Category: Experience

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Morning Praises

sweet chipping sparrow

praising with joy of birdsong

blissful in your hymns

A couple of autumns ago, I found some summer patio furniture on a ridiculous clearance sale and bought two loveseats and two coffee tables for the front porch.

I knew I’d like them, but I had no idea how much peace they would bring to my life. As an early riser, I can sit outdoors in the morning in the most extreme heat of the summer, before the sun comes up, to begin the day writing and listening to the treetop concert of the Johnson Funny Farm.

I rise at 5 each morning. I shower, get dressed, put a little color on my face, and brew a cup of Eight O’Clock coffee in the Keurig. From there, I take my computer, phone, and lap desk out to the porch to savor my morning writing time.

Most days, I also do a little birding in the mornings. I listen as much as I watch. We have two Great Horned Owls who chat over their coffee, too, back and forth across the east side of the farm. I like to try to spot them through my binoculars when the sun is high enough to see through the shadows of the Loblolly Pines. So far, they are winning our game of hide and seek.

The woodpeckers are a different story. They put on a show most mornings. We have Pileated Woodpeckers, Downy Woodpeckers, Hairy Woodpeckers, and Red-Bellied Woodpeckers. I keep watching for a Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker, but they keep not showing up. On any given morning, there are as many as 25 species of birds flitting through the trees, singing, and bringing joy to the start of my day.

The Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds dart around, squabbling over whose feeder is whose and avoid mid-air collisions at every turn, even though I don’t see how. As much as I anticipate the cooler weather of fall, I’ll be sad to see them move on, especially the ones who like to hover two feet from my face – the only birds who take the time to look me in the eye and thank me for the all-you-can-drink nectar. This month, they will begin their migration to Florida for the winter, like so many people who seek the same warmth.

Others are here with us all year and have no travel plans in the coming weeks – the Northern Cardinals, the Carolina Wrens, the Blue Jays, the Tufted Titmouses, and the Mourning Doves. We’ll wave goodbye to our summer guests soon, and stand ready to welcome the whole fold back next spring.

And perhaps it’s a little extra, but I can’t help worrying about my little hummers. I want to pack them a picnic for the trip and ask them to text me when they arrive safely and put a little teeny-tiny GPS tracker on them to see where they go for Christmas.

Somehow, I think they know I’ll be watching and waiting for them from my front porch seat, coffee in hand, ready to greet them next April and celebrate their long-awaited return.

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Boho Baby Quilt for Noli

I have a new little granddaughter I can’t wait to meet! Two of her older brothers had a stomach bug last weekend, so I’m working hard on her quilt so that I can take it to her when we visit. Each of my grandchildren has a quilt or blanket that I’ve made for them or that we’ve made together. I make these so that someday, when I am gone, my grandchildren will have a piece of the past that binds us together.

Magnolia May (“Noli”) is welcomed by her sister Saylor Reese and brothers Beckham Cash, River Dawson, and Sawyer Wilson, and her three labs – Boone, Sky, and Eli. Plus, she has a family tree full of aunts and uncles, cousins, and grandparents ready to dress her in all the pinkest outfits and lacy bows.

Quilt

Today, I stitched squares

Forever, you’ll remember

These arms full of love

Noli’s Quilt Layout Pattern
Beckham’s quilt
Sawyer’s Quilt
River’s Quilt
Saylor’s Quilt
Making Aidan’s blanket together (we went shopping for his fabric together so he could choose)
So they remember
Special thanks to Two Writing Teachers for investing in teacher writers
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Stillmeadow Sampler

Photo by Kristina Paukshtite on Pexels.com

In Stillmeadow Sampler, Gladys Taber writes through the year in chapters named for seasons. I think what I love best is the way she captures the feelings of each season with such sensory descriptions.

I’m reading the end of the summer chapter, which focuses on August. Here is where Taber gives me the hope to get through the dog days of summer:

“As August draws to a close, evenings are cool. Autumn is already in the air. The signs are small, but a country eye sees them.”

Earlier this week, I found a reddened maple leaf. Today, I squeezed a fig, and it isn’t as firm as it was a week ago. And as I listen and watch the patterns of birds, I sense change in the numbers that are here.

The stores are beginning to put their summer clothes on clearance as the fall fashions arrive, and of course the craft stores are already decked out for Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. I’ve resisted all temptation to break out the pumpkin candles and strike a match.

I’m on the countdown, though.

Just after Labor Day weekend, I’ll bring out the pumpkins and burlap and light a maple bourbon candle. I’ll bring out the socks, sweaters, and scarves, and change out the front door wreath. I’ll book a pedicure and choose one of those shimmery autumn colors that’ll match all the shades of leaves on the deciduous trees. And I’ll make the orange spiced tea that my mother used to make when I was young and raise my cup to the changing season!

29 more………..

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Saving Steve

Our School Superintendent recently retired and left behind a palm plant he’s had for years. He told his assistant that he was donating it to beautify our lobby area.

The problem was that the plant wasn’t beautiful. In fact, it was hanging on by a few roots.

She came and asked me if I thought I could save it.

“I’ll give it my best shot,” I assured her. So I brought it home and named it Steve, after our retired Superintendent.

I did some Google searches and learned that the plant is an Areca Palm. It needs diffused sunlight and thrives in summer. Its dormant time is winter. It needs liquid fertilizer, a pot with good drainage, and a fair amount of coarse sand mixed in with the potting soil.

I decided to do some surgery on the plant and divide it into three pots. Two small sections would go into the new pots, and the rest would remain in the current pot with new soil and a hefty dose of root aeration.

I began trimming the plant fronds way back.

First, I cut all the fronds back to allow more energy to regenerate the roots as it grows back. Then, I shopped for Miracle Gro potting soil, some Perlite, a few Job’s Plant Sticks, some pebbles, some sand, and two new pots with good drainage holes in the bottom. I filled the base with pebbles, then added the new soil and perlite.

I mixed the potting soil and the Perlite together with some sand and placed the separated sections into each pot. Then, I stuck some Job’s plant fertilizer sticks into the root ball base of each plant before watering them.

I watered each plant and moved them all to the back porch to enjoy some diffused sunlight. Early in the week, I’ll move them indoors under the living room window at the base of the stairs, where they’ll receive diffused east-facing sunlight for a couple of weeks.

We’ll see how they do re-generating and growing, and with a little sun-kissed care, hopefully Steve can return to the district office lobby and be the beautifier he was destined to be.

We’ll think about the plans for the new set of twins and where they will live their best lives.

If you have any suggestions for names for these little transplanted palms, please share in the comments. I’ll announce their names next week.

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Family Dog

Boo Radley, listening for his dad’s truck at the top of the driveway

Boo Radley is the first of our three rescue Schnoodles. He was found by a landlord, abandoned in a duplex in a neighboring county by his family who had moved out two months prior to his discovery, there in a fly-infested apartment with very little food and water provisions remaining. This may explain his absolute panic mode with flies and any kind of ding or alarm. The rescuers named him Einstein; his hair was matted and went every whichaway. He’s the most human of our three boys, expressing emotion through his eyes, ears, and tail – to a much deeper soul-piercing level than our other two. We named him Boo Radley – – a character “behind the door” in a beloved American Novel, a character who rescued and is rescued in the novel.

And he wants both of his parents home at the end of the work day.

Not one of us.

Both of us.

His abandonment by his former family may explain why he runs for his dad’s truck every afternoon, to make the last little bit of the drive to the house in the driver’s seat with his soul human. He hears the tires a quarter mile down on the road before he ever hears the truck, and runs. His dad knows to watch for him – it’s the highlight of the day for both of them!

Boo Radley

he came with issues
we will never understand
neglected, abused

abandoned, alone
......trembling in a small kennel
we caught our first glimpse

through the matted mess
we fell in love with our boy
and made him our own
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Strawberry Pigs

Lately I’ve been grounding myself in my rural Georgia blessings by rereading Gladys Taber‘s books about her life on her farm, Stillmeadow, in the hills of Connecticut. Every sentence she writes, it seems, takes me to comforting places that fill me with the joy of memories and the inspiration to carry on the traditions and legacy that my mother left.

In the August chapter of Stillmeadow Calendar A Countrywoman’s Journal, Gladys shares, “Corn stands silken in the field, chicory stars the roadside, and goldenrod mints her coin. The kitchen smells of spices and syrups, ming and sweet pepper. It is the time of “putting up,” a rewarding time for country-folk. I believe it is an instinct in man to store things against the winter, even when there is a supermarket a few blocks or miles away. It is part of the rhythm of life.”

When my children were young, I’d meet my mother at the halfway point so that the kids could visit a week every summer with their grandparents. Just a few weeks ago, as I was visiting one of my girls, we passed a Dairy Queen.

“That makes me think of all those times Mimi would take us to get a Cotton Candy Blizzard,” she shared. “Those were the best days of my life. I loved making strawberry pigs with Mimi.”

My mother had a fig tree, and they’d all go out and pick figs in the back yard and strawberries from a neighbor’s patch. Mom would get out the pressure cooker and a box of clean Mason jars and lids. Everyone had a job to do well beyond the picking – – washing figs, hulling strawberries, slicing fruits, measuring sugar, stirring. It was a day-long event with everyone fully-aproned, and they stocked our pantry and theirs with all the toast topping they needed for the coming winter months.

My grown children still call strawberry figs “strawberry pigs,” from their days of childhood mispronunciations.

When we moved onto the Johnson Funny Farm in 2008, I found a little twig of a scratch-and-dent turkey fig on the clearance rack at Home Depot and bought it for $3.00. My husband put up the orange plastic netting around it to keep from running the tractor over it, and today it stands taller than a clown on stilts and is more solid than any prize bull.

My scratch-and-dent clearance fig

I walk out to the fig tree this morning, inspecting the forthcoming fruits, anticipating their ripening. A fig harvest heralds the end of summer and beginning of fall – my favorite time of year! And I feel my mother’s arm around my shoulders, erasing all distance between heaven and earth, assuring me that the time spent doing simple things with those we love is the best gift of all. The simple act of making memories transcends years, space, and distance and preserves the togetherness and belonging – – the “putting up” of love scooped and slathered freely like a medicinal balm at the twist of a jar lid when it’s needed in the winters of our lives.

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My Dear Friend Gladys

Several years ago, my father sent me a stack of books from his collection by Gladys Taber.

“Read these,” he urged. “You’ll see yourself in these pages.”

So I did. And he was right.

Gladys Taber lived on a farm named Stillmeadow in the Connecticut hills, where she wrote for Family Circle, Redbook, Ladies’ Home Journal, McCall’s, Good Housekeeping, and other popular magazines. She published over 50 books.

I live on the Johnson Funny Farm in middle Georgia, where I make a feeble attempt to add to my blog every day.

Gladys was a lover of animals. She raised her precious, spoiled rotten Cocker Spaniels and treated them like her children. She even made friends with 2 skunks.

I’m smitten with our three Schnoodles. We call them our four-legged sons and share our meals with them at every sitting. I watch birds and serve them specialty seed.

Gladys and her friend Barbara Webster exchanged letters for years, even publishing one full year of correspondence between their farms in Stillmeadow and Sugarbridge, sharing details of farm life in the 1950s.

I’m fond of mailing postcards to family and friends.

Gladys’s love of the countryside is evident in every carefully crafted sentence, rich in her descriptions of the simple pleasures of farm life.

We, too, are so fond of our corner of this planet that we audibly say, “Ah, back in God’s Country,” when we come back home from anywhere else. We’re “those folks” who take Sunday evening drives just to admire the landscape and praise the Creator for the rolling hills and the cows in the meadows. We catch our breath with every rustic charm – split-rail fences, old barns, rocking chairs on porches, sweet tea in mason jars, sheets blowing in the wind on a clothesline, clumps of wildflowers at the base of a mailbox.

I turn to the July pages of Stillmeadow Calendar and begin.

“July comes to Stillmeadow clad in silk-blue dawns, blazing gold noons, and violet dusks. Heat glazes the air, leaves droop, and the pond level begins to drop. But night is lovely as a dream, and we can go outdoors without a sweater. Sitting in the garden is inadvisable because the mosquitoes and gnats are busy, but a brief walk is possible.”

I connect with Gladys. These could be my own words now, 80 years later.

I glance out at the drooping leaves, heavy with the heat of the day here in middle Georgia and look to the western horizon, the copper tangerine sun hanging low in the branches and think, “What did I ever do to deserve this slice of heaven on earth?”

And for a moment, I feel the knowing spirit of Gladys here with me, nodding enthusiastically, urging me to love it while I can. She’s smiling from a better place, assuring me that for now, this’ll do.

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Savoring Saturdays

Saturdays in 2023 are still savory. We begin the day with coffee and a bite to eat somewhere before spending the day together. We are blessed that our jobs allow us to have some common weekend time to get out and enjoy life, and we don’t take that for granted!

Smitty’s in Woodbury, Georgia was our choice on Saturday. Our friend Bob Oxford owns this restaurant, and his brother Mike helps out on weekends. Their mother, “Miss Jewel” Oxford, was the oldest living member of Concord Baptist Church, where we attended years ago. Her fried pies were delicious, and Bob still makes those pies from time to time, taught by the best! When I served on a pastor search committee with Bob, he’d bring those pies to the meetings, and they went lickety-split!

I enjoy rereading some of my rural life go-to books occasionally as we wait on our breakfast to arrive. Yesterday’s choice was Stillmeadow and Sugarbridge by Gladys Taber and Barbara Webster. Their exchange of letters from the 1950s between their homes in Pennsylvania and Connecticut describes country living at its finest. I like to feel part of that, particularly when my biscuit is made from scratch that very morning, and with each bite I think of the simple joys of rural life not afforded in big cities.

We also made a rare discovery: Georgia peaches! Most of Georgia’s peach crop was lost this year, so coming by Georgia peaches has been close to impossible – – until yesterday! We stopped at a produce stand in Woodbury and found them. I bought two large baskets to slice and eat with our yogurt this coming week. It’s breakfast today, before tuning in to You Tube to hear Dad preach at St. Simons Island First Baptist Church. Our son and his family, home waiting on Baby #5 to make her appearance, will be watching, too!

Our time yesterday was spent driving and birdwatching. My husband is a former deputy in the county where we live, and as a current elected official, he also enjoys time to get out and ride the roads to check conditions and washouts on the dirt roads. We both love this quiet time for different reasons, but it works all the same. He reminisces about the experiences he’s had here throughout his life, and I watch and listen for birds.

Way back in the day, Flat Shoals was filled with hundreds of people on weekends (“mostly drunk,” my husband added, thinking back on the times he had to respond to calls out in this area). It was a popular place to bring a cooler and an inner tube or raft and find a spot in the rock shallows on the shoals to stay cool all weekend. Today, you might see a few fishermen angling to stock their freezers for the next fish fry.

We were there for the birds.

I logged seven new species in the county yesterday along the waterways here at Flat Shoals. Through birdwatching and long Saturday drives followed by coffee together in the morning, I find that I get through the stress of the work week better when I know I have the weekends just around the next corner.

While others are packing our local air-conditioned movie theater to see Barbie, we have a front-row seat to the birds!