Dear Friends,

If you have noticed (by chance) my absence in the last couple of weeks, let me say that it is not by choice but rather by circumstances that are beyond my control. I am, once again, faced with using a dial-up connection, and it is ABOUT TO DRIVE ME CRAZY!!!!!! Truly, pulling-my-hair-out, wanting-to-scream crazy! So, this means it takes forever to load a page, especially those with lots of images, which are always the ones I enjoy the most. I do hope you’ll be patient with me and stay with me through this difficult time, and hopefully I’ll be back up to speed (no pun intended) soon.

In the meantime, gremlins must have taken over Xanga. My site is completely different. When I open my private page, the options are different….and weird. When I try to post, I can only type…can’t figure out how to add pictures. And the options for text are simply gone. EVERYTHING IS MESSED UP!!!

Can anyone tell me what has happened?????

A very disgruntled, unhappy, getting-close-to-bald Americanjanet

The full moon is hypnotically beautiful tonight, rising golden and dreamy and ethereal in the southeastern sky. As I walked down our hill just at dark, to finish the day’s work, I couldn’t take my eyes off it. And my initial thought was, “How I wish I could capture the image and then share it with those who cannot see it.” And then my next thought was, “But how would I also capture the sound of a thousand tree frogs, their symphony filling the night air in accompaniment to the rising of the moon. And the scent of honeysuckle and elderberry, sweet and heavy, surrounding the sound….and the twinkling of the lightning bugs, beginning their night’s work, blinking a “Good evening” to one another as they hover and float, here and there….I’d want to add that, too, to create the whole of it. A simple walk through the evening, to finish a mundane task, elevated by the incredible beauty of the whole to something surreal and astonishing…no one could have scripted it more nicely.

Time for last week’s test questions to be answered!

This….

was labeled a “candle drying rack” when I bought it at a local antiques shop. I tend to agree. One of you thought it might have been some sort of rake, but there is no place where a handle would have been attached. So I’m stickin’ with the label. Only, I didn’t have candles to dry. I did, however, have this jumbled mess on the top of my lingerie (seriously, I don’t say “lingerie,” I say underwear–but again, labels…) chest:

And when I saw the candle drying rack, I remembered this mess and wondered if it could be helped.

Voila!

Don’t you just love it when something works like you want it to??!

Last evening, when I closed up my chickens I got this handful of eggs but almost overlooked the tiny one that was tucked under the straw in one nest…

One of the younger hens has “become a woman.”

We’ve been in the throes of a dry spell for the last month, after record-setting rains in April and May. So on Tuesday morning, when we FINALLY got a nice one, we were very thankful. It also cooled things off, so as soon as the rain stopped, we headed out to gather up cattle for another busy day of sorting, branding, weaning, castrating, vaccinating….all that goes into “working” a herd.

It was well before sunup when we started, and the light was barely illuminating the western horizon, which was where they were heading.

The times they are a-changin’….4-wheelers have replaced the horses this year as the “workhorses” on the ranch. I hear that they are easier on the rider’s back and quicker–so modern has trumped traditional, yet again. Although I’m sad to see the horses left behind, I’m happy for the farmboy’s back to not be hurting, so progress is a good thing.

All gathered and heading up the alleyway, into the corral for the real work to begin, still before much light.

And my job was then over. So, as usual, I took the scenic route home,

checking on the neighbors,

checking on the old barns,

checking out the rock-bottom creek that was flushed with flow from the morning’s rain…

checking on a fanciful birdhouse…

checking on the wild hydrangeas now blooming along the north slope of a narrow dirt road…

looking back on where I’d just been, seeing the mist over the mountains…

noticing this Ozarks’-style cornerpost and realizing those must old wagon-wheel rims holding it together….

and finally coming home by way of Fern Bluff (my name for it.)

It just makes you feel cool to see this, doesn’t it?

The maidenhair ferns grow out of cracks in the rock face of the bluff, rows and rows of them, following the fissures, for hundreds of feet along its surface. Ferns are my FAVORITE plant, and this is my favorite fern, and this is my favorite bluff. Water constantly drips down, even when the creek has dried up, so that there are pools of water under it, creating an oasis on a hot summer’s day.

Hope you all enjoy a happy, safe Fourth of July, remembering the price of independence and freedom–it came and continues to come at no small cost.  Remembering to count that cost, as we celebrate and have fun…

Whew!  My children, grandchildren and whatever friends might be dependent upon me in time of need can now rest a bit easier. IF (and this is admittedly a big IF)…IF terrorists or natural disaster should strike all the sock factories all over the world at once, rendering them unable to knit millions and billions of socks for those of us with feet, YOU, my lucky ones, will not have to go sockless. I have learned how to make a sock!

This is, admittedly, a feeble first attempt.

And it is only one.

BUT! I now know how to do it, and if necessity should force me, I COULD make another one.

Just not right this minute.

Seriously, knitters the world over are absolutely smitten with knittin’ mittens…oops, I mean socks…. with knitten’ socks right now. And I have bucked the trend long enough. A couple of weeks ago, I bit the bullet and bought a big ball of sock yarn. Lisa, at a wonderful place called One City Market, who knows all things knitty and helps all of us wannabes, suggested a large man’s sock for my beginner project.

The pattern says “fits size 7-12.” Well, all I can say is… if a man with size 7 feet tried this sock on, it would be one-legged pants for him, pulled right up to his chin.

The pattern called for size 6 needles, and Lisa and her friend Terri (a knit-policewoman who makes people do things RIGHT the first time) insisted that I do a swatch to check my gauge. I conceded, knitted up a little swatch and measured it. It seemed just right, but I guess my swatch was a bit too small to tell.

So, in the end my sock turned out to be size G for Giant. Now I’m looking for a one-legged lumberjack with huge, muscular calves to wear this sock so that I don’t have to make another one just like it and can start a second pair on smaller needles with different yarn, maybe some that would fit ME.

But so I could show you a picture, my resident farmboy let me put the sock on his foot, just for art’s sake. And now, even though it is a tad large and not so perfect where I picked up the stitches to make the heel, my foot model says it feels pretty darn good on his foot. In fact, he doesn’t want to take it off. In fact, he says if I’ll make one more, he’ll wear the pair. And in fact, if I’ll make him a sweater he’ll wear that, too, and why haven’t I done that before??!!

He has memory loss, I guess. I remember this certain navy blue v-neck pullover sweater vest, back in 1972, knitted while I was taking 18 hours that fall semester (but still, there’s time to knit, in between reading novels in three days and writing papers–we make time for the important stuff, right?) and presented as a Christmas present, humbly but lovingly, because there was NO money for bought presents in those days….and I don’t recall that it was ever worn, even though that v-neck was just a little bit crooked and a little longer on one side and the armholes gapped just a bit, like maybe they would also have fit a lumberjack…he’s forgotten that sweater.

I’m forgetting sweaters, too, and going back to socks. It really is nice to know that we could have warm feet if disaster strikes. However, there is one more issue that would necessarily have to be addressed…the sheep to grow the wool to spin the yarn….I’d need sheep. Yes, and a spinning wheel of some kind…and combs….and…yes, there’s more to this sock business than meets the eye. Maybe the terrorists will strike something a little less important….

Lucy, Lacey, lilies, and a little quiz…

I have four of the smartest, sweetest, most precious grandchildren in the whole world. No question about it.

And I have discovered something: I appreciate and enjoy them most when I have them one at a time.

Last week we had Lucy all to ourselves. It was perfect! She was an angel, and we didn’t have a cross word all week.

She had lots of fun gathering eggs,

riding on the tractor with Poppy when he mowed hay, helping me with my chores and going to play with her cousins one day.

My chickens were not sure about Lucy…they were quite shy around her.

Lucy liked Lacey.

Lucy liked Mimi’s lilies.

And Lucy loved Millie, the cousins’ new puppy.

Everyone loves Millie.

Mimi loves Michael….

and had so much fun going to see him Tuesday night. Awesome concert!!! It was a “beginning of summer” celebration, because the real fun on the farm starts now.

Up at 4:30 this morning, Farmboy out the door by 5:30, and we’re off to the races! Cattle working every day, now that the first hay and silage have been harvested. Life becomes a marathon, and with apologies to the Gershwins, the livin’ ain’t so easy right now. But it’s life on the farm, and so here we go…hang on….

Here’s the quiz! Question one: Can anyone guess what my new “thing” is???

And question two: can you guess how I’m going to use it???

I look forward to grading your answers on this Thursday’s pop quiz…

I am in a most unusual position….sitting alone in a hotel room. Thinking this might be the very first time this has ever happened. I don’t quite know what I think about it.

Our five-year-old granddaughter rode with me and has been deposited at home. She was a little angel while visiting us this week, very sweet and much more grown up than I was ready to realize. Lucy will be six in August. Where do the years go, as they fly past and are gone?

I had a whirlwind morning, preparing to be gone for the weekend. Forty-eight short hours, two-hundred-forty miles, but really, it might as well have been across the country. So many things must be readied. Flowers and garden watered, laundry finished, messages attended to, reminders about the chickens left on the kitchen counter, clothes packed (Lucy’s and mine), a pair of pants hemmed at the last minute (probably won’t even need them), a good lunch fixed for the farmboy (“This will have to last me ALL weekend,” he moaned, grinning), a last minute shower, then everything packed into the car, including snacks and water bottles, crayons and coloring book, story books, a doll, a stuffed animal, pillow pet and blankie, and hopefully everything I need, and by the time we pulled out of the driveway, I needed only one thing…a nap.

Five hours and we arrived. And now here I am, one meeting under my belt, and now a comfy bed awaits. But what am I doing? Feeling slightly lonely, even though I’m surrounded by hundreds of people and at least one dog (do they allow those here????)

I realize that my life is such a universe away from that of so many women, the ones who wear heels and business suits and carry briefcases and hop planes weekly and make their travel arrangements with quick little clicks on their smart little hand-held things. The ones who make crucial business decisions and it affects the bottom line of some big corporation. Me? I listen to whipporwills at night instead of the ding of the elevator, and my bottom line is most significantly affected by my grocery bill. So I feel like I’m pretending tonight…pretending to feel at home on the twelfth floor of a huge hotel, pretending to not mind going down into the parking garage alone, pretending to be something I’m not. Very much a fish out of water…or a hillbilly in the city, all alone…

I love the group I’m with, and I love being a part of something bigger than myself in that it enables me to do some things I couldn’t do on my own. Tomorrow will be busy and filled with meaningful work, and at the end of the weekend I’ll be so glad I came. Just thinking now that maybe I should have brought my own blankie…

Third time’s the charm…

It took three tries for me, but finally I succeeded…in getting to attend a gathering of kntters in a nearby town.

I “knew” Lisa through her blog (http://karmaperdiem.wordpress.com/) and was finally able to meet her face to face and give her a big hug. She is modeling her “Holy Moly Shawl” that we all oohed and aahed over. Made out of Noro Tahki, it is light enough for summer wear. 

                  (Gail is knitting her second yellow sock–she wore Lisa’s shawl for a while, thinking Lisa might not notice….not!)

(Linda was new, too, and has a flea market/antique shop I love to frequent)

     (Carolyn showed us the neatest way to make yarn pompoms!)

These gals meet once a month, and you’d think I could manage that, but, no….so many things come up, and I was beginning to think it just wasn’t meant to be.

(Becki, on right, is starting a small yarn shop inside a local sewing shop)

But Thursday worked! So in I walked, introduced myself, sat down and started knitting. I listened and learned and soon began chatting with them, and by the end of four hours felt like I’d made new friends.

(Ashley, the youngest in the group, has a small yarn shop inside her mother’s quilt shop (the other favorite fiber-arts hobby of us all!) and drove even farther than I to be with this group.)

This group meets in the library, and this is a WONDERFUL library…way worth the hour’s drive just to see it! Almost brand-spankin’ new, it is a jewel for this town. After the meeting I wandered around and noted appreciatively its many fine assets….

,,,,saving the best for last.

This young man grew up in our town and is now a research librarian, specializing in genealogy. He showed me how he designed their research room (he is showing me microfilm in that special cabinet above) and shared some tips with me to bring home to our tiny genealogy library. Thanks, Vince!

From now on, if you need me on the second Thursday of the month, plan on a trip to the library…and bring your needles! 

Savor ye strawberries while ye may

I made strawberry jam yesterday, one of my favorite late spring rituals. It gives me such a feeling of inner satisfaction to spend a couple of hours with boxes of luscious, juicy fruit, a little (well, really a lot) of sugar, some pectin and to finish with sparkling jars of red sweetness, lined up in rows on the countertop, lids all perfectly “pinged’ and sealed. Come next January, a spoonful of the results of this morning’s labors spread on a hot, buttered biscuit will taste like the essence of summer.

Strawberries are such a treat! I’m talking about REAL strawberries. I don’t mean the huge, hollow, dry white ones that are picked green, genetically altered to grow too large, too fast, and to hold their shape without spoiling for weeks, while being shipped across a continent. No, I mean the smaller, truly sweet berries, red on the inside AND out, and juicy enough to be messy. These berries are hard to find, and we’re lucky that a few Ozarkers still grow them and sell them. And I love to pick them with my own hands.

Today as I stemmed and cut berries into chunks and then mashed them with a potato masher, I thought about another strawberry patch and another jam-making session. We lived in another place, and my children were still youngsters. My mother had come to visit, bringing along my grandmother and my great-grandmother, and I was so excited to plan what I thought would be the perfect multi-generational outing for all of us–a visit to a local strawberry patch.

Only it wasn’t really perfect. Mom didn’t like it at all–she dislikes the heat and hates flying insects, and that world we lived in had lots of both. And Grandmother thought my great-grandmother, her mother, was not up to picking berries. But still I persisted. Those who didn’t wish to pick could sit in the shade.

When we got to the Millers’ strawberry patch, it turned out that nothing would deter Great-Grandma from doing her part. She was small and lithe and could still stoop over, and she smiled through it all, reminiscing about strawberry episodes from her childhood. My girls ran up and down the rows, eating more than they picked and having a wonderful time. Mom was tolerant if not happy, and we came home with an abundance of sweet berries.

Then Grandmother came into her element, giving me my first jam-making lesson. A quick trip to town resulted in pectin, extra sugar and new jar lids. Mom and Grandma had the berries stemmed and ready for us, and we went to work. She taught me to be precise in measuring, what a rolling boil is, how to time a minute just right (“Thousand-one, thousand-two, thousand-three…), and to skim off the foam.

Grandmother said, “There’s nothing wrong with the foamy part–the jam just isn’t as pretty with it on top. Put it in a saucer and eat it tonight!”

She taught me to quickly seal the hot jars tightly and to turn them upside down on a dish towel on the counter for about 10 minutes. Then when the jars are turned right side up, they ping quickly, letting you know they are sealed.

[Although proper directions instruct one to process the jars in a water bath, I've never done that, and I've never lost a jar of jam, in all these years.]

Grandmother and I didn’t turn all those strawberries into jam. That night for supper we had strawberry shortcake, and this was where Mom came into her element. First, she sliced and sweetened a big bowl of berries and let them get juicy. Then she made pie crust. This was Dad’s favorite way to enjoy strawberry shortcake, and Mom always made things the way Dad liked them. Mom rolled out sheets of pie crust, pricked it and then baked it on a cookie sheet till nicely browned. After supper, Mom layered berries and crust in a big bowl, allowing the crust to soak up the juice for a few minutes, while she whipped cream–no substitute for the real thing.

Can I even begin to tell you how good Mom’s strawberry shortcake was? No, words won’t do it justice. I hope you get the chance to try it for yourself.

How I wish for pictures from that day, with five generations of women in our family picking, working up, and eating strawberries together. I do have the images sealed in my mind, to be brought out and remembered again, as I go through the same process these many years later.

Now, can you guess what my farmboy and I had for dessert last night? 　　

MY DOG CHIP

It happened again, just now. I went outside to water some plants and enjoy the late afternoon, and as I stepped out the door, I looked around for him. Expected his smiling face to greet me, as he always has, for the last eleven years. Even put my open hand down out of long habit, expecting his warm, moist muzzle to nuzzle it. And then I got a catch, one that I’ve felt regularly for the last few weeks, in my throat when I remembered that he isn’t there and he won’t be, ever again.

It’s so hard for me to write about the hard stuff. The everyday blessings, the extraordinary, wonderful things that sometimes happen, even the mundane, workaday business of life–these are easy subjects. But something that details loss, grief, pain…I have trouble with these. It is simply easier to pretend the hard things don’t happen, and in a make-believe world like Xanga–or anywhere in cyberspace–it becomes possible. You don’t have to know the hard things about me to know me.

Or do you?

           (less than a year ago…showing his age but still perky)

I realized today that it is possible people who read my posts think life is just easy-peasy, hunky-dory, a-ok everyday on this farm. That life always has that rosy glow and the sun always shines and birds sing on key every single day. Apple pie in the sky for breakfast and beds of roses to lie down in at night.

But that, of course, is not the truth. The unglossed-over, plain-as-the-nose-on-your-face truth is that lately life has been kind of hard. And it started in March. It was a morning when we woke up shivering, for a late-winter cold spell had blasted through overnight. It was predicted, and we were prepared, but it was really freezing and miserable, with the wind cutting straight through like a knife.

The first thing I did when I got up was to go outside on the porch because I woke up worried. I had tried to get Chip to sleep on the carport the evening before, but as has been the case all winter, he just couldn’t do it. Almost totally blind and deaf, he just couldn’t find a comfortable place inside. He needed to out there in the open, where he has been almost all his life.

When I didn’t find him that fateful morning outside the back door, I pulled my robe tighter around me and went out searching, all around the yard. It was no use, because he just wasn’t there. Soon, the Farmboy was dressed and we looked together, in all the nooks and crannies, under the big rocks, inside the tack room, even in the horses’ hay feeder, anywhere an old dog might take refuge from the miserable weather.

We didn’t find Chip that morning, and we never have, although we’ve looked all around the place. Even our neighbor helped look. Somehow, Chip took his blind and deaf self, sore hips and all, far enough away that we wouldn’t have to gaze upon him at the end. I think he knew that we would have such a hard time with that, and he did it to spare us.

As with any loss, it has been…gulp…difficult to face, but we have such grand memories of this grand dog to make us smile. Everyone loves his dog, but honestly, Chip was special. I’d like to say he was a one-woman dog….all mine…but that would not be true. Chip was everyone’s dog. If you came to visit for the first time, all it took to win him over was a friendly word and a pat on the head, and you had made a friend for life. He never met a stranger and never met a soul he didn’t like.

When Sarah came to visit, Chip was her running buddy, putting in however many miles she cared to log. When we rode horses, he was right beside us all the way, no matter how many hills we covered. I wish I could estimate the miles Chip and I covered through the years. He was a grand companion, and his joy in going with me was apparent up to the end. In fact, we walked several times just the week before he left us. He didn’t range out as far, due to his failing vision, but he still managed to go the distance. I can hardly make myself get out and walk now because of missing him so.

I think I wrote once about the time Chip followed a hitchiker all the way to our nearest town….going the LONG way around which was about 40 miles! When the man got into town, he stopped at a church to ask for money and the pastor contacted the town’s animal control officer to come and get Chip.Thankfully, his collar bore our phone number. Back at home, we were all in tears because he’d been gone 24 hours and we were despairing of ever seeing Chip again. You cannot imagine how happy I was to go into the kennel and see him there…smiling and happy as ever and completely unperturbed…it was all just a grand adventure to Chip. The people were very nice to him, and that was all that mattered.

I’ve written about Chip’s sledding abilities, learned long ago when the children were still at home and shared even last winter with the grandchildren, perhaps not as gracefully as in years past but still going down the hill with glee. I’ve written about his love of water and of how the creek was his glory…he never got enough of swimming after sticks, swimming with us, swimming by himself….he just loved swimming and was a strong swimmer. How can I ever go again to the creek without him?

                (“helping” Emma fish)

We got Chip when he was six weeks old, and for a couple of months he was a house doggie. I put up gates, the kind you use to corral toddlers, and kept him off the carpet because he didn’t take to potty-training. But soon we realized Chip was an outside dog. He had to be outdoors where he reigned over our place like a king, patrolling the perimeter of the yard and pastures around our house until he soon had a well-worn path. He took great delight in keeping all critters away and would diligently bark all night, if need be, to keep the packs of coyotes away. He was good at that. I miss even that.

                     (just after a haircut)

Chip’s coat was so thick in winter that he never was bothered by the cold, even though it worried me for him to sleep outside. He would nestle into a bed of leaves and be as cozy as if he was under a down comforter. But that warm coat didn’t work in warm weather, so, come April, we knew it was time to go short. The farmboy used cattle shears and gave him a good haircut while I tried to hold him. It wasn’t that he ran off–he just enjoyed all the attention so much that he would lie down on his back and expect a good belly-rubbing, rolling around in that mess of shorn dog hair.

For a couple of winters we took Chip bird hunting. He was a Springer and wasn’t bred to point, but when he smelled a covey of quail Chip would stand stock still, letting us know they were there. There aren’t enough quail in our part of the country anymore to do much hunting, but it was fun to see him work when we could find some birds.

What a smart pup he was! I remember the day I brought home my first batch of ten chickens and let them loose in the pen. Chip had slipped in behind me (he was always at my heels) and when live feathered creatures emerged from the pet carrier, he must have thought it was Christmas, birthday and the Fourth of July, all rolled into ten squawking, flapping, hysterical birds.

So there, I’ve done it. I’ve written about a really hard thing that has been going on in my life, along with the perfect sunsets and the full moons and the smell of flowers and the creeks happily flowing along. While I’m at it, I’ll also say that my brother has been very ill…but now is better. And my dear mother-in-law is battling health problems which cause deep concern. Wonderful friends face life-threatening illnesses, and others grieve heart-breaking loss. Life is not just that bowl of cherries I usually make it out to be; it’s also the pits.

But maybe this helps. Maybe it is a good thing to share the hard parts with friends, like you.

Now do me a favor and go give your beloved doggy an extra treat and a real good tummy rub tonight. Do it in memory of Chip…

Today my Farmboy was planting green-graze in a field not far from our house, and he asked me to bring lunch to him. We have always considered it a treat to have lunch together “in the field,” and today was no exception…a beautiful, warm spring day, with birds singing and bees buzzing and wildflowers blooming and the creek flowing nearby, close enough that we could hear its song.

So after we ate, I rambled a little bit before going back to the house. I love it when our creek flows…so clean and pretty.

This rock formation reminded me of a double throne…moss-covered and perfect for sitting upon if one wanted to wade the icy-cold water to go across.

A beautiful sycamore….

with interesting, gnarly roots was just downstream.

The air was heavily laden with the scent of this scourge lovely rose…the multi-flora.

This one is pink…check out those teensy sweet rosebuds. (My apologies to landowners everywhere…they are a pestilence in the land, but they smell so sweet right now and are so pretty in bloom.)

I don’t know the name of this plant, but it has little bell-shaped blooms right now.

The fire pink is really red.

Daisies adorn the ditches.

Lacy ferns love shady places.

Log cabin love…lucky to have two in the neighborhood.

This little stream is a tributary of “my” creek…how I wish I could play its music for you, the sound of water splashing down over those stairsteps created over time. 

This is another tributary. In that dark place above the water is a bluff, one I call the lion’s den. Our mailman saw a mountain lion cross the road here (in one bound) and leap up the hillside into that bluff where we think it makes its home. I’d really like to see a mountain lion and am always vigilant in searching the landscape, but to no avail, so far. 

The air smells sweet back at the house, too, with the fragance of heavily-blooming bushes of double peonies. I dug these up from a cow pasture about 20 years ago, and every spring they faithfully reward me for saving their lives. They make the prettiest bouquets.

Now it is back to work, nose once more to be applied directly to grindstone. Ironing calls out loudly for attention, but I liked my little detour. Hope you did, too…we’ll do it again soon. Bye!