It’s easy being green …

The view outside our windows is an emerald sea these days, from our worn out lawn wearing a freshened suit of moss, to the emerging leaves on trees and bushes. The ferns are unfurling, the lily of the valley showing tiny buds, and the roses are promising blooms sometime soon. I feel a bit like Kermit the Frog, only with a positive spin on the words to the song that helped to make him famous, as I sing out “it is easy being green”.

On a recent walk around Lake Katherine, one of Kermit’s relatives was splashing in the mud,

and a pair of Mallards became mighty friendly as they waddled over to where Tom and I were bench sitting, begging for a handout. Mrs. Mallard came a-quacking right over to our knees. As tempting as it is, I do not bring morsels of bread to feed geese and ducks as it is not good for them to take food from strangers now, is it?

Well, I have a bit of list a mile long today, so, I’d best get off of this log I’ve been sitting upon, and get out and about with the day before me, which includes finishing up “Mrs. Queen Takes the Train”, composing the minutes from a meeting I’m charged to do, give the basil sitting on the countertop a home in a pot on the deck, and maybe sit for a spell in the arbor and count my blessings.

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The Lusty Month of May!

I actually saw a goose “goose” a goose. In broad daylight!

Ah, well; it’s May. That lusty month of May.

Birds are flitting about, warbling their songs, building their nests. Robins and wrens, sparrows and finch, even the mallards are making way for their ducklings.

I’ve been busy doing spring cleaning in the garden, raking up leaves left on the flower beds from last Autumn, uncovering shoots that seem to burst forth with all the eagerness of a fourth grader once the weather warms and the sun shines. I also uncovered a frog – and a snake, who very rudely stuck his tongue out at me. Imagine that!

We hear there is a fox den under our neighbor’s shed. She counted five kits the other day. I take extra trips out to the compost pile in hopes of seeing them.

There is new growth everywhere, from the emerging ferns to the dripping pine cones. Tiny scilla cast long shadows and crocus pop up from under decaying leaves.

It’s May! It’s May! The lusty month of May.

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Foggy

I apologize, dear reader, for being out of touch for so long, with my writing sparse and my postings irregular. I’m still here, on the Cutoff, finishing up a few projects that nestled in between a sinus infection that finally abated, only to be followed by a nasty cold – all of which have left me in a bit of foggy state.

How foggy was it? So foggy that even the Hallmark Channel didn’t interest me, nor Turner Classics. So foggy that the jumbo KitKat candy bar Tom brought home for me hasn’t been torn into. So foggy that I slept through Jennifer’s visit, whilst kind and considerate Tom made dinner.

I did, at long last, come out of the foggy bottom, with my Grecian beak just a wee bit tender, sucking on cough drops and avoiding comedies lest my nose not be the only thing dripping, to see this week’s episode of “Call the Midwife”. How I love Chummy and her constable. Poor Cynthia. How wonderfully her friends rallied, reminding me that I must be better at reaching out to friends in distress. Even though I read the book, I didn’t “see it coming” with Jimmy, and wanted to shake him while comforting Jenny for her disappointment in him.

The dear sisters at Nonnatus House are real and complicated and simple, for their mission is one of care to the women of Poplar in the East End of London. I did start to tear up when I heard the echos of  ”you are my special angel” down the long corridor. I won’t say why, for those of you who haven’t seen it, I’ll just that it all reminded me that my own fog has lifted, and isn’t that grand, though nowhere as grand as the fog that eventually lifted in this impoverished section of London in the 1950′s. My drippy nose also made me hold the often curmudgeonly Sister Evangeline, whose nose tends to drip as much as mine was, with a little more compassion as I watched her compassion come through in several scenes.

If you are a fan of the book and/or series, I would love to read your thoughts. If you are not yet, I encourage to you to read or watch – or both.

While looking for the correct spelling of Nannatus House, I came across this article about the sisters that you might find interesting, which can be found by clicking here. . . .

. . . and I do still plan to share a few photos of the germ miners that generously shared their colds with me from way up north.

Off I go. Nose to blow, work to get done, nature to contemplate here on the Cutoff.

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Miss Dimple Suspects

It was a simple case of judging a book by its cover. When I should have been doing any number of other things, I went, instead, for a short trip to Elderberry, Georgia. I didn’t really go to Georgia; I just spent a few days reading about Miss Dimple and her friends as they tried to find a murderer in their small southern town in the winter of 1943.

The book, you see, was sitting on the “new books” shelf just as I entered the library. It’s colorfully stylized cover did its job and caught my eye as I walked past the display to return the arm load of books I was carrying. I’m easily distracted and went back to Miss Dimple, curious. It was a 7 day loan. I don’t usually check out books on such short loan because, as I said,  I am easily distracted and never get them read in one week.

I didn’t get ” Dimple Suspects” read in one week, either. It languished for six days (did I ever tell you I work better under pressure?) before my eyes rested upon its pages. What started as a search for one of Miss Dimple’s students, Peggy, became a murder mystery involving many of Elderberry’s female residents.

The child is found on a cold, cold night by Miss Dimple near the secluded home of an elderly artist, Mae Martha. Mae Martha and her nurse/companion, Suzy,give Miss Dimple and little Peggy shelter. Suzy nurses Peggy until a doctor can come. In the days that follow, Mae Martha is found murdered in her home, Suzy has disappeared, and Miss Dimple, Charlie, Virginia, Annie and other town members put their lives in danger as they try to find out who the murderer is.

The setting is in a small town in rural Georgia during WWII. Most of the men have gone to fight in the war, leaving the women to cope with rationing, artificial tires on the few cars in town, making do, blackouts, and all those things that the home front contended with during the war. It is also about suspicions, prejudices against the Japanese during WWII, greed – and kindness.

“Miss Dimple Suspects” is a cozy read with a host of comfortable characters, and a few uncomfortable ones, set in a time and place now long past. It is not filled with blood and gore, in spite of several murders and murder attempts. It is a quiet mystery that made me feel, as I closed its pages, that I had properly judged this book by its cover.

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Once upon a time . . .

“Once upon a time, sixty years ago, a little girl lived in the Big Woods of Wisconsin, in a little gray house made of logs.”

Laura Ingalls Wilder. “Little House in the Big Woods”

That little girl’s name was Laura. She grew up to become one of America’s most beloved children’s authors with her books, commonly known as the Little House Books, still in publication.

Today is Laura Ingalls Wilder’s birthday.

Those of you who have been visiting with me here on the Cutoff for some time know of my love of Laura Ingalls Wilder and her stories growing up on the vast prairies of the midwest in the second half of the 19th century. You know how I often read “The Long Winter” during snowstorms and of my visits to several of the Little House sites, most recently the one in Burr Oak, Iowa. If you are new to my site, or don’t know about the Little House books, please feel free to click onto the links to learn a bit more.

It is “Little House in the Big Woods” that has started countless schoolchildren on the long journey with Laura and her family that begins in the North Woods of Wisconsin and is one of the first “chapter” books read aloud to children in schools.

This one little book. written when Laura was in her sixties, is a chronicle of midwestern settlers who formed and farmed the heartland of the United States.

“Little House in the Big Woods” was followed by more books that chronologically tell of the Ingalls’ journey across frozen Lake Pepin to Minnesota and Iowa and the Dakota territory. Laura Ingalls Wilder brought the pioneer spirit alive. She still does as her books take us into their sod house, log cabins and shanties, enduring grasshopper plagues, near starvation, and illness that leaves Laura’s sister Mary blind.  Ma’s cheery disposition and ability to cook anything and Pa’s fiddle strings playing the girls up to their beds at night and all the adventures, both big and small, continue to entertain, educate and inspire children young and young at heart

I was so excited to learn of her birthday today that I just may stop right here and read the first chapter of “Little House in the Big Woods” . . . well, you know what will happen if I do that, don’t you?

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Tasha Tudor

I originally knew Tasha Tudor through the many books she illustrated, some of which she also wrote herself. “Pumpkin Moonshine” was her first published book, followed by the “calico” books, then her illustrations of classics, including those of Louisa May Alcott and Frances Hodgson Burnett, along with cookbooks, nursery rhymes, fairy tales, and a host of other illustrative endeavors.

It wasn’t until the late 1990′s that I discovered Tasha Tudor herself when a series of books about her idyllic lifestyle on a hill-top “west of New Hampshire and east of Vermont” were published. A happenstance discovery of “The Private World of Tasha Tudor ” in a bookstore soon took me on a remarkable journey of learning about Tasha Tudor – and a little bit about myself in the process.

A diminutive woman steeped in old Yankee ways, Tasha’s book, “The Private World of Tasha Tudor” took me inside her Vermont farmhouse, Corgi Cottage, out to her gardens, and into her unique imagination. Tasha Tudor led much of her life steeped in the 1800′s, wearing clothing of that period, weaving her own cloth, making her own candles, and eventually building a house in Vermont that visitors were hard pressed to believe was built in the late 20th century.

In her lifetime, Ms. Tudor was asked by President Johnson to make ornaments for the White House Christmas tree, her hand crafted dollhouse with its furnishings and dolls, made by Tasha, were on display at the Abbey Aldrich Rockefeller Center, and Life Magazine once photographed the wedding of two of her dolls. (The dolls, being quite modern, eventually separated.) After a television interview, Tasha Tudor became an icon for those who sought the simpler life of getting “back to the land”.

It was “The Private World of Tasha Tudor” that took me in, made me feel at home, and spurred a rather large collection of all things Tasha Tudor, as well as an appreciation for the photography of Richard W. Brown, who lives in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont.

“Tasha Tudor’s Garden” is where I often go for garden inspiration. I long to grow foxgloves six feet tall like Tasha Tudor did, and I wish I could encourage my roses to ramble with wild abandon as those in her garden. I’ve given up on sweet peas – well, almost given up, we’ll see. I’ll try them one more time. The point is that Tudor’s garden is lush, a bit whimsical in nature and all that a cottage garden should be. Some of the seeds sown in it are ancestors from two centuries ago. Richard Brown collaborated with Tovah Martin on this book. I love her style of writing and would not be stretching the truth at all to say that she has influenced how I “talk” about my own garden.

Together, Brown and Martin produced a third book, “Tasha Tudor’s Heirloom Crafts”, which is a unique glimpse into the many ways Tudor adopted a 19th century lifestyle into the modern era we all live in. It is chock full of pictures and words about Tasha’s kitchen, the extensive collection she amassed of 18th and 19th century clothing, her well utilized barn that connects to the house in the manner New Englanders use, and the marionettes that led to “A Dolls’Christmas” and helped keep her growing family fed with the performances they starred in. It is a book in which to find Tasha weaving and painting and making candles and all manner of other crafts that she continued to employ into her eighth decade.

Tasha Tudor died a few years ago, just before her 92 birthday, if memory serves me correctly. Some of her clothing sold for handsome sums. A museum is underway in her memory. There is still a family website for all things Tasha Tudor, as well as those of her family.

I first learned of a tin kitchen from books about Tasha Tudor. I was determined to try roasting a chicken in front of fire from the moment I saw her doing so using a tin kitchen. I looked at antique malls, fairs, and searched the internet for about six years before literally stumbling upon one at an antique fair one afternoon. My giddiness was a dead give-away to the seller if there ever was one as my foot brushed against it, I looked down to see what was in my path, only to hop back in pure glee, exclaiming “it’s a tin kitchen”! I lugged it home and before much time had passed, I cleaned it up and managed to roast a whole chicken in it in front of an open fireplace. I can’t begin to tell you how delicious it tasted, or express my sense of accomplishment at having figured out how to cook with it.  How I miss that fireplace of our old house. How I miss that roasted chicken.

 

Well, I rambled about much like Tasha Tudor’s roses. When Juliet mentioned she knew of Tasha Tudor’s books, but not much about her, I thought it might be a good spot in time to share some of the books I have that illustrate the life of such a well-known illustrator, thinking they might interest some of you as well.

It is very cold here, with the temperatures hovering around 16° F. Snow is dancing about, looking for trees and bushes and rooftops to cling to. I think I’ll make a cup of tea and invite Tasha Tudor to visit me for a spell. Which book will I select?

 

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Commonplace

Having just read Belle, Book, and Candle’s thoughtful writing on commonplace books, and a bit too busy right now to write a new post myself. I am reposting my own post on commonplace, which I wrote several years ago, in hopes that you will not only take the time to read Belle, but that you will consider keeping a commonplace book yourself – or tell us about the one you do have. Belle, Book, and Candle’s post can be found here. Thank you, Belle, for the inspiration I needed today.  Penny

Commonplace. The recording of words and ideas in a common place. It was started many hundreds of years ago and became known as commonplacein the 1600′s. It is used to this day by writers, poets, speechwriters and songwriters – even scrap bookers. I started thinking about the practice of gathering ideas in a commonplace book as I was reading a blog about books.

Do you have any idea how many blogs there are just about books? There are blogs about mysteries and children’s literature and authors. There are Pearl Buck and Jane Austen blogs. There are blogs about decorating with books and making books, and, of course, many authors these days have their own blogs.

They are all commonplace.

I have kept card files on books I’ve read since my first Kiddie Lit class. I no longer include such things as publisher and copyright date, but, I do write a brief synopsis of the book, what it was about, the month and year I read it and sometimes, when I’m really full of myself, I rate it. ★★★★★ Commonplace.

I also have kept a book with quotes. If I hear something notable or read something, I will write it down and cite the author. Sometimes, I will cut a quote out of a magazine or on a greeting card and paste it onto a page of my quote book.  Commonplace.

Emerson and Thoreau, Jefferson and Whitman, Hardy and Twain all kept such personal books. Many even learned the practice of commonplacing at Oxford or Harvard – or at their tutor’s direction.

My mother kept scrapbooks of pictures and memorabilia  that I enjoy today and my father kept succinct books that recorded good fishing spots and articles.

I first heard such a collection of phrases mentioned as a commonplace in “Tasha Tudor’s Heirloom Crafts”. Tudor was, among many things, a crafter of dolls. Her dolls lived in intricate, homemade doll houses, so famed that they were attracted to the folks at the Smithsonian and displayed there. Her dolls, clothed and appointed with furniture evoking the 1800′s, had their own commonplace book with tiny writing on the pages.

I love the idea of a commonplace book and was intrigued by the realization that I have kept such books not knowing their origins for much of my adult life. Quite exciting for something so common to me.

Do you practice commonplacing?

Do you keep a journal, special notebook, scrapbook, or log?

The image is from “Tasha Tudor’s Heirloom Crafts”. Photography by Richard W. Brown.

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At JUST the right time

There are presents wrapped in bright paper with bows, or slipped into gift bags with tissue galore, and then there are gifts that come from the exuberant  suggestion of a dear friend. Have you ever gotten one?

I did, just after Christmas, when Janet, aka Country Mouse, recommended a little memoir that she thought I would like. Her enthusiasm was so contagious and our friendship so rooted that I knew I needed to read the book. I found it at one of the libraries I haunt and was turning the pages as soon as I arrived home. It was JUST the book I needed to read at JUST the right time, and now I want to tell you about it.

When writer Suzan Colon starts feeling the wrath of the downturn in the economy in 2008, she starts to economize on the cut-backs she correctly anticipates will happen. Sack lunches and walking instead of taking the subway are a prelude for the day her job no longer exists. At her mother’s suggestion, Suzan looks to her grandmother’s recipes for inspiration. It becomes a journey of recipes and family history as she explores not only Nana’s recipes, but her writing as well, along with her own mother’s stories of survival.

I read about Suzan making split pea soup just as my own ham bone was floating happily in a pot of green on the stove, and I thought about how we all “make do” with leftovers and leftover leftovers as I put ham in with potatoes to stretch that little piggy a little further on yet another day. I thought about the pinwheel cookie I was eating and how it came to Tom’s family through a cookbook that came with a stove and how Tom’s mother wrote a letter to the government seeking permission to buy the stove during WWII rationing as I read about Nana’s recipe for butter cookies, neatly typed for Nana had gone to secretarial school, when she wanted to be a teacher and a writer, but life and times got in the way.

This sweet little book is filled with Colon’s family history and survival as she works her way through the tough economy and all it entails that many are struggling through, still. It is, to me, really about looking to our family and their stories for strength, to take each day one at a time, to enjoy the little moments in life and to allow yourself a “treat” now and then. When I finished the book, I found myself wanting more, for this little gem found its way into my heart and nourished my soul JUST when I needed it. I’m thankful for the earnest recommendation of a long-time friend and kindred spirit, and I am thankful for having read Suzan Colon’s book. “Cherries in Winter” – I JUST might need to find myself some cherries soon.

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Favor Johnson

If you are new to my ramblings here on the Cutoff, you may not yet realize that I love children’s literature as much as I love any other genre. Those of you who have been visiting my neck of the woods for a while would not be surprised to know that I have a collection of children’s literature that I bring out come December and savor until January or that my family and friends know that I will always purr with delight if gifted with a child centered book.

I’m purring right now, dear reader, for Antler Man, aka Tom, gift wrapped ( in children’s wrapping paper) a book I’ve been wanting. He placed it beneath our Christmas tree where it awaited my childlike glee as I unwrapped it on Christmas morn.

“Favor Johnson: A Christmas Story” is written by Willem Lange, a short story writer and radio commentator from Vermont The book is illustrated by Bert Dodson with nostalgic scenes of Favor  Johnson, his farm, his beloved dog, Hercules, and the nearby town.

This is a simple story of how a quiet farmer who keeps to himself, Favor Johnson, comes to make fruitcake in tin cans and delivers them to his neighbors on Christmas Eve after a neighbor, Dr. Jenkins, saves his dog’s life. Is is about neighborliness and how one act of kindness can lead to others, in the most remarkable ways.

Like all good children’s books, “Favor Johnson: A Christmas Story” is really a story for all ages and would make a lovely gift to an adult, including yourself, my friend. It is a stunningly simple reminder of giving to others in the simplest of ways as we read of Favor “A man in overalls and an old red-and-black checked jacket” trudging up stairs and knocking on doors,  driving from house to house on Christmas Eve and leaving his packages wrapped in aluminum foil.

It is a timely book, not just for Christmas, but as a call to action as we embrace the New Year. A call to give a bit of oneself to others in whatever way we can, like Favor Johnson and his tin cans of fruitcake.

I will be offline for several days, but wanted to tell you about Favor Johnson – and to wish you the best in the new year ahead!

The bookcover above is  from Willem Lange’s website. It can be found here.

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Long shadows

I love the long shadows on November; those far-reaching limbs of trees seem to stretch out across the earth, connecting summer to winter with their long arms of hope.

As I watched the sun begin its journey this morning, I thought about the November shadows starting to form. Lights went on, for the rooms will still dark. tea whistled and the news of the day crept into my day.

As I trolled the ether waters, Garrison Keillor’s Almanac popped up. I enjoy reading the selected poem of the day; sometimes familiar verse, other times poets I have not met. On occasion, Almanac inspires a post, leading me to new waters. It isn’t always the daily poem that spurs me on, however, it is sometimes the list of birthdays; poets, essayist, literary giants.

Today, November 29, there were three notable birthdays. Authors who filled my childhood as much as ongoing years. As I read the brief biographies, my heart swelled and I thought of November’s long shadows, wondering at the lives of these notables and the shadows they cast on so many lives.

November 29 is day of birth for Louisa May Alcott, Madeline L’Engle, and C.S. Lewis.

Where would I be without “Little Women”, “A Wrinkle in Time” and “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”?

Where would we be, dear readers, without November’s long shadows?

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