Hawk's Run Journal

An Open Letter to All Christians

2012-01-14T11:49:00.000-08:00

thought

about

waiting

until

felt

better

write

about

this

but if I do it might not get written.

So please bear with me, because we have been battling an unusually bad flu here at our house and feeling pretty lousy. And emotionally, I am a bit fragile... like most people, because there seems to be so much tension in the world. There's a lot of suffering, and I'm not talking about not being able to afford the newest iPhone kind of self pity- I am talking real life and death suffering. Nearly everyone running in the political arena seems to have left decency behind somewhere, and no one seems to be able to get along on the small decisions let alone the big ones. This week personally I have run into more assumption making personalities than I have ever before encountered. And truthfully, it's worn me out. But that's not what really got to me this week. What really got to me was perhaps the single most saddest conversation I have ever had in my life. In 41 years, I have had a lot of conversations. I knew the conversation would happen someday- and it shocked the hell out of me when it occurred last night. It's very important that I stress that it's not the conversation itself that saddened me. The content of the conversation was something I had long suspected but never had real evidence or proof that what I thought was happening was, in fact, happening. To preface, I am having a lot of personal conflict with my religion of Christianity. This has been going on with me for far more of my life than not. My Faith, however, has never ever been stronger. But this is a tough place to be. To say I feel isolated is an understatement. I should feel anything but isolation amongst my fellow Christians, right? But I do feel isolated. I used to think, it's just me. Now I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, it's not just me. In what seemed to be a statement out of left field my friend said someone she loves recently converted from Christianity to Islam. In what has been months upon months of watching the people I love in Christian faith speak so violently against another faith, I had about a million questions that had been swimming in my mind ready to be asked. But two were the most important, and I was almost sure I already knew the answers.

I began with a simple Why? Why leave Christianity for Islam? Because he felt like he was lacking something in his spiritual life he began to look at other faiths in hope of finding peace. "When his Christian friends and the churches in his community couldn't provide what he needed, the Muslim community of his town was very welcoming." I put that in quotes because it is a near direct quote, and it's a statement that hurt my very soul. Not because the Muslim community was so supportive, but because my fellow Christians had no idea how to reach out to one of their own. "While churches here are having seminars about "What is Islam?" and other things that focus on breeding fear and anger, the classes he has attended at the Mosque...and Friday night Halaqa... focus on you and your relationship with God. He may have been able to find this somewhere, in a Christian setting...and he doesn't deny that fact...but, through a series of events he was drawn down a spiritual path that led to Islam." I wanted to rewrite that last quote because, in a sense, I feel that I am openly sharing a conversation that was very personal. But I think this is a message every single person of the Christian faith must hear- and hear it loud and clear. When we cannot show the love of Christ to our very own people of faith, how on earth do we suppose we can show that love to someone struggling to find faith? Too many times I see these messages of hate being broadcast publicly, with rallying support of every Christian in the room- literal or virtual- and all the while driving the division between Christianity and the rest of the world they seek to save so much deeper than before they opened their mouth, and not their heart. Do

I get his conversion? Without a question, Yes. But that didn't answer the question that burned within me like a fire. What about Christ? What about Jesus? How could He fit into this Islam? Was there any way this man turned his back on Christ? The answer was this.

"He always felt like his question of Jesus' divinity wasn't ever fully "answered"... he couldn't accept the "just because" of it. Islam's Jesus answered that question for him. Jesus as a prophet...as were Muhammad, Moses, Abraham. In Islam "there is no God but God."

For me, that was a lot to take in. And I took a few deep breaths. If there is any major stumbling block in faith it is the acceptance of something you have no earthly means of proving. Am I lucky because I believe the miracle of the Jesus birth to be true? I don't know. But I believe it with all my heart. Is that in itself a gift from God, or is it just blind faith? I don't have those answers.

What I do know is that a person searching their soul for truth should not feel an outcast amongst those of his own faith. I also know that a faith that holds Jesus on the highest pillar for the world to see is having a very difficult time showing anyone outside their church walls the love of Christ. I also know that you change no heart by attacking violently, through words, or deed, that which your so-called enemy holds dearest. Jesus came quietly, in Love.

So I ask you, Are you coming to the world in Love, or are you coming to the world in anger and fear? ...Things that look an awful lot like hate. As a Christian, you represent Him. Are you representing Him and what He asked of you, or are you boastful in your knowledge of how wrong the other faiths are?

In the end, our faith is between us and God. Jesus showed us the best way we could care for others. If you are a Christian, or a human who loves and has taken to heart His teachings, I beg you to think with your heart before you open your lips. I beg you to change your sermons, your classes, your efforts- back to the efforts of Jesus Christ Himself. In so many ways when you spread this hate of the Islam faith and its Muslim people, you are preaching to the choir of haters just like yourself. You are not reaching the hearts of the people you most mean to. But make no mistake, those people among you that see the discord of what Jesus said to do, and what you actually do- they will seek to fulfill that need to be near to God. Where they find that faith may stun you.

"For God so Loved the World...." The World, in case you missed the definition, is All of Us.

A Long Time Gone

2011-04-04T21:10:00.000-07:00

For

the

better

part

year

found

was

without

words...

and in many ways, they still will not come.

I woke up on January 12, 2010 my normal self. I was still reeling from the loss of our third child, stillborn at 5 months, but I was healing as each day went by. I was living my life finding joy in all those small moments with my children that add up to a life of complete happiness, despite any negatives that might come our way. One earthquake in the only Third World country in the western hemisphere later, I was no longer sure of anything. Certain events, whether you are physically present for them or not, can mysteriously grip your heart- and the quake in Haiti, for lack of a better description- consumed me. There were approximately 50 families missing loved ones at Haiti's finest hotel, the Hotel Montana. What moved me was not that Americans were trapped in this hotel, but that nearly every one of these people had left this country on a mission to help our hemisphere's most impoverished people. Nearly every single one of them gave their very lives to do so. I waited with these families, and cried with these families. And somewhere along the wait, I came to meet a group of people who both fled to the scene to help after the disaster, and others who lived through it to tell me about life both before, and after, January 12, 2010. I had helped raise funds for Haiti nearly a decade ago. I knew how bad things were in that country, and I am so very ashamed to say, I had forgotten enough of those horrors to push it out of my mind. Our family has not escaped the economic fallout here in the United States, but as great as our personal challenges have been, I have always been the one in the crowd saying "this could be so much worse". How much worse came roaring back into my conscious on that fateful day. It has caused me to take a long hard look at everything in my world. How we live, what is important to us, and most importantly, how we treat each other. The disaster in Haiti reinforced my feeling that we consume needlessly, we waste precious time on meaningless things, and we waste ourselves on relationships that in the long run do not better the world for their existence. A total paradigm shift took place in my heart over the past 12 months. I chose not to be burdened by possessions, I chose to make each monetary expenditure purposeful, I chose to raise my children to be the kind of people I saw lay aside their own lives to rush to the aid of people they have never met. The countless events that worked on my heart this past year are so numerous, some so painful, and others so joyful- I am not sure I can get them into the written word. But I have made a decision to try. As I go through this journey, others are going through it with me. still others began theirs with the earthquake in Chile, the floods in Pakistan, the strive in the Ivory Coast, the earthquake that shook Christchurch, and now the horrifying events unfolding in Japan. I am sad that is takes an event of catastrophic proportions to wake us from our haze of existence here in the most affluent country in the world. But because of what I have witnessed among a few people who care enough to try to make a difference in a life on the verge of flickering out, I have an unwavering sense of hope. I hope the stories I share with you here in the coming months will renew your hope as well.

A String of Beads

2010-09-26T22:27:00.000-07:00

If
you
learn
to
pay
attention,

you will recognize moments in your life when one memory of an event neatly lies upon another in the future. I know what you are thinking... shouldn't that say one moment in the present neatly lies upon a moment in the past? No. The reason is that even as an event is taking place, something inside of you snaps to attention and recognizes something about what is occurring here is significant. These are the moments in your life where the string of beads you are subconsciously collecting make a sudden turn and overlap. Tonight Peter Knowles is on my mind. Specifically, I am thinking about a conversation we had some seven years ago when he was home in Naples having just arrived back from Africa. He was smiling, brilliantly beaming, that red hankerchief knotted at his throat. His white hair was longer than usual and his already dark tanned skin was even darker from the African sun. Always animated, that day he was levitating. As usual, I was struggling to hear his words beyond his beautiful accent. With Peter, I had to FOCUS. He was talking about one of our favorite topics. Sliding back into Naples after having returned from the Third World. It's one hell of a bumpy slide. He was talking about his truck in Africa. How he had to run along side it making various manuevers to get it started. He is actively making these efforts to start the truck here on my store's sales floor minus the truck, and we are gathering some stares from my other clients. I am giggling with this man I love so dearly. Then, all of a sudden, he looks at me hard and says, "Kristin, I despise my car here in Naples. I cannot stand to look at it. What it means. Kristin, I miss my battered truck. I miss Africa." Now, I happen to know he drives a black Mercedes. I understand him immediately. We just stand there looking at one another until I ask the obvious question of when his next flight back home to Africa is. It is six months in the future. I feel that old familiar silent prayer being offered up to God... "Please, just let him live that long. To see his beloved Africa again." It is like he knows my heart and he smiles. With that, he hugs me, and is off. I have strung another bead on my figuritive necklace. That day, I smile at the bumper sticker on my new Land Rover that says in black and white letters, "You are not what you own." And I know it to be true.
Fast forward seven years later to just a few days ago. My beloved friend Peter has passed away. At this moment he is not even in my mind's radar. Jason and I are sitting in a dealership with two squirming children trying our best to go over a final document of financing. It is somewhere in this moment I realize that I do not really care about this car... I can take it or leave it. I think this is because I now drive a minivan that we paid less for in total than even one payment on the Rover. I like this van, and in this moment, I am shocked by this reality. I do not worry about this van, the spilled drinks, the dirt tracked both in and out by the children. Something odd happens as Jason looks at me, and we both look at our cheerful new salesperson friend and kindly thank him for his time as we GET UP AND WALK OUT saying we'll think about it. We drive off in our van with both kids probably wondering what the heck THAT was all about. The beads have now overlapped on my necklace.
That necklace figuritively rests around the mirror of our new ten year old four wheel drive that sits out front in our driveway. I'd give anything to know where Peter's truck is bouncing along in Africa right about now.

Peter Knowles was a man who had a soul brighter than anyone I have ever met. His work with small communities at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro was beautiful- teaching families to farm and providing safe water sources. One of the bad things about moving away from an area is that you never know when that last hug will be your last. Such was the case with Peter. I hugged him in the spring of 2007 and said a little prayer for his safe return to Kili, and he was gone six months later. My heart is heavy with the news and he is sorely missed. I will always remember his excitement at the Naples Drum Circle- I think it made his heart feel closer to Africa when he was home in Naples

Day Seven

2010-01-18T23:11:00.000-08:00

Today

Day

Seven.

Day

Seven.

It is the seventh day of Hell in Haiti.

I cannot get my head around it, what has happened to these people, less than 700 miles off the coast of Miami. My heart understands it completely. It is heavy, like a lead weight. My head tries to recall what Haiti was like before the Earthquake- colorful, expressive, happy- despite so much pain and suffering. Eighty percent of it's people were in poverty as of last Monday. Tuesday saw to it that the other twenty percent are not far behind. I remember their beautiful language of Creole being spoken on the streets of Naples, a place I called home for many years. The stories of their families being supported back in Haiti, where only one in three people are lucky enough to have a regular job. Naples was the promised land- a place where someone could send money home to care for so many. But you saw it in their eyes, they longed to go home. Despite the hardships, the sickness, the lack in so many areas. My heart today knows that Haiti has just fallen off the last rung of the ladder they were trying to climb out of poverty on. Poverty is horrible, and I do not know this personally. But what I do know is that things are much more bearable when you have the love of your family and friends. Haiti's family and friends lie dead in the streets. Those that miraculously survived the quake may not survive the infection of the wounds. Unless we can get it together as a World, this second round of death is coming full steam ahead. They know this. You can see it in their eyes. I went to bed Tuesday night looking at my children fall asleep peacefully. I thought about what our family has been through- what we are going through. None of it holds a candle to what the people of Haiti are going through. What the families of trapped tourists are going through. Their children, their loved ones are either alive in a living nightmare, dead or dying right before their eyes, or the worst of worst scenarios- trapped. Seven days. Trapped. Is anyone coming for me? Will I live? Where are my loved ones? I have had a very difficult time sleeping since Tuesday. I find myself at home in the comforts of my family... and then I realize the reality for so many... this very moment... in Haiti. It seems there are not enough prayers, not enough tears, not anything any one can do. I wish I could take a shovel to Haiti to help dig more people out of their horrible prisons. I would be yet another mouth to feed. The truth is I would be a wreck. I would be the young doctor I saw on the news today so torn apart he couldn't speak. I wouldn't survive it. What can I do? What I can maybe do is be there for others. Communication has been so hard for people waiting to hear news. Seven Days. Can you imagine? Your daughters, sons, husbands, wives- buried seven days in a Third World Country? I cannot. We sort out all the information we can in spare moments throughout the day. Monitor sites like Twitter, news reports, personal web pages, missing person lists, millions of posts. We try to give Hope. Hope that their loved one will be found. When I feel like I just cannot have any more hope, I walk away for a few hours. They cannot. They wait. For a picture, a phone call, anything that will tell them what they so badly need to hear. They are coming home to you. We try to give Hope, and yet we know. Day Seven. So many are not coming home. I pray for a miracle, another one just like the one we had Saturday night, just like the ones still happening in other areas of Haiti. People are surviving against all the odds. Haitians are singing hymns in the streets because they have not lost their faith that God will see them through. I pray that as these families that I am now enter twined with hear the news from all the Days ahead, that they do not lose their faith in God. The horrible irony about all of these tourists in Haiti is that they went there to help make a better life for all Haitians. They were there with pure hearts. They saw no race, no religion, no blame. They wanted to help. The words of some people behind a microphone, keyboard, or camera have stung this week. Haiti, this is my message to you... God did not fail you. We did. The World failed you because we did not do enough to help you up the ladder and out of poverty. The students of Lynn University recognized this. Compassion International recognized this. Countless others recognized this. That is why their people are trapped with yours. Life for most Americans go on unfazed. "What's got you down?" some people have asked. Apathy. Apathy is what's got me down. There is far too much of it. Before the Earthquake devastated Haiti Amy Wilentz said this in the September 2009 issue of Conde Nast Traveler,

"Haiti is not a place you just visit, as Columbus would surely have told you (he shipwrecked there in 1492) It's not a stream into which you just dip a toe. Here, you dive in headlong. It drives you crazy- with love, with anxiety, with desire. You fall into its arms as if it's been waiting forever to receive you. It hasn't. And as with any great unrequited love, Haiti's indifference only makes you crazier for the place."

Haiti, this is my wish for you. That you once again become colorful, expressive, and happy- despite all of your pain and suffering.

Note: Original painting by Roger Francois.

Having Nathaniel Part 3

2010-01-12T23:00:00.001-08:00

It
was
difficult
to
figure
out
how
to
go
about
my
day.
It was early, about seven am, and I was expecting Daddy and the Minister around nine. Ordering breakfast seemed so trivial that morning but I knew that I had to eat something. It just seemed so unimportant. I found myself lying there in that hospital bed and though emotionally I felt a wreck, physically I felt fine. I had had enough of hospital beds. So I wheeled breakfast over to the window next to a chair. A few bites were all I could manage. All the time you were still lying in your blanket in my lap. Pushing breakfast aside, I then turned the chair around to look out of the window. It looked chilly- November chilly. Grey. Rainy. The clock was moving forward and there was nothing I could do to stop it. After the Baptism I would walk out of the hospital and never see or hold you again, at least not in this lifetime. And I was crushed by this. How could I just leave you there? How on Earth was I going to do this? I stood up and leaned against the window sill. I moved your blanket just a bit so that your face was exposed to what little light there was under the clouds. I asked for help. All of my Grandparents are gone from this Earth. All four. Not one lived to meet my children whom I know would have given them so much joy. I looked out and thought about all the things I had talked about with this little body here in my arms over the last hours. Promises I had made. One was that I would do my best not to live in sorrow. That I would Mother Wren and Dane in a spirit that also honored Nathaniel. That they would know they have a brother in Heaven. That when things got bad, and I was feeling sad, that I would look for him in the Sun and in the Moon. That I would know, in my heart, that he was with my Grandparents, looking down on us. Nathaniel's face was literally a glow. It happened quickly, the clouds had parted, the sun shown in the window upon us, and then disappeared once again. I stood there as if transfixed. Nearly two hours had passed because just a few seconds later the Minister walked in , and then Daddy. And then the nurse who had been there with me most of the previous day. We stood hand in hand after I laid you in your little bassinet as the Minister read the story of the First Baptism. We all cried. I had placed a picture of Wren and Dane together at your feet. I had wanted them to be there too. The Minister told the story of how Jesus had told all of the people at the Baptism that children were some of the most important people of God. He asked them to recognize this and I thought to myself how my children mean the absolute world to me. The nurse knew my difficulty and asked if we were ready. The three of us walked you down to the little room where your pictures had been taken and the nurse showed me where to place the bassinet. I saw the two faces of my living children in the photograph at your feet and kissed your sweet little face one last time. Wren and Dane's picture traveled with you on your journey and that picture is part of your ashes. Hardly a day goes by that I do not lay a hand on your box just to feel you near. I feel your spirit in everything I do with Wren and Dane. It's as if Wren can read my mind when she says "Let's draw Nathaniel a picture." And, of course, I say "Yes, Wren, let's."

Having Nathaniel Part 2

2010-01-07T21:31:00.000-08:00

You

were

so
small

lying

there

while

all

gazed

you

silence.

We had been told you were a girl- but I saw right away that you held a surprise...you were, in fact, a little boy. You had such a serene peace about you. Your face looked as if you were simply asleep. Tiny little hands, fingers, feet, and toes were so perfectly formed. You were perfectly proportioned. When the doctor and I looked to the umbilical cord we knew immediately what had happened. One of the three vessels was formed incorrectly. It had about a half dozen areas that narrowed so thin- my heart ached when I realized you had suffered from a lack of both oxygen and nutrition. When you were so small, it had not been deadly. But as my beautiful little boy grew, this section could not keep up. I pray that you never knew what was lacking. I can only hope that you fell asleep warm inside my belly. It pains me in an indescribable way that your precious light could go out and I did not know that it had happened. We cut your umbilical cord and wrapped you in a little blanket. I wanted to hold you as soon as possible. Daddy cried. I cried. The doctor and nurses cried. You were so beautiful- and it was just so difficult to understand. As I gazed at your tiny face, I could instantly see both Wren and Dane in your features- but especially Dane. You had Daddy's brow line and Dane's nose. Your arms and legs were so long and your feet were already so big. I would spend the next twelve hours memorizing everything about you. The nurses gave you a bath and they were so sweet and handled you with such care. They covered you in baby lotion before wrapping you in your blanket once again, and then Daddy and I spent a few hours just being with you. We named you Nathaniel Devon Smith, after both your Daddy and Grampy. We also decided that we would Baptise you in the morning, and made the decision to be able to bring your ashes home with us. I wanted you to be with us always. Daddy looked so tired and there was no place for him to get comfortable. I thought too, that since Wren was spending the night with her friends, it might do Daddy some good to go home and snuggle down with Dane. It seemed like the only thing that could be of any comfort to him then was your sister and brother. And the only thing I wanted to do until morning was hold you and gaze at you. So sometime around midnight Daddy went home. I reluctantly gave you over to the nurses so that we could make prints of your little hands and feet. I also wanted pictures of you as I am so afraid that my memory may fade in years to come. I took a hot shower, cried some more, and went down the hall in search of you. Cries of another baby helped to lift my spirit as I went down the hall. Though I know it to be impossible, I never want another person to experience this kind of grief. As I approached the room where you were I heard a sweet little voice. Your nurse was talking to you, telling you what she was doing, and saying such sweet things that only you and God could hear. I was so deeply touched by this that it is difficult to put into words. But it gave to me the knowledge that your little life also touched more than just ours- you were special to this other person too. I will be grateful to her till my last breath. I stayed with the two of you until she was finished. She then placed you in a little wicker bassinet and allowed me to take you back to our room. It was now very late and as I lay down to spend the one and only night we were given your little hands were somehow placed right under your head as if you were sleeping. I turned your face to mine on the pillow and reluctantly shut off the light. But the light from the moon and stars still showed your features and again I felt a sweep of gratitude. Your little body and bundle of blankets was so small, and your entire being nestled that night in the crook of my arm. I breathed in that scent that only a new baby has and prayed to God to help me fix it in my memory. Every few hours I woke up and talked to you or sang you a lullaby. I would unwrap a small area of the blanket and hold your hand or outline your tiny face. I was still so amazed by the peace about your face. I slept well and soundly with you in my arms and will cherish those hours with you as long as I live. Dawn broke to a gray rainy but beautiful morning- because this was the morning of your Baptism.

Having Nathaniel

2010-01-05T23:38:00.000-08:00

I have a difficult story to tell. But it is one that I feel very strongly needs to be shared with others. It is a story that is going to lay bare very grieving wounds for me, and for those who read it who share in our sorrow. It will also open wounds in those who have experienced something similar. My hope is that Nathaniel's story can help heal both our wounds and perhaps begin a path of healing for those who still carry deep grief within them from the loss of a child. This is part one of our journey.

My
sweet
little
boy,

I am so very grateful for the courage I was given to make the choice that Monday in November to bring you forth naturally. I desperately want to know what happened to you, and needed to see your beautiful little face and hold you in my arms. I was afraid- so afraid I would not be up to being strong and facing my grief for your loss. I needn't have worried. From the moment I went into labor and delivery, I knew it should be this way and no other. Most importantly, I was selfish. I wanted more than anything else to have stolen moments with you that we could only have in this way. I was so aware of the fact that I was caught between two worlds. Your life had gone out within my body perhaps weeks ago. Though I knew your soul could no longer be found within my body, your body was my Earthly connection to you. When they found my cervix to be en tact I was again happy to have been granted a few more precious hours to carry you within my womb. Daddy and I rested with you knowing the long emotional hours that lay ahead of us. I placed my hands over my belly most of those hours just trying to memorize and feel your presence. I knew only too quickly the time would come for us to be separated and I just wasn't ready for you to leave me physically. Being pregnant with two small children in our house isn't the same as being pregnant with your first- or even second. Time flies much too quickly and it is difficult to be aware of every detail- and in a lot of ways, I resented, or more accurately lamented, this truth. In so many ways, I knew you would be my last time to carry a baby and I so wanted to relish every moment. The reality is that you struggle to get through the day- but you do because you know that incomprehensible prize of joy is waiting at the end. All the while you worry that you are taking too much on, you remember to eat healthy, and you cradle your belly at those precious times of rest when you can be alone with your thoughts of the new little person growing inside of you. You worry about the economy, the state of the world, the state of your house- and then you realize all you have to do is love and care for this little one, and that, my son, is so easy.

When the doctor gave me the medicine to start my contractions I was so sad. I was still so excited to see you but this was happening in a way that I had never imagined it ever would and I was struggling with that truth. As I was trying to come to terms with your leaving my body four months too soon, I was well aware of the next phase of my grief and that was having to give your precious little body away. I prayed for some time to calmly sit with you inside me before my contractions began and we were so graciously given that time. It gave me the courage to shun the epidural. I wanted to experience this birth to the fullest I possibly could- even the pain. When I recognized the contractions, I began to summon up the strength to do the most difficult thing I have ever done. Whatever time has been stolen from our future, I wanted to have these hours with you- in the only way that was given to us. When the pain began to get really hard to handle, they gave me something that took off the edge. By some miracle, it wore off before the last three or four violent contractions. A short time of peace then occurred and one of intense clarity. My waters ran forth, and I felt your little body drop into position. And then, there you were.

Irrelevant

2010-01-04T13:28:00.000-08:00

It's

just

one

the

words

I'd

see

stricken

from

the

English

language.

There must be days that Susy Smith does not relish opening her mail- electronic, paper, or otherwise. I imagine that being an editor is a difficult job and one that requires complete focus and precision. After following Susy at Country Living in Britain for some years now, I would say she does very very well in her career. She mentioned in her November letter that she receives quite a few harsh comments about the fashion pages which are presented every month in some form or another. They have been tweaking these presentations for years now, trying to make them "relevant". Susy states quite matter of fact that these are the reader's words, not hers. I find this quandary the magazine is in all together fascinating. For one, that a reader would take the time to complain about some of the most beautiful shots in the pages of the magazine- but more so that the minds of many are so closed. The fashion pages have always been absent from this side of the pond's sister publication and this has always puzzled me. The Americas have some of the most incredible lines of outdoor provisions in the world. Outdoor living is so dramatically woven into the lives of the British that it's difficult to understand the reason for the disdain of the fashion pages. Susy goes on to say that the companies whose wares they put into print have nothing but high praise to say once the issue hits the news stands. This I find not surprising in the least. We humans are a strange lot. The many forms of media which we assail ourselves with each day is daunting. But the Country Living reader is truly a lifestyle personality. That same reader who scoffed at the clothing pages may find themselves in the market for new riding boots a few days later. If they just so happen to purchase the pair of $400 boots pictured in this months issue, that fact may have very well been lost on them. It wasn't, however, lost on the company that produced them. You never know where inspiration will come from. If you are an artist, writer, or designer you are aware of this, and your left brain soaks in everything you see, smell, and touch quite well. Even more amazing is that the end result of your creation may not resemble the original inspiration at all- at least to other people. None the less, something moved and stirred in you the urge to create. Taken in this context very little in the world is "irrelevant". In the words of some very talented designer friends of mine who create warmth and beauty in the form of handmade clothing, "We are all knit together". Just remember this the next time you are looking upon something that seems irrelevant.

Note: If you care to exercise your subconscious shopper the boots above can be had at Toggi.com

The Match Stick

2009-12-21T09:36:00.000-08:00

This

has

been

difficult

time,

for

and

for

many

others.

There are some things that you have control over, and others that are so overwhelmingly out of your own hands that all you can do is have faith that you will pull through. For us, the difficulty is heartbreak like that which we have never known. We lost our baby boy, five months into the pregnancy. I am working through the grief day by day, writing about him, and learning to live with a sense of loss which I now fully realize may never dim. My family have been the legs on which I have stood for the past four weeks, and for this I will forever be grateful.

For others, the recession in which we find ourselves in has been like being placed in a deep pool of water and told to tread. We have no idea how long we are going to have to tread water because no one knows when this thing will end. We just know that if we are to survive, we have to keep treading. The recession hit us personally too, but I think we have reached a point where we are used to it. I say this because I have found myself in a position where I worry about others more so than ourselves. We are struggling too, but not in the sense that I have witnessed others. So many others have already lost their jobs, their homes, and in some cases their family due to the pressure of the struggle. This last loss is the one that bothers me most.

A few months back I was reviewing a Scandinavian cookbook and the Hans Christian Anderson tale of The Little Match Stick Girl was mentioned in the book. I had not heard the tale in quite some time. Later that day, when the children were napping, I pulled the book off the shelf and read the story in its original form. It was heart wrenching. In it is the story of how a child is sent into the streets in the middle of a snowy winter with ragged clothes and no shoes to sell match sticks. She sells none and is met with a city of apathy. In vain she tries to one by one light the matches to keep herself warm. She envisions a stove, a magnificent dinner of Holiday goose, a beautiful soaring Christmas tree, and at long last her loving Grandmother- who is seen only as the little girl lights all of the remaining matches in an attempt to hold onto the vision of her loved one. The little girl dies of exposure in the streets. This is no Cinderella fairy tale with a happy ending.

I think this story struck me especially hard this year because of the plight so many families find themselves in this Holiday season. The dire situation in Wilmington, Ohio was aired for the world to see on 60 Minutes last night. This town is in our backyard here in Ohio and it has been especially hard to watch these hard working people struggle to maintain some sense of home the past year. Ten thousand lost jobs is going to take a long time to recover- if recovery is possible in Wilmington at all. I think to myself, despite all of our struggle, we have so much. I cannot help but think that this Christmas morning will be a difficult one for me to really enjoy- knowing in my heart that for so many this one will only exemplify how dire the situation is. It is awfully difficult to explain to a child why Santa did not come.

I urge you to do two things, and do them soon. Go through your home, each and every nook, and donate whatever you have that you do not need. It is best if you can put things directly into someone's hands that need them, but if you cannot, a local shelter is a good place to contact. Second, read the story of The Little Match Stick Girl. Tell it to your children and explain how difficult things are for some families even today. What this world needs most right now is a strong dose of anti- apathy. Children are the most giving of souls and if we can start with them there is always hope for our future.

Note: The illustration above is from a children's book by Debbie Lavreys and it tells the story of The Little Match Stick Girl in a way children can understand.

We are all Christopher Columbus

2009-10-17T02:55:00.000-07:00

Imagine
you
are
Christopher
Columbus
and
it
is
the
late
1400's.
You are preparing to set sail with your three ships and all of your crew. You are the lead and the one responsible for all of their welfare. What you know is that you are setting sail from Spain and the goal is to reach India. Most of the population, contrary to today's popular belief, know with some level of certainty that the Earth is round. Aristotle, way back in the third century BC has explained this to the world after observing an eclipse. Yet the belief in some circles still persists that the sailors would at some point fall off the planet into unknown oblivion. What if Columbus himself secretly harboured doubts about the roundness of the Earth? What if he would have had a tether to the dock in Spain on some mystical level, or a self imposed limit that "I will go this far but not any further" just in case? What if he had secretly thought they might all be wrong?

Imagine now you are a few miles from the New Continent but you cannot see it. You do not even know it is there. India's out there somewhere but your crew is anxious and worn out. You have secret moments of panic. What is out there? What do you do? What do you tell your crew?

We all know how the story ends. But I confess I have found myself in the shoes of Christopher Columbus for the greater portion of my life...only the stake was much higher than finding India, or a few unknown continents. My struggle was with God Himself. I was educated in religion quite thoroughly, from the time I was small straight through University and into my adult life through my own studies. And yet knowing all these things about religion still left a gaping hole. I harboured a fear somewhere deep inside that at my core I was an atheist. It was unthinkable and horrifying to finally acknowledge. It was not the thought of a non existent Afterlife that bothered me, it was much more profound than that. It was a bigger fear of losing all that was Good in the world as I had known it. These things that are Good, if you will, are our very own Markers- those things that bring you back into Belief that there is something Greater out there in the Universe. Seeing a living creature being born or going through the stages of death are two of these Markers that can serve to make you a Believer very quickly. Nature in all of its beauty is another. So are moments of Enlightenment between you and someone you love. But as much as I Knew, I could not shake the fear that I was deceiving myself. It was much easier to Believe than not Believe. Until I ran into a brick wall in the form of a four year old.

Death is hard. No two ways about it. Wren, who is now four, had to learn about death way before I was ready to have the conversation. We were faced with having to put one of our cats to sleep. I did not have the faintest idea how to explain this to such a young child. I did the unthinkable- I allowed her to be in the room as Gaston passed away. It may prove to be one of the best things I have ever done as a parent. It introduced very tough concepts into her world at an early age. Death. God. The Soul. Heaven. Permanence. Infinity. And there were very little worlds I could rely on to help me explain all of it to her. Over the past few years the topics have come up regularly. She is coming into full realization what the concept of imagination is and I knew this would be a struggle for her to reconcile with her view of what God, Heaven, and Afterlife are because she cannot "See" any of those. I kept saying to myself that if only I was not so limited by my words. And it was after thinking this a few dozen times that I had a moment of Enlightenment myself. It was not that I was a secret atheist... it was that I would not allow myself to acknowledge that a great part of my Faith I would never be able to put into words. I would never be able to rationalize it to anyone else, or myself for that matter. It was out of my Realm. It was God. It was all that was Good. A lot of it is beyond my scope- there, but I just cannot see it from where I stand.

Wren asked me tonight if God Himself comes to get you when you die. Minefield. I want to choose my words so carefully now that I realize how entangling they can be. I answered her in the only way I knew how- that it was a Surprise. A big one- perhaps the biggest one she will ever have. She is fully aware that parents sometimes die very young and leave small children behind, and this worries her. But she also knows that there is usually a natural progression where people grow old and die after raising their families. I explained it might be God, but there was also a very good chance it could be a Great Grandparent, Grandparent, or Daddy or myself. It all depended on the "when" part of the question. How do I know this I asked myself tonight? I just do. I know it enough to realize that I do not need the tether, real or imaginary, to guard me "just in case". Sometimes, like Columbus, you just have to set sail.

Note: The painting above is by Graeme Wilkinson. Acrylic on canvas.

Our Little House

2009-10-10T09:07:00.001-07:00

We
spent
the
past
summer
reading
the
Little
House
series
of
books.

Wren has adored the first four and we are saving the rest for Christmastime. Over the years I have stashed 1/4 scale dolls and accessories away in hopes of someday building a replica of the Little House home on the prairie. Finding things in this scale is quite difficult but I have found salesman's samples of household goods to work very well. Most are old, however I am always surprised to find that they arrive in good condition. Our plan is to gather all the items first- which may take years, and then build the house around the three rooms we complete. The original Little House had just a Keeping Room separated with a quilt for the parents sleeping area, a loft for the girls, and a lean to off the back of the house.

A lot of detail is given in the books about what the Ingalls had and did not have. Originally, I had planned to do a dollhouse a lot like that of Tasha Tudor's, but I feel now that there is a very valuable lesson to be learned from recreating the simplicity of a pioneer's life. It is a dual lesson in make-do along with a reality of how hard life was for people back then. Since we use wood stoves to heat our home, Wren is very familiar with the cast iron beauties, but learning that they also were responsible for heating all the Ingalls food and baking has been an eye opener for her.

The rope bed is not an unfamiliar concept as most of our beds have been on slats, one of them being a reproduction where the holes are visible where the ropes would have been. We used a sewing machine to make a burlap hemp tufted mattress, surely an extravagance in Laura and Mary's day as they would have most certainly slept on hay stuffed mattresses. A gingham sheet and handmade patchwork quilt provide the dolls with snug evenings. We have yet to find a sixteen inch Laura doll and hope to find one in blue. We will simply switch out the girls clothes to have Laura in red and Mary in blue, just like the books. These are the details that Wren picks up on. One of the neat things about our Mary is that she is wearing a simple bead necklace, just like the one the girls make for Carrie from the Indian beads they find with Pa when walking to the deserted Indian camp.

The girls have a pair of snowshoes and old wooden skis, both familiar concepts to Wren as we love winter sports. We sometimes snowshoe up the half mile to retrieve the mail at the road, and there are a lot of times that I would much rather shoe our way out than risk sliding off the road into the ravine or lake. Winter in the country can be a hair raising affair.
So our next book in the series is A Long Winter as we saved Farmer Boy for next summer. I think this will be a good story for the coming winter, as I do believe we are in for a long winter ourselves.

Handprints

2009-10-07T08:17:00.001-07:00

have

wanted

this

project

for

while

now...

and

there

time

the

present.

There is something incredibly precious about little hands and little feet. I have wanted to document our children's' hands for some time now but did not want to do the traditional print in plaster. I also wanted to be able to show them how tiny they were in both the relation to each other and to us, their parents. We had fun doing simple paper outlines and had to rework them a few times to get them to nestle inside of one another. Then Wren picked out the embroidery colors for each of us, and an extra one for little brother or sister who is on the way. We stitched our outlines on to a hemp burlap and left the cloth in a painted embroidery hoop. The children liked to watch me stitch this up before bedtime- it was the same effect as knitting for them, calming and interesting to watch all at the same time. We will place the other little hand inside of Dane's sometime this Spring and then it will be complete. I have been using my 1960's sewing machine a little more as of late, but still find the method of hand stitching to be more soothing to the hands.

An Apple a Day

2009-10-01T14:36:00.000-07:00

didn't

have

enough

contend

with

here

the

country...

Mother Nature has seen to it that we are being kept on our toes. What was a leisurely day a few weeks ago turned into an all out fiasco that had my six foot five husband and yours truly doing a jig dance of some sort while trying to catch a Brown Recluse before it sprinted into the plank flooring. My husband was lying on the couch and casually glanced toward the southeast window in the great room saying there was a spider web behind the curtain. I got up to examine the situation and knew immediately this was trouble. It was huge, tornado shaped, and disappeared into the hemp curtain. What was worse, it was just inches from our daughter's play kitchen. I motioned for some help and watched my husband's eyes grow big as he saw the full view of the structure. He pulled the curtain down from its place in one swoop because we weren't going to take any chances of this thing biting us as we fiddled with the web. Now the problem was coaxing it out, which was no problem at all as the thing sprinted immediately across the floor. I screamed scaring the tar out of both Wren and my husband. We threw the curtain back over the spider and my husband's size fourteen shoes called an end to the saga. The thought of that thing getting away was hair raising. I spent the next few hours looking for more webs. We found three on the back porch last week. I nabbed one in a beautiful Red Ware paper towel holder just this afternoon. I am over the spiders already. We have Wolf spiders the size of small rodents... this is the last thing I need. We began a quest to find a friend with Hedge Apples. We found a lucky owner and brought home a paper sack full. I was so reluctant to call an exterminator- I just hate the thought of chemicals. But I wondered about the Old Wives Tale of the Osage Orange. Would it really work? Well, let me tell you, after today's encounter in the paper towel holder, I dug into that paper bag faster than lightening. So I am about to find out. The fruits are hard and bumpy and it took a very large steak knife to do the job of getting one into six slices. They bleed a milky substance that is like glue, though they do not have a very pungent odor. If the scent can be described at all, it is like that of orange cleaning solution. The slices are resting happily in the tops of the windows on the main floor. We shall see how accurate the Old Wives really are. All I know is that if I have just a few more heart stopping encounters like the ones I have had recently, I am going to be sporting some Old Wives white hair! Just in time for Halloween...

A Wrinkle in Time

2009-09-04T20:58:00.001-07:00

The
early
bird
has
begun
its
annual
color
change.

One of our trees begins to show its color so much earlier than the others. At first, we thought it was just a fluke that year, but each year it holds true to being the first to turn out its glory. Autumn is such a time for contemplation, and though it is still Summer, the weather here in the Ohio River Valley suggests otherwise. I have been under the weather myself the past month or so and my type pad has been quiet. I have not been in my kitchen nearly as much as usual, nor out in the garden. The past month has been one of gathering my children around me and enjoying time in our haven together. More on this later...
The changing leaves has me thinking almost daily about an event from my childhood. I cannot put the memory into exact context, and wonder at times if the memory is not a patchwork of many days that have lodged somewhere in the deep recess of my mind. We are no more than seven or perhaps eight, and there are two friends with me when we leave my house and trudge off through the backyard of my next door neighbour. Our destination is delivering something, maybe items from a school fundraiser, to the next neighborhood over. My two friends are just along for the stroll as they are not in my class. The neighboring yard is that of one of my best friends who is walking with me. There is the faint scent of leaves burning in the air, and also that difficult to explain aroma of leaf litter and mold that speaks to your senses about the beauty of nature. Our shoes drift through the reds, yellows, and browns of leaves newly fallen and their crunch is a sound that takes me back to school days even today. We hug the back corner of my friends log cabin home and come into our secret place. A place of packed earth floor and looping overhead trees, perhaps no larger than some one's living room but endlessly decorated with nooks and crannies that we could get lost for hours at a time in play. At night, this secret place was a spot you could just vanish into, your night tag friends passing within inches and never seeing you. But today we pass through and pop out into the next neighbor's back yard and make the short trek along the evergreens to the street of the next neighborhood. The two houses we are walking behind have a certain cottage feel and I always enjoyed looking at them. Both of our neighborhoods were true circles with perhaps forty or fifty houses around them. The people of these circles loved their gardens and in Autumn the remnants made for a beautiful setting. The house we are going to first is only a few houses down the circle. We walk up the drive which in memory is newly blacktopped, the smell of tar for some reason was quite pleasant. There is an entry porch with a rock formed wall to the right and a garden setting visible but private from the road to our left. The porch is inviting and I see slate tiles of many shades of gray underfoot. A dim light is on overhead as the dusk is coming earlier each day now. We ring the bell which goes resounding into the depths of the house. Footsteps come to the door and it is a lady in her midlife, not unlike most of our teachers at school. A warm smile and she bids us into the entry way through a wooden door and says she'll be right back after she retrieves her pocket book. The three of us say nothing- we are taking it in. The house is dark, not for lack of light, but in decoration, and it is the first time I realize dark can mean very comfortable. The smell of wood wax is in the air along with something coming from the kitchen which we can see from where we are standing. The kitchen has a lot of brick in which a huge range oven is encased and the casserole hidden somewhere inside. I notice a large collection of cookbooks and instantly recognize this woman as someone my Mother would like immensely. I associate rose hips and cloves and dried flowers with this brief visit, and copper pots, though I cannot guarantee any were there at all. The woman comes back with a check and we leave her the bag of goodies and promise to come back at Halloween. We left oddly satisfied walking along with a sense of the season. I remember nothing of the rest of those deliveries nor the homes we went to.
Why over thirty years later this visit seems lodged in my memory I have not the slightest idea. I recognize on some level that I found a kindred spirit to my own Mother who created a sense of home that has stayed with me. I also think this home in the next neighborhood over, in some ways, reminded me so much of my Mother's Aunt Florence's home in Zionsville, Indiana. This home had a large influence on both my Mother and myself, though I never realized it until much later in life. This visit has played about my mind the past month or so with odd frequency and I wonder if my friends remember this day the way that I do- or even remember it at all. What I know is that it has somehow played a role in my subconscious... and it is the memory which has made Autumn my favorite season of all.

Puffy Eyes

2009-07-30T19:25:00.000-07:00

"Mama,

please

sing

Jackie

Paper

for

us."

We have a ritual that if after our night time story, the children still have trouble falling asleep, I sing lullabies to them. Wren often chooses the songs in a small whisper, and more often than not, Puff the Magic Dragon is close to the top of the list. I grew up with this song sung by Peter, Paul, and Mary. I had it on a 33 and played it till I knew the lyrics by heart. Still, some thirty years later, it still chokes me up. It used to be that I could get all the way to the part where Jackie Paper grows up without my voice catching. But now that I have had Dane, it takes a lot less time to falter my voice. Wren loves this song so much. On some level, she understands it to be a right of passage. She knows that it is both happy and sad and wonders at how singing a song can make her Mama tear up so easily. Still, I sing it whenever she asks. But it always leaves me feeling a bit sad, especially now that I have my own Jackie Paper. If you haven't heard the song in a while, or perhaps never heard it the whole way through, here it is in written form. Sing it with someone you love.

"Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea

And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called honah lee,

Little Jackie Paper loved that rascal puff,

And brought him strings and sealing wax and other fancy stuff.

Oh Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea

And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called honah lee,

Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea

And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called honah lee.

Together they would travel on a boat with billowed sail

Jackie kept a lookout perched on puffs gigantic tail,

Noble kings and princes would bow wheneer they came,

Pirate ships would lower their flag when Puff roared out his name.

Oh! Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea

And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called honah lee,

Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea

And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called honah lee.

A dragon lives forever but not so little boys

Painted wings and giant rings make way for other toys.

One grey night it happened, Jackie Paper came no more

And Puff that mighty dragon, he ceased his fearless roar.

His head was bent in sorrow, green scales fell like rain,

Puff no longer went to play along the cherry lane.

Without his life-long friend, Puff could not be brave,

So Puff that mighty dragon sadly slipped into his cave.

Oh! Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea

And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called honah lee,

Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea

And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called honah lee."

I have often thought about writing another happier verse to end this song, but it some ways it would miss the whole point of the song, wouldn't it? Our little ones grow up before our very eyes and this is what the songs authors, Leonard Lipton and Peter Yarrow, beg us not to miss. But... it is still so difficult to leave Puff in that cave all alone. I always hope another little boy comes along.

Rescue Remedy

2009-07-23T12:20:00.000-07:00

Being
that
my
husband
is
a
skilled
antiques
restorer,
all
manner
of
chairs
and
such
arrive
at
our
house.
It's difficult to pass up a deal, more like a steal, when you are around furniture so often. We receive all kinds of calls about antiques restoration and end up going on a lot of "go-sees" to see if we can be of help. Often times, we are able to pick up things at good prices while we're out and about on these calls, and sometimes the odd item just leaps into our truck from the curb. These little chairs we picked up in Florida for a song. But someone had done that ever popular late eighties silk stripe dining fabric upholstery and it had been sitting there ever since. The seats were in pretty bad shape, and at first glance so were the wood finishes. But often times, all it takes is a gentle cleaning and wax to bring back the luster. It goes without saying, never refinish a piece that you do not know the value of. If it's old and/ or rare you will plummet the value by taking away the old finish. This presents a problem when you really wish to have a painted finish or different stain, but it really is best to leave well enough alone when it comes to woods. My husband is called in for repairs, great and small, and all the work is done with care to add value, not take it away.

These chairs just needed a good cleaning and simple Williamsville wax. I shed the old fabric, replacing it with a more homespun look to match our Saltbox style house in creams, eggplants, and reds. This is in part my summer education of soft restoration. I am diligently learning the trade of seat upholstery, wing chair upholstery, couch upholstery, shaker tape seating, and rush work- God help me on the last.
My Father in Law is a wonderful craftsman and at one time a skilled rush worker. It is like a bicycle, he can still do it, but he says it takes a great deal of painstaking time.

Here are the old and new versions side by side right before I get ready to tear into the second chair. These will go happily in our dining room as extra seating right next to our Windsors. I like things to compliment each other and a house put together over time never matches exactly. Next I am tackling a set of four ladder back chairs that have been in our family for ages. Their old torn rush seats are being replaced with Shaker fabric taping in evergreen hues. I cannot wait for them to come back into everyday use.

Close to the Clouds

2009-07-17T20:07:00.000-07:00

know

place

intimately

other

than

the

places

you

have

lived

exquisite
gift.

For me, this place of intimate knowledge has been the area around Park City, Utah. For some years before I had children, I had the privilege of traveling into Salt Lake City in the Spring and again in the late Summer. I cannot say which is my favorite time of year- it is impossible to choose. I love traveling there alone, and I love sharing its infinite beauty with others close to me. My last trip there was special as I was three months pregnant with Wren, and figured it would be one of my last visits for a while. All the different times spent there blend into one long wonderful memory and it is sometimes a challenge to separate the visits into neat little chapters. Places you love do that to you...they increase your good feelings to such a height that it is almost as if you spend your time there in some sort of emotional nirvana. I would rush to the airport at the earliest flight time catching the plane at an hour before which I was usually ever awake just to make it into town by lunchtime. Once in that plane seat it was like my mind completely renewed itself because it knew what lay in wait. I stayed at the same little inexpensive inn every time I went. I adored the owners and it was right in the city of Salt Lake seated neatly below the university. I would fall into bed exhausted there and rise with an urge to run out the door and do it all over again. Most times coming off the plane I would pick up a four wheel drive vehicle and head straight out to Park City not bothering to even drop off my bags at the hotel. My usual lunch spot was always the same that first day- Main Street Pizza and Noodle for their bow tie pasta in a vegetable cream sauce. It was just the thing to energize a quick stroll through town and not heavy enough to prevent my indulgence in the most enormous caramel apple you ever laid eyes upon. A huge copper cauldron of hot liquid aroma lures you in from the sidewalk at the RMCF (Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory) in front of Dolly's Bookstore. Apple in hand, the stroll down Main Street is just that much sweeter. The altitude can get to you on the first day off the plane, especially when coming from sea level. I always try to get a good nights sleep and return to Park City the next day to meet up with a guide at Red Pine Adventures. There is no better way to explore the area around the Canyons than on the back of a large but gentle horse.

There are numerous footpaths that run along the mountain sides right in Park City. I developed an intense love for Utah's wildflowers along these paths and would often walk them until the sun began to fade away. Indian Blanket Flower, Columbine, Lupine, Indian Paintbrush, and Stone crop dance like an impossibly intricate Impressionist painting everywhere the eye falls. A quick jaunt up Main Street and out of town brings you to Guardsman Pass. Breathtakingly beautiful, it delivers you right up into the clouds. If you have a good vehicle this road will take you all the way out to Brighton and Big Cottonwood Canyon. Then just a few miles outside of Brighton is a little shining jewel. I never could pass Silver Fork Lodge without stopping in for a meal. Small in size but large in ambience, Silver Fork Lodge is a place frequented by true Alpine Lovers. It is a bit of the old Utah prior to the mayhem of the Olympics and the serious obnoctiousness that has become the Film Festival. Both Big Cottonwood and Little Cottonwood Canyons offer unbelievable scenery and the chance to hike, boulder, and climb your way into physical exhaustion...the good kind. Keeping the windows down allows you to hear the rushing of the snowmelt in the creeks, and provides the opportunity to stop and watch the dance of a flyfisherman casting his line above the sparkling water surface.

My permanent choice of staying at the City Creek Inn was made after the first time I checked in. It lies at the heart of everything. One route leads out of town and toward Park City, another leads into that heavenly drive along the Cottonwood Canyons, and yet another leads to the impossibly beautiful Sundance Resort owned by Robert Redford. It is possible to travel to Sundance along two routes, one being the highway which takes you past amazingly high waterfalls and a lazy floating river. The other, and it is a bit of a secret, is to travel the back route in summer via the Timpanogos Cave winding road. You will be stopped at a certain point well into the route and it is extremely important to tell the Ranger that you are just passing through. Otherwise they politely tell you to turn around. It is an incredibly remote road which is closed at first snowfall until well past Spring, and passes right through a private camp before landing you on the entry into Sundance. Sundance in the summertime is a marvel, and far too beautiful to put into words. Lunch at The Foundry is a perfect way to ease into the day. Wood fired pizza can be devoured and the extra wrapped up neatly in your knapsack. The chair lift will take you to the top of the mountain, but I much prefer to hike it along Stewart's Falls and into the valley of Mount Timpanogos. This valley is remote in every sense of the word and I fully expect to come nose to nose with an ambling black bear here someday. The valley leads into a thickly forested area along a winding path, from which if you know what to look for, you may catch a glimpse here and there of Mr. Redford's main house. I think he is fully aware hat he has landed in heaven a bit early. From here, you can catch the chair lift down or simply follow in the well worn paths of the mountain bikes. I have not been as lucky as my friends whom I have sent to Sundance, who on their first day were served ice cream from the Sundance Kid himself and asked to join him at his table for dinner. Their German heritage was a plus as Mr. Redford's wife is of German descent, and he was grappling to learn her language. I have to say this made a huge impression on my friends who on the same trip bought an alpine house up the road from Sundance. I think he, and the place, have this effect on people.

I have hiked areas in the Wasatch Mountains that make you feel like you may just be the last living person on Earth. You may see and near no one, or you may come around the bend and find yourself in the company of a Mama moose and her little one. I met these two way up in the mountains above Jordanelle Reservoir. I had heard of the dangers of moose, but this one seemed unfazed to share the trail with us. Nevertheless, I gave her a lot of space. Each trip into the wilds here demands that you prepare to be there for days, even if your intention is a few hours. Weather here in the mountains can change on a dime leaving you stranded in a pair of shorts at freezing temperatures if not careful. It is this volatility that makes the area so rugged and awe inspiring. It is also one of the main reasons I will wait until my little ones are a little older to return to my beloved Utah. I once foolishly asked a Ranger if there were accidents with children along these impossibly steep and high altitude footpaths. Only a few times came the reply, but that was enough for me.

Mid Summer

2009-07-13T09:13:00.000-07:00

As
I
walk
the
acres
these
long
days
of
summer
I
notice
so
much
that
needs
done.
And while it can be overwhelming to take it all in, because I know not all of it will ever really get finished, it is hard to be disatisfied with the beauty that is everywhere I glance. There is quite a bit of painting to do on garden accessories that have been weathered and worn, but then it occurs to me that their patinas really look quite nice. To the back of the list it goes. I notice a furry bee climbing about the metal bees on the red wood heart. How appropriate, a bee house in a bee.

The Gay feather has opened in its characteristic top to bottom fashion and its cheery purple flowers are keeping the sandbox company. At their feet is the fuzzy Lamb's Ears that the children love so much to touch. Children of yesteryear used the soft leaves as bandages on scrapes and cuts. Wren tries to convince me to try this each time we need a bandage.

The Day Lillies are still putting on their spectacular show, though their gardens need weeded yet again. We manage to pop off the wrinkled blooms as we come and go sending them back to the soil to provide nutrients for next years blooms. I notice the fishing net in the rocks of the drive and think of the three eager faces peering out from the glass in Wren's aquarium. We "borrowed" them from the pond after returning our last critter to the water. We will miss him, as he was a large snail, and did a superb job of keeping that aquarium crystal clear. I believe our new friends are tiny baby bluegill. They'll visit for a few weeks and go back home to grow as large as their friends.

White Zinnias have bloomed in a sky blue crackled pot. More are coming into bloom and I am hoping to see that beautiful shade of chartreuse that only a Zinnia can conjure up. Huge dinner plate sized Dahlia's are reaching for the clouds behind them nestled in the tall green grasses. The day we see their flower buds will be an exciting day.

Purple Cone flowers that were planted after the deer ate so many of the seedlings are coming into flower all along the path to the herb garden off the southwest corner of the house. The little seedlings that were not eaten are still so small. Perhaps they are putting down roots and we might see this display multiply greatly next year. The first blooms were those huge cones that measure two to three inches up in dome shapes with their pale purple petals pointing slightly downward. The sight of these always makes me think of Thumper in Bambi. Our own little Bambis are enjoying the green beans and carrot tops in the garden. There are lots and lots of deer this year after many months of hardly seeing any at all. Their shy manners and coy stares make everything here in the land seem in balance once again.

Birthday Dreaming

2009-07-09T19:30:00.000-07:00

It
hardly
seems
possible
that
yet
another
year
is
flying
by...
and our baby will be four. This time last year we were so busy preparing for Wren's third birthday party. We had a Winnie-the-Pooh party and there had been so much to do. I really cannot imagine doing something like this every year because of the time required to prepare, but we had so much fun that I know we will do it again in the near future. We kept the party smallish, having about eight children and their families. Each child- and this was really the fun part- received a hand embroidered Rabbit with his or her name and a hand embroidered little tee shirt with one of the Hundred Acre Wood characters. We had found iron on tee shirt decals in pastels and cute little Winnie the Pooh material gift bags to hold them. The Rabbits have adorned our Easter baskets since the birthday.

Wren and I made the pinata in the design of a honey bee after some trial and error and literally stuffed it full of candies for the big day. We painted the bee, and also a large tag board of Eeyore for a Pin the Tail game. Little braided tails were made out of knitting yarn and tied with red bows just like in the Pooh stories. Kids drew Pooh sticks to see who would go first. Eight children ranging in age from one to six were hilariously funny to watch during the games and most were played in some fashion other than what was planned which made it all the more humorous. Kids also took home a handmade coloring book with all the Pooh characters to remember the day. We had stacked up quite a few Winnie the Pooh items from the bargain stores and I was amazed at the prize bags that each child was able to take home. It had hardly cost anything at all to put those together and yet the children had so much fun with them.

Wren wore a vintage 1970's Sears Winnie the Pooh dress that was nearly identical to one I had as a child. She still calls it her Pooh Party Dress.

The cupcakes were lemon and chocolate flavored with lemon drop bees atop. A super chocolaty cake was served for the adults and the recipe came from the Pooh Party Book which was published in the 70's. The ingredient list was downright scary with cocoa, chocolate syrup, and chocolate bars but it all seemed to bake right into one of the most moist cakes I have ever eaten.

An over sized Winnie the Pooh was at the helm of the sweets table. Winnie's signature red balloons were throughout the house and a vintage child's Pooh bed sheet made a wonderful table covering.

We spent a lot of that glorious day outdoors eating chicken salad croissants and potato salad. The sounds of the children laughing that day is something I will always remember. This year we are taking Wren someplace special for the day. It will be her choice- the zoo, aquarium, museum- in either Cincy, Columbus, or Indy- the city is also up to her. I just cannot believe she will be four in one month. How time flies when it is spent with such special little people.

Home Away from Home

2009-07-03T21:42:00.000-07:00

It
is
a
place
that
exists
only
in
my
mind.
Sometimes it is a difficult thing to go back to the places of your childhood. Decades pass and things change... it is inevitable. One of my best childhood friends had a campsite at Sandy Pines in Michigan. She would take turns taking all of her friends up there on summer vacation, though I have to say I went a lot. I may have had more than my fair share of turns, and boy, I am grateful. Sandy Pines is etched in my memory for so many reasons. Back then, in the late 1970's, Sandy Pines was a place of dirt roads, limited electric use, and small campers. Sure, there were those members sporting double slide outs on their motor homes and they seemed to be camping in expansive luxury. But back then most of us were sleeping in campers that were designed for people who really liked each other. Once you arrived at your campsite after driving what seemed like days, the car pretty much stayed put. We walked a lot more back then- miles even along those dirt roads that were more like sheltered paths under green canopies. If we were lucky, we got the golf cart. This was like being allowed to drive the family car without a license! Our site was on the far end of the resort. We had the best of both worlds because we had the outdoor pool, the huge dangerous hill that was a thrill to race down with the golf cart rattling the whole way, and- and this is a big one- that wonderful feeling that you had to take some huge adventure if you needed to do the slightest thing like run for marshmallows after nine pm. It meant one heck of a long scary golf cart ride clear to the other side of the resort where the general store and gas station were. We volunteered to run every single errand back then. My favorite part of that long trip to the other side occurred as we shot out of the woods and into a clearing that jogged around Lake Monterrey. Light played off the surface of the water, and the road here was always a little more sand than dirt which made it appear oddly pink as the sun went down. The little chapel stood on the shore here and it was always so peaceful. Life was so incredibly simple on these days at Sandy Pines. Breakfast was eaten on the run, lunches were often hot dogs or grilled hamburgers eaten on those few minutes out of the pool or lake, and dinners- well, this was a whole other story. My friend's Dad was one heck of a cook. I marveled at these dinners made in this tiny trailer by this huge man who looked every bit the part of Yule Brenner in The King and I. I tasted foods on those trips that have become some of my favorite foods today as an adult. Back then I suffered my way through it but I knew on some level that someday I would appreciate these strange things that showed up on my plate. At night we would unroll what seemed like fifty pounds of sleeping bag that had belonged to my friend's older brothers when they were Scouts. Bless those poor souls for having to hike with those bags because they had to have weighed in as much as the kids. Those bags were Army green cotton with flannel plaid linings. We'd get in them and pray for rain. There was nothing like going to sleep with the sound of rain hitting a metal roof just inches over your dry head. Those sleeping bags smelled musty and I can sense it just sitting here writing about them. Our prayers for rain were often answered and I am sure that is mostly to blame. "Yule" was a loud snoring sleeper and having to get up and go to the bathroom at night was a terrifying experience. You had to navigate your way to the end of the camper through a path that couldn't have been more than ten inches wide. Getting past the snoring gentle giant in the complete dark was scary indeed. No matter what you did in that camper it was so easy to wake people up, and I knew if that snoring stopped I had interrupted some one's nice deep slumber. What fun those days were. We were so young and carefree. Bug bitten and sun burnt and so happy. My friends parents are now gone as is the campsite. But life is odd, truly. One of my favorite aunts decided to get a summer place in Michigan a few years back. We had talked about all the work they were putting into their place and how much they were enjoying their summers. What I didn't know until later was that my aunt was spending her summers at my childhood haunt. It is her place now. So much has changed. Paved roads, lots of entertainment, and even condos were built. But I am sure the essence remains the same. She has asked me up for a visit and I cannot wait for her to show me around. My Sandy Pines is gone, but hers is very much alive. And like good family genes, her present Sandy Pines will have enough of the old Sandy Pines to stir up all of those old childhood memories that I hold so dear. To you Floyd, Ruth, and Kristina- thank you for all those days in the sun.

Note: The above painting by Paul Turner Sargent captures the Sandy Pines of yesterday with amazing clarity.

One Beauty Finds Another

2009-07-02T07:22:00.001-07:00

As
I
slid
the
screen
door
open
I
heard
Wren
gasp,
"What's that?" she whispered. I gasped too. It was beautiful, almost too pretty to be real. With a wingspan of over 4 inches across I thought it was a paper toy at first. Then it fluttered. Oh no, had I caught it in the door? I quickly bent down and looked the critter over for injuries, and luckily found none. But it seemed disoriented and unsure of where to go. It seems as if it had spent the night lodged between the door and the screen and was working out some wing cramps. We marveled at the colors and patterns at play on the wings and the fuzzy orangeness of its large body. As I snapped a photograph it suddenly took flight. What was it? I felt sure it was a moth. A quick reference check turned up that our critter was a Tulip Tree Silk Moth. The markings were unmistakable. Ours seemed to be a male. They search out females in the evening hours in order to mate. What a treat it was to be able to see one of these creatures up close. I imagine he is off looking for females somewhere and trying to find a less dangerous place to recuperate after another amorous evening!

Lily Love

2009-07-01T07:57:00.000-07:00

Something
quite
magical
is
happening
around
here.

For the past few years it seemed like the only lilies we had were the common orange day lily found along every roadside here in the Ohio River Valley. We had a yellow peek through here and there- that was until the whole clump of yellows was accidentally hit with a golf cart last year. Whether it is some blessing in the weather this year, or some unknown garden tonic bestowed by fairies in the night, we cannot for our lives figure out where all these colorful lilies have come from. What was once an orange display of beauty is all of a sudden a rainbow of different shades of reds, yellows, whites, pinks, and oranges. It is simply amazing.

The name day lily implies that the flower only lasts a day, and despite having read this on numerous occasions, I can say with certainty that the flowers last much longer.

The colors are endless in how they combine. This one with its creamy petals and maroon center tinged with chartreuse is a favorite.

This was our more common color, and still the orange variety is our most prolific.

A buttery yellow specimen.

This one is magic, such a deep maroon that it nearly appears black.

Whatever has happened with the lilies this year, we hope it continues. It is wonderful to come and go along the walkway and see such a wide array of flowers. I think I'll just go on letting Wren think it was the fairies. Who knows, maybe it was.

My Angel Face

2009-06-24T22:17:00.001-07:00

Wren had her first role in a special wedding last weekend. She shared the honor of being a flower girl with her cousin who is just about the same age. The girls were so precious and took their jobs so seriously. Pictures from the day tell the whole story of how the girls felt like little Princesses in their twirly dresses. Wren's favorite book of the summer is Angel Face by Sarah Weeks and David Diaz. I couldn't help but think of this story as I gazed upon this sweet face throughout the day.

"Angel's eyes are dusty almonds,

Angel's mouth's a mango sliver,

Angel's skin is steeping tea,

Angel's hair's a rushing river.

You would know it any place...

my Angel's Face."

Reflecting on Tasha Tudor 1915-2008

2009-06-18T10:41:00.000-07:00

As
always,
she's
been
on
my
mind
a lot
lately.
I found I had a difficult time choosing a picture to accompany this letter. So many of Tasha's photos depict her in the Autumn years of her life after she had gained so much notoriety in her art. And though I greatly admire Tasha's art, it is her life than I admired most. Not the life of travel when she was promoting her work, but the life I can only imagine that happened when she was alone or with loved ones. This is the most intimate portrait of Tasha that I have ever seen, and can only think Nell Dorr to be the photographer. I can hardly imagine anyone else so close to Tasha to capture this picture of a young nursing mother. It is such a rare depiction of her life and must have been taken in the late thirties or early forties of the 20Th century- which is in itself somewhat astonishing. Which of the four children this little beautiful babe is I do not know. But it is heartbreaking in so many ways with everything the family is going through with settling the estate of Tasha Tudor. What is evident to me is this. No matter what happened to cause the family to break apart as it has, Tasha loved her babies. It is written all over her face. The stress and trials of bringing up four children after she left her husband, I cannot even begin to imagine. Her art paid the bills. Perhaps this is the reason I feel more attached to her daily life than her art. In my head, it seems that for her it was a means to an end. Tasha was extremely protective of her private life and had a very structured life. To the casual onlooker it may not have seemed so, but for any modern person to shun all outside forms of media takes great discipline. No television, radio, or Internet. No reading other peoples Blogs, joining Facebook, or writing emails. It may seem like she didn't care about the outside world. To me, it seemed like she cared about her inside world more deeply than to let the outside world get in the way. This is the notion that has been tumbling about in my head for the past months. I write on this Blog to those I care deeply about, and maybe to those who find some sort of shelter in a common soul. I can relate on so many levels to Tasha wanting to shun the outside world. Sometimes contact with people outside your protective circle can be more hassle than what it seems worth. The bottom line is that we often do not see the world the same way. These can include people we do not know, but it can also include those who should be most close to us, but for one reason or another are not. I would like to be the type of person who could overcome any transgression. I can forgive any hurt, but I cannot say I am able to readily give the other cheek for another slap, so to speak. Maybe this is how it was for Tasha and her family. Whatever is said or written, one thing I believe is true. Her family and home place were her world. Taking care of her gardens, animals, and art left little time for wasted energy. Those who loved her knew where to find her. I wonder at her feelings of sentimentality towards the end of her life. Was this the reason she entrusted one child to the bulk of her life? In her heart, was he the one who most understood her? I did not know her so I cannot say. But I can say that we can empathize with someone we do not know, and I think this is entirely possible. A home takes a lifetime to build up and can be torn to pieces in a matter of months with the right attorneys. If you think I am speaking of brick and mortar, think again. What is at stake here in Tasha's world is much more than her home place. It is a way of life that thousands cling to for strength in navigating a world far to concerned with the lives of other's. She remains a strong reminder for many of us that our life happens in the rituals of each and every day. If we become too engrossed in the lives of others, or in world events, we find ourselves at risk of losing touch with our own. Take Peace, dear Tasha. We miss you.

Paring Down

2009-06-12T11:00:00.001-07:00

Lately I am
finding
that what
I want
most for
my family
is room
to breathe.
I have had this vision of emptying the house down to the bare walls, putting everything out into the yard, and slowly putting only what we need and regularly use back into the house. For months now we have been cleaning out corners and cupboards and letting go of things. Once you have a little space that is pared down and feel the openness and simplicity, it becomes fairly an obsession to spread the effect around. Decorative things have been the first to go. If we cannot use it for something as well as admire its beauty, it is out the door. What is left is taking on greater meaning as we finally begin to notice things.

We had curtains in the great room that were Colonial swags. They did not match our saltbox, and worse, they did nothing. They offered no protection from light or cold as they could not be lowered or drawn. I had a roll of fabulous hemp fabric just sitting around in a closet and we are in the process of changing over all the curtains to a simple rod pocket and iron pull back style. The one window that is finished is blissful! Wren can play in her kitchen in the hot afternoon sun and barely notice the glare from the windowpanes.

We had a lot of pottery displayed about and it was collecting a lot of dust. If we cannot bake with it, put flowers in it, or store something in it, for the most part it left the house too. What we are left with are small groupings that work well together and get a lot of use. I appreciate the workmanship a lot more and notice how the colors change throughout the day.

All of a sudden I see things differently. I love old worn leather and the pieces we have are so comfortable. They now stand out in the room as main focal points because so much of the other clutter has been cleared away.

A hat stands ready at the front door stair banister and a little saddle pouch hangs over the rail. Wren likes to take these items and put her little treasures in the pouches and play cowgirl in the hat. An old saddle sits atop an ottoman nearby and every child who comes to our house loves to ride this imaginary horse.

I am amazed by how little we need these days. We have always needed so little...we just got a bit lost along the way. I still have months of cleaning and giving away to do, but there is light in the tunnel now in so many areas of our home. It feels wonderful with each new day of paring down and my burdens are getting lighter and lighter. It gives me time to think about those things in my home that matter most...my three family members. I hope they remember these times of letting go of things and I hope it sticks with all of us. What we enjoy more than ever nowadays is our time together, and that's something worth collecting.

Rainy Days

2009-06-10T12:03:00.000-07:00

The rain of the past few days is giving everything a jump start in the vegetable patch. Pumpkins are in flower and sending forth their curling tendrils.
The yellow squash is in flower and has thus far escaped the borer that devastated our crops last year.

Brussels Sprouts are happy for the cooler temperatures and becoming strong and sturdy plants in an amazing shade of light blue.

Some of the tallest Marigolds I have ever grown are nestled among the tomato plants. Their scent hits you as soon as you come within sight of the garden.

Some

days

here

are

breath-

takingly

beautiful

I cannot

believe

my eyes.

Despite the fact that I have about a lifetime's worth of weeding...and the rains are bringing forth yet more weeds, I somehow cannot be bothered with or stressed by the fact that I may never catch up. Days like these are wondrous here in the Valley. The temperatures are cool, you can smell new green growth in the air, and everything is covered in a fine blueish mist. There must be five colors of flowers bursting on the largest Nasturtiums I have ever seen. They are running a muck in the pumpkin patch and gourd patch.

The Birdhouse Gourds are growing before my very eyes and tomorrow I will place another support on top of this one which will let them climb to a height of six feet- which still may not be enough!

Delicate lettuces are coming in every day as the new seedlings try to gain a foothold in their peat pots. These lettuces are three year old plants and just put forth new growth every season.

Apples are coming in on the tree and are just loving all this rain. It is not unusual to spot a tawny fawn and her parents nibbling on the new fruits.

The hay is getting wet this season. The horseman is not too happy about this but the cut was timed wrong. Most of it was salvaged and the rest left uncut until we dry out. I can hardly blame the cutter, however, when for so long rain was in the forecast and did not arrive. But he took a chance and cut over the weekend and it has poured down rain- and hail- ever since.

Market beans are coming in after a very precarious start. We lost an entire seedling run and the second did not look to be faring any better. But most survived and are now putting on vigorous growth.

Wren's Prince

2009-06-09T14:18:00.000-07:00

Kiss

a
Frog,

and

get

Prince.

It has always been our motto around here. Ever since Wren was a baby we have always played up the old folklore of kissing frogs and magically appearing Princes. When we left Florida, I had assumed our frog seeing days were somewhat over. There's toads in the gardens and bullfrogs aplenty in the ponds, but the smallish little green variety I thought was rare. The first time I spotted a little green, my immediate thought was that it somehow smuggled its way from Naples in one of our deck chairs or tables. But a quick search here-

http://www.ohioamphibians.com/frogs/frogspecies.html gave me some relief. I hadn't single handedly introduced the dreaded Cuban Treefrog into Ohio. Although I am sure someone has!

The species we often see, I believe, is Cope's Gray Treefrog or the basic Gray Treefrog (nearly identical except for differences at the cellular level). Our little guys are more green than gray, however. If we listen carefully, we can hear them peeping on the back porch at nightfall.

It is difficult around here to move near a flower patch and not turn up a toad. We have spotted both the Eastern American and Fowler's Toad. Both species appear to be very well fed here in our gardens and we welcome them wholeheartedly. They do not seem appreciative of our toad houses of terra cotta, but we put them out each Spring none the less. The Northern Leopard Frog appears on the water banks in such great numbers that it is a wonder anything else in the frog family can sustain itself around here! A casual stroll down the line of the ponds produces a regular Plop!... Plop!... Plop! ...the whole way down. You are then met with curious large eyes just visible above the surface line of the water. The abundance of toads and frogs at Hawk's Run is another true testament to the land's ability in southern Ohio to host a range of wildlife that elsewhere is becoming very scarce. It was not unusual in Florida to see amphibians with birth defects, a growing problem in many areas of our country due to pollution. I have yet to see that once here in Ohio.

For more on our hoppity friends, one of our favorites books is Toad by the Road A Year in the Life of These Amazing Amphibians by Joanne Ryder and Maggie Kneen.
Beautifully illustrated and full of short poems and factual tidbits, like the bewildering story of a toad who eats his own skin...yes, all toads do! That is why we never see one lying about once a toad sheds its skin for growth, and it is the basis for the old folklore.

Win Some..Lose Some

2009-06-05T10:54:00.001-07:00

In gardening, there is no such thing as success all of the time.
This year I have made a valiant attempt to save money and grow everything from seed. I had two three level indoor greenhouses perched right up against our wall of windowpanes in the great room. It has been a revolving door of peat pots since early March. Our main goal was the vegetable garden. Getting a head start on plants for the newly tilled over earth seemed like a good idea. The garden sits at the southern portion of our grassy area before the fields give way to hay production for the horses who live down the road on another farm. We dedicate about five acres to hay every season. The other goal was to grow our own Annuals and Perennials which seem to be getting ever more expensive at the local nurseries. I started seeds for Black Eyed Susans, Forget Me Nots, Marigolds, Morning Glories, Nasturtiums, Poppies, Purple Cone flowers, Snapdragons, Sweet Peas, and Zinnias. It was a bigger list than I had anticipated but I knew that there was just not going to be the disposable income for buying these plants full grown. The planted areas here at the farm are pretty extensive, and the weeding that accompanies these areas is exhaustive. The more we get planted it seems, the less weeding there is to be done. It is a nice thing to be able to see beautiful color and know you are saving yourself from knee and back-breaking work. I love gardening in every sense of the word, but there is another reason we have to keep up the appearance of the farm. It doesn't happen often, but my husband's art brings clients to the farm to discuss their projects and see his wood shop. It is an awful thing to bring a client to a house that is unkempt. You may as well just place a "I'm disorganized" sticker on your forehead. And yes, while we can be disorganized, I don't like to announce it with an unkempt yard! The seedling project has educated me about growing flowers. Some varieties are just not meant to be grown at home by a novice. For instance, poppies do much better broadcast in sand into the places where you wish them to grow. Growing them in peat pots is near pointless. Sweet peas can be tough to germinate, as can Black Eyed Susans. Cone flowers take a while to grow, whereas their bought in four inch pot sisters take off growing like wildfire. Snapdragons have to be thinned and then wilt and die if you miss a day of care. Marigolds, Nasturtiums, and Zinnias can be grown by someone with a brown thumb and four brown fingers they are so easy.

So it was that one of my local favorite nurseries ran a special on beautiful Snapdragons in reds, whites, and yellows. The seedlings I had grown were meant for our front entrance under two newly planted Lilac trees that our old trees had given birth to. Needless to say, my seedlings of Snaps had failed miserably. Snapdragons may be one of my favorite Annuals because they just cannot help but bring a smile to your face. They are a cheery group indeed.

On the whole, I would say the seedling experiment is a success. Most everything has survived and is flourishing, and I spent nary any money in flowers this year thus far. That is not to say if I had unlimited funds for flowers, I would be hitting those nurseries every weekend, because I would. There is no place more exciting or adventurous than a nursery decked out in all its floral regalia. Here's my local favorites: Greenfield Plant Farm in the Landon Maineville area, Allyson's Gardens in Lebanon, and the local Lebanon Farmer's Market held each Thursday at noon near the town library. I have found some wonderfully healthy plants at the Market that I haven't seen in the nurseries. Greenfield's has the most extensive selection in the area and gardeners who know just about everything I have ever thrown at them. Allyson's is smaller but again just as knowledgeable. One of her gardeners has a Shaker garden that was on last year's garden tour and it was to die for. So while I am learning to grow my own, I'll still be popping into the locals. I think this is important because gardening just would not be the same without them.

A Barrel of Monkeys

2009-06-03T11:08:00.001-07:00

Real Life sometimes hits you in the oddest of moments.
This has been a busy morning. We have yet another rainy day and I have a list of things to accomplish a mile long. There is no school for my oldest pumpkin today and she is bouncing off the walls. During breakfast I was able to do my writing for one of my favorite "foodies", and the subject matter made me HUNGRY! Once the kitchen clean up was finished after breakfast, it was immediately time to make lunch. I wondered if I could fit in a batch of homemade cookies in the process? Sure, why not? When you have this much to do in one day a batch of cookies does not make or break you. An added benefit is that it grabs the attention of two children for a full forty five minutes. Once lunch was over and the promise of cookies after a nap is lulling around in their heads, nap time is coming along pretty nicely. One down one to go... I am sitting on the couch fumbling with a Barrel of Monkeys and my three year old is showing me how "Daddy does a double monkey". I am intrigued I realize, not because of the feat of the double monkey, but because I realize that my house at times is just like this game. A Barrel of Monkeys, and I am trying to string everything together nicely. Let's face it, one mom, two children under four, a big lumbering dog, and two cats spells chaos in any sense of the imagination. House clean and perfect- no. Children clean and perfect- no. Mom- most certainly no. One of the cats has just chased the lumbering dog in a round about that has ended with the papers from my morning's writings everywhere. My phone conversation with my little sister in Florida earlier had me thinking the tiredness in her new mom's voice echoed mine. I jokingly said, "it takes a village". A large part of me wasn't joking. It is no wonder we are all so tired all of the time. I think we now live in an age where demands on each family unit are so great that the "village" no longer exists. I used to think, too, that the reason of people living apart was the main foible. Now I know this is not the case. Even people who live right next door do not always have the ability or time to pitch in- and this goes both ways. I cannot tell how many times I have been phoned for a favor that I just could not do at that moment. You feel terribly about it but also realize that one more thing under your nose at that moment and all things might just go haywire. Just like that chain of monkeys, the likelihood is that it will all fall apart if I try to do one more thing. The economy demands that we use every spare moment right now just trying to survive, but none of the other "work" lets up either. It is the busy time for growing food, maintaining the house outside, and most families have children at home now that school has let out. So how do we cope? I find that we have to begin to get a "village" mentality back in our lives. I find this a topic of conversation more and more amongst my friends. A very close friend said recently, and I am paraphrasing, that we have to find a way to keep what is good in our circle. I have taken this to heart. What changes will occur in my life as I get back to the business of survival in this tough economy will be taken with this advice in mind. Who knew a little children's game could open up so much space for reflection?

The Soap & the Serpant

2009-05-31T21:34:00.001-07:00

I like
snakes,
I really
do...
but there
is a place
for them...
and it is
not the
soap dish.
Let me set a scene for you. It had been a long grueling week for my husband who is working around the clock to get a project completed for a client. We are relaxing for a few minutes in the great room on Thursday evening prior to my husband having to go out to his workshop yet again. My three year old has just run upstairs to put some stray coins in her bank. She comes back down, passing over the cat laying in the hall who decides it is high time she comes down too. Sunshine has been sprawled out in the upstairs hall for hours like a beached whale. I hear my husband's footsteps heading toward the laundry room in the upstairs bathroom. And then I hear a fairly long string of loud expletives. I call up to be sure he is all right and barely make out the word "snake". Hmmm...I think and get moving toward the stairs myself. What I see is unbelievable. My husband is standing just inside the bathroom, having reached for his boots, and has caught a glimpse of something moving on the bathroom counter. At first he thinks it may be a mouse, then maybe a few mice- and as his eyes adjust to what he is seeing, he steps back. A snake has coiled up in the iron soap dish, furtively eyeing both him, and the other snake which is looking a bit threatening in the mirror! This gives me just enough time to grab a wood walking stick with a nice handle. I pass it to my husband trying not to make any quick moves. I plead with him to be careful. He cheerfully tells me he has seen this on television and can handle the situation. And the next thing I know he is holding the snake at the head and walking it out the front door. I am stunned, both by the snake, and the snake charmer. Our guest is dropped into a plastic bucket for identification and covered tightly. A few moments later we realize that what we have is a pretty large and well fed rat snake. A lot of odd occurrences throughout the day begin to make sense. Sometime in the early afternoon both of our cats were staring down the basement stairwell. There was a gate perched in the landing there and I did not think too much of this at the time. The door there is rarely open and I figured they were doing a bit of investigating. Then there were some odd odors. I couldn't put my finger on it but it was musky- like a cross between old shoes or old meat. I know, gross, but then it simply went away. It is hard to tell how long our slithering friend lived with us. I know that the past year has seen very few rodents running around the house. I attributed this to our cats, but perhaps not. Rat snakes can live to be twenty years old, and do much good. We let him go right outside the barn. He may face some competition out there, and hopefully will not find the baby birds in the conifers. Just today we saw one of the hawks fly over carrying a rather large snake. And we think we have had a tough week? There's no way to tell if our serpent became the hawks dinner today, but I'd be surprised if we find him in the soap dish again!

Thanks to Kenny Brooks for the name of this blog post!

PS- You can click on the photographs here on my blog for a close up view of the snake...almost just like being there...almost.

Farewell to May

2009-05-30T06:34:00.001-07:00

It seems
just
yester-
day we
were
tying
ribbon
to the
light
post
in
hope
for May
to
arrive.

Here she is come and gone after tomorrow...time spent out of doors passes so quickly. I spent the greater part of May tending to the vegetable gardens and rotating the weeding of the flower gardens. It has rained here in the Ohio River Valley at what seems to be the optimum waterfall conditions for weeds! My daughter looks forward to the Maypole every Spring. I find it intriguing that most little girls who visit our home in May know exactly what to do with the ribbons. No matter the age, if a little girl can walk, those ribbons just beckon to be held and run in circles. Peels of giggles and entanglement ensue, and it is all quite lovely to watch. Maybe such old traditions really are stored in the genes? Most parents of the children look at me in wonderment as their girls run with the ribbons saying that they have never seen a real Maypole. I smile, because while the child might never have seen one in real life, they may store images from Fairy Tales, both told and imagined, in the depths of their memory. We will miss the colorful ribbons blowing in the wind as we turn toward June. The exchange will be colorful flowers in the gardens from now until late Autumn. One thing is certain, there will still be little girls running in the front lawns in circles!

A Flash of Blue

2009-05-29T11:11:00.001-07:00

I have been seeing a flash of blue here and there since early Spring...

I am so excited to report that a family of bluebirds is finally nesting in the box at the side of the house. Each year I have watched this box only to be disappointed. But this year, they arrived. They built a little nest and have been coming and going. I had planned on moving this box before any birds had a chance to nest in it. The previous owners of the farm had placed the box here, but ideally a bluebird box should be on a metal or smooth wood pole. This keeps the likelihood of rat snakes eating the eggs or young to a minimum. Rat snakes are notorious climbers and this tree is no problem to overcome. Another pitfall of placing this box on a tree is lice. I found this out the hard way while trying to see if eggs or young birds were in the box. I carefully placed my camera up to the hole, snapped a photo, and noticed all the dirt on my lens. Oh no, I thought, that's not dirt. It is moving. Hundreds of bird lice. My camera is perched in a nice tight zip lock until I can figure out how to remove the insects from inside my lens. This was all rather disgusting and I cannot imagine how the bluebirds have overcome this problem if they were successful with eggs this year. I can only hope that either the eggs are yet to be laid or they laid early and have already fledged. I will be monitoring this box constantly over the next few days to see if the parents are still coming and going. If I do not see them soon, I will get into the box and get it cleaned out. De-licing a bird box is not top on my list of favorite things to do but knowing that it is infested is going to drive me crazy. It needs another coat of paint and I will do that at the same time. So one bluebird family is getting their Spring cleaning a bit late, but hopefully they will still be able to lay another clutch before it becomes too warm. They certainly are beautiful and I would like to see a lot more of them around!

Try Try Again

2009-05-28T09:00:00.000-07:00

It has
been
a tough
year for
our egg
layers
thus far.

One little feathered friend decided to lay her eggs in our Christmas tree. She diligently built her perfect little nest and laid two precious eggs only to have us come along and place the tree in our burn pile. The nest and eggs fell out on the way to the pile. The eggs were still in yolk stage but I felt absolutely horrible. Let it be a lesson...look before you remove an old tree, and better yet, just choose a spot to leave it until the end of Spring if you do not compost or burn it right away. The second bird came along and built her nest right above the lamp on our breezeway entry. She was scared witless every time we came in and out. Worse, when she laid her two eggs they were perilously close to the edge of the flat nest and there was no way the little ones wouldn't fall out when they hatched. I placed the nest from the Christmas tree to the underside of her nest for more support- which she promptly kicked out. This should have come as no surprise to me. The nesting bird remained there for a few more days but the comings and goings of the house inhabitants were too much and she left her nest for greener pastures. I later found the eggs with holes in them and the yolks gone. Nest failure number two. The most recent nest blunder could have had dire consequences for our family. Mama bird decided to build her nest in our dryer vent on the second floor of the house. At first we thought she was coming and going with lint for a nest elsewhere. But then we noticed we were hearing her far too often just to be making supply runs. What we found when we dismantled the vent was horrifying. She had packed the tube with three feet of dried grass- the last six inches displaying dangerous burn marks from the heat of the dryer. It is no small wonder that our house did not go up in flames. Earlier in the day I had noticed steam escaping from the vent so I was really surprised to find that the length of hose had been blocked. One thing is for sure, those four beautiful blue eggs had been par boiled right from the start. Once we changed out the hose and placed a new vent cover on the house, the reality of having these four little eggs in our possession hit me. I knew they were not viable but I also did not know what on earth to do with them. Throwing them out just didn't seem right. But I did not have the heart to break them open either. My husband came home and saw them sitting in the flower pot yesterday and looked at me with this look of disbelief. He not so gently reminded me of the the horrendous odor that would emit if one of those little darlings broke open. This morning I finally faced what had to be done. I got a plastic zip lock, placed them in it, and sealed it tight. I figured if there were just yolks, I could throw it out. If there were babies, I would give them a proper burial. Why on earth I am so emotional about these things? We are lucky to be alive after the close call with a near fire. Luckily all four eggs contained a semi cooked yolk. No sign of any life. I feel a little better. Here's to hoping these three Mama's have chosen better spots to bear their young.

New Life

2009-05-27T13:20:00.000-07:00

Some

times

you

just

get a

feeling

about

some

thing.

My husband was walking the area where the Morels come up a few days ago and had entered

an area where one of our cats is buried beneath a small evergreen. The grass was tall again as we have been avoiding mowing in this area until we are sure we will not take out any last minute Morels. He has a size fourteen shoe so what could have happened would have been catastrophic. He was just about to place a step when he hesitated. A little bird had flown out of the grass and seemed injured. Instinct told him it was a cover. Sure enough, brand new little chicks had just come out of their shells. The photo here was taken today and is a bit blurry because I wanted to get in and out without disturbing the scene. Mama was nearby and once again displaying her "injury". These little babies are so sweet lying snuggled in their small nest just under the tree seedling. The tree has very prickly leaves and an animal would have to think twice before attempting to go in. These are good babies- they do not utter a sound even when you peek in. It takes some seconds to locate them even when you are looking right at their huge little eyes and tiny curved beaks. They know when to remain silent and this is a behavior I have never witnessed before. It will be fun to watch them fledge from the nest and learn to fly. I am happy that the storms we have had cannot blow them out of a nest. Stranded baby birds is not an uplifting situation and the dangers of ground nesting seem to be less than tree nesting, which is hard to believe. I will be posting more about our feathered friends here at Hawk's Run this week and the adventures we have had with them so far this Spring. Stay tuned...

Peonies Act IV

2009-05-25T07:16:00.001-07:00

The last of the Peonies have come into bloom.
I am so grateful to the previous owners of this house that planted these wonderful bloomers years ago. They were planted in long rows along the front driveway barrier to the garage and along the long fence line of the dog run. A few were planted in here and there such as the one in the mound garden. The ones pictured are the doubles in solid light pink and plain white. Wren is taking an interest in how all the different plants smell and these did not disappoint. Peonies smell so powdery fresh- almost like the scent of a baby.
I couldn't resist bringing a few of the pink and white ones that first bloomed into the house this morning. It was a cool morning here after two days of pretty intense heat. It feels like rain today and as we approach noon it is still as cool as it was this morning. We spent some time in the herb garden watering, weeding, and just taking a general inventory of things. We lost a Bonariensis Verbena over the winter along with some of the Lemon Thyme. Of course, the Kentucky Mint gained an even stronger foothold and has to be tamed. The Yarrow is coming into flower and the English lavender is sporting a lot of new growth. If there is any spare time after working in the vegetable garden this week, it belongs to the herb garden. Hopefully that time will be forthcoming!

In Search of Weed Freedom

2009-05-24T12:43:00.001-07:00

In the
Battle of
the Weeds,
I was
losing-
Big
Time.

I just cannot keep up. I am now at a point where I am spending a minimum of two hours per day in the vegetable garden, and I just could not squeeze time in the day to get to weeding the flower beds. If it were only a matter of sightliness, no problem. Our problem here at the farm is poison ivy and poison oak. It is absolutely everywhere. Nearly impossible to eradicate. More than once I have been in a weeding state of zombiness and pulled a large poison ivy plant with my bare hands. Incredibly, I have never gotten poison ivy! So while I may be immune, it still gives me a start when I realize what I am holding. A few days back I was at my local perennial nursery picking up some Coneflowers that deer seem to have taking a liking to lately. I had grown a batch from seed and half were eaten along with their peat pots. The deer left a nice little chomp out of the Lambs Ear as a signature of guilt. I was standing in line behind a lady at the check out who was talking about her husband with the wonderful man who always rings me out each visit to remedy some garden disaster. I was so taken with her conversation about her husband running a co-op garden in Cincy that I nearly missed the bales of mulch beside the counter. Pine needles. I registered those bales with interest because I had seen a garden at last years Lebanon Garden Show done beautifully with reclaimed pine needles. It had smelled as divine as it looked.

What caught my attention was the price on each bale- $8.99 each! I figured the average person could blow a cool hundred dollars in attempting to cover even a small area. That little interaction at the nursery finally had ME taking action. I had just completed the weeding of the Gayfeathers and Bee Balm. It was a perfect opportunity to be done with the weeding in these areas until next year. I took a few loads of our pine needles from the stands to the south of the house and had the whole area finished within a half hour. These are days where every dollar counts, and it feels good to be able to reclaim something that is just lying around the yard. A true win win situation.

Peonies Act III

2009-05-23T06:48:00.000-07:00

Each
day
brings
another
Peony
into
full
bloom.

This plant bears the double fuchsia petals with the yellow centers.
These are identical to the single type with the exception of having about a hundred times more petals. Some flowers have so many petals that it is impossible to view their centers without prying them open. I imagine it is a brave insect indeed who blindly goes forth into these flowers. It must be like a maze of scented beauty trying to find the pollen.

Each time a new type of Peony opens I say to myself that this one is definitely my favorite. The next day and new blooms finds me saying the same thing all over again. I would not say I am fond of the color pink, however, the Peonies do pink amazingly. I read last evening where variegated colors in Tulips signifies a virus, and I wonder if the few specimens of variegated Peonies I have seen implies the same situation? Variegation in color appears to our naked eye as a marbleization of the true color, usually marbled with white or a very pale shade of the true type color. It is one situation where a virus feels welcome!

Peony Show Act II

2009-05-21T11:19:00.000-07:00

I may
be fairly
obsessed
with the
varying
species
of the
same
family
of flower.

The Peony, of course, is no exception- and may well be the rule as to how the obsession began. I find it a mystery, still, how mixing one parent flower with another gives us surprisingly different results each time, even though I fully understand the biology behind what is taking place. I spent my fair share of time predicting outcomes of cross pollinating plants in university, but even though I know how it all works, I find the odd unusual outcomes to be one of the great mysteries of life. This blooming Peony is a single cup shaped flower with bright yellow stamens against a deep fuchsia pink petal. The contrast is remarkable.

When they first open, they always appear to be a bit lopsided- almost as if there is too much space to choose from- the petals do not seem to know where to fall. Nearly every time you put your head into one of these beauties you are greeted by a bee.

Here the flower is in full bloom. What a difference a day can make.

This pretty little lady's Mantle is growing at the feet of the Peonies. In the morning, it casts a silvery hue from the dew drops it collects on its bowl shaped leaves. The little yellow blooms go wonderfully with the Peonies yellow stamens. A match made in heaven.

The Yearly Show

2009-05-19T09:38:00.000-07:00

There
may
be
no
plant
on
Earth
quite
as
beautiful
as
the
Peony.

This is the week I look forward to most every year. Usually occurring right around Mother's Day, we are a bit late this year. No matter. The show is just as spectacular. Ants have been doing their busy job of eating away at the membranes that cover the flower buds, and on cue, as soon as the ants vacate, the buds open. This plant is the years first. Situated in a large mound garden that just experienced a severe burning of ornamental grass, I was hesitant to count on its survival. But Peonies are sturdy plants, tolerating the intense heat of a burn, and the frigid lower temperatures we have been experiencing in the Ohio River Valley the past few nights.

This plant is two shades of pink, with alternating layers. The outside is an intense deep fuchsia, with pale pink layers inside, and another shoot of fuchsia taller petals in the very center. It is truly remarkable.

I am always stunned by the sheer number of petals that fit inside of a Peony bud. It seems an impossible feat of nature.

Here is the first fully open Peony of the Spring. This may be the most layered and large flower I have seen in the Peony gardens, and with no rain in the weeks forecast, they should remain as beautiful as ever.

This Peony is a spot of wonder amongst the plants growing back from the burn. I just cannot wait to see what the others have in store for us this year.

Ten Minutes and A Mower

2009-05-12T12:06:00.000-07:00

I had
a running
hand mower
and ten
minutes
of spare
time, which
is like
an eternity
these days.

We are experimenting with some bulbs and wildflowers in this locust grove, but the high grass was getting a little out of hand. I had ten minutes and an idea and off I went. Wren and Dane have a little grass maze in the shade- not too big, not too small. Of course it is only temporary until we mow through the area again, but in the meantime, they will love to play in it. It goes around three times and weaves between trees and ends in a little circle. Just perfect for a little table and chairs to sit in. That's where I'm off to next- to drag a table set out there. Loving this cool weather and bright days, it just doesn't get any better than this. And in my other spare ten minutes, I trimmed back the lilac trees- not that the children will care about THAT.

Radish Repair

2009-05-09T08:57:00.001-07:00

It was
quiet...
and it
wasn't
nap time.

This is never a good sign. It can only mean one thing. I will be cleaning up something- or repairing something. It usually means I left something out in the open that I shouldn't have. Yes, sure enough, I left out the play scissors. We had been cutting paper figures a few hours before and I must have left the scissors within reach. The casualties of the day were five play wood radishes, two crocheted play fruit shopping bags, a play wooden tea bag, a pair of doll undies, and a doll headband. The scissors must have been moving at lightning speed as I was making breakfast. I was a little upset until I realized Wren has been talking about haircuts. Thank goodness this hadn't crossed her mind during the destruction. The tea bag was set right with some more string- the second repair mind you. The undies and headband, along with the fruit bags, met a garbage can. I was upset about the crocheted bags more than anything- these I cannot fix. I wandered upstairs and pulled out my felt batch. It has been pulled out many times before for jobs such as this. I cut five new sets of leaves and put them in place. Coyly, Wren says to me. "See Mama, I like this green so much better. It's why I cut them off- so you could change them." Right, not likely. She was, simply, immersed in some kind of scissor mania- that is all.

Now, if only I could do something for these poor little radishes. These are our test French radishes for the garden this Spring. After tonight's full moon, they'll go straight into the garden. Maybe Mother Earth will work some magic on them.

Thinking Happy Thoughts

2009-05-08T09:11:00.000-07:00

I am
trying
so very
hard to
keep my
mind on
the
wondrous
things
happening
in the
gardens
these days.

I dropped Allium bulbs in the ground last Fall, late at that, but here they are in all their glory. I think these are so wonderful that there will definitely be a lot more Allium dropping this Fall. I believe these are a single Allium, as there appears to also be double which is more like a globe. Some research should sleuth this out and hopefully I will be able to obtain the doubles as well. It is interesting to note that whenever I see these pretty flowers in photographs, their blades are usually absent from the pictures. I have found the reason for this. The blades die as the flowers bloom. I had a moment of despair when I thought I was losing them but the garden books assured this was a normal progression. So much to learn- so little time.

The Iris is magnificent this Spring. These are the bearded variety and this is by far their best bloom since we have been here at Hawk's Run. We divided them over the last year and this has truly paid off ten fold. I would like to add other colors to the mix in the Iris beds so I'll be on the look out for more bulbs this year. I'm thinking yellow to complement the slight yellowish hue inside our present Irises.

I have been wanting Blue Bells for years. Well, it appears that I already have them. I was so surprised by this display and I am hoping someone out there can confirm or correct my suspicion on this one. These are growing under our large trees in front under quite a bit of shade. They are so pretty and delicate.

This little white flowering perennial appears to be some type of Hepatica, or Anemone. These are popping up and Wren has enjoyed picking little bouquets of them for inside the house. She has decided that only a tall green Yuengling beer bottle will do for a vase!

This little patch of mint is very interesting. It is a perfect rectangle near my herb garden. It has been here for a while by the looks of it. No matter the season, the greens on this rectangle are different than its surroundings and I have taken to calling it "the grave site". No one can confirm or deny this little oddity here, but it definitely marks something. Jaime over at Way Down the Valley recently posted that this mint is a type known as "Heal All". That is nice to know because we have it in profusion!

All the colors blooming about have been very uplifting. This is good because the ground beneath me feels shaky once again. We had good news from the labs recently. Our scat was that of a coyote, not a puma. I had just delivered this good news to my nature writing friend at our local library. I was feeling great about the situation and hoping we were nothing more than a pass through for a wayward lost lion. Like clockwork, the phone rang the next day. Our neighbor who runs every day rain or shine, and has been for years with his group of dogs, came upon the cat by the large lake to the front of our house. The dogs had been distracted with something and he ran on ahead. The puma was as surprised as he was and took off in a flash. My husband hesitantly relayed the news to me right after it happened. I had just had the children hiking in this area days before. When I spoke to my neighbor's wife I asked her how certain he was. He was one hundred percent. He had come within 50 feet of it, saw the coloration, the long tail, the cat face. He does not believe it was full grown. The very fact that Doc had not seen the puma made us all a little skeptical in the past. Surely, if anyone was to see this animal it would be him. Well, now he has. Docs wife had also found odd looking scat in the last days. But, again, because ours turned out to be coyote, we thought little of it. Now looking at pictures of the two animal's scat, I am not at all certain I can tell the difference. What I do know is what they look like in form, and I am on the lookout constantly. It's difficult to concentrate on anything else. It is difficult to feel really at ease outdoors right now. The question lingers. Does this animal, or animals, have fear of us? Or is it observing us like we are trying to observe it? What is it eating? What happens if one of our children happen upon it? These are tough questions all. I feel a certain sadness for this animal who seems to be trying to survive without our taking notice. The sightings create a sense that while we are amazed at its existence, there is a bit of underlying fear in us as well. I still hold out hope that we can all exist here together. But it's kind of the same feeling I get with snakes. I just want to know where it is at so that I am not surprised when I see it.

My Brush With Greatness

2009-05-02T19:50:00.000-07:00

Living in Naples, at times, had its perks. One was a fortuitous
opportunity to meet Christo.
I think about Christopher Lloyd all of the time. No, not the actor, I'm speaking of Christopher the Master gardener of Great Dixter. Perhaps he, more than any other person I have ever known of, or personally known, has been the reason I have wanted to garden most of my adult life. He toured all over the United States for quite a few years giving lectures to fellow gardeners. I happened to be on the floor of my outfitter the day he walked in looking for something to combat the hot Florida sun. He had been staying at the Ritz Carlton on the shore- and there was not a lot of shade. I had also heard through the grapevine that he was helping the Ritz to tend to their rose garden which seemed to be growing in popularity very quickly. A lot of afternoon teas were held there and this probably helped to contribute to its fame. Knowing what I know now about Mr. Lloyd, he most likely found roses in Naples even more finicky than roses in England. I knew him immediately when he walked through the door, though I was too embarrassed to admit it to his face the entire time we talked, lest he think me some kind of neurotic garden groupie...if he only knew. The thing about Christo is this. He seemed to love young people. As long as you were serious about your interest, which I was, he would talk to you and answer questions until he had to leave to be somewhere else. I was completely mesmerized, and likewise, he seemed to draw energy from being in a shop full of young outdoors people. Since that chance meeting more than ten years ago, I have come to know more about Christopher Lloyd through his books. His Gardener Cook book is one that I have read time and again. Something in his words keeps me grounded. He had a deep and abiding love for friends who were always coming to visit him at Great Dixter. He had a profound gratefulness for the opportunity he had through family to remain at Dixter the rest of his life. He had the kind of working relationship with Fergus Garrett that may come only once or twice in a lifetime. He was just a no nonsense kind of man and it is this that I loved most about him. His passion for dahlias has infected me. The thought of digging them up every year and over wintering them is the only thing that has kept me quelled. It will be both interesting and exciting to see Great Dixter evolve in the absence of its owner, but I would hedge bets that a lot of the Christo spirit is alive and well in Fergus. Fergus recently said in an interview that he remains true to Christopher's vision but is not afraid to move plants around and try new types of plants not grown at Dixter before. I find this fitting. I don't think Mr. Lloyd would have wanted Great Dixter to become a shrine to himself. More importantly, he seemed to value other people's opinions and talents to such a degree that I do not believe he would have wanted Fergus to waste his gift just maintaining what they had done together in the gardens. Someplace as special as Great Dixter, for all that it has been since the 15Th century, is living proof that a great person never really dies. What is shared and learned in a place of such great beauty is simply passed on, hand to hand.

Above photo of Christopher Lloyd at Great Dixter by Jonathan Buckley.

Homemade Pizza Night

2009-05-01T17:33:00.000-07:00

It has

become

a Friday

night

tradition

around

here to

make

homemade

pizzas for

a quick

and

usually

late

dinner.

By Friday evening I am usually feeling a little creatively wiped out. Throughout the week cooking up new recipes is fun and exciting, but by the end of the week I need a little relief. Disappointed by all the take out pizzas we had been receiving, and at such an enormous expense, we decided it was high time to revive the family tradition I had as a child for Friday night homemade pizza. I had been baking up all sorts of breads over the last few years, from wonderful crusty French breads, to German styled soft pretzels, so the pizza dough came easy. Into a cup of hot water went one packet of yeast, one cup of flour, and a half teaspoon of salt. A mix of parsley, oregano, and basil gets added in on the first mix up too- about a teaspoonful combined. This mixture runs through on the bread setting of the Kitchen Aid for about three minutes. Then I add another two cups of flour along with two tablespoons of good quality olive oil and let it spin for eight minutes. The dough is rolled out on a lightly floured baking stone and coated generously with whatever pasta sauce I have made that week. Pepperoni or sausage gets liberally applied, along with lots of mushrooms. Oh, how I wish we had found another Morel this week! The whole pie gets topped off with tons of mozzarella cheese, placed in a hot 425 degree oven for twenty five minutes, and set to cool for another five to ten minutes on the stone where it finishes baking. This is so simple to make and tastes so much better than anything we have had out at a restaurant. It is also so nice to have one meal out of seven a given, and because I have been doing this for months now, I can make this dinner almost without thinking. Improvising becomes interesting and we often substitute chicken or bacon for the meat, and use all types of cheese when we are out of mozzarella. The same dough recipe can be used to make a calzone by placing the toppings on only one half of the rolled out dough and folding the pie in two. Pinching the ends keeps it together and you know it is done when the juices begin to flow out the sides and there comes that wonderful hollow rapping sound when tapped. My three year old recently made pizzas with her friends and she came home and said that they had "no flavor". At three, we have a pizza connoisseur. I think that is wonderful!

Scented Air

2009-04-28T18:40:00.000-07:00

From
the
crow's
point
of
view
it
must
appear
that
all
the
Valley
is
adorned
with
lilacs.
There are so many lilac bushes here in southern Ohio that it is difficult to remember that these are by no means a native species. Lilacs first came to America with the colonists by way of England, and to England they came by way of Turkey. We have two very large lilac bushes here adorning either side of the front entry. There is a smaller bush at the back of the house that fights for its survival every year. Our dog Perry seems to admire the scent of lilac blooms that linger in the woody stems as he eats the poor thing every Spring. Sometime last summer I read that a lilac should never be trimmed back in the Fall. I was careful not to cut into what would be this Spring's blooms when I made a little more sunlight available to the ornamental herb garden on the southern side of the house. That bush is so large that it shades a good deal of ground on both the southern and eastern sides. Perhaps a little too quick to pat myself on the back, the promising blooms were hit by a deep freeze a few weeks back. I feared all was lost. Then almost overnight the purple specs burst forth all over the countryside and the lilac's perfume filled the air. I cannot walk out of the house without lingering near the blooms for just a few moments. Nearly every time I come face to face with a bumble bee who was gathering pollen well before I happened along. The flowers are positively alive with the busy humming of bees. I am rather certain that if I kept a few bee frames I would be able to detect lilac in their honey. Now that would be a special scented treat! For some unknown reason, I cannot bring myself to cut the blooms this year and bring them into the house. The picture above is from last year's bloom. Perhaps as the time draws near for the lilac to fade I will take some then, but for right now I love them exactly as they are. It has been a little warm here the last few days and I find myself a bit spiteful with the sun. There is nothing quite like opening a window under a lilac bush and allowing that scent to permeate everything in its wake. Sleeping under the heady scent of lilac is heavenly. Heat or no heat, those windows are going to be open tomorrow. As each day draws to a close I am aware that this gift cannot last forever. Luckily the peonies follow in the bloom cycle to cushion the disappointment. But right now, today, they are here- and they are most wonderful.

When Bad Goes the Direction of Good

2009-04-25T09:19:00.000-07:00

Last
winter
we
were
hit
with
a huge
snow
storm
that
sunk
the
truck
and
killed
our old
Ford
Tractor
trying
to pull
us out.
Now that Spring and warmer weather have arrived we have been working on the tractor every weekend. Running around buying various parts, seeking the advice of old tractor expert friends, and hours of blood, sweat, and tears has not yet procured a running Ford old friend. Needless to say, as the grass gets higher and higher, we're getting ancy. Especially after our beautiful hike yesterday which found us pulling ticks from ourselves and children for hours afterward. The baby was spared but nerves were shaken. Tall grass is one thing, ticks are an entirely different beast. With borrowed tractor under foot this morning, my husband could be seen zooming around the farm. The engine cut and a few moments later he came in with a positive glow on his face. "Get your camera," was all he said. I was curious to be certain. The above picture is what he had found. Unbelievable, and he had nearly obliterated it under the blades of the tractor. We had been hunting Morels here at Hawks Run since we bought the place. We had never been met with success. Had we been cutting the grass with our old Ford I am not entirely sure the Morel would have been sighted. You know that old wives tale about mushrooms just going "Pop!" and there they are. Well, it's true. I had been all through the area just yesterday gazing about the conifer grounds looking for saplings. Where said Morel is today, said Morel was not yesterday. I am sure there will be bated breath as we slice this beauty lengthwise and hope for a distinguishing solid stem running the entire length. It sure looks like a true Morel but one never knows until it is sliced open. Now, the ultimate question... just what are we going to make with this little beauty? I cannot wait to dig into the cookbook shelf. Bon Appetit!

A Spring Gift

2009-04-21T19:17:00.000-07:00

Loading
up the
children
in the
wagon any
time of year
is wonderful,
but Spring
has a special
way of
bringing all
of your
senses alive.

It is a short half mile walk down our lane out to the main road, and we rarely venture across the road on foot. So it always astounds me how many things there are to observe, collect, and study here on our eleven acres. I think it helps that all of our neighbors have at least ten acres, with one having forty, and another a little over one hundred. We are more wild than most places I would think. It seems like just about anything you place in the ground here grows, and even so called annuals decide that they would rather belong to the perennial family here in the Ohio River Valley. A few days ago we decided to walk up to my Mother in Laws herb garden which is now ablaze in bulbs. We do not yet have blooming tulips here at Hawk's Run but Nanny does and Wren loves their cheerful colors and full blooms. We stopped at our usual haunts along the way looking for our huge snapping turtle in the creek bed that runs between the two lakes. He was no where to be seen. We saw the crayfish mounds but, alas, no crayfish. The lakes always promise good clear views of large fish which the kids like to watch.Canadian geese and our Great Blue Heron are always on hand. When we arrived at the herb garden, the tulips had just fully opened. Daffodils and Hyacinth were a plenty too in bright shades of yellow and purplely pink. Something caught my eye at the corner of the fence rail in a place where one of my favorite plants is always in bloom during summer. I have never known its name. I went over for a closer look because I had never noticed its magnificence in Spring. It had what can only be described as great under structure, just the kind of plant that allows a winter garden to still look amazing in its quiet sleep. Wren's fingers reached out and all of a sudden we heard the most wondrous rattling. Hundreds of seed pods were all going off at once.

Right about this time came along our good friend and most amazing potter who works his own kind of magic at my husband's family business. Always keen to talk gardening and clay, he asked if I knew what we were rattling. My puzzled look gave away my ignorance. He explained that it was False Indigo, and the plant itself could be used to dye wool or cotton. This further peaked my interest. He showed me how how to open the pods and obtain the seeds. Sure enough, a few pods contained enough seeds to grow a pasture of these beautiful wildflowers. He mentioned that it was too bad I didn't have anything to put the seeds in. I immediately procured from my pocket a small cardboard container- after all this is what being a mom is all about right? Be ready for anything!

Like a small bush, False Indigo reaches a diameter of about three to four feet so they need quite a bit of room to grow well. We are trying our hand at growing this wildflower for planting out at the end of Spring. I cannot wait to watch them grow to full height. I may have to wait a few years to see it in bloom but I feel it is well worth the wait. And in the meantime, we can still visit our trusted plant at the herb garden down the lane.

Pictures of Baptisia australis, or False Indigo, flowers and seed pods from Easywildflowers.com. They offer lots of good growing advice and you may also purchase seeds from them directly.

Busy Bees

2009-04-18T20:32:00.001-07:00

They are
all out in
full force...
the giant
fluffy
bumblebee,
the smooth
smaller
honey
bee,
and the nectar
loving wasps.

Flying, zooming, everywhere.
I feel like these tiny flying creatures these days. We have been on the go, just like them. So much is going on everywhere around us that nightfall comes and I feel like I have hardly time to catch my breath...and my to do list gets longer and longer by the day. My knitting remains in the basket, my curtains remain uncut and the sewing machine idle, the mandolin is still atop the quilts. Let's not talk about the real tasks on my list such as laundry and mopping. Outdoors beckons. These days have been utterly amazing in their beauty. Wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow has been carted back to the compost and burn piles with hardly a glance at the clock. It's difficult to call gardening a task on days like these. It is more like a privilege. Baby ducklings were born at our friends farm last week, preceded by a baby goat a few months before. Their garden is springing anew. It is difficult to just drive by. I cannot. I enjoy their company so much and these added delights make it impossible not to visit. The next farm down the road, again such good friends. Two new lambs in less than twenty four hours. One big and robust- there other so small, and rejected. Hearts go out to this little creature and we do everything we can to coax mama in to being...well, a mama. It is so difficult to watch. You keep telling yourself, this is farming. It is the cycle of life. But it is not, because at the end of the day, your new lamb is in the house and you are bottle feeding it four to six times per day. All these lessons are so good for us. Someday all the lessons learned with our friends will be put to good use in our own barn. Twice now, I have been caught without my camera. I will hopefully make up for this in the next few visits. I also photograph most of my husband's work, some of which can be seen above. This picture is of a bird feeder he hand carved for a collector in Florida. It is perhaps one of my most favorite things he has ever done, even though it is one of the most unadorned and simple. I miss my bird feeders welcoming our feathered friends. When we began having puma sightings, we were told to leave the feeders empty for a while to discourage all wildlife from coming so near the house. The birds are still here in great numbers but it is now more difficult to watch them for lengthy periods of time. We have been "cat less" for a few months now here at the farm, at least as far as we know, so I believe the seed will once again be all right. Just in time, as we have a pine that needs to be removed and we are going to keep the base. Just perfect for a hand carved bird totem. But we all know the saying, "the dentist's kids teeth are falling out." It always seems difficult to find the time to work on projects for ourselves. The bird feeder is behind re framing some windows, replacing roof shingles, and putting new seedlings in the garden. Patience is a virtue, and I guess we have a lot of virtue!

Gentle Reminders

2009-04-10T13:06:00.001-07:00

Sometimes
it is so
easy to get
off track.

Life is so short. Most people, if they take the time to look inward, have a host of dreams that they would like to accomplish. I am no different in this aspect. For me, learning to knit has been a major accomplishment this year. I have so little time to myself as a mother of two so my moments of learning are short stolen moments while making meals, during nap times, or in the late hours of the night as the rest of the family lay sleeping. This sounds like a lot of time but I also have the task of working from home and trying to get enough sleep to keep myself reasonably sane. Ten minutes here and there has to make do. Each day, these moments are set aside to write, garden, knit, sew, make something special in the kitchen, or read and learn something new about one of these past times. The one thing that has been eluding me, however, is music. I have a wish to learn to play the mandolin and I want to teach Dane this instrument some day. While I knew how to read music as a youngster and play a few pieces on the piano, it is not like riding a bicycle. No matter what anyone says, music has to be practiced or you lose a lot of your learning. Switch from one instrument to another and it is like learning a whole new language. My husbands family hails from the Appalachia's and I have become fascinated with bluegrass and stringed instruments. When we attended a family reunion in West Virginia while I was pregnant with Dane, my daughter Wren danced for hours on a makeshift wood platform stage while relatives she had never met before pounded out tunes like Foggy Mountain and Cripple Creek. We were in a setting about as remote as one can get this side of the Mississippi, complete with hand hewn log cabin and southern cooking at its finest. It was a transforming experience for both Wren and myself. But then the new baby arrives, life resumes its chaotic course, and you find yourself listening to your bluegrass on the CD player instead of from the source of talented relatives. By the time of the reunion, I had already had this dream, so a mandolin was waiting patiently in a closet at home. It had been there a few years actually, picked up now and then, but never in earnest. With learning to knit, as it has been proven by science, something has expanded in my brain, and I am picking things up quicker than usual. Thoughts of the mandolin were circulating again. And then the flu hit our household this week and I lost two entire nights worth of sleep. By the third night I couldn't sleep so I watched a movie to try and clear my head. Hah! I chose Copying Beethoven. I was transported into this beautiful but so complicated world of a Master and the ins and outs of public adoration and humiliation. There were words in this movie that struck straight to my heart. Beethoven says at one point:

"The vibrations on the air are the breath of God speaking to man's soul. Music is the language of God. We musicians are as close to God as man can be. We hear his voice, we read his lips, we give birth to the children of God, who sing his praise. That's what musicians are. "

For me these words help define a feeling that there were no words to explain. It is the reason I can find myself crying during an opera, transported to the past by a familiar tune, or halted in my tracks by a melody I have never heard before. And then there was this:

"And then, a voice, a single frail voice emerges, soaring above the sound. The striving continues, moving below the surface. Crescendo. First violin longing, pleading to God. And then, God answers. The clouds open. Loving hands reach down. We're raised up into heaven. Cello remains earthbound, but the other voices soar suspended, for an instant in which you can live forever. Earth does not exist. Time is timeless. And the hands that lifted you caress your face, mold them to the face of God. And you are at one. You are at peace. You're finally free. "

Beethoven's explanation of his last work is riveting. It begs one to understand how music is created, to somehow do more than just listen and be moved. I am half way through learning Cripple Creek and the mandolin is permanently out of its case and resting safely atop quilts in an armoire where I can reach for it here and there throughout the day. Music is transforming. I always knew that. But now I am truly finding out just how transforming it can be by using more than just my hearing.

Rituals

2009-04-08T10:35:00.000-07:00

There
can be
so much
joy in the
simple
everyday
tasks we
perform.

When I had my shop in Florida, it had the very convenient feature of being located right next store to a Starbucks coffee shop. While I am not a great fan of their coffee beans, I loved their special mochas- especially the pumpkin flavored one served up from about October through the end of January. I think it is fair to say that I had a Starbucks habit. It wasn't unusual for me to sip one in the morning while opening up the shop, and then be sipping a second one sometime after five pm. This was perhaps a time in my life when I had more money than brains. The daily cost of this little habit would now make me queasy in the stomach. It's not that I still don't enjoy a mocha now and then. I'll stop by our local coffee brew house every week or so, but I pay with change in the coin slot in the car. It runs under my finance radar this way and I enjoy the treat without guilt! But honestly, I have far more enjoyed making coffee at home these past few years. You know a great coffee connoisseur when you meet one. I make all of my coffee drinks in a French press. Electric coffee makers just do not taste the same. Bleary eyed from yet another night's interrupted sleep, I'll fill the tea kettle and get it boiling while I clear away any remaining kitchen mess from the previous night. I cannot function in a messy kitchen- not even to make coffee. By the time the whistle blows the French press has been loaded with a double scoop of freshly ground beans and the boiling water rushes in to release that wonderful espresso aroma. It has to sit for about four minutes, and during this time I am usually finishing up making the children's breakfast.

I have to giggle every time I see the eight cups capacity mark on the press. I usually can polish off the entire carafe by early afternoon, and it is more like two full bodied cups than eight! Thank goodness I drink decaffeinated coffee. My coffee of choice has always been my old favorite Illy in its shiny aluminum can, but I am no coffee snob. I love all sorts, even some of the most inexpensive brands. It goes without saying that I am one of those rare people who drink coffee because of its taste, not because of its kick. After the beans four minute boil bath, I take my coffee in a stoneware mug. Always. It just doesn't taste the same in china or glass. My grandmother drank her coffee with milk and so do I. I place about four tablespoons in a small plastic tightly lidded container and shake it to a froth for about sixty seconds. Unbelievably, this works as well as the expensive machines that do the frothing for you. I think the trick is two percent organic milk. Lastly, a sprinkle of sugared cinnamon goes on top. It all sounds rather time consuming but in reality it takes only a few minutes. I am always finishing up other things so I can have a few rare uninterrupted minutes to savor this delight while the children are busy with their breakfast. Mornings just wouldn't be the same without this ritual of coffee brewing. The sight of oily beans and the sound of their grinding. The steam rising from the teapot and the aroma as the hot water hits the coffee grinds. The beautiful froth of milk spattered with sweet sugar and cinnamon. It's a wonderful way to greet the day.

Easter Colors

2009-04-04T14:05:00.000-07:00

I know
that
Easter is
typically
thought of
with pastel
colors of
pink,
yellow,
pale blues,
and light
greens.

But I have come to think of Easter as the time of the whites of the flowering ornamental pear trees and the deep purples of tiny violets growing beneath the evergreens. The two always make their first appearance side by side here at the farm. We have had a few windy days this week, and one of them sent the white petals of the pears fluttering all over the property in such a dense manner one would have sworn it was a snow shower. So many petals now cover the grass that it is a wonder that any are left on the trees themselves.

Wren and I went for a walk under the evergreens today and picked the small stems of violets. We carried about forty indoors, washed them well, and they are drying next to the kitchen sink. Later in the day, we will beat an egg white, paint the petals with the frothy egg, and dip them into fine sugar. Weeks from now they will be taken out of a jar and placed a top cupcakes. Candied violets are such a beautiful thing to decorate cakes with and so difficult to find for sale. I never realized they were so easy to make until we tried it ourselves.

My husband had to run to the market and asked if we needed anything here at the house. Poor man, I asked him to take a pocket knife and cut me six boughs from a Forsythia tree growing down the road and bring them home. Not exactly the response he was looking for. They look so amazing here in Ohio in early April. Their sunny yellow flowers are blindingly bright but look so pretty against the backdrop of weathered grey barns that grace every pasture here in the River Valley.

As with most things, I keep meaning to cut them myself and just have not had a moment to get it done. While picking the violets today, their cheery yellow insides once again reminded me of the Forsythia blooms. I'll keep these cutting indoors on the dining room table until they shoot forth new roots. Then we'll place them into some good soil and give them a chance to take a firm hold. Hopefully some day as we pull into our drive, the bright yellows of their blooms will greet us along with the snowy whites of the pears. We'll then have another bright color to identify with Easter time.

Little Miracles

2009-04-03T08:51:00.000-07:00

Spring
time
is one
of my
best
loved
times of
the year.

Nasturtium Day and Night above

Ideal Market Bean below

Like most gardeners, wintertime finds me curled up in wee hours pouring over seed catalogs and collected volumes on gardening- which in both cases seems like I can never have too many. March comes around and I can hardly wait to get my hands into the soil, even if the soil is organic compost from a bag and the ground is my little peat pots for starting seeds. I make the bargain with Mother Nature to allow freezes in the next six weeks but to be nurturing to tiny plants after that time with no more temperatures below 32 degrees. Sometimes She keeps her bargain, sometimes not. I am starting most of my plants under cover this year indoors.

The miracle of dropping a tiny seed into a pot, covering it with rich soil, and watering daily never fails to amaze me when something actually happens and a seedling springs forth. I love those first few days when the plant asserts itself into a recognizable form. Some plants seem to grow before your very eyes like the plants of the peas and beans family.

Lumina top

Amish Snap Pea right

Others seem to put forth so much effort into large first leaves that they grow more slowly, but you wonder at just how so much raw material for growth can fit into such a small space like a pumpkin seed. I am growing Luminas for the first time this year and am looking forward to seeing their white brightness glowing in the moonlight.

Many of our seedlings this year came from organic and heirloom stock. I love being able to venture out the back door into the garden with a basket and plan the days meals depending upon what presents itself as we walk the rows.

The Ideal Market Bean burst out of the soil yesterday morning, and I think it may be the most beautiful seedling I have ever seen. The leaves are exquisitely delicate and there is a slight purplish hue about them that seems to foresee the purple flowers this plant will soon put forth.
There is just so much to see and learn when you grow your own food. Planting seeds indoors at this time of year when we are trapped between beautiful sunny afternoons and hauntingly cold and windy days in between seem to give assurance that the warm days of summer surely cannot be too far off in the distance. I have been making a fresh cucumber radish salad spiced with red peppers and vinaigrette. As good as this salad is right now, I know when the ingredients come from the garden here at the farm, it will be just that much better. Some of our friends will be enjoying the harvest as well. As I have been thinning out our seedlings, I have been placing the little rooted plants in containers for visiting friends to take back to their gardens. It is amazing what such a simple gesture can do to brighten some one's day.

Longfellow Cucumber on right

Colonel Bunn

2009-04-02T10:39:00.001-07:00

Oh my,
Hawk's Run
has been
a beehive
of
activity
as of
late.
I belong to a dear group of women who have one thing great in common, and many many other wonderful things in common. The one great thing is our love and admiration for the late Tasha Tudor. The other many wonderful things are a love of nature, gardening, arts, homesteading, and of course, motherhood. Our group is called Take Peace and we range from the West coast of America, to my little Ohio River Valley, all the way to Tanzania. These women, and also a few men I might add, have become such dear friends. I would have never thought it possible to learn so much about so many through a group that very rarely has a chance to meet face to face. We have exchanges through out the year, and especially at Holiday times, and this Easter is no exception. The exchange is called the Colonel Bunn exchange, named after Tasha's dear rabbit character that she drew in honor of a real visitor from her childhood. I have an ongoing love of band boxes and decided this would be my medium. The problem was that I do not paint. Not that I have never wanted to, I just have never had any instruction. I am somewhat talented when it comes to refinishing furniture but this little painting of a rabbit is a whole other card indeed. I began with a brown base coat on everything. Since these were to house tea in the recipient's tea room, I left the insides with just this first non toxic base coat. Next went on a layer of colored non toxic paint, in shades of pink, lilac, and fawn brown. I stared at Colonel Bunn for a few days noting just how many colors Tasha had worked into this little furry friend. There were so many I didn't know where to begin. So I finger painted his outline in shades of brown. I didn't trust myself with a brush. Layers after layers went on until I could deny no longer that it was time to add detail. The detail went on in the form of an antique calligraphy pen. I literally applied and scratched my way through Colonel Bunn. A thin clear coat was applied to all outside surfaces. Then I took a very fine sandpaper and aged everything. A light coat of non toxic stain went on after the sanding. It was all finished off with a coat of Murphy's pot wax, a most heavenly smell if there ever was one. The boxes are lined in hemp and ready to be sent out today. On the inside cover of the smallest box is a secret message that says Colonel Bunn has come to tea 2009. I hope Linda enjoys them as much as I enjoyed making them. And Linda, I really hope you do not read my blog! If you do, please accept my apologies for showing you your gift too early! It's a week more or less until Easter and we will be busy coloring eggs, putting together Easter baskets, and enjoying this beautiful weather in the gardens.

The Story Time Tent

2009-03-26T20:24:00.001-07:00

Every so

often I come upon

an idea

that I

just have

to try out.

The idea for this story time tent came from Wondertime magazine a few months back. The magazine ran a story about creating these little places of magic and one graced their cover that I thought was just beautiful. A dear friend gave me a subscription to the magazine for Mother's Day last year, and I have to say that I have been surprised by the number and quality of creative ideas their staff writers come up with. My favorite past time with my children is reading to them. Nap times and bedtimes are best, but so are rainy days spent up in the playroom in our attic. For some time now I have wanted them to have a reading nook and have been pondering the most suitable place for one. I liked the idea of a tent immensely since it was not a permanent structure. I move the children's playthings around from room to room every few months and I did not want this to be an exception. It was so incredibly easy to put together. Nothing more than an eye hook sunk into a beam, a netting secured with a carabiner to the hook, a strand of Holiday lights, an old velvet Harlequin patterned tree skirt for the floor, some cushions, and best loved books. The netting itself was so inexpensive but I spent some time finding one that had character. This one has a circular hoop at the top to help with the tent effect, two pale shades of blue and lilac netting, ribbon streamers in white, and ribbons to tie back the door panels. It came with butterflies attached to the netting, but because these were not very realistic in appearance, I used a seam ripper very carefully and removed them. I had some clear sewing thread and used this in various places to attach the Holiday lights to the netting. Out of a stash of old linens I found some beautiful plaid Designers Guild pillow covers and these lay about to prop books and elbows, and some sleepy heads. The whole project took less than a half hour from the time I started. When the children went upstairs to the attic this evening for a bedtime story they knew something was happening since we always do our bedtime story in bed. I plugged the lights in and the children's faces lit up too. Both sat at my knee enveloped in the tent and spent most of their attention looking up at the billows of netting and the twinkling lights. The tent had just the effect that I was looking for. I carried two sleepy babies down to bed and they were in dreamland as soon as their heads met their pillows, probably seeing stars in their dreams right now.

Note: The story time tent works really well in our attic because the whole tent can be draped over the stairwell and beyond reach of little hands when not in use. The carabiner attachment also makes it really easy to take down and stash away. I would never leave children unattended in this type of structure- netting, ribbons, and electric lights can be very dangerous if parental supervision is not constant.

In the Background

2009-03-25T21:03:00.001-07:00

It has
occurred
to me
that my
type of
personality
may just
be an
advertiser's
nightmare.

I notice things in the background. Almost to a fault. Whether it is the music playing on a commercial on the television, the music behind the big story on NPR, or perhaps a random stack of books on some shelf in an advertisement in print- which by the way, has absolutely nothing to do with said advertisement. I must have been the only person on the planet not to have heard of the Observers Books. When I saw their colorful little spines all lined up in row in some one's vacation home that was being photographed, I was smitten. I read the entire piece, but I cannot tell you whose house it was, or even what country it was in. What I can tell you is that I ran to my computer moments later hunting down these little delights of bound paper. I had no idea what they were about, or the madness they have brought upon collectors of the series. I found my set of nine for a song. They included one on Trees, one on Horses, and one on Pond Life- what was there not to love? When they arrived, the first thing I did was take off the dust jackets. Worn and tattered anyway, I liked how the colorful spines looked, and I wasn't keeping these for their value. I had visions of the children coming in one day from school years down the road and fretting over what to do for a science project. The Pond Life book could provide just the right starting point. There is something infinitely rewarding about such a small book packed with so much information. The people at Frederick Warne were of such a genius mind. After all, years before they had brought us the Beatrix Potter's tales in much the same format- beautifully colored and small enough to fit in your pocket.

The picture plates in these books are so pretty. I was astounded recently when I found out that there are one hundred books in the series, and over four hundred variations! Stella books in the United Kingdom is known for their expertise in the collection and offer a large number for sale at any given time. I can see where this collection could be addicting. Already my little collection has come in handy when I have forgotten the names of algae growing here on our ponds, and I have used the book on Fungi to identify blooms on our property. I am on the lookout for the Bird and Flower books next, both subjects I cannot learn enough about.

In the years to come I expect that Wren will gravitate to the book on Horses, and Dane to the book on Dogs. Both have wonderful illustrations and every species imaginable. Even our Perry dog is properly depicted under Vizsla. I learned a thing or two about him from reading up on his breed, like the fact that he may always be loaded with energy- no matter how much I dream for him to be a calm fireside dog. It may just not be in his cards. Getting back to my original point is that I'm grateful that there are wonderful things in the details. So much of what I love and admire has come to me because it was quietly lurking in plain view- or earshot. It is the advertiser's goal that what they put together make an impression on you. It's just that sometimes the impression you get is more than they intended.

Grandfather's Rocker

2009-03-22T13:24:00.001-07:00

The
rocker
seemed
so big
to me
when
I was so
small.

I can remember turning the rocker on its end so that I might slide down its back. Back then, the rocker was painted pure white, and had my name affixed proudly to its seat back in cursive letters. It seemed a long slide down to the floor, so I must have been only about a year old. I always say I can't remember much before the age of three, but this activity I remember with clarity. This little rocker has been in our family for a long time. It was my mothers and her three sisters long before it was mine. Her Grandfather made it for her, along with a little drop leaf table, a china hutch, and a set of drawers. All of these pieces were made back in the 40's and we are lucky enough to have gathered all the pieces here at Hawk's Run with the exception of the hutch. I grew up with both the rocker and the drop leaf table. The chest of drawers I had not known about until recently when my aunt asked if I would like to have it. Her own Grandchildren did not need it and she knew we used the other pieces every day. So one day she loaded the chest of drawers up in the back of her vehicle and made the drive down. I will forever be grateful. For years I have thought about the missing hutch with some degree of sadness. My mother's family moved from Indianapolis when she was an older girl and there was no room on the moving truck. To all the children's dismay, it was left behind. I have often wondered while roaming through antiques malls and various estate sales if the little hutches I have seen could be the hutch from Indianapolis, or one similar. The chances would be like finding a needle in a haystack, but I never lose hope of finding it someday. When my little sister outgrew the rocker it was stored in an attic for a lot of years. When I had my children it was brought back out, but it had suffered some damage to its finish from being stored away for so long. My husband, who is one of the best antique restorers I have ever seen, took it back to the original wood, and gave it a finish that looks as if it had been there for years. In most cases, we would never remove a paint finish, but we had no idea of the lead content of the original finishes, and since it was to be used by our children, we made an exception. The little table was also restored back to its original color and given the same age treatment. We are so fortunate to have these heirlooms in our home, and I think that my Great Grandfather would be pleased to know that we love them like we do. When Wren turned one, my Father in Law presented her with a Windsor rocking chair that he finished himself. She was so proud the day we put it in her bedroom. I wonder at times where these things will be three generations from now, in Wren's grandchildren's possession. It is a concept difficult for me to even grasp, much as it was probably for my mother's Grandfather. Teddy bears and dolls have been rocked, told stories to, been called to tea, and stored countless treasures over the years in the rocker, the table, and the dresser. I wish I knew the stories the hutch had to tell. Perhaps, one day, we will find out. It sure would be nice to have it home.

Night Music

2009-03-19T10:15:00.000-07:00

I had

every

intention

writing

last

evening...

Honest.

My subject was one I had really been looking forward to writing about. It will have to be patient and wait for another day. At night when I lay the children down to bed, I climb in with them and read our story. Then I hold one or the other, sometimes both, until they fall asleep. Definitely not the stuff of modern day parenting manuals, but it is my way none the less. I heard the sound of two deep heavy breathers and knew they were in dreamland, but very soon after I also heard something else. Tentative at first...ping ping ping. Then louder and more varied. It was raining. Our master bedroom is the only room on the second floor where the rooftop is the only thing between you and the sky. There is only a small attic office over this room and the rest is a soaring vault of the saltbox. When it is raining, it is the best room in the house for laying and listening to the sounds of water drops hitting the roof- other than the playroom which has the added feeling of cosiness because it is such an enclosed nook. So I lay there listening to the music, thinking about the piece I was going to write, the knitting I was going to work on afterwards, the latest issue of British Country Living I was going to finish. None of it happened. I lay there for hours just wrapped in a sense of peacefulness. I had spent the better part of the day raking, a never ending and extremely physical job here at Hawk's Run. So many bulbs were bursting forth. I had thought more than once that day that what these new little green beauties really needed was a good spring rain. Nature was certainly delivering. I laid there for hours and only realized around four am that I had actually fallen asleep to the melody. When we awoke this morning everything was aglow in green. It was as if the landscape had been magically transformed over night. No matter how hard nor long my work outdoors is, it is humbling to think that nature can only deliver that magical miracle of rainwater. Rainwater truly is the mother's milk of the outside world. Full of components that cannot be pushed out of the garden hose and specific to your plantings in the way that a mother's milk is specific to her child. The rain had the added component of soothing this mother into a deep sleep that was much needed after a hard day's work outside.

Simple Pleasures

2009-03-16T11:50:00.000-07:00

In 1816
the
Scotsman
Sir David
Brewster
invented
one of the
most
fascinating
curiosities
ever.
He named his curiosity in three parts, the Greek word "Kalos" for beautiful, "eidos" for form, and "scopos" for watcher. Thus, the "beautiful form watcher" was born, known to us today simply as the Kaleidoscope. American Charles Bush came along in 1873 and made improvements on Brewster's Kaleidoscope and the form we see today benefits from those improvements. I think on a rainy gray day waiting for Spring to arrive, there may be no greater pleasure than to lie flat on one's back, eyes to the light of a window, Kaleidoscope in hand, turning the dial on the end of what appears to be a simple tube, exploring the endless variations in an explosion of color. As with many simple pleasures, my favorite Kaleidoscope is one that costs practically nothing. It is made by Schylling, a simple metal affair, loaded with nothing more than beads that couldn't be sold for a penny apiece. But when placed together at the end of our scope, magic happens. One day this winter we were having a little knit together and the conversation turned towards the Hubble telescope. I find this, too, to be mesmerizing. One thing lead to another and the conversation ventured into snowflakes. There was a theme here. Like beads at the end of our Kaleidoscope, outer space and the precious snowflake, have infinite possible combinations. Each time you look, it is something totally different. The children grasp the idea of the Kaleidoscope, and understand to a degree the changes in the night sky, but it occurred to us adults that perhaps they didn't know what a snowflake looked like up close. We quickly brought up an array of snowflake close ups on the Internet, a moment when technology is at its best. How to explain those intricate designs that no human could possibly recreate. The children said, it's just like the Kaleidoscope when the beads all fall into place and stick into a picture. Well now, indeed it is.

The Wish Book

2009-03-13T21:00:00.000-07:00

When I
lived in
Naples,
Grange
had one
of the only
free
standing
interior
shops in
the States
in our 3rd
Street District.
How I loved to go into that shop and daydream. I would spend about an hour there and leave with my head full of so many new ideas. I began a notebook to stash away ideas and concepts, color and materials, places I'd like to see someday- or places I had been and couldn't wait to get back to.

Fabric swatches and paint chips nestle in its pages and they inevitably influence they way we style our home. The quilt that the Wish Book is lying on mirrors the colors in the swatches laid out within its pages. Originally chosen to cover wing chairs, the chairs ended up being reupholstered in hemp burlap but the colors were picked up in the bedroom none the less.
This page shows a very simple old fashioned pantry, not too unlike the one we have here at Hawks Run. The trouble with my pantry is that it is perched within what should be a fabulous spot for a cast iron claw foot tub. Once I find my tub, I'll pull this photo back out and reconstruct the pantry to look more like this one. It has more shallow shelves and I will be able to see things a whole lot easier.

My Wish Book is filled with a lot of gardening clippings. If I live to be one hundred I don't think I'll ever feel like I had enough time in the dirt. Each Spring is like starting life all over again- only with so much more knowledge gained the past season. I find other people's gardens so fascinating and NEVER EVER miss the garden scheme here in Lebanon when the good gardeners open their masterpieces to the public. Some are so elaborate and others are just beginning their plot. Maybe someday we'll be able to open ours...another dream.

There are a lot of pages filled with farm animals. I simply adore chickens. Our milk house is slated for a chicken house overhaul and I am so looking forward to baking with our own eggs. I talk about having chickens so often that I think I may have subliminally influenced my husband into believing it to be the most brilliant idea ever. He is now talking chickens too. The only dilemma here is that with Mr. or Mrs. Big Paws running around, the hen house will have to be built like Fort Knox.

There are a number, really a large number, of pictures depicting saltboxes in my Wish Book. I find this both intriguing and immensely satisfying that I seemed to know what I wanted even before it was shown to me. One picture in particular could be a room in our home. It is of the great room, only the owners of the house made this room their dining area. There is a long tavern table directly in front of the cooking fireplace. The windows have been greatly enlarged to twenty four over twenty fours. It is snowing outside but what with the fireplace ablaze and the well worn roof timbers, it could be our great room here at Hawk's Run. It is a room of simple beauty- really the theme of this home. Hawk's Run has such good bones that I continually find myself attempting to pare it down. On the first page of my book is a clipping from some long lost Grange catalog of yesterday...it simply says this.

"In the beginning a house resembles its owner. Time passes and with it the generations. Nothing changes even if everything evolves. One day the house changes family and the new owner can be seen to resemble the house."

There is such a fundamental truth to this statement that I still find it to be as potent as the first time that I read it. I hope it holds true for the future generations at Hawk's Run.

Favorite Things

2009-03-12T22:30:00.001-07:00

I love

children's
playthings.

Especially

things

that need

organized

and sorted.

I'm a sucker for anything that sets a scene. Couple that with vibrant colors and organic materials and I become a lifelong fan. A playroom can only support so many themed areas, thank heavens, but the objects I continue to discover for children are just too wonderful not to tell someone about. Today I found Ostheimer toys. Simply amazing. Handcrafted from natural woods and still made in Germany, their toys elevate an object of play to that of family heirloom. Non toxic muted colors make each object a piece of art, and I wouldn't be too surprised to find that a lot of orders arrive at homes with grown up children. It would cost a small King's ransom to build an entire farmyard, however, I think it would be money well spent. When Wren was just an infant, we found Haba toys at a local shop. I have been buying their wooden toys without fail ever since. Had I known about Ostheimer...the mind reels. The children's wooden kitchen set from Plan Toys here at our house is the most entertaining place in their world. Countless concoctions have been served up within its cozy environment and it is a play set we build on every holiday. The same holds true for their wooden animal zoo set from the wooden toy maker Anamalz. With a wooden elephant in one hand and an animal discovery book in the other, imagination is brought to life at a pace that even the real zoo cannot provide. The trips to the real zoo become all the more special when met with an understanding of that living breathing miracle in front of them. There are so many things for children to discover. I am so grateful to people like the craftsmen and women of companies like Ostheimer for coloring the world in such a way that it makes life a true pleasure to be experienced by our children. I found it ironic that Ostheimer was once put out of business in the late 30's when plastics arrived on the toy scene. There is now one of the highest callings for wood toys ever in a world still far too dominated by plastics. When I pick up the kids toys at the end of the day I still find the beauty of their objects humbling...plastic never did that for me.

Nana's Dishes

2009-03-08T10:42:00.001-07:00

It is

sometimes

compelling

to think of

future

generations

and the

things they

will

remember

about us.

My Nana, even though she had trouble showing affection towards her two grand- daughters, liked to talk. She told great stories of growing up in the roaring twenties, the Great Depression, the two World Wars, the June Cleaver days of the fifties, the sweeping changes brought about by the sixties, and the self indulgence of the seventies. Through her detailed stories, I felt like I was able to know a little bit more about the era that she lived in before I was born. People of her generation saw so much change. It is difficult for any of us born later to understand just how much their world had evolved by the 1980's. We will have our stories of technology of course, but I somehow feel these will pale in comparison to that of being alive when the first car roared to life, or the first television broadcast was aired in America's living room. My Nana, in many ways, treated me like a little adult. So what I remember about her a lot of times is sitting at her dining room table as part of a larger conversation of adult family members. Christmastime brought a yearly tradition of Nana making lobster thermador for our family. It was mouth wateringly warm and smelled so delicious after coming in from the cold winter weather of the Great Lakes region. It is, perhaps, Nana who first cultivated my lobster affection. Her special china was brought out on those occasions. But more often than not meals were served on her everyday Franciscan stoneware dishes. They were hefty, kind of feminine, and food looked so nice on them. When Nana passed away in the later 80's, I knew I couldn't bear to see the dishes disappear. I asked my mom and dad to box them up and save them. They went with me to Florida and I used them every day in my twenties. As it happens, a piece broke here and there, and I would be heartbroken. I found the good people at Replacements Limited, and then later the good people of Ebay, and my pieces could be replaced. I purposely tried to forget what was broken so that later on I wouldn't know which was originally Nan's and which was replaced. That practice has kept all the pieces very sentimental. One Christmas my husband bought me a locally made set of beautiful glazed dishes and Nan's Franciscan was packed up once again. I was sad about this but I was also deeply distressed about the accidental breakings. And then one afternoon after we had moved here to Hawk's Run, I was leafing through some writings about my beloved Tasha Tudor. Her heirlooms were hundreds of years old, and she was asked about all the chips and repairs necessary to keep them in usable condition. She stated quite flatly that she would rather see a thing used and broken than packed somewhere in a box never seeing the light of day. I had a nagging feeling of guilt. Now, two years later, I realized I needed some replacement dishes in our glazed collection. They are incredibly expensive and I just couldn't justify it right now. There is no time like the present, so I lugged up the three huge and heavy boxes belonging to Nana. Now newly washed and nestled in their cabinet they are bringing a smile and a flood of memories to me once again. My husband was stunned because he worried about them being microwaved and put into the dishwasher. No problem I said- they are safe on both counts. Shocking considering neither of these appliances were around when these dishes were made some 85 years ago. The only flaws they have are on the teapot. The lid was cracked and repaired and the spout has a small chip. I was never able to find a replacement. No matter. I'm just so glad they are back at our dinner table. Like us humans with all of our flaws, I love them anyway.

Close Encounters of the Feline Kind

2009-03-06T13:05:00.001-08:00

Sooner

or Later

I knew

the call

would come.

It was really only a matter of time.

In the past few months I have lost track of the number of sightings that have been reported to various authorities in the greater Cincinnati area of people claiming to have spotted a cougar. What was noticeably absent was the actual face to face encounter. All first hand accounts that I had learned of were of people who saw the feline, but the feline did not see the human. At least that we know of. This all changed yesterday. A woman in Mason not far from where we live had an experience she will never forget. As part of her usual routine, she let her small dog out into the back yard. She was greeted by a large puma. She stared in disbelief- it stared right back. It crouched as if ready to pounce. She gathered her wits, her dog, and backed into the house. For five to seven minutes she had the unique opportunity to witness the feline surveying its surroundings. She was able to use a neighbor's barbecue as a gauge of size when the giant cat leaped onto their deck. A good estimate is three foot from head to end, and six foot from head to tail. She guessed its weight to be about 125 pounds- quite large. The cat ambled back into the creek bed and disappeared. What is telling about this woman's eyewitness are three things. One is that she had what I call "virgin eyes". She was not aware of the local debate ensuing over the existence of cougars in Ohio. She was shocked to see so much information turn up on an Internet search she did later that day. Second, she described every detail about the cougar as normal, with one exception. She stated it has a ringed pattern on its tail. Unknowingly, she was describing a juvenile- something I was not aware of until speaking with my cat contact who helped track our property. Third, and most disturbing, the cat showed absolutely no sign of fear toward her what so ever. Either it was not aware of humans as a danger, or, it was of the opinion that she might have made a good meal. We Ohioans are at a crossroads as of yesterday. The cats are here- they are real. There is in all likelihood more than one, as the cat spotted here and around Fort Ancient is older with no tail markings. A face to face encounter has occurred with the cat not backing down in the slightest. The next call I'm waiting for is one I dread. It may take years, or months, or days. This is the call that comes from the person seeing a cat make a kill. I hope to God it is a natural kill, not some one's pet, or worse. Ohio is approaching a very real historical repeat performance of what occurred in Boulder, Colorado in the late 80's and early 90's. Cougars hadn't yet been widely recognized as residential and therefore were of no one's real concern. Livestock and pets began to disappear. Cougars were caught red handed taking off with their meal- sometimes over eight foot fences with the animal still squirming to get free. Then one snuffed out the life of an eighteen year old student taking his daily run. This got the people's attention- finally. Anyone caring to enlighten themselves should pick up a copy of The Beast in the Garden. I sincerely hope their story does not become Ohio's. I urge anyone living in southwest Ohio, especially those along the Little Miami and its tributaries to become educated about what a cougar really looks like, its tracks, and its scat. Know how to respond- Never Ever Turn Your Back, and if it comes down to it, Fight Like Hell to Get Away. Do not play dead. Know the goings on of your land. I live in a pretty remote area. The lady who had her run in yesterday lives in a neighborhood of 250 homes. Remoteness is not a factor. Above all else, tell someone who can make an official report of your sighting. You can leave a note here and I can put you in contact with someone. The very fact that cougars are returning is exciting and a wonderful example of a return to nature. But if we continue to bury our heads in the sand and not acknowledge fact, we are treading very dangerous waters to be sure.

(The above image of the puma is from the Cincinnati Zoo)

Dueling Wooden Spoons

2009-03-04T19:30:00.000-08:00

Something
funny

happens

in a

marriage

when the

other

spouse

learns

to hold

their own

in the

kitchen.

Now I know what you're thinking...good for that Kristin, her husband has learned how to cook! I would be remiss to allow anyone to think that, for the fact is that when I met my husband he could run rings around me when it came to the culinary circle. As a matter of fact, there was a time in my twenties and better part of my thirties that if I had asked you to dinner, I would not have been offended if you showed up with carry out. I grew up with a mother who is a fantastic cook- it did not rub off. Unless there is such a thing as delayed rub off. When I made spaghetti back then, I had no idea what "al dente" meant and my sauce was a warmed can of tomato sauce. Let's be clear- I do not mean pasta sauce, I'm talking little red can of Contadina. I was pathetic and I am not ashamed to admit it. Little by little, however, over the last five years or so something extraordinary has happened. I am like Little Chef from Ratatouille, Anyone Can Cook. It started falling together when I began reading cookbooks. I noticed something akin to chemistry happening in my mind, but instead of Elemental Tables and metric measurements, it was lists of ingredients and ratios. The how and the why of foods was beginning to make sense to me. We did something daring last Thanksgiving. My husband and I decided to stay home and cook everything ourselves for our children. We casually planned and talked over the menu only a few days beforehand. It was a first in our marriage when we showed up together in the kitchen the next morning. The usual routine is one or the other- never both. We split up the dishes between the two of us, but I caught both of us looking over to see what and how the other was preparing. Comments and suggestions were made back and forth and were politely being met with an "um hmmmm..." Good grief, I had thought to myself, we've become each other's cooking back seat driver. How did this happen? When we sat down to the table that early evening, a valuable lesson had been learned by all. Shut up and let the other person cook. The meal was out of this world- every last dish. Since Thanksgiving, we've found ourselves in the kitchen together a few more times. These occasions have mainly been times when we have had friends and family over for big breakfasts, or brunch. We cook so much on these occasions that brunch is really the only way we can get it all on the table. The first hour or so leaves me concerned there may be bloodshed. We no longer try to mentor one another but we now fight to be in the same spot. There are three battlefields- the oven, the sink, and the stove top- in that order. And I have to preface something here. We have one of my father-in-law's first ever designed kitchens, and it is laid out beautifully. If we were attempting this feat in our old galley kitchen in Florida there would have been major injuries all around. We have no lack of space, we just seem to want to occupy the same space- or at least our food does. At the end of each and every day I find myself thinking over the culinary delights of the past sixteen hours. The foods prepared never fail to amaze me. We hardly ever eat out anymore. When we do, with very few exceptions, I find myself thinking of what could have been. So sad, I know, but our kitchen is turning out some truly divine food. If only I could turn out a truly divine kitchen clean up person I might never eat out again!

Joined at the Funny Bone

2009-03-02T19:35:00.000-08:00

There are some jokes I'm just not allowed to be in on.

I never know when or where they are going to spring up either. My three and a half year old daughter and one and a half year old son will share a glance, a few words, even some indistinguishable sound, and set the funny bone in motion. It happened during our nightly bedtime story ritual this evening. I chose In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak as this evening's book, perhaps because I have been up to my elbows in flour and such as of late. I hadn't read through the first page when the giggling began. By the third page it was in full force. By the time we were reading "Milk in the batter! Milk in the batter!" on the fifth page I found it amazing that they could even hear what I was saying. Those deep belly laughs continued right through to the very last page with Wren trying to get out, "Read it again! Read it again!". I thought, surely, they won't find this story as funny the second time around. I was wrong. This funny bone was a strong one. It is a joke that perhaps only the two of them truly get, but for those of us lucky enough to witness, it doesn't really matter what the joke is because they are just so darn funny to watch. It's like a feeding frenzy only the food in this case is laughter. Bouncing back and forth between the two of them, the laughter escalates and escalates until all that is audible are those deep belly laughs we all seem incapable of making once we grow up and become such "adults". I can almost hear our own sets of parents saying that it's not such a good idea to get children so riled up before bedtime. I can hear my husband saying it too, but we're now well beyond the point of no return. A last minute change of the baby's diaper becomes akin to struggling with a slippery bar of soap. No matter where I touch him to make the change he is bursting with yet more laughter. And Wren is just eating it up. I find my index finger uncontrollably lightly poking her belly and you would swear it was the worst form of tickle torture. I'm thinking to myself, "When do they come up for air? Can they hurt themselves from laughing this much?" Sooner or later they'll start to settle down and both will have a glassed over look about their eyes. The next thing I know they are passed out sound asleep. No warning whatsoever. Just done. Nights like these can run for hours with not even the slightest of movements from either one of them. They ran a laughter marathon and ran it hard. A few weeks ago the funny bone began when Wren commented in the back of the car that she was hungry. We were talking about dinner and I asked her what she wanted. What she wanted was some humor, and replied, "I'm going to eat a tree." I hadn't had time to really find this remark humorous but obviously Dane had. He couldn't stop laughing. I listened to a rally about eating trees for ten minutes while doing my best to drive the car home in a straight line. I had NO IDEA why I was laughing except that they were just infectious. It will be interesting to see how long this funny bone lasts between the two of them. I hope it hangs on for a long time because it is something that I think is really special that only the two of them are a part of. I'm just along for the ride.

Little Girls

2009-02-19T08:50:00.000-08:00

Sugar and
Spice and
Every
Thing
Nice...
That's
What
Little
Girls
are Made
of.
When I had Wren in the summer of 2005, I had some sort of notion of how my former world and future world would be different. I was looking forward to moving out of the place that had been "me" and moving into another that was "her". I had had enough time to live for myself, and my husband and I had five years under our belts to navigate the road map of living as a family. I had enjoyed success in both my personal life and career, and right as I was approaching the birth of my daughter, that career success I had worked so hard to achieve would disintegrate right before my very eyes. It was the beginning of the economic bubble and the signs of its inevitability were becoming impossible to deny. I think every parent worries about how they will provide for their families in the long run. We all face uncertainty of some sort, whether it be the health of our children, finances, our own abilities as parents- the list can go on and on. One thing I knew for sure the moment Wren was put in my arms was that my heart would forever remain no longer inside of me, but permanently take up residence in her. It managed to do this again two years later when baby Dane was placed in my arms, but this is another story. The news of the past four years hasn't been better in regards to the economy, as if I have to tell anyone that. What I have found, however, is that I reside in some sort of unshakable bliss. Sure, there are moments when the realities of the world's troubles creep into my bliss, but those moments really seem to be short lived. I imagine that this bottomless well of love that I feel while watching this child grow has a lot to do with my rosy outlook, but I also am keenly aware that Wren's wonder about the world and everything in it has re infiltrated my senses. I watched her little blond head glittering in the sunshine while picking up seashells on the beach last week in Florida, looking at each one, putting some back, and putting others in her pockets. I watched her do the same thing on Valentines Day with colorful rose petals from my sister's wedding. Pocketfuls were given to me once we were back in the car and their scent was as beautiful as their hue. Everything in Wren's world is a treasure to be looked at, carefully studied, and sometimes squirreled away in a pocket for future admiring. I sometimes find these hidden treasures months later in a pocket of her last season's jacket and they always bring a smile. Wren's needs are so few, and most of them are so easy to meet, regardless of what happens on the news. Last night, a small voice called out from a few inches away, "Mama, will you hold me?". I put down my knitting, switched off the light, switched off thinking about the pros and cons of the stimulus package, and thanked the Heavens above for Little Girls.

Update: Anticipation

2009-02-16T12:38:00.000-08:00

It happened right as I was expecting my mother to arrive for a visit and continued to bloom all the weekend while she was here.

And much to my surprise was still alive and well when my family returned from a week long visit with my parents in Florida.

Anticipation

2009-01-30T10:51:00.000-08:00

Waiting
for
something
to
happen
can
be
such
a
marvelous
thing.

Such a simple act. A container, some soil, a couple of onion like bulbs, and a hint of moisture. Place it in a sunny spot and you wait. You wonder if it will ever happen. And then you see the faintest of green peek through the soil. It grows a little bit each day like a large blade of grass. Then somewhere in the space of a few days you notice that each time you enter the room it seems to have grown a few more inches. Until it seems it might topple over with its own height. I know you are suppose to pull out the stragglers that show up on the perimeter. I never have the heart. So here we are at the crux. A slight pinkish hue is showing through the points at the end of the stem and it will be any day now that they burst forth. Amaryllis. I never tire of this display of growth and always marvel at the perfectness of design. The wait is so much a part of the pleasantry of growing bulbs. Hawks Run abounds with bulbs in the gardens out of doors and they are by far my favorites in the greenery. Even above peonies because the blooms of our bulbs seem to last forever, and the peonies disappear all too fast. I have had in my gardening library a book on container bulb gardening that I have had since I was about twenty. I knew nothing about gardening at the time but I knew someday it would be a hobby that took me by the heartstrings. Now, nearly twenty years later, I am nose in this book quite often. Tasha Tudor bought bulbs by the thousands- if only my checkbook were so deep. Something tells me Tasha would buy those bulbs even over her groceries if it had come down to the choice. Bulbs endure once dropped into the ground. Magnificent lost gardens of Gertrude Jekyll have been restructured to near exactness with the where about of bulbs that lay active and dormant for decades upon decades. Such was the case with Manor House, Upton Grey in Hampshire, England. There is something significant about knowing that the bulbs we throw in the ground today may surprise and delight others years and years down the timeline. I think this amaryllis will be magnificent. I need only to find a spot just as magnificent where I will place its spent bulb in a permanent home outdoors. And each year I will eagerly eye that spot with anticipation.

Update: He's Calling It Nusiance

2009-01-29T09:24:00.000-08:00

Our delivery man is stuck in our drive. We finally got our truck out only to put ourselves right back in as the massive delivery truck sunk deeper and deeper. My husband is big and strong- thank God. The delivery man is back on his way, and our truck is free once more.

Some Might Call It a Nuisance...

2009-01-28T20:58:00.000-08:00

I Just

Call It

Nirvana.

Living in southeast Ohio, specifically in the Ohio River Valley, we tend to miss a lot of the bad winter weather that pummels the areas to the north and south of us. I am always amazed by the weather Doppler how Warren County seems to nicely sandwich itself in between bands of ferocious rain or record dumping snows. Usually I heave a sad sigh and go on with my day dreaming of those big snows of my childhood on the shores of Lake Michigan. The weatherman was calling for heavy snowfall last night in our county and I went to bed with a smirk. The weatherman is never correct in our case, I have had my hopes dashed too many times. The only thing I saw around midnight was a dangerous one inch layer of ice all over every surface imaginable. This is not my idea of good winter weather. When I awoke at five am I couldn't see out the windows for the snow was so thick- giant cotton ball sized puffs were coming down and it was eerily quiet. The children woke up a few hours later and immediately noticed the room ablaze in white light from the snow reflection outside. Dad would not be making the drive into work today, and no one would be making the drive in to our house either. This is what living a mile down a dirt road off a secluded paved county road does for your social life. It is bliss. How being snowed in came into my register of blissful things is no mystery to me whatsoever. I had read years ago that then in her early seventies Tasha Tudor walked a mile or so every day rain, snow, or shine to get her mail down her own dirt road. Her drive was too treacherous in any kind of weather for most large vehicles. This notion struck me as quaint back then when I had a mere twenty steps or so in basking Florida sunshine to retrieve my own mail. A few years later I was atop Gunnison Pass in the midst of a Park City winter when I saw a line of four wheel drive vehicles mingled with snowmobiles all along the roadside. "What's this?"I asked my friend who was familiar with the area. The answer would send me into a rapture that has lasted for years. "Oh, nothing much, just the locals who live off road and can't get in and out without the snowmobiles to ferry them back and forth." Wait...What? People live like this? There was something in me, deep seeded, that thrilled to the notion of being self-reliant. Even if it was only on a scale of that magnitude in which you must navigate wilderness to your front door. When we moved to Hawk's Run and were snowbound that first year right after my son was born, I was elated. Surprisingly, a lot of my friends were too. We made a few phone calls to check that everyone had what they needed (like we were going to be able to do something if they didn't...we were going no where fast) and once the niceties were done we barely breathed and exclaimed, "Isn't this great! See you after the thaw!" Or one or two of us would show up on a four wheeler or snowmobile at someone else's house "just to check in". The comradery of these snow-ins gives you a warm fuzzy feeling. And so it was today. No mail, no deliveries, no errands. We got our truck stuck straight off before we even got out of the driveway. Then we somehow managed to kill our old tractor trying to pull ourselves out. Fixing the tractor is on the to do list for tomorrow. As is somehow pulling out the truck. Babies down for a nap with dad, I pulled on my snowshoes and headed up for the mail and packages and checked in on my husband's parents. They had employees who had spent the night with them when the roads began to ice up yesterday. There's that comradery again. Sled full of items to haul back I started the mile or so trek to my own warm home. I ran into my closest neighbor unsuccessfully trying to plow us all out. Or more to the point, trying to plow his wife in who had been stuck in town after work. My guess is that she's sipping tea in town with her mom as I haven't seen anything with seat belts come and go in over 24 hours. Our other neighbor came on his four wheeler plow and made a few sweeps through our drive. We can see the drive now but it is still far from passable. We'll see what tomorrow brings. We may get out, we may not. We have a full pantry and a blaring wood stove. We have Bliss.

Alphabet Meme

2009-01-19T12:58:00.000-08:00

Recently I have been in touch with an old friend whom I hadn't spoken to in over twenty years.
Oddly enough, it seems like I just saw him yesterday. A lot has happened to the two of us over the years, and I hadn't had an opportunity to meet my friend's wife. She keeps a blog, and from what I have learned about her thus far, she seems like a blast and just the kind of person you would want to be around. My new friend participated in the Alphabet Meme and it looked like fun so I decided to join in. I'm always grateful to have the opportunity to sit back and ponder the things I am thankful for. She gave me the letter "P" and here is my list.

Number One: Parents
They are my rock, my foundation, my best friends. Now that we live so many states apart, their absence in my day to day life, at least physically, is profound. We talk most everyday and I still learn something new from them on a daily basis.

Number Two: Peonies

Heavenly fragrant and abundant in my garden, there is no other sensory experience that I can think of more grand. Mine open every Mother's Day like clockwork and the colors never fail to blow me away.

Number Three: Puppies

What would life be without the joy of a litter of puppies? Our dog, Perry, was just a tiny Labrador Vizsla baby when we brought him home two years ago. His boundless energy and affection adds so much to our lives.

Number Four: Petit Four Pastries

A plate of Petit Fours and a pot of tea can't be beat to enliven one's day. Gather round some good friends and the day is made much brighter. Their pretty little decorations, and smooth as silk layers just are another reason I am so glad that we have taste buds.

Number Five: Prayer

In all countries and walks of life, we humans offer up our heartfelt prayers for those we love and cherish in our lives. Prayers never go unanswered, though sometimes we don't always like the answers we receive. The power of a group of people asking for good in your life, or in someone else's, is a powerful force indeed.

Number Six: Patagonia

Unsurpassed in beauty and wildness, Patagonia may be one of Earth's greatest gifts to mankind. The efforts to preserve and protect wild places in this region is enormous, and those efforts are being realized with one of the world's largest National Park systems anywhere. Home to the Torres del Paine, Right Whales, and the Fitzroy's it truly is a treasure.

Number Seven: Pumpkins

I look forward to the pumpkin patch in Fall perhaps best of all the seasonal delights. To bake with, to carve, to simply look at their funny shapes and feel their unique textures, pumpkins are an earthly delight.

Number Eight: Pooh Bear

Thank heavens for A. A. Milne and his creation of Winnie the Pooh. (and Piglet!) The Winnie the Pooh series is our best loved books to read with the children, and they were my favorite as a child too. The world always seems a brighter more friendly place after visiting the Hundred Acre Wood.

Number Nine: Patchwork

Without patchwork, quilts just wouldn't be the same now would they? Whether completed by one person, or many as part of a quilting bee, the patches that make up a quilt are quite amazing to behold. Even better to experience when enfolded in one in front of a blazing fire.

Number Ten: Park City

My favorite spot on the United States map. Park City has it all. Beautiful seasons, mountains, lakes, unlimited outdoor activities, and a host of great artists and chefs. Many of my fondest memories in my life have taken place here in this little valley in the mountains.

If you wish to participate in this Alphabet Meme, just post a comment here and let me know. I'd love to read all about the things you cherish too. If you just wish to post a comment, you can do that too.

Thanks, Beth, for giving me an opportunity of reflection.

Credit to the follow sources for imagery:

Charles Harper's ABC Book

1) My parents on my wedding day

2) Peony from my garden

3) Puppies on vizslapuppiesblog.com

4) Petit Four pretend toys from Biofino

5) Prayer flags from travelblog.org

6) Patagonia image from climb.mountain.zone.com

7) Pumpkin tower was created for the Country Living Fair 2007

8) Winnie the Pooh created by A. A. Milne

9) Log cabin quilt from quiltstudy.org

10) Park City image from sarasotamagazine.com

Puma Paranoia

2009-01-15T21:21:00.001-08:00

The
fear
set
in...
and
it set
in
deep.

One blustery and cold day in mid December four friendly faced animal trackers arrived at my house to hopefully help set some fears to rest. It had been an adventurous summer and fall around here, as you may well know if you have seen my previous postings, with the cougar roaming our area. I had been through all stages of emotion. Disbelief, wonder, denial, and then finally Primal Fear. This last emotion was odd to me and really foreign, and I know full well I never would have entered this paralyzing wasteland if it were not for the fact of my two little ones. But after the second personal sighting of this large feline, and then the subsequent sightings of close by neighbors, I realized I had to accept the fact that we were living with big cats. Then I had to figure out a way to deal with myself. I couldn't go around always looking up at the tress or over my shoulder. Thoughts of... what do I do if it grabs one of the kids and runs? Will I be calm and of sound mind if we have a run in face to face? I thought I knew the answer to these questions until I started doing some research. When I learned that a puma can spring forty or so feet I decided I was in over my head if it decides we are dinner. If I were alone, I know I'd be more calm, but I don't think calm is the emotion I would feel. No, definitely not calm. It was when I was putting up the Christmas lights on the front porch and was in a cold sweat that I realized I had a real problem. It was 35 degrees outside. Paranoia had set in. The trackers had heard about our goings on and offered to come out and have a look around. They were animal lovers just like me and wanted no harm to come to the animal, if in fact it could be determined that we all weren't seeing things. I awoke that day to a really cold, rainy, and windy day. What a day to cover 25 acres looking for clues. Our neighbor offered up their land as well because my instinct was that the cat was traveling our creek bed that runs through a really steep ravine, most of which is on their land. So here were my bright smiling faces ready to brave both wind and water. I had been slow cooking hot cocoa for them all day- after a few hours out there they were really going to deserve it. Hours passed and every now and then I caught a glimpse of them through the windows. They actually seemed to be enjoying themselves. I wasn't going to feel so bad if they turned up nothing. When they came back to the house I served cocoa and we sat around the kitchen table. I couldn't read their initial faces, but I soon figured out their odd looks as no one really wanted to be the first to enlighten me. While they were clearly excited, I think they knew that what they were about to tell me wasn't exactly the anecdote to my fear. The hike turned up nothing conclusive, just what we already knew. I had a virtual cougar paradise. Then, at the end of their foray, they decided to check out my hundred year old barn. What they took pictures of both astonished me and filled me with dread. Looking at the print for me was like looking at my first ultrasound- it had to be explained in detail. All I could see was limestone gibberish. Then they showed me a puma print alongside the gibberish. It became immediately clear. The cougar was catching a snooze in our upper loft of the barn. Inside my head, I was thinking that these could be old. It doesn't mean it is our cougar, right? I'll spare you the visual of the next photo, but they had proof that our little friend had visited in the recent past. Cougar poop has a distinct look. You never forget it once you see it. Matted with deer fur, it looks like a string of sausages. Their photo was as close to living proof as I was going to get that day, but there it was. It was a relief to know we weren't crazy, but then again, we had turned a whole new corner. Said poop is currently being analyzed under a microscope and a night vision camera is being set up in the barn. For weeks, coming in from the grocery store at night has been mind boggling. The barn is 50 feet from the house. You can only imagine how that must feel. An intruder? No problem, they would be dealt with and most likely carried out in a black bag. But a cougar, well, it's a little different. Even a gun doesn't do you much good. The skill required to actually take down a cougar is daunting. Try doing it while it has you by the back of the neck. Now that I have had a few weeks to adjust to this news I have made a sort of peace with this new inhabitant. I believe it's been here a lot longer than any of us are happy to admit. I think it is having a fine dining experience with all the deer, rabbit, livestock, and bird population. I think it has found a safe place to catch a snooze and stay somewhat sheltered. If like most puma, it runs through it's various haunts every few weeks, it explains why we still see domestic felines in the barn now and then, and bobcat in the fields. Make no mistake, when the big girl- or guy- is in town, you see NOTHING. I also hold a firm belief that if we remove this animal and it is part of a larger population, our next resident who takes over the territory may not be such a good neighbor. Knock on wood, but this one has left our dog alone, only been seen by complete accident, and hasn't willingly shown itself to a human. All in all, it sounds like a healthy individual. Welcome to our Wild Kingdom.

The Impostor

2009-01-12T20:55:00.000-08:00

I have
been on
a baking

spree the

last six

months.

Maybe longer, I have lost track. I have been getting

nostalgic now that I have children of my own and have been baking and cooking a lot of the recipes I remember my mom making as a child. The three cookbooks that I remember my own mom looking for guidance from the most were James Beard on Bread, Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook, and Betty Crocker's Cooky Book. Now in my own kitchen, I have an absolute love affair with Beard on Bread, and my copy of Better Homes and Gardens has become indispensable when I am trying out something new and just need some general direction. But the absence of Crocker's Cooky Book was gnawing at me. Of all the three, my mother's copy was the most well worn. We had it out on the kitchen counter a lot. She has mentioned sending it to me a few times always to follow up with the comment that it was probably too worn out to be usable. I could stand it no longer. But I couldn't locate it for sale, which I soon determined because "cookie" was "cooky" on the front cover. Once the title was deciphered, I immediately found a facsimile copy at a good price and waited what seemed like an eternity until it showed up in it's brown mailer. I was giddy with delight. The new version was EXACTLY the same as the old. Not one slight change had been made. What to make first? While the children were napping I was conjuring. How is it that I settled on chocolate chip cookies? I have made the Nestle Toll House recipe so many times that I no longer need an even quick glance at the recipe printed on the back of the package of chips. But the chocolate chip cookie is still my favorite. I was just looking over the nice little story about how it was cookie of the decade in the forties when it occurred to me that my chocolate chip cookies, though good, were not as good as my mom's. So I went over the ingredients and this is where I found a surprise. Betty Crocker called for shortening instead of butter. My gag reflex immediately began. I cannot help this as I am a product of the anti-fat in cooking years. I was thinking to myself that this cannot be when I had a flashback of that good old shortening can on the kitchen counter of my childhood. I, like my mother, pull all my ingredients out of the cupboards before I begin the recipe. Holy cripes had I consumed a large amount of shortening as a kid. This realization was shocking- and humorous too as I have better than good cholesterol levels. My mom's chocolate chip cookies never fell. They maintained their nice little domes and the texture while biting into one is something there are no words to describe. All I can say is that it has just the right amount of resilience and then it's like sinking into one of those memory foam beds. It's the fat solids in shortening. Even if you use vegetable shortening, it still does the trick. This recipe also called for about 1/4 cup more of flour to soften the cookie even further. I would bet dollars to donuts my mom adds that 1/4 cup extra. All these years I had been making the Impostor Cookie, at least the Impostor to my childhood cookie. But why then the use of butter on the Nestle Toll House package? That cute little history bit had given me the clue. The World War was raging and there had been rationing on items such as butter. Now it all made sense. When Betty Crocker published her book she simply used the 40's era recipe instead of the original Toll House recipe. People say you cannot beat the Toll House recipe in terms of texture and taste. Well, I have news for them. In this case, the shortening wins.

Politically Correct or Spiritually Dying?

2009-01-06T22:45:00.000-08:00

First let

me say

that I have

been lapse

in my blogs

the past months as I have been in a whirlwind of activity with family and friends celebrating this great Holiday Season.

For those of you who know me, the time of Thanksgiving to just after New Years holds a very special place in my heart. Family and friend tradition is always important to me, but even more so at this time of year. It's a time I reflect inward on those things that matter most in my life and it is a time I try to be most available to everyone around me. So while I did not blog often during this time, a lot was going on in my mind. Commercialism and the Holidays have always bothered me, but as of the past few years one thing is bothering me quite a bit more than the assault of advertising that is notorious this time of year. What I am noticing more and more is the lack of Christ in Christmas. Inside our home and hearts, Christ is our Christmas. I love decking the halls and giving gifts but this is all done in a manner of festivity that is still very much centered on the miracle of Jesus and his life story. I am not what you would call a right wing Christian- I'm probably not even considered middle of the road by other Christians. What I am, however, is completely in love with the story of the birth of Christ, His rise to Messenger, and the history of what civilization did and continues to do to His message. The notion of His Resurrection is profound, yes, but I find His message to humanity much more profound. What I cannot fathom is this: the absolute fear, or general apathy if it is not fear, of commercial entities to recognize Christ in Christmas. The last time I checked, the United States was well over eighty percent Christian. Dice that up any way you like, but it means that less than twenty percent of Americans do not Believe. I find this heartening, and yet somewhat bewildering too. Bewildering because who are these people in charge at these companies trying to get their message across to the general public? While yes, it is nice to sell some things during the Holiday Season, it is also nice to remember the Man we are celebrating. I have said this time and time again and I will say it here now once more. The British have something on us- at least in one aspect. While I wax poetic about the virtues of British Country Living versus our American version of the magazine here most every month, the December issue always gets to me. And it gets me in a good way. The editors in England have the guts to put Christ in Christmas in their December edition without fail- and in multiple features. They give the people of England, their Christian majority, what they most wish to see and learn about. This year was no exception, from the hand carved nativities of David Plagerson (Noahsarktoys.eu) to the illuminating nuns of Saint Cecilia's Abbey, to the blessing of pets at Saint Nicola's 13th century church. Our American version of this magazine leaves me sadly disappointed every December. I joke that if I had my last seven dollars and the choice was food or the issue of British Country Living, I'd probably starve to death. Something in that publication feeds my soul and there is some kind of kinship that I always find within its pages. The December issue just happens to feed my spiritual soul as well.