May Book Report

I've been trying to get some of 'my own' books read which these two are.
Duplicate Keys by Jane Smiley. Two of six friends, who all moved to NYC together, are murdered. The others become suspects.

The Castaways by Elin Hilderbrand is another in her Nantucket series. The lives of four couples, all close friends, are examined when one of the couples dies in a boating accident.

We Never Asked For Wings by Vanessa Diffenbaugh. What she did with flowers in The Language of Flowers, she does here with birds/feathers. Again her protagonists are the marginalized, this time undocumented families from Mexico. An excellent book and my favorite read this month.

The Maytrees by Annie Dillard. I have adored Dillard's writing since her first book, Pilgrim At Tinker Creek, but this book is more about people and less about nature, so I didn't like it as well. Still worth reading, especially for the lyrical descriptions of Cape Cod and Provincetown.

Pekoe Most Poison by Laura Childs is #18 in A Tea Shop Mystery series. I enjoy reading about the teas, relationships and murders in this series and think this is one of the best.

The Life and Times of Persimmon Wilson by Nancy Wilson. The story of an escaped slave living in Texas after the Civil War. Very interesting and well written, and, of course, at times hard to read.

The Way Life Should Be by Christina Baker Kline. Fired from her job, NYC woman decides to move to Maine to be with a man she met online. Of course it doesn't work out, but she stays in Maine and begins figuring out her life when she starts a cooking class to teach cooking as her Italian grandmother taught her. My second favorite book this month.

The Blue Last by Martha Grimes. In need of a new author, I Googled 'authors like P.D. James, Deborah Crombie, Ruth Rendell', etc. and came up with the name Martha Grimes. I decided to give her a try and liked this first book, one of her series with Richard Jury as the English detective and his friend, the intrepid Melrose Plant. I'm going to enjoy reading my way through this series.

Hotel Paradise by Martha Grimes is one of her stand alone novels and I can tell I'm going to enjoy reading these, too. This one is told by a 12-year-old girl trying to solve a 40-year-old mystery about the death of another 12-year-old girl. Excellent writing of feelings, thoughts, etc. of a coming of age young woman.

Fascinated By A Chautauqua

It's the word itself - chau-tau-qua. The first time I heard it, I probably thought it sounded like an Indian word (Choctaw?) and I was all about Cowboys and Indians.
Then my teacher explained that Chautauqua's were similar to the tent shows I was familiar with except on a more enlightening plane. They could be entertaining but also educational. I wished that I had been born thirty years earlier or that they still had summer Chautauqua's.

Often the Chautauqua circuit did involve huge tents but they could also be permanent pavilions as I was to learn on a shopping trip to nearby Red Oak. Highway 34 ran through towns then before it began to bypass them. There on top of a hill was a big round structure. "What's that?" "It's Chautauqua Park and that's where they had concerts and plays."
The first time I actually remember stopping there and being inside the structure was when our school, along with two or three others, took a bus to Red Oak to tour the Thomas D. Murphy Calendar Company. After learning all about how the calendars were made and receiving a souvenir of our visit, we went to the park to eat our sack lunches.
By then, the mid 1950's, the place was run down; on the borderline of being unsafe. I remember some of us going up on the stage area and pretending to be performing and being warned to get down before we fell through.

In 1972 the old Chautauqua pavilion, originally built for $5,200 and one of the few left standing, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places and contributions were made to refurbish it. The stage is gone and it now serves mainly as a picnic shelter, but the nostalgia for times past lingers.

It has been more than fifteen years since I was last there for a birthday party/family reunion hosted by Lowell Mascher. That's him on the far right. He had both sides of his family there, so there were many we didn't know. This picture is of the ones on 'our' side of the family. My sister-in-law Ruth and brother Ron, Kathy and Delbert King, me behind Delbert's arm, Mom next to him, Aunt Lois behind Mom then Lowell's daughter and Lowell and possibly his granddaughter. The man next to my left and the woman next to Aunt Lois were Clay and Judy Heuer.

I am still fascinated by the word Chautauqua just as I was as a child. There is something romantic about it with maybe a hint of magic.

If At First You Don't Succeed

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again was an old proverb I heard from both my mother and my teacher. They had the authority to make me keep trying to do something even when I wanted to give up, but once I was out on my own, I was my own boss. I could give up if I wanted to.

Which brings me to pie baking. I've always preferred pie over cake and my mom was an excellent pie maker. Her pie crusts were tender and flaky, made with lard.

I still remember the first time I tried making a pie on my own after I was married. It was a pineapple pie for which I probably used a recipe from the Betty Crocker's New Picture Cook Book I had received as a shower gift. Let's just say the pie was less than a hit - due mostly to the awful crust.

Mom probably showed me how to make crust and I may have tried another pie or two but if I did, they didn't turn out either and I gave up. I didn't make another pie for twenty-five or thirty years - not until I married Hubby Dearest and learned his favorite pie was pumpkin and it was almost Thanksgiving - AND - there was this marvelous new product in the grocer's freezer - frozen pie crusts in an aluminum pie pan. They weren't great, but at least I hadn't failed making them.

Then a few years ago a friend told me about these - refrigerated pie crusts you just had to unroll and use. Funny thing is I hadn't used them to make pies, only for quiches.

This is a ham, cheese, pineapple, onion quiche I made for lunch last week. It was really good.
Those pie crusts come two to a box so I was thinking of making another quiche when a few days ago I remembered I had been wanting custard pie. Well, duh, I had the eggs and I had the pie crust. When I looked up a recipe for custard pie there was one for Coconut Custard Pie. Oh, my, coconut pie is my favorite.

The crust got too brown around the edges and I removed it, but other than that the pie is very good. Next I'm going to make a Coconut Cream Pie.

And, you know what, after that I'm going to make a Pineapple Pie! It's only been fifty five years since that first try, and I'm a-gonna try, try again.

Grandma's Old-Fashioned Yellow Rose

In the Language of Flowers dictionary a yellow rose denotes infidelity although the newer lists suggest friendship and platonic love. Regardless of what a yellow rose is 'saying', it has always been one of my favorite flowers.

My affinity may go back to the old-fashioned yellow rose that was just to the right of the gate as one entered Grandma Delphia's yard. The early spring blooms only lasted a few weeks but they were profuse and fragrant. I was always disappointed when I tried picking a bouquet that they didn't last long in a vase.
I also remember digging a start of Grandma's yellow rose and having success getting it to grow at my home, but I can't remember at which place I lived when I planted it. Wherever it was, I didn't live there long enough to see it grow into a bush the size of hers or this one I took the photo of this morning on North Lincoln Street.

I had never heard these called anything but Old-Fashioned Yellow Roses, but upon searching to try and learn their name, I was surprised to learn they are also known colloquially as the Oregon Trail Rose and the Yellow Rose of Texas. Harison's Yellow is its cultivar name. It was first grown in the garden of George F. Harison, an attorney in New York City in the 1830's.

The yellow rose at Grandma and Grandpa Ridnour's may have already been growing when they bought their farm and moved there in 1941. Or Grandma may have gotten a start from one of her friends in the way they were passed to family and friends years ago.

It is not uncommon to find them now growing in old abandoned homesteads, needing no human help, surviving, thriving and delicately blooming.

"She walks along the river in the quiet summer night;
I know that she remembers when we parted long ago."
(From the song, The Yellow Rose of Texas.)

Memories of Milking

In March's 'Book Report' I remarked how Anna Quindlen's writing in Miller's Valley reminded me of my own years growing up on the farm and how some passages were especially beautiful and evocative. This is one of those passages:

"You can tell time by a farm, a day's worth of time, a year's worth. There's a particular kind of quiet on a farm in the morning, which isn't really morning the way other people think of it. It's still dark with just the smallest idea of black sky getting lighter around the edges, and unless there's a moon the only light comes from the bare bulb hanging like its own moon from the center of the barn ceiling. It's a place where it's just as easy to feel lost as it is to feel contented. I felt lost most of the time now, but I never said so, even to myself: in that same way I knew it was odd for a grown woman not to leave her own home, I knew it was odd for a teenage girl to feel like there was a big rattly empty space between her stomach and her heart. But it made me wonder whether other people felt the same way without showing it.

It was always warmer in the barn than it was outside because of all the cows crowding together, breathing and snorting and farting, making a fug that hung in the place like cigarette smoke over the poker game my father used to have once a month. Cows at dawn are different than cows at dusk. A farm in winter feels different than a farm in summer. The whole year passed in front of me on the farm. The cornstalks with yellow edges that meant summer was over and the classroom getting ready to close around you. The pumpkins of October that squatted where the yellow flowers sprouted on the vines in August. The mornings when you could hear the cattle complaining like a bunch of old men with tobacco throats and you knew, you just knew that it was February and their water through was frozen solid and you were going to have to go out there with an old shovel and beat a hole into the ice until it fell apart like a broken window."

These are the cows I helped milk when I was the age of Quindlen's  Mimi Miller of Miller's Valley. How well I remember them and... The summer Mom and I did most of the chores while Dad and Ron were in the fields and I complained that milking was making my hands unattractive because my veins were standing out. How Mom could milk five or six cows in the same time I milked three. How the bare bulb and its string hanging down were black with fly specks.

Remember... Shooting streams of milk into the open mouths of waiting cats. Grabbing the milk bucket and moving just in time when the cow started to splash pee - or worse - or put her foot in the bucket. Crying over spilled milk when ole bossy did kick the bucket over just about the time I had it filled.

Remember... How at first the milk pinged on the bottom of the empty bucket then gradually whooshed as it filled the pail and how the rhythm of milking, the tranquility of the barn, the companionship of Mom being there only a cow or two or three away made it possible for me, unlike Mimi, to talk about feeling lost and the big rattly empty space between my stomach and my heart.

How To Pick A Winner

Prior to the Kentucky Derby a couple of years ago, I decorated a hat and dressed up as though I were attending the Run for the Roses and not just watching it on TV.

I did not pick the winning horse, American Pharoah, that year. But I did earlier this month when I picked a dark bay horse.....

....and Always Dreaming won the 143rd Derby on a very muddy track.

Yesterday was the 142nd Preakness Stakes race at Pimlico. Per usual, we picked our horses. Always Dreaming was the odds favorite, but I did not pick him in this race.

I chose another dark bay, Cloud Computing, whose odds were 13-1. Always Dreaming and Classic Empire were running against each other at the front of the race until almost the finish when Classic Empire took the lead and looked like the winner until, wait, who was that taking the lead at the wire? Why, it's Cloud Computing to win the race.

The 149th Belmont Stakes, the third race of the Triple Crown series will be run June 10. Will I pick another dark bay horse in that race? And what are the odds I'll pick the winner again?

Oh, yes, how do I choose 'my' horses, i.e. pick a winner? I go by their names -Always Dreaming because I have always been a dreamer and Cloud Computing because I like clouds. I can't wait to pick a winner for the Belmont.

Ruth's Rum Raisin

She complimented the color of my new lipstick
  Wondered how it would look on her
               Here, try it and see
Oh, I like it
   Would you get one for me

My tube of Rum Raisin was used up
   When she died in 2003
There was her's, almost new
   I've been wearing it ever since
Soon it will be gone - just like she

Mother's Day Booty

Even though I tell them "don't get me anything", my kids seldom listen to me. (Hm-m...a holdover from their childhoods?)

I always get a laugh out of my stepson's cards. That's his on the left with a Mother's Day Tip - "Empty wine bottles always come in handy when you need a vase for your flowers." Mark knows me well. Inside he writes loving sentiments which never fail to melt my heart.

Preston's card is next - from both him and Shalea. It came with the 'R' bookmark, a Walmart gift card, which I will use for plants and a Half Price Books gift card. I have several books on my 'want to read' list which neither of my libraries has. I can't wait to go to the city and browse.

I pictured Kari's card in the previous blog post which is why it is half-hidden in the back. Included with the card was the newly released El Dorado CD by a friend and former band mate of her husband's. (More about this in another post.)

She also planted this tiered stand at her home in Portland - her "Mother's Day project for Ramona" saying "Digging in the dirt and planting herbs and flowers always makes me feel close to my Mom." Ah, what a sweet sentiment and nice to know every time she snips some herbs, she will think of me.

The card on the right is a blank card Doug and Shelly brought back from their Caribbean vacation . It is from an original water color by a St. John artist called "Portal to Paradise". Shelly thought I might want to frame it - a reminder of my own long-ago trip to the Islands.

And, to carry on what has become a tradition, they brought me a beautiful hanging planter.

However, my best Mother's Day gifts were intangible. Doug gave me the good news that his last ENT appointment was 'great'. His Doctor said "I can't believe how fast you have healed in your throat." After the next time, he will only have to go for check ups every six months. That's a wonderful Mother's Day gift!

And Shelly shared this with me about my son: At one of his recent remodeling jobs, he learned that the homeowner had recently been diagnosed with cancer. Knowing first hand what it is like to receive that kind of news, Douglas discreetly donated his time on the project so the owner only had to pay for the materials. I'm so glad Shelly shared this as Doug would never have mentioned it.

In my last post, I admitted that I have always felt like I wasn't a very good mother. But now I know I must have done a few things right. 

 It was a wonderful Mother's Day! Every day is if you have children like mine!

Brown Eyes and Mother's Day

I've always been partial to brown eyes and have always assumed it was because my own eyes are brown. Then a couple days ago, thinking about Mother's Day, I had an epiphany....

....maybe the reason I like brown eyes are because the first eyes I gazed into were my Mother's brown eyes. As a babe, while I was nursing; as a toddler, when I was looking for direction or approval; as a teen, when I was looking for guidance and understanding; as an adult, to compare how alike our eyes were.

Thank goodness I had my mother's help and guidance when I became a mother myself at age 18. Not only did she help care for Douglas, she talked me through the 'baby blues', milk fever,  and the care and feeding of an infant. I was so possessive of my son, my mother was about the only one I would let hold him.

By the time I had Kari and Preston, I was a bit better about sharing them with others. I was also a little more confident in my own abilities - although I will admit that having so many years between Douglas and Kari was about like having a baby for the first time all over again.

I mentioned before about one of the surprises of being a mother was the overwhelming feeling of love and fierce protectiveness. I was once told I was "like a mother tiger protecting her cubs".

The first of this year's Mother's Day cards came a couple of days ago - this one from Kari. Her husband pointed the blank card out to her when they were at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, saying the painting had long been one of his favorites. ('Temptation' by William-Adolphe Bouguereau) She knows how I love artworks, but I wonder if she felt like this could have been a representation of the two of us when she was little? (Those curls!)

Mother's Day for me is always a dual reflection on being a Mother and having a Mother. And, oh, how I miss mine. She was the one person who was always there for me. I will never forget the last time I looked into her brown eyes. She had been in a coma for several days. I stayed at her bedside, holding her hand, talking to her, even though I didn't think she heard me. It was around four o'clock in the morning, the nurses came in to check on her. As they turned her to her side she opened her eyes and looked at me. It was only for a few seconds. I said, "Mom, Mom!", thinking, hoping, she was going to wake up.
The nurses were surprised. They said someone coming to like that seldom happened. Mom died about twelve hours later. Her's were the first brown eyes I looked into and mine were the last she saw.

I never feel that I was a good mother when my kids were growing up - that I didn't do enough for them or give them everything - but maybe it is because I felt like my Mom was the perfect Mother and I could never be as good as she was. Maybe I have been a good Mom to my children. Maybe we all have the Mother we needed?

Trees Are Poems

"Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky."
      (Kahlil Gibran)

Early in March I took a picture of a tree across the railroad tracks.

There was something about its shape that caused me to wonder what kind of tree it was. My thinking at the time was that when it leafed out, I could identify it.

So here it is, all leafed out. Too far away for me to identify.

But my 20X Zoom brought it near enough to be reasonably sure it is a Poplar, possibly a Black Poplar. And look, it too, has catkins.

There was another tree I took a picture of today, this one down on the far side of the pond. The Chokecherries are in bloom.

Another zoomed in photo. I was trying to see what the light gray was amidst the foliage in one of the Willow trees in the wetlands behind the pond. It was just some dead limbs, but makes for an interesting picture.

It is so easy to take for granted the things we see every day - even the beautiful and wonderful things like birds, flowers, trees, clouds and sunsets. Regardless of the season, trees are poems written upon the skies.

Season Is Open

The weather seems finally to have settled into what Spring is supposed to be, sunny blue skies with airy white clouds and temperatures in the 70's. After a
l-o-n-g, cold, wet spell, today was perfect to begin planting.
The old mailbox of my youth on the farm has become my herb planter. This year it holds Sweet Mint, Sweet Basil and Lemon Balm.

"Yes, in the poor man's garden grow
Far more than herbs and flowers --
Kind thoughts, contentment, peace of mind,
And joy for weary hours."

The two deck planters as well as a large pot are planted with sun-loving Salvia in a light shade of apricot. Now that I've gotten started, each time I go shopping, I'll be looking at the plants and, most likely, bringing home more to fill more planters.

May 10 was always the magic date when I was learning the rules for planting as a child. That was the accepted date for all danger of frost to be past.

And by May 10 most of our regional birds have returned for another nesting season. I always hear the Orioles before I see them and hurry to get their feeder out. Within a few minutes they begin visiting.

We had lots of Catbirds on the farm, but this is the first year I remember seeing any here.

The Rose-breasted Grosbeaks are always welcome!

The Brown-headed Cowbirds don't have a very good reputation, but I still think they are beautiful.

I did see a Ruby-throated Hummingbird the day I put up the oriole feeder, but I haven't seen it since, nor gotten a photo. And I'm hoping to be lucky enough to see and photograph the Indigo Bunting again this year. I'm also going to go out to Green Valley Lake in hopes of seeing a Kingfisher since learning there are some there.
So there is still lots of planting and bird watching to be done. The season is open.

In Honor of My Dad

My Dad, Louis, was born 100 years ago today. This house is the one he was born in. My Grandmother, Bessie, put an X next to the window and had written on the back of the photo that that was the room where he was born.
The interesting thing, to me, is that although the family lived on many different farms in two different counties, Dad spent the majority of his life - all the years of his & Mom's marriage - just three miles from this house where he was born.

An early photo of Dad with his parents, George and Bessie. The woman on the left is his Aunt Ruby - Grandma's sister-in-law.

Dad with his little sister, Leona. He was eight years old when she was born. He had another sister, Evelyn, born when he was six, but she only lived four days.

Dad's sixth grade photo. The family moved from Highland School area in Adams County to Spaulding School area in Taylor County when he was in 6th grade.

Dad, Mom, my older brother Ron and me as a baby. This was taken at a relative's home at a dinner for some of Dad's cousins who were home on leave during WWII.

Dad and Mom with Grandma Bessie in back, Aunt Leona and Uncle Al sitting in front. Picture was taken at Grandma's acreage on the west edge of Corning.

Filling the jug with water at the spring during a family trip to Illinois in 1947. Me, Dad and Ron in back, Mom and little sis, Betty, in front.

One of my favorite pictures - Dad holding his first grandchild, my son Douglas. Doug's dad, Kenny looking on. (Fall, 1962)

Another favorite photo of Dad and Mom in 1967. I call this one "looking at love".

The year I was a senior in high school, fall of 1960, my favorite photo of Dad and me.

One final picture, one I've never shared before. It may not look like I am honoring my Father by showing him in such high jinks, but Dad did have a wicked sense of humor.

And he was really cutting up on the day this photo was taken. I'm uncertain of the identity of the woman. Grandma had written on the back "Louis and Beulah". Dad's Uncle Lawrence's wife's name was Beulah, but I don't know if she's the one pictured.

One hundred years sounds a long time and Dad has been dead for thirty-nine years, yet it seems no time at all. Happy 100th, Father.

Kindly Earth

"I look back with gladness to the day when I found the path to the land of heart's desire, and thank Fate ceaselessly with a loud voice that she did not permit town to sap all the years away while the heart was turning to wind-voices and flower-faces and the of kindly earth." (Marion Dudley Cran, The Garden of Ignorance, 1913)

"Let me arise and open the gate,
to breathe the wild warm air of the heath,
And to let in Love, and to let out Hate,
And anger at living and scorn of Fate,
To let in Life, and to let out Death."
(Violet Fane/Lady Mary Montgomerie Lamb Currie, From Dawn to Noon, 1872 and Poems, 1892)

"So I will build my altar in the fields,
And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be,
And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields
Shall be the incense I will yield to thee."
(To Nature by Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

I think it is only natural on this lovely spring day, that my heart and mind turn to the nurture of nature. And, if I can no longer physically be in and of Her as I long to be, I can share the expressions of kindred spirits.