Fall Arrives on the Sly

Fall was sneaky this year. It arrived with very little fan fair. No early frost in September and muted colors mixed with temperatures in the 80's. October came in quietly and let September leave behind its warm weather.

The pumpkins and fall arrangement on the porch seemed out of place through the month of September. Only now, with the cool mornings are they finding their comfort spot. Petunias and geraniums still fill pots with bright colors and give the mistaken idea it is still summer.

Soon I will wake up one morning and find that frost has done its dirty work. Pots will have to be emptied and put away, leaves raked. The resting period will have begun, allowing the perennials to sleep so they can once again give their summer gifts.

Story of a Hope Chest

Stefanie called me asking for my opinion, which as mother of grown children I'm more than glad to share. "Would I be crazy to paint Grandma's cedar chest?" she asked. Grandma's chest is 70 years old and we lovingly call it 'the coffin.' Stef has tried to make it fit in with her décor and has been creative in trying to bring it from the 40's.

We discussed its integrity and the value the old chest may hold. Seventy barely meets the criteria of being an antique. It is simply old and not crafted by any well known furniture maker. Stefanie reached her own conclusion after a little bit of thought and shared her view about its true value. She said, "It has sentimental value to me because it was Grandma's and I'll never part with it. Painted or untouched the value remains the same and its true worth will not be compromised." I assume that in the near future I will get a call from my daughter and she will say, "Mom, check your text messages and tell me what you think."

Cedar chests are a part of history meant to hold hand embroidered pillowcases, crocheted dollies and quilts. All these collected items were meant to be saved  and used when a girl married. A cedar chest was also called a hope chest. I'm sure Grandma received her hope chest as a high school graduation present, which was a common gift in the 1940's. She most likely filled it with various home goods necessary to set up housekeeping and in the corners she tucked in a little bit of hope. Eventually the hope was fulfilled and the linens found a permanent home. With the passing of time things change. The carefully stored items were used and discarded and the chest was no longer needed.

It may be time to give this box a new life. There are no quilts to put in it, and the hope has been used. Perhaps, this relic from the 40's would appreciate a face lift and a place in the 21st century. Its true value will not be lessoned and paint might be the chance for a second life. Stefanie will love it even  more after she puts a little of herself into its renewal. The part of herself that will go toward making the cedar chest fit into her home will fill the empty spaces once occupied by hope and dreams of a young girl.

Across the Pond



The Royal Princess

This beauty took me took me to the British Isles. An adventure that will be hard to top. A special friend and I called the floating city home for twelve fantastic days. It is hard to pick just one spot to call a favorite. Ireland, Scotland, Isle of Guernsey, Wales and France each have something different to offer, but there is one commonality they share and that is a long, rich history.




Scotland---many buildings are older than USA

The small towns I find the most interesting and enticing. Its where you meet the people,  have conversations, share common interests, ask and answer questions, and find out how much we all have in common. No matter how far from home I venture I always find commonality and good in the people I meet. Never be afraid to ask questions. Most everyone I talk to too is interested in sharing information as well as gathering it. "Why does your Schnauzer have a tail?" I asked a man in Scotland. "It is against the law to dock tails here.  A rather ugly tail isn't it?" he replied. We both
laughed and moved on, me a little guilty for once having a Schnauzer with a docked tail.




Isle of Guernsey-- St.Peter Port 

There is always a side street to explore where you might find an old church with a tiny garden, a forgotten cemetery or house built a few centuries earlier and is a home for a 21st century family. The old is fascinating. My curious mind wonders who built the house on the hill, what were the people like who lived in the house.

A woman sitting at the table next to us in a Belfast pub was as interested in the two American women as we were about her. She wanted to know what our view of Belfast was. Her fear was the possibility of all the turmoil the city had experienced throughout the years had painted an ugly picture in the minds of visitors. We were quick to assure her our impression was just the opposite. Belfast is a lovely city with a calm easy sense of well being. It is a small city and does not have the intensity of Dublin. The people of Belfast are eager to let you know it is only a small portion of the population that choose to see the tensions continue.




peace wall Belfast Ireland

Through travel you see things with new eyes and expanded vision. What has only been a picture in a book turns to reality--becomes tangible; you feel as well as see. When you know some of your ancestry, all the books, stories and photos begin to live when you actually visit a place where family members lived. Part of my family came from Scotland. I most likely, will never know in what part of Scotland they lived, but the short visit was enough to satisfy my curiosity and complete my connection. I saw the green rolling hills and came home with a ball hat that says 'Scotland'.



Scotland on a not so clear day



A short trip into a corner of Wales

You always see a place the intrigues you. Vivian and I picked out houses that looked like a cozy warm home and  agreed that we could live there. Found too many houses and too many places. You can't have it all, but you can have a piece here and there. That is what this trip gave--pieces of adventures, postcard reality, gracious people and an expanded self awareness.




A little bit of the Irish




La Havre, France--Pure class

Travel gives back on a continual bases. Images pop up from your mental library uninvited and give you a special treat. You get to relive the experiences all over again. It is the gift that keeps on giving.

The Waiting Game

Summer is in full swing. The sunflowers shake their yellow heads in the warm wind, tomato plants are heavy with yet to ripen fruit. I have waited for the summer blooms that arrive in such a blaze of color. Along with the floral treats comes the realization that summer has passed its longest day.

The vegetable growers have also been playing the waiting game. The hot days and warm nights push their produce forward. Now is the time to enjoy the true fruits of their labor. The seeds planted in early spring survived the windy days and buffeting rains. Every summer the story is repeated. The seeds grow, the perennials come back and the cycle continues on. All that grows is once again giving back.

In a former life I tried to be a vegetable gardener. I planted the seeds and looked forward to having fresh vegetables. Along with this I planned on teaching my children about the positive aspects of growing our own food. I had been told or heard somewhere that a garden taught children about work, pride in that work and satisfaction when they picked and ate what that had grown. No so! I learned about the hard work because children whine when they are in the sun on their knees pulling weeds. Not only do they whine, but they have poor eyesight and cannot see the weeds. Children also waste large quantities of time doing nothing.

Gradually the garden began to shrink in size. Grass seeds replaced green beans, beets, carrots and the corn stalks became perennials. I have found more joy in picking flowers than beans. The flowers just sit on a table in a pretty vase and make me feel good. They don't scream at me to can them. I will be forever grateful to those individuals born with the gardening gene. Thankfully these hardy souls plant large gardens and find joy in the caring and nurturing of their gardens. Not only do they find joy in growing vegetables, they love to share them. I wait for their patches to give forth and hope that they have grown more than they will ever be able to eat.

Summer is a short season in which much happens. It is a period of waiting and watching. Everything about summer is good. I love the flowers and the gracious people who so willingly share their summer harvest with the lazy and inept.

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always a summer delight

I picked a large bunch of lilacs and brought them in the house. The bold scent filled the kitchen. I love the strong smell they emit. Lilacs stir childhood memories of the overgrown bushes in the backyard. They were never trimmed or cut back, but allowed to grow and send up shots from their roots. Always profuse bloomers, the blooms begged to be pick picked. My mother kept a vase of freshly picked blossoms on the kitchen table, replacing them as they wilted and dropped their purple flowers.

Mom and her sister worried about the lilacs blooming too early in May and not being bright and new for Memorial Day. They had to be part of the bouquets that were assembled to take to the cemetery. Iris, peonies and snow balls were packed into buckets along with the lilacs. The metal buckets were filled with water so the mason jars could be filled when the flowers were arranged in them. Coat hangers were an import part of the equipment because they were bent and inserted in the jars and  the opposite end was pushed into the ground to anchor the bottles.

Mom and Aunt Myrtle never missed a year even if the early blooming flowers were less than perfect. For them it was the carefully tended flowers from their own gardens that carried love not plastic wreaths or flowers. As a child I could sense the importance of this ritual. It was a shared duty they faithfully fulfilled. They took their bouquets to the cemetery rain or shine. Memorial Day could not be missed. I remember rain, wind, and cold and yet they carried on.

When I smell lilacs I remember buckets of colorful flowers, mason jars. metal coat hangers, and me in the backseat of the car. It is my own little bush that stirs these memories and reminds me of the lessons I was quietly taught by my two favorite women.

Hitting the Road

crab apple blossoms in Hagerman

We've had the tear drop on the road again. It seems to be our obsession to spontaneously hook it up and hit the road.  Not always very far, but far enough to feel like we have been somewhere new and different.

sometimes early spring trips are very quiet

The draw to venture out comes from a desire to change scenery and just have a change of routine. There are always places to visit and new people to meet. RV travelers love to talk and share their experiences. They enjoy comparing stories good or bad. We are babies in this broad RV world and not because we  pull what could be described as a bed on wheel. Simply, we have not ventured as far a foot as the people we meet.

Mexico is not on our to see list, but we meet a couple that has pulled a trailer to Mexico for eight winters making a round trip of 6,000 miles from British Columbia. Nor have we driven to the coast of Texas like the couple we met in Hagerman, Idaho. They had one more day of hard driving with 15lbs. of frozen shrimp to reach home in Washington state. Sharing a campground with only one other traveler, afforded us the opportunity to park next to a retired school bus turned motor home. It sported a bright red paint job and Maine license plates. A long trek form Maine to Idaho.

interesting travel mode--home on wheels

There is simple and elaborate, either will get you from here to there and that is the ultimate goal. So far simple is working for us and gives us as much opportunity to explore as we choose. You'll never see us boon docking in a Walmart parking lot, but you might find us in Death Valley, along a river or in a RV resort in Nevada parked beside the 'Big Boys.' If you do we'll be sitting in our new red chairs reading or checking our email.


 

Spring Throw Away

The sun is shinning and very few clouds are across the sky. At 6:30 this morning it was 21 degrees. The weatherman, who is often wrong, is predicting a high of 50. Spring could actually be wining its way to southeastern Idaho. There is something about sun that changes attitudes. I suppose that is why spring brings a frenzy of cleaning and clearing our homes. For me it is not cleaning and scrubbing and painting that excites me, but throwing things away or handing them over to someone else. I have STUFF!! Most of this stuff hides in my closet. Just because I have a walk-in closet there is no hard core rule saying I have to fill it. I am not obligated to bring half of the Gap or Dillards merchandize home to store.

There are items I have not touched or moved in months. Apparently, I must not like them, don't feel good in them or I bought them just because I could. Thank heaven for big black garbage bags. I heard no cries of pain or sadness as I pulled sweaters, shirts, pants, and shoes off the hangers and shelves and deposited them in the bag. It is time to move on for the clothes and me. They need a new live in some other closet. I will be happier if they move on and so will another person who falls in love with my no longer wanted clothes. It will be a new and refreshing beginning. When items are no longer used they have no value and just become stuff. Owning stuff is cumbersome and in the long run we turn from owner to being owned. Why would I want to keep a sweater I wore on vacation Three years ago? It served its purpose at the time and for a period after, but now I have four sweaters I bought for two other vacations and love none of them enough to see them occupy space just for the sake of occupying space. I keep walking into the closet to see the empty spots on shelves and the spaces between hangers. It makes me feel good and reminds that I am in charge! I am liberated.

A Winter Gift



Ice slowly melting in the January thaw


This has been a strange winter. It has been mild with only moderate snow fall. December roared in with temperatures below zero and then mellowed and allowed warmer air to move in. The heavy snow from Christmas Eve and Christmas day is mostly gone. Only a few patches remain along the fence and shaded areas of the yard. No piles of shoveled snow line the edges of the driveway. The grass creeping out from under the melting snow is green. What a tease--I wonder if my perennials in the flower beds near the fence are feeling an urge to poke their noses out.

 

This reprieve is definitely not the norm and most likely spring will still arrive in late late April. There have been days when the sun has chased away the gray sky and on those days the spirit sings in gratitude. The darker sky always returns but just interspersing it with blue sky and sun makes winter more tolerable There is a beauty that winter shows on a bright clear day. The sky seems bluer with the billowing white clouds adding soft accents, and the sun more intense

This winter may be a reward for enduring many long, cold and snowy winters in the past--sixty six in all. Or it could be Mother Nature's way of teasing. Reward or tease--I gratefully accept the winter package and count this season of change a welcome gift.