Here on the cutoff, still in my pajamas (the ones of the Easter nest fame), with the television broadcasting quietly so as not to awaken the lord of the manor, I sat, channel surfing, at 4 am. From NBC, CBS, ABC and, of course, the BBC, waiting for the wedding to begin. I’m mush when [...]
Archive for April, 2011
A wedding and tea
Posted in Family and friends, Historical, tagged PG Tips Tea, Princess Catherine and Prince William's wedding on Friday, April 29, 2011 | 12 Comments »
“all they could find was the piano key”
Posted in Uncategorized on Thursday, April 28, 2011 | 18 Comments »
Long before my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Thurston, read Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz aloud to us, every day, after lunch, and even longer still before I first saw The Wizard of Oz on film, I feared tornadoes. I have feared them for as long as I can remember. We all lived in [...]
Sprinkles of joy
Posted in Gardening on Wednesday, April 27, 2011 | 10 Comments »
Isn’t she sweet? During a break from the rain, I was traipsing around our sodden acreage and spotted a patch of peach. Upon closer investigation, there among the yellow and white daffodils that continue to hold court in this odd spring, was this lovely bloom. The color is poor in the picture and doesn’t bring [...]
Rising for the occasion
Posted in Food, tagged Greek Easter Bread on Tuesday, April 26, 2011 | 14 Comments »
I didn’t make our traditional lamb and roasted potatoes this year for our Easter dinner. There was just the two of us and I couldn’t justify so much food. Don’t get me wrong. I made a great dinner. We ate very well here on the Cut Off, but, lamb was rather expensive this year and [...]
Nesting
Posted in Family and friends, Holidays on Monday, April 25, 2011 | 13 Comments »
Once upon a time, when we were very young and just getting to know each other, Tom and I would walk and talk and laugh and sigh as we learned about each other’s childhood traditions. The conversations were most often swayed by the holiday at hand. After we married and started a family of our [...]
Lily
Posted in Holidays, Nature/animals, tagged Easter Lilies, Wilder Park Conservatory on Sunday, April 24, 2011 | 18 Comments »
Is there another flower that evokes Easter, purity, faith, hope more than the lily? Did you know that the bulbs grown for the Easter lily come from about ten farms in Northern California and Southern Oregon? These Easter lilies were blooming at the Wilder Park Conservatory in Elmhurst as a stormy Good Friday afternoon raged outside. [...]
Singing in the Rain
Posted in Famous and infamous, movies, music, tagged Gene Kelly, Singing in the Rain on Friday, April 22, 2011 | 8 Comments »
How about a little Gene Kelly singing and dancing in the rain to chase this misty, moisty weather we’ve been having here in the Midwest and whatever weather is happening your way? www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmCpOKtN8ME
John Muir
Posted in Adventure, Books, Famous and infamous, Historical, Nature/animals, tagged John Muir, Robert Shetterly, The National Park Service, The Sierra Club, Yosemite National Forest on Thursday, April 21, 2011 | 8 Comments »
John Muir April 21, 1838 “The battle we have fought, and are still fighting for the forests is part of the eternal conflict between right and wrong, and we cannot expect to see the end of it . . . So we must count on watching and striving for these trees, and should always be [...]
Yia Yia’s seed packets
Posted in Family and friends on Thursday, April 21, 2011 | 12 Comments »
The stories told between the pages of the book I wrote in my last post, A Time to Blossom, and the exquisite photographs that accompanied them, brought to mind my paternal grandmother. Yia Yia had no formal education. She could neither read nor write, but, she had her stories to tell and her self-discipline, she was [...]
A Time to Blossom
Posted in Books, Gardening, tagged A Time to Blossom, horticulture, photography, Richard W. Brown, Tovah Martin on Tuesday, April 19, 2011 | 15 Comments »
Sometimes, in the midst of a busy day, after a trying time, or just because I desperately need to feast my eyes on some natural beauty, I find myself drawn to a shelf in my library where my gardening books are. Books on weeding and wisdom and whimsy. If I”m looking for garden essays, botanical [...]
