A Trapeze Act & A Lesson in Perseverance

Well, I finished off the last of the dandelion greens tonight for supper.  Yum!  It has stopped raining and things look ever so green everywhere!  Our little 'Jenny Wren' is back chattering away on top of her house, actually a house built for bluebirds but she always claims it first.  So good to hear her cheerful, twittering song again.   A lone hummingbird came by the other day and buzzed about where the feeder usually is.  Dennis saw him/her first and went looking for the feeder.  Usually if we aren't quick enough to get it out, they come up to the patio slider door and hover and stare at us, letting us know we aren't being very good hosts.  Still haven't seen but the one at the feeder which is now full and in it's proper place.

The red squirrel and the big gray one are providing us with entertainment these days.  Better than the trapeze act at the circus.  They ARE a circus !   It is a war now, a contest of wits between Dennis and the squirrels.  They were climbing up the shutter by our dining room window to get to the bird feeder. The gray is so fat he sort of runs with a waddling sway.  He visits my neighbor's bird feeders all winter.  We really want just birds at this feeder so Dennis put up a plastic coated wire from the house to the cherry tree and hung the feeder from that.  It worked for a couple days (squirrels must have been having a meeting to come up with the best way to get to it anyway),  Yesterday they were successful !  The little red squirrel would climb the cherry tree, go out on a limb, chew off any small branch obstructing his launch way and then back up and run......fly through the air and try to land in the feeder.  Watching him miss and flip over and onto the ground was kinda funny.  He immediately jumped up, shook himself and headed up the tree for another try.  This went on for a bit. (I'm getting no work done here..)  Then he finally perfected the jump and that was when Den decided he would put an obstruction between the tree and the feeder on the cord going to the house.  He found a plastic cover which came off of a 5 gallon pail and installed it on the wire.  "There... now let's see you get around that!"  NO problem thought the little red  head.  Using the same launching method which had proved so successful before, he tried it again, and again, and finally he got hold of something on that plastic cover and around and around he and the cover went!  Just like a carnival ride!  Whee!  And then reaching out, he grabbed the top of the feeder and plunked himself down, right in the seeds, right where he wanted to be! A trapeze act for sure.  Round 2 goes to the squirrel.  I finally stopped laughing long enough to get the camera and remembered it has video capability.  I got a few short videos and will post one here for you to see...and if the sound works....to hear.  All the funny noise is Dennis laughing so hard.  Hope it will go on here.  Well, I guess it didn't work !   Oh well, I do have a couple pictures but they aren't nearly as entertaining as the little video.

The launch !

Landing on the plastic cover.  Then the cover spins, fast.

Then it finally dumps him into the seeds.

I guess it does work !!  Great !

Well, so much for the circus!   A lesson in perseverance for sure.  I'll take this lesson upstairs to my sewing room and get on with the quilt I started this week.  It is coming along pretty well but if I stay away from it for long I have to stop and think...hard...when I come back to it.  Paper piecing is so precise and nice when finished but tricky, for me at least, while putting together.  I never was good with mirror image type things.  

Remember to take time to stop and enjoy all the good things God provides for us in nature. Don't hurry too much, the work will be right there waiting for you.    

Wild Leeks and ESP...or what?

My goodness!!  I just sat down to write a post here and thought to check my friend Cyndy's blog first.  I couldn't believe that she is writing today and will continue with a place on her blog she will call Aunt Jan's Wild Corner.
  The notes I wrote today for this blog are about the wild things to be found at hand and in the woods around us! Now isn't that what they call ESP??

I love to dig some nice dandelion greens and my lawn usually provides me with plenty.  The fiddleheads are ok but I really prefer the dandelions.  Cooked up and served with a nice helping of hot mashed potatoes and maybe a fat slice of ham like my Gram used to make.  Yum!  She would put a thick slice of ham in a big iron skillet, put some brown sugar and dry mustard on top and pour milk around and up almost to the top of the ham.  Then bake it in the oven for about an hour.  The flavor was just super and with the greens and mashed potatoes,  a favorite spring meal.

Cyndy spoke of the leeks too.  Years ago, when she was a little girl, her mom and I and another friend, Barb and her little boy would take a hike up on our nearby mountain, Hawks Mt. and find there among the rocks just below the top, lots of these wild leeks.  We would sit and eat our cheese and crackers and the wild leeks that we would clean as best we could. Always picking enough to take home for later.  They always made our cheese and crackers taste so good!  Barb and her family moved to NY a few years later and when it came time to go to the mountain again that year and search out the wild leeks, we were missing her so we picked a few extra and thought we would send them by priority mail to her.  We were sure to wrap them in plastic with some water, but very little, to help keep them fresh, or so we thought!  We got them over to the Post Office just as the mail truck picked up at 5 PM so they would be kept cold right up till the last minute. Then we waited for a surprised and delighted Barb to call us.  Well, she finally did and she was way more surprised than delighted !  She got the package and as she opened it the oniony smell, I should say the spoiled oniony smell was anything but delightful!! They were in pretty bad shape and certainly not edible by that time!  So much for our surprise.  We thought she would love having some leeks from the mountain as we knew she was missing us as we missed her.  What is that saying, "it's the thought that counts"!!

Each year as I bend over the lawn with my trusty digging knife and fill my basket with dandelions, I think of the time my son Chip came by on his way home from a job and stopped by for a visit.  As he came down the road and saw me all hunched over gathering my supper he told me his thought was, "Ah, there's Ma getting ready to eat the lawn"!  It was that Mother's day that he bought me the book " Stalking the Healthful Herbs" by Euell Gibbons.  I have Euell's other book, "Stalking the Wild Asparagus" a Mother's day gift from my other son, Matt in 1980.  I will enjoy reading about Cyndy's Aunt Jan and her adventures stalking the wild things.

I spent some time today in my sewing room.  I have TONS of smallish pieces of fabric so I was planning a quilt for our new great grandbaby's arrival in June.  I am experimenting with a technique called Paper Piecing. I have done this before but not for a long time.  It is one of those things that if you don't do it often you almost need to learn it all over again.  I have some nice bright, cheerful pieces to use and they say that babies like bright colors.  So we'll see how this works out.  I need to make 12 blocks.  With my re-learning process today, it took me half the morning just to get that first block done right!  I am not the world's best at seeing ahead what a finished piece will look like and have been disappointed many times before with my color choices.  Once I SEE it, I know right away if it is right or not!  A bit late if the pattern is a fussy one.  So we will see how this goes.

I have done lots of Spring cleaning this year, what with all our indoor projects and all.  Since I have clean bedroom windows now and it was a bit rainy this morning, I took a picture of the flowers the "Garden Fairy" planted in our yard, out through the clean window.  I think Spring is my favorite time of year, with Autumn coming in second.

I like this quote...a daffodils response to Spring...

She turned to the sunlight

And shook her yellow head

And whispered to her neighbor...

"Winter is dead".

                                 A.A. Milne

Spring Chores...More than usual!

Finally back again!!  I've missed writing my blog.  Seems this Spring is a time of fixing up and redoing many little things we have long neglected around here.  Our latest project, after the new floor in our living room, is the painting of the bedroom floor.  So much 'stuff' to move to get to the floor !  Our bed is a real old cannonball bed with the round wooden orbs on all four corner posts.  Originally it was a rope bed but many years ago, after offering the highest bid, not much at the time, something like $10. at the local Church Auction, we hauled it home and Dennis revamped it so it became a full bed instead of a 3/4 bed.  That meant we had to make a new headboard...the old one was pretty bad anyway, and make the whole thing wider.  Then later he made a platform for our new mattress. This thing is HEAVY !!  It takes at least 4 weight lifters in good shape to move the thing!  With the help of our son in-law Paul, grandson, Nate and Den and I plus a hand-truck thingy which I 'drove' with one side of the bed up  on it, we got it over to the other side of the room that was all cleared off.  The painting didn't take long but the drying took just FOREVER !  The house is circa 1860 and the old wide board floors are so nice to have.  We had covered them all these years with a wall to wall carpet.  Then we had to do the moving thing again with the bed to paint the other side of the room.  Finally that dried and we could get things back to normal.

Lizzie kitty had to be kept out of that end of the house while the paint dried.  And we had to vacate to the 'Hayloft' which is our summer bedroom or the guest room off at the other end of the house.  It has no central heat, but a Franklin stove does a great job if you bother to light it !  (only a couple sticks of wood at a time or it cooks you out!)  So we spent a week as guests in the hayloft.  Yes, it was once a loft for the hay needed for the family cow and horse.  The floor was a 'floating floor'.  In those days it wasn't such an uncommon thing.  In the late summer, when haying time was finished, the floor was lowered and the dried hay was pitched in through the hayloft door which was on the second story of the building.  Lowering the floor made it cozier and warmer for the animals for the winter. It has always been in the raised position all the time we've been here except for the time one corner gave way and let that corner of the floor down into the workshop!  Thank the Lord nobody was in the workshop at the time!  Now it is a solid floor that can no longer be raised and lowered. This is one of the three buildings moved to the property and all hooked together.  One can go from the main or first structure to the ell to the woodshed and on to what is now the workshop with the summer/guest bedroom above it without going outside.  Good Yankee ingenuity.  The former woodshed is now a bathroom, coat closet and a stairway to the loft.
It is good to be back to normal again, and Lizzie thinks so too!  Here she is having a little visit with her red squirrel friend.

Besides all the fixing up stuff and spring cleaning in general (which I have been kinda lax about for a couple years), it is also our time of the year to visit our dentist and doctors for annual checkups etc. So I really have been a  busy cleaning machine!

It is still pretty chilly here in the early morning so we are keeping the wood furnace going and even the kitchen wood cookstove when we first get up.  This means keeping the furnace wood cut and at the ready.  Den has a great system for this.  The wood is put into the large open area of the basement, the part under the 1960's addition, in 4 foot lengths, stacked and ready to cut into furnace lengths.  He does this sawing in the fall and again in the spring...all inside and under cover and dry. After sawing, the cut pieces are loaded onto a dolly and wheeled to the other side of the cellar where the old wood furnace resides. He says it gives him something to do in his spare time.  Here's a picture of him tonight doing his thing down in the 'wood room'.

So I will find time to slow down soon.....get outside.....pick some dandelion greens and get back to my usual spring life.  I have a baby quilt to make by June.  Remember, Yesterday is history, Tomorrow is a mystery, and Today is a gift.

  

I meant to do my work today...

Fresh, bright yellow daffodils along the briar hedge, where none used to be !  Must be the "Flower Garden Fairy" has visited my yard again!   Also, here and there, some new pink tulips and some yellow ones bloom.  Each year when spring is truly here, I find new flowers popping up.  I question my friend and neighbor, Alison and she says, "Who? Moi?" and then I know for sure.  These last few days have really heralded the Spring in all her glory.  The forsythia is especially beautiful this year, loving the mildness of the winter.  The quince is blooming profusely, the flowering crabapple is ready to pop, and all the trees are leafing out.

It was a time to stop all work and just enjoy the day.  So, after attending a wonderful breakfast and a lively conversation time with twenty members of our high school class plus five spouses at the local 'good breakfast' place, Riverside Restaurant, I came home determined to do no more work today. I was strongly reminded of a poem by Richard LeGallienne the title of which I do not recall.

I meant to do my work today

But a brown bird sang in the apple tree

And a butterfly flitted across the field

And all the leaves were calling me.

And the wind went singing over the land

Tossing the grasses to and fro

And a rainbow held out it's shining hand

So what could I do ....but go? 

A warm, sweet breeze came up as I wandered about surveying the flower beds and as Dennis tilled the garden spot.  All looks so green and good!  BUT we do need some rain...though after last Aug. I thought I would never ask for rain again!  It is looking pretty dry in places.  After a good time wandering about, I settled into a favorite corner of the front porch to pet the kitty and read from my current book.  

So now at close of day, I feel that I paused amid the hustle and bustle of life to just be still and take some time to thank my God for all his goodness and the beauty of Spring.

  

All Work & No Play... can't have that!

Busy, busy days this past week make me weary and tired !  Now why should that be ?  In my mind I am still agile, strong and tireless.  Somehow the message from my mind isn't reaching my body.  My bones and muscles rebel at all the strain.  We decided that finally it was time.  Time to replace the carpet in our living room after a good many years.  We have always been do-it-yourselfers so it is just second nature to prepare and do these jobs ourselves.  So that is the cause of the achy muscles and whiny joints.  We decided on replacing that carpet with some good grade laminate flooring.  My job was being an assistant to the master carpenter.  We hauled the heavy boxes of flooring into the house after picking it up at the lumber place, stacked it inside to acclimate to a nice warm house for a day and then the fun began.  Our living room is 16x21 feet and has lots of furniture and 'stuff' in it, so next we were furniture movers.  Then carpet removers and finally able to begin the flooring job.  Thursday afternoon and evening we were at it and again all day Friday.  Needless to say the carpenter's assistant wanted nothing to do with fixing dinner Friday night !  So we cleaned up a bit and went out for fish fry night, even enjoying the bit of a wait for dinner as the place was so busy. Just to sit down and rest was so welcome a change. The meal was really great, the fish so tasty and everything in general, pleasant.  Then, back to work...as we only had about 3 feet of width and 21 feet of length left to do and we were DONE !  Well, almost, we just had to move some of that furniture back in !  Finally we crawled off to bed pretty exhausted and trying not to admit that weren't quite as young as we used to be!  But the results of our labors look so great !  I'll get a picture when we get it all back in order.

We're still working on the 'order' phase!  But this side of the room is presentable.

Back in Feb. I wrote about making snow angels and life in a 2 room schoolhouse in the 1940's.  I mentioned our teacher and how we loved to listen to her play the piano.  I got to thinking about the zippy song we all loved so much, The Black Hawk Waltz.  Today you can find just about anything you hanker for on the Internet.  I found the sheet music for the song on eBay and ordered it.  What a bargain at $.99 !  Now that doesn't include $2.30 for postage !  But, great to locate something that old. Anyway, I ordered it and it came....in fine shape.  Now I have my work cut out for me as I intend to keep at it until I can  play it!  I have a keyboard and a great friend and neighbor who lets me practice on her piano.  It will probably take me a great long time to do it but it is the same song that was floating in my mind and I can be determined.

Today was a great day, more restful and such fun.  We traveled north to Vershire,  Angel too, to a big birthday party for our friend Cyndy.   Many friends whom we hadn't seen in ages were there, we made some very nice new acquaintances and the food was super.  The efforts of her husband and family were rewarded when they saw how surprised and delighted she was.

Her sweet hubby managed to make the two yummy cakes while she was at work this morning.  Boy were they good!  I've been real good about eating sweets lately but came completely undone today and enjoyed every bite of the first and second piece of cake....well, one was chocolate with raspberry filling and chocolate frosting with raspberries on top and the other was quite the opposite, kind of like a boston cream pie...so what could I do but  have a piece of each.

                                             The birthday girl and one of her delicious cakes.


I leave you with a quote from someone unknown to me but with whom I share the thoughts.
 "This is my wish for you,  Comfort on difficult days...Smiles when sadness intrudes...Rainbows to follow the clouds...laughter to kiss your lips.  Sunsets to warm your heart and hugs when spirits sag. Beauty for your eyes to see, friendships to brighten your being and faith so that you may believe."

Just Rambling!

Hoping you all had a wonderful Easter and were able to be with family at some point in the weekend.

It was so good to be back in good old Vt. even though it was chilly with the mean north wind swirling around kicking up the dead, crunchy leaves that hadn't been raked up yet and keeping us in our winter duds.

The Church Easter service was a blessing as always.  Our little choir sang two songs in praise of our risen Lord and one could feel the love all around.  Our organist/pianist, Karen played lovely music on the big old pipe organ, known by those brave enough to play it as "The Beast" !  Not an easy to play organ but Karen has tamed the beast and rendered some really lovely sounds from those old pipes!

We then went to grandson Nate's where he and Rachel and Brielle treated us to a non-traditional feast.  A Bar B Q !  Quite a gathering of relatives representing four generations.  Little Brie, who is now not quite 2 1/2, was a great little hostess, greeting each arrival with squeals of  delight and amazement that everyone she loved kept appearing all in the same place at the same time !  We are so blessed to have our family so close by.

                                                    Someone said its time for the cake!

Dennis has been busy raking up our lawns.  SO many leaves from the maples in the back !  Leaving for FL before they all fall in Oct., makes for a harder clean up in the spring.

I am having a great time catching up with friends and doing just a bit of spring cleaning... wouldn't want to miss any fun doing too  much of that!  Yesterday cousin Natalie came down from Mt. Holly to have a nice morning and lunch with me.  We always have a good time what ever we do together.  We looked through a box of old photos she brought down and that is always good for a few laughs and comments like " is that really how we looked....look at that hair do.....wow, was he handsome"" etc.  We were searching for pictures to use at Natalie & Jerry's 50th wedding anniversary party that is in the planning stage and will be in June.  Natalie and I took time out to practice our singing, we were learning American Sign Language in FL. this winter from our friends, Cy and Frank.

You can see we are "HAPPY"!

Today my sweet neighbor, Alison is coming for lunch and bringing most of it too!  She is sharing some really good gluten free bread.   Looking forward to that.  She has offered to let me use her piano to practice a piece of music that I found on the internet.  I wrote awhile back of our 4th grade teacher playing "The Black Hawk Waltz" for us and how I remembered the tune and hadn't heard it since.  When the music arrived, and it truly was the song I remembered, I played it on my keyboard, I should say I bumbled through it as I am not a 'real' piano player!  But I was delighted to find that it isn't so difficult that, with MUCH practice, I might be able to play it through... someday...if I really work hard!  So after lunch I'll go and practice a bit.

My friend Linda who also has a blog found this quote and I thought I'd share it too.

                      "What is this life if, full of care,
                    We have no time to stand and stare?  W.H. Davies
So let's slow down and take time to meditate, take a nap, or just stand and stare.  Don't work too hard.

Blessings Abound

What wonderful times I had Friday, Saturday and Sunday !  It truly is great to be back home!  On Friday I had an early morning visit from my great friend and neighbor who came for breakfast offering some really good tasting gluten- free muffins.  She is finding that refraining from eating food containing gluten keeps the arthritis at bay and makes her feel better in general.  Makes me wonder just what they have done to our wheat !  The seed is probably genetically altered to make it grow faster, bigger and make more money at market.  It seems that everything these days is all about $$$ !  I have been buying wheat berries and grinding my own flour with a borrowed electric grinder that really makes quick work of producing flour.  BUT if the berries themselves are not 'natural' then am I any further ahead, health wise than buying my flour already ground?  At least I know there are no added preservatives in the flour!

Later in the morning my sweet friend Deb came by and we spent the rest of the morning catching up and having such a great time sharing our thoughts and ideas.  We always have a million things to talk about !  She was so thoughtful and remembered how I searched around, unsuccessfully, early last spring for some narcissus bulbs to force along in a dish of stones and water....they have such a heady scent when they bloom!  You guessed, she came with a pretty blue dish of bulbs already sprouting!

On Saturday morning, my wonderful daughter Angel and I went to a big rummage sale at our church and had a great time visiting and finding a few treasures.  We got home in time to welcome Brie, Angel's granddaughter and my great granddaughter at Angel's for the rest of the day.  Come noontime, Angel and Paul and Brie came across the field to our house to join us and our daughter in-law, Colleen and Gary, grandson Thad and wife, Alissa and baby Lauren for a pizza party! The little girls were so entertaining!  We all had such a great time.

Gr. Grampie & "GG" with Lauren

Brie and Lauren  

Then came Sunday, the Lord's day, and it was good to be back in church with my church family here.  In the afternoon I just rested.  It was the first time we had heard the Canada geese go honking over the house.  They seemed to be saying, " We're back, we're back ! "  Now I will listen for them morning and night as they fly over on their way up and down the river.  I often wonder where they go each morning and just where they return to each evening.

Today was such a lovely, blue-sky day even with the north wind bringing a chill with it.  The sun was warm and friendly and made for a just right day. Some of the trees are just budding out.  We took a walk down the path to the old footbridge across Encampment Brook in Dog Hollow.  Dennis keeps the bridge in passable repair and it needed some work.  Last Aug. hurricane Irene caused the little brook to come flowing over the bridge and it needed some repair.  No ice jam this year to raise havoc with it though!

Dallas and Dennis doing bridge repair (Look closely and see Henry, black standard poodle on right.)

Leaving you with wishes for special things
That will give you
Happy moments today
And happy memories for tomorrow.