…I’m ready for this new beginning!

Who doesn’t love a chance to start over? What is nicer than a fresh start, especially when things haven’t been going as well as we’d like? The passing of the old year and the beginning of a new one gives us a new opportunity to start fresh, with a clean page full of possibilities.

In the past, my “resolutions,” sometimes backed by very little resolve, focused on me. What could I do for myself in this new year? Lost some of those extra pounds? Build a little more muscle to take the place of that lost fat? How about carve out some more free time for my personal indulgence? Get more rest? Clean out all the closets and cupboards so I’d have more space for more junk?

Then, I read something the other day that made me stop and rethink this resolution business. An old cowboy, when asked about his new year’s resolutions, wrinkled his brow and thought for a minute. Then, in his slow western drawl, he responded, “Well, sir, I guess I’ll just try to be a little nicer to everybody.”

That cowboy’s resolution sounds so simple and unassuming, but it seemed very profound to me. How does the cowboy’s resolution differ from the usual laundry list of resolutions we make and never keep? It is focused on someone other than “ME!” Not something I can do for myself, not something to make my life easier or happier, but something to make life better for others. Now that is something to strive for, with resolve and determination!

On another note, I wonder if some of you wonder where I’ve been the last couple of months? It is amazing how life can change in one instant, and you have no way to see it coming. I was busy one morning in early November…cooking lunch, doing laundry, bookkeeping tasks piled on the desk, sewing project laid out on my cutting table, Christmas catalogs stacked with pages turned down to start some early shopping…when my phone rang.

I learned that our son had been in an accident. It turned out that he suffered a severe head injury and would spend nine days in neuro-ICU, then three days in their step-down unit. On the day before Thanksgiving, he was released from the hospital, and after two weeks of surreal existence, life resumed for me. Our daughters cooked our Thanksgiving dinner, and we were just thankful to all be there together.

Then it was real-life catch-up time! December was a month of staying in high gear, getting caught up on the many things I’d left untended. There was Christmas to prepare for, year-end farm business to take care of, family obligations to meet….and no time to sit down quietly at the computer and play xanga.

Our Christmas was quiet this year. Sarah and family rode the Zephyr to Montana to be with her husband’s family, but we enjoyed having Susannah’s bunch with us. Addie Dear is almost four months old and too adorable for words! Wyatt is the funniest little boy I’ve ever known, and he keeps us laughing and guessing all the time, with his funny ways. We also enjoyed being with both of our moms and are thankful for their mostly good health and good spirits.

Three special highlights of the season involved, of course, our grandchildren. First, we made a quick trip to Kansas City to hear Emma play piano at the wondrously-decorated downtown Crown Center! Where does an eight-year-old get the poise she displays on these occasions? If I were in her shoes, I’d be a nervous, frightened wreck, but Emma calmly walked to the big black grand piano and perfectly played her music with feeling and dignity. I heard, also, that she played her carols in her farmor’s church out in Dillon, MT, at the conclusion of their Christmas Eve service. I know it was a thrill for Sam’s mother and grandmother to witness that. (Farmor is the Swedish name for “father’s mother. Sam’s maternal grandmother is “Mormor.” She was born in Sweden and came to America as a teenager. What lovely ladies they both are!)

The other two highlights of the season occurred at our church. On the first Sunday in December, both Wyatt and Addie were dedicated in the morning service. The other grandparents joined us, as well as both great-grandmas, and we all promised to help their parents raise them in a Christian home. Then, we truly loved the Christmas Eve candlelight communion service. It was wonderful to arrive and find the place packed! We even ran out of candles, so some folks shared. That’s a good problem to have! And Wyatt was quiet through the whole thing…Addie, too.

My favorite Christmas present was a gift from all four grandchildren….a book featuring pictures of them throughout the year. I hope I’ll get one every year from now on! What a keepsake!

And now I’ll close (with a few pictures to remind you of how we look!),for I fear you’ve quit reading long ago….seems as if I’m trying to make up for lost time. Hope your new year is happy and healthy and off to a real good start!

(Wyatt loved making Christmas cookies) (Emma at her recital at Crown Center)

(Addie and her great-grandmas)

(Emma, Sarah and Lucinda Jane)

(Lucy at the window of Crayola store) (Addie Dear and her mommy dear, Susannah)

(She sure smiles sweet for Mimi!)

…I’ve got some xanga weirdness. Last week when I updated the colors on my site and requested that my blog be archived, I lost some things. I can’t see the comments you leave, even though I can see your profile pics. I also can’t see some of the things on my private page. I’ve emailed “them” thrice, gotten one no-help response saying “they” can see all my stuff, and now I’m getting frustrated with “them.” I went back in and updated again, after seeing in FAQs that this might help, but it did not. Has anyone else encountered this problem before?

…I have my very own archives! Gosh, doesn’t that sound high-falutin’? But it is true. If you pay a little bit to be a premium xanga member, you have the opportunity to let them “archive” your blog. I wasn’t really sure how it would work, but since I paid that little bit for premium (surely I’ve gotten $25 worth of pleasure from this), I thought I’d see how it works. You just click a button on your home page and they tell you they’ll do it for you overnight. The next day, when you check your archives, you can zip the file right to your desktop.

I’d gotten that far with it, so I decided I’d just print my archives. I thought, “Maybe we’ll have a little great-great-granddaughter someday who will want to know what her old Mimi, the one who lived way back in the early part of the 21st century, was like. She’ll ask her mom and will be directed to the attic, to that old trunk full of stuff no one ever looks at. When she opens it, she’ll find some faded, tattered remnants of a hand-pieced quilt, a ratty knitted bag, some albums full of antique pictures and a few books…and there in the bottom she’ll come upon an old notebook. It will be filled with pages of old-fashioned print, text with pictures scattered throughout, telling the story of these years of my life! This little girl will devour the words and be inspired to start writing her own story!”

Well, whatever…visions of g-g-granddaughter notwithstanding, I have been rereading and printing my two years’ worth of blogging. It has been fun, sad and intriguing to read back through what I wrote. Life’s ups and downs, losses and gains, griefs and glories are there for all the xangaworld to see, just as they happened. Right there, in black and white.

A bonus for my efforts has been to reread the comments that followed every entry, for those are included in the archives. Some of the ones who visited my site no longer come around, but several have been frequent, steady guests. And do you know, there is not one negative word in the lot? Every single thing written by my visitors has been positive and encouraging. I’ve gotten a second blessing from this experience; the first one came when the comments were initally written, and now I’m encouraged all over again!

Ozarksfarmgirl’s site is haphazard, at best. Sometimes I go for weeks without posting an entry, when I simply can’t find the time. Thoughts swirl through my brain like fallen leaves stirred by a little whirlwind in the yard, and I long for the calming effect of sitting down to the keyboard and making sentences out of snatches of life. Then suddenly I find time to write a couple or three times a week, when life is flowing smoothly along, without any hitches or snags.

Sometimes it all seems like a lot of trouble. Without a high-speed internet connection (believe me, I’ve tried to get one!!!) it can be very challenging to upload pictures, sometimes it takes f-o-r-e-v-e-r to see your entries, and occasionally it is simply too much for my old Dell…she just shuts down. But it’s as if there’s this magnet in my old hard drive, drawing me back, to pull up my page, check on my friends, and see what’s going in your world. And when I do, it’s always worthwhile and interesting, so I must say I’m happy that I’ve stuck with this xangering (as a reader from the UK so quaintly puts it!) Guess I’ll keep on a little longer.

So stay tuned! I’ve got a new superhero to tell you about, when I can find a little bit of time, and I need to give you an update on Addie Dear who is coming up on nine weeks, and the guys are busy with the fall cattle-working…gosh, where to start??

 …we’re back home! It had been a while since the two of us had taken any sort of real vacation. Plans had been made and abandoned, airfares compared and guidebooks consulted, routes charted and then cast aside. Favorable dates came and went, and suddenly the calendar pages remaining for the year 2008 were few…until one day we finally just took off. With no itinerary other than a vague outline, we let the road lead us. And what did we find on our journey?

There was flat farm land….

Hill country…

And majestic mountains.

We were warm….

And cold.

There was color….

And the absence of color.

We saw manmade monuments….

And nature’s own incomparable handwork.

There were animals of the wild sort…

And of the domestic sort.

We drove under gray skies…

And blue ones,

 on good roads…

and scary bad ones.                                 

The wind blew…

And then it was still.

The sun rose…

And the sun set on us, ten times in all.

There were old signs….

and new ones.

After covering more than 3000 miles through a land of contrasts, we gratefully returned home to our place in the Ozarks, and glad as we were to see it, we realized once again that home is different for everyone. Ours is not built in the middle of a teeming metropolis, nor is it set in the middle of a vast prairie

 with no other home in sight. It is not on the exalted mountaintop, and neither is it in a secluded canyon. We cannot begin to see a great ocean, but nary a desert can I find in our local landscape.

If I had to put a label on us, I’d say we’re about average. Our home is almost right in the middle of the country, in a landscape that is sort of hilly but not too rugged that you cannot get around easily. We have four seasons, with some hot and cold extremes and all the pleasantness in between. We have neighbors, but they aren’t close enough for us to look into their windows at night. There are towns for when one needs a town, but they don’t crowd out the country. Pretty average.

The problem with being average is that one gets to thinking everyone else is the same average. We begin to assume that everyone else thinks like we do, looks like we do, lives like we do. So one of the good things about getting out and driving around the country is seeing differences. Diversity. There are plenty of contrasts in this great land, and I’m not speaking just of the physical ones. We need to see how others live, to hear the differences in their voices and opinions, to think of how they view life. There are different challenges, different talents, and different tasks for different people.

Travel is an eye-opening, educational experience for me, no matter where the road leads. I love looking at every sort of landscape that passes outside the car window. I love hearing accents and eating different foods, smelling different aromas and noticing different plants growing. What a privilege it is to be able to experience and enjoy these differences within our own country. And the best part of any trip? Coming home!

Our welcome-home committee:

Mimis love knitting little caps to keep little ears warm–one of my favorite at-home things to do…isn’t home grand?

…the very word, “blog,” sounds like something that would take lots of time. In my case, I just don’t have that time right now! Life is just too full,

too busy,

too interesting,

too demanding, too complicated, too….lively.

But just so you don’t think I’ve dropped off the face of the earth, here are some recent pix to prove that life goes on here at the Diamond T.

It may be a while before I’m back, but please stay tuned….winter will arrive, days will shorten, the pace will slow, hours will stretch, rain will fall and wind will blow, and I’ll be back indoors….and then I’ll have time to put my whirling, swirling thoughts into print once again. See you then!

…he can still sing!

Boy, can he sing! Johnny Mathis sounds as good (or better) than he did 40 or even 50 years ago! The concert was fabulous, and everyone sitting around us agreed that his voice is still wonderful….and probably will be until The Twelfth of Never.

I didn’t get any pictures because I wasn’t close enough, but I could see that Johnny has only gotten better looking, too, especially when he smiled that Certain Smile.  He’s still very shy and reserved when he speaks, but his songs say it all.

 There were the old standards and some newer ones, each one perfectly rendered. The Springfield Symphony backing him up did a terrific job, especially the oboe player who had a few special parts. My favorite might have been 99 Miles from L.A., which was performed acoustically with only his guitar player. All in all, it was a wonderful, magical evening.

The crowd was large and quite vocal in their appreciation, but I tried to be subdued. I’d like for Stan to take me to another such sometime, so I didn’t want to be obnoxious and swoon or scream, but some of the women did just that…scream. And they weren’t young kids, either. They REALLY enjoyed it.

While we were waiting for the concert to begin, as the crowds kept filing in, I noticed an old friend from our college days (Small World, Isn’t It?) march right down to near the front. I kept my eye on her, and during the intermission I marched down there to see her. After our hugs and expressions of mutual Johnny-love, she exclaimed, “I think I could marry him! He’s still so good-looking!” My friend has been a widow since her three boys were very small, and she hasn’t found anyone who lives up to the standard set by her late husband. We had a good laugh at the idea that Johnny might be the one…

I wish you all could have been there with me! Thanks for all your cute comments, even yours, prairiecowboy. I’ll bet your long-haired sweetie has endured a few hours of “stuff” for your sake, as I have for my good man. It’s nice for the favor to work both ways…really just All In The Game!

…I’ve loved him since I was 14.

…if there is one word that perfectly describes September in the Ozarks, it must be ”golden.” 

 If you live here, you will not have been able to miss seeing the abundant masses of golden sunflowers lining ditches and fields everywhere.

The fluffy frond-like blooms of goldenrod are now opening along fencerows and roadsides, adding their richness to the display.

Walnut trees, some of the first to lose their leaves, turn golden before they are brown, and even the hulls of some of the nuts are this color. Soon, the hickory trees will don their fall outerwear, as their broad leaves shade from green to brightest yellow, illuminating the forest in a perfectly magical way. Even the grass that covers lawns, hillsides and meadows, as it begins to prepare itself for a seasonal rest, pales and lightens, taking on a yellowish tint.

If we lived where farmers grow row crops, in September we would find satisfaction in endless flat fields full of soybeans and cornstalks turning golden. The hoppers of massive combines churning across the acres would fill with the harvest of a year’s worth of labor, pouring golden into grain bins, and when there was no other storage left, mounds would grow right on top of the ground, indicating a bumper crop.

Here in the hills, however, we’ll settle for seeing the corn and green beans in our gardens begin to turn. We’ll gather up the dried cornstalks into bundles and tie them to porch posts or prop them up with bales of golden straw, to use as fall decorations, celebrating our personal harvest.

Yellow and other colors of gourds and mums, fall’s favorite flower, will accent these dried arrangements, with colorful, un-scary scarecrows peeking out to make us smile.

But like a beautiful woman, perhaps the most alluring element of September’s attraction is her most subtle one, a quality that can hardly be captured but is detected almost imperceptibly. To my taste, September’s light is her best feature. For as the days of this month pass into history, the sun drops farther and farther into the southern sky, slanting away from the harsh, intense glare of summer, and bathing the entire landscape in a soft, golden glow. Even on the clearest, brightest blue-sky day, the light is soft and easy to soak up.

As the days noticeably shorten, light becomes more precious, and one does not take it for granted. This is the perfect time to get outside and enjoy the gifts of nature. Less humidity makes even a warm day seem comfortable, and a walk down a country lane reveals beauty all around.

The golden flourish of wildflowers at eye level is most immediately obvious.

But look up and find even more to enjoy. Wild plums are hanging red and ripe, weighing down the branches of this small, understory tree.

Looking for all the world like cherries dangling from limbs, these will not last long as wild creatures enjoy their tartness.

On down the lane, the buckeye trees are already beginning to lose their leaves,

revealing gnarly seed pods almost ready to drop. Their hulls begin to dry and split, allowing a glimpse of the shiny brown seed inside.

When it pops out, it is easy to see how this tree got its name, for the light brown spot on one side gives the seed a remarkable resemblance to the eye of a deer. This year, the pods seem exceptionally large, indicating that some of them will bear two or even three seeds within.

An oldtimer would often carry a buckeye in his pocket, believing it to bring good luck to the bearer. Some even thought of it as a talisman to ward off rheumatism. Maybe a small boy would pull one out and load it as ammunition into his slingshot. Or perhaps during a tense encounter it was simply soothing to reach into one’s pocket, to finger the smooth skin. Although not good to eat, what a multitude of good uses this seemingly useless nut has!

After last year’s almost nonexistent walnut crop, a glance up through the branches of a large tree reveals that plenty will soon fall. Already the hullers are setting up shop throughout the countryside, in anticipation of truckloads gathered to sell. Even though the dark stain colors the hands and fingers, the results are worth it when one takes the time to pick out some of the delicious meat for winter baking and snacking.

Golden yellow butterflies flutter over the fields, searching for a fortifying drink from a stray alfalfa blossom, before they head south for the winter. Glimmering like jewels in the sunlight, these delicate-looking creatures must, in fact, be strong and of good courage as they face an endurance test like none other: flying miles and miles to find a winter refuge.

Long-legged yellow grasshoppers hungrily devour leaves as they, too, prepare for the coming cold weather. Squirrels scampering through the treetops vie with each other for the choicest morsels, while the birds sing the last of summer’s song. Harvest is not only for humans.

As the month wanes and the days shorten, there is much to anticipate. The brilliant colors coming in October will be the last hurrah before winter’s starkly beautiful landscape appears. But right now is one of the very best times in the Ozarks, and before these golden moments flicker and fade, I hope you’ll let September add a little of her light to your life.

…happy day-after-your-birthday, Adorable Addie!

Some people might say it was the full moon….

But I choose to believe that you came early, on September 15, 2008, in memory of your great-great-grandmother, my grandmother, who loved, above all things on this earth, newborn babies. Yesterday would have been Grandmother’s birthday, too!

Grandmother’s greatest desire in life was to be a nurse, and if she had been granted her fondest wish, she would have worked in the newborn nursery of a hospital. What a precious memory it is to recall how she spent a week with me, each time one of my own babies was born, stretching that to 10 days with us in Mississippi when Addie’s mommy, Susannah, was born back in 1979.

(Above, in 2005, before Lucy was born–Wyatt was 3 months old.)

And the happiest smile I ever saw on Grandmother’s face was when Sarah announced that she was expecting, and Grandmother knew she was to be a great-great-grandmother! She lived to hold and enjoy three great-great-grands, and I know she was smiling down on Susannah yesterday, as Grandmother and Adorable Addie shared a birthday.

Wyatt is now a 3 1/2-year-old big brother! He had the sweetest perfect smile on his face when he saw her for the first time. After holding her and kissing her, he was ready to get back “to work,” cutting, raking and baling hay with his ‘quipment.

Susannah’s doctor left on vacation last Saturday, after assuring her that she would “make it” to the scheduled delivery date of September 24….not so! His partner filled in and made everyone feel comfortable,

and later, Dr. S. called from his vacation to apologize for missing out on the fun. His loss was our gain!

(Poppy getting his first peek, and Adorable Addie getting her first bath from Daddy!)

(That’s Aunt Kristen, who was SO happy, and Addie’s little feet…long toes, like Mommy!)

All is just about perfect in ozarksfarmgirl’s life this morning! Hope it is good for you, wherever you are, as well.

…the Queen Bee quilt has made its way to a wounded American soldier!

And the seven Queen Bees are so proud to be part of this honey of a project.

American Hero Quilts was the brainchild of my husband’s cousin, born in 2004. You can find the detailed, inspiring story of how the idea for this project was conceived and delivered at http://www.americanheroquilts.com/story.htm. And you can find the strange and wildly fascinating story of how I found out about it in a post I made on October 20, 2007!

Anyway, after the other Queen Bees heard about American Hero Quilts, they were all a-buzz with excitement and decided we should make one for the project. For even though we’re all Queens, we’re also good worker bees. When we buzzed over to Susan’s hive late last winter, we set to work. The one requisite for American Hero Quilts is that they must be made of red, white and blue fabrics. A simple pattern is best when working with inexperienced quilters, so I chose a basic 9-patch block, one that is easy to piece.

Although most of the Bees are not quilters, there are things that anyone can do to help the project along. I had it all cut out so we could get right to work.

                         (My mom, Bonnie Bee, pinning away)

Queen Bee Mom Bonnie has arthritis and thus has trouble using a needle and thimble, so she pinned pieces together. The rest of us hand-pieced blocks.

                   (That’s Susan Bee, our hostess, busily piecing a block)

The pieced blocks alternated with squares cut from navy plaid homespun. Even the simplest block can become a stunning quilt with a little finesse…this one was set on point to give it a little pizazz! As the other Bees finished blocks, I worked at the sewing machine, setting pieced blocks and navy plaid squares into rows.

                                  (Above, Linda Bee and Karen Bee piece away!)

A bonus for me that day was getting to use Susan Bee’s Featherweight Singer, (see it on the table?) inherited from her Aunt Bernie, who was known and loved by us all. I’ve always thought I wanted one, and this experience made me know that I would LOVE to have one of these little beauties. It sews like a top and is so cute and handy! And we all loved thinking about Aunt Bernie (who would have been a perfect Queen Bee) looking down on us, approving our use of her little sewing machine.

      (Above, Beth Bee and Julia Bee–Julia is resting after a busy bunch of piecing)

I brought our quilt top home, added borders all around, and contacted my friend, Glenda Jones, in Springfield. Glenda does the most beautiful machine quilting I’ve ever seen. (When I made my two sons-in-law quilts out of their old sports t-shirts one year for Christmas, she turned those into works of art. I knew she would do justice to our project. She has special Queen Bee-like qualities!) Glenda used multi-colored thread in red, white and blue, quilted stars into each of the squares in the 9-patches and turned our simple little quilt top into a real jewel. The crowning touch was the red binding my Queen Bee-in-law, Julia, added around the edge.

The other Bees were all abuzz (we get that way quite often and easily!) when they saw the finished product! How proud we all were! And the final step was taken when we flew over to Linda’s, where we all signed a label that was then stitched onto the back of the quilt.

Soon, it was packed into a carton, and special delivery bees carried it out to Vashon Island, Washington, where Sue Nebeker was instructed to find just the right person to receive our gift.

Here is what she wrote me back three days later, when our quilt arrived at her home:

“…finally I came down to the studio to work with my volunteer. We had boxes stacked everywhere. I was telling my friend Su as we worked that we had a request for a quilt for a very special young man and I wanted it to be a really lovely quilt. This young man is in terrible shape with serious head injuries. We went through box after box (we had quite a number here) when Su said, “Oh my gosh, what a beauty, I think I have found his quilt!” We both oohed and ahhhed over it and then went to log it in. Su said, “Oh look, they sent a picture too.” I am sure you know where this is going. Of course it was the beautiful, beautiful quilt you and your group made. It is fabulous! I think it’s owner will love it. You are all just the most wonderful people, thank you!”

And all the little Bees felt so warm and fuzzy-buzzy about making the quilt that when Beth Bee suggested another one, we decided to do it! Last week, we buzzed back over to Susan’s and got right to work.

This time, we made 4-patches, and I put them in a sort of Jacob’s ladder block. Blocks were surrounded by sashing strips held together with corner stones. Half the top was completed by the time we left that day, and Karen Bee took it home and finished setting it all together.

Again, this shows how even the very simplest patchwork can turn into a really pretty quilt! This quilt will get one more border, six inches wide, of the light fabric (which has a blue scroll-y design in it), and then it will be ready for quilting. Our label is already made, and soon another soldier who has made a great sacrifice for his country will have a gift made by loving wings from deeply appreciative American Bees from the Ozarks.

And the need continues. If any of you quilters out there would like to participate, I know that Cousin Sue would welcome your help. She accepts pieced tops and will also quilt them on her long-arm, herself. It’s a very worthy project, if you have a little time and the inclination to help, and it’s a great way to use up some of the reds, whites and blues in your stash. Who knows how many young Americans will be gravely injured before this awful war is over? It’s a wonderful feeling to be able to bring a little comfort to even one.