but the definite family brow and eyes---she's ours, all right.

And the lapel pin!!  She was marvelous at styling an outfit even at that age.  

Isn't she just as lovely as I said?