Zest for Life

I don't know of anyone who more exemplifies the meaning of gusto di vivere than my baby sister and brother-in-law, shown above in a Christmas card. I admire that in them so much. 

When I grow up I want to be just like them!

When I read this quote below years ago in David Grayson's The Countryman's Year, I immediately thought of them. 

I still do.

We like people who enjoy life...The pale, the faded, the sad are soon rubbed off the printed page: the man of gusto etches himself upon our hearts.

David Grayson

Here's to living with more zest for life, more gusto di vivere!

October Goodbye

Once again it is the last day of the month and tomorrow time to flip the page on my calendar. Each month the illustrations by Kevin Dodds just get better and better. 

I'm going to miss seeing this one in my kitchen but I can't really say that I'll miss October of 2018 because it has sure kicked my butt, to put it crudely, something I almost never do.

Things are looking much better than they did at the beginning of the month so onward and giddyap, Dewena.

While almost no fall decorating got done this year, my sweet old squirrel came out of hiding for autumn and winter, with his barbed wire necklace. I propped a couple of old family photographs around for a touch of spooky Halloween decor.

This one is of an aunt's grandfather who worked with Nashville's streetcar system. He's playing with his work band, the Nashville Railway Electric Company band. 

I can't remember which one Aunt Teenie told me was her grandfather.

An old family reunion photograph went in my kitchen tucked into a wire container that holds special vintage cookbooks.

I'm guessing that the family might have gathered for Decoration Day since many family reunions took place then.

Beside it is a cute Halloween card from our daughter who sent us a box of goodies, a friendly bat tucked into the package too.

He's flying high over my All-Clad pans and I love his company in my kitchen. 

After a month of being stuck inside wrapped in sweaters and coughing my brains out, I finally got out this week for a few hours. A trip to Goodwill perked me up, especially when I found a perfect pair of Pottery Barn long velvet curtains for under $10. I say they're red velvet but it's more like a red wine color and I have a special plan for them.

And I'm spending some time outside now with BreeBree and James Mason, enjoying the gradual turning of the leaves.

This is the view from my bathroom window to our side yard and I had to take the camera out to capture this autumn beauty. 

The gigantic maple in the front yard hasn't turned yet and that's just the way I like it, autumn being stretched out as long as it can be.

I'm loving it. Happy Halloween to you!

When the leaves began to turn, and the apples were ripe, and there was a frosty zest in the morning air, I began, after a long forenoon in the garden or orchard, or tramping in country roads, to be conscious that there was something in life quite worth living for.

David Grayson in Adventures in Solitude

after a long illness. 

Sunday Morning Light

Just because I love it when our neighbor's flag is full in the breeze, I always look out the bathroom window early in the morning.

I feel a little like David Grayson felt when he wrote about "the sweet stillness of a perfect Sunday morning in summer."

I felt such an emotion as I can call only a passion for quietude. I felt like treading softly, holding my breath, lest I break the crystal globe of stillness, or rend the gossamer web of silence.

David Grayson in The Countryman's Year

RH captured this view of our side yard through the slats of the blinds in his bedroom early this morning.

There is no breeze early, John's flag seen beyond the large clump of grass in our yard is still, perfect for a still Sunday morning. 

And I walk into my bedroom and reach for the camera, catching the light just right upon the large aloe that loves the morning light.

And then I realize I almost missed a double treat, the reflection of the plant in the mirror--two aloe plants.

"I felt like treading softly, holding my breath,

      lest I break the crystal globe of stillness,

              or rend the gossamer web of silence."

A happy Sunday to you,
      Dewena and RH

"Last night came the rain..."

After days of hot baking sunshine.....

It was glorious to hear rain and thunder when I woke up...

It's even darker outside now, giving hope that the rain will keep falling, a good soaking rain but not a gully-washer.

A gift for the trees that RH has planted and a gift for him--no watering today.

 A gift for our eyes, a respite from the July sun.

A gift from above.

Last night came the rain, all night long. I awakened in the dark with the cool sweet breath of it upon my face. I lay there, still and happy, and listened to the rain come down.

                                                            David Grayson
                                                                                The Countryman's Year

Today I will rest and read and keep RH company while he watches France play Croatia in the World Cup. 

BreeBree is for France and James Mason is for Croatia but it's not looking very well for Croatia while I'm typing this. 

These strong young men have both played so hard to get to this game that the mother's heart in me wishes both teams could win. The girly-girl in me, even at my advanced age, has spotted more than a few hunks on the playing field. The former soccer mom in me knows that it's not just a game, it really hurts to lose.

May the best team win--fairly and honorably!

Rain Drenched Geraniums

"I think most people run after things not worth having:

a man can be richest who chooses what others leave."

David Grayson

Rain drenched geraniums that are never going to look the same. I've always clipped them off and tossed them in the trash because they're never going to open fully.

Not like the blooms on the pot of pink geraniums that cheered me up at my kitchen sink all winter.

I find it kind of wonderful how one small pink geranium plant, rescued from November frost, brought so much cheer. There were only two weeks when it didn't bloom and I watched for new buds with anticipation.

While all was dismal outside, and in my heart, I didn't have to buy flowers at Publix for some cheer.

Even the leaves were pretty, sparkling in a certain light.

But these rain drenched geranium blooms wouldn't have ended up in a vase if I hadn't seen a post on Facebook of a designer who clipped dying flowers and twigs from his garden to bring inside. And he left them there a long time, seeing beauty where others don't.

So there I was one morning last week after days of rain when the pink geranium basket outside my kitchen window no longer looked as beautiful as it does in this picture.

Remembering the designer on FB--wish I could remember his name--I clipped them off but brought them inside, a vase for the bathroom, in top picture, and one for the living room with spent stalks of blue salvia that I clipped too.

Leaving me to wonder what else I normally toss away without thought? How much beauty do I miss even when it's in plain sight? 

"I Like Breakfast"

"Mornings I like best...

Breakfast is altogether the best meal of the day.

I like breakfast!"

David Grayson in

Countryman's Year

You won't catch me arguing with Mr. Grayson.

I like breakfast best too,

and it doesn't always have to mean eggs or oatmeal.

If I have some leftover chicken or beef in the fridge,

or a little pork tenderloin,

breakfast is a cinch.

Sliced potatoes and onions go in the pan first,

slivers of meat go next and breakfast is ready

with some salsa, fruit and toast.

His......

and Hers.

That's how we like to start our mornings.

A Pond With No Name

"So many people who go afield for enjoyment

leave it behind them at home."

David Grayson in A Countryman's Year

I don't think I will ever take this view for granted.

When I let Otis and Milo out every morning

I look at it.

When I wash dishes I see it from

my kitchen window.

All through the summer day,

we watch purple martins soar above it.

We dread the day they return to Sao Paulo.

But in the fall Mr. & Mrs. Smith,

two Canadian geese,

may return to the pond.

Sometimes,

not often enough 😉,

two little granddaughters return

to enjoy the pond.

When we've been very very good,

at the end of the day

there are watercolor sunsets

reflecting on the surface.

At dusk,

Otis and Milo, RH and I,

take one last turn around the yard

and say goodnight to the pond.

It has no name.

It is our neighbor's pond

although it is closer to our door than his,

our view of it is better than his,

and he said I could name it. 

He's so nice to share it with us.

He also brings us pecan pies and blackberries.

I hope to never leave enjoyment behind me

searching for it afield.

So much of it is here at home.

What would you name it if you were me?

February Faces: Who is Your Dream Man?

Is he a farmer?

"I think it takes more of a man, more brains, more character, 

more courage, more bodily vigor,

to be a truly successful farmer

than it requires in any other calling I know."

David Grayson

Is he a soldier? Poet? Businessman?

"He was a Spitfire pilot, poet, businessman, occasional organist

but not, it has to be said, wholly practical.

What he could do he did brilliantly 

and what he could not do he could never learn to do."

Ronald Blythe speaking of a friend Monty in Word from Wormingford

Is he a policeman?

"After fifty-four years of hard, joyful living, Detective Hoke Doop of the Durham police department knew where to put his faith.

He believed in the power of an old-fashioned preacher to scare the hell out of sinners, and the messy, majestic power of the law to punish sinners who wouldn't get scared. As a young man he'd

stuck a foot inside the barely open door to the city's all-white police force and become, against all odds, what he'd wanted to be since he was a kid watching cops-and-robbers movies from the colored 

section in the balcony of a Durham theater. He became an officer of the law.

He believed in the awesome love of his fat, sassy little wife, Louetta; the fine qualities of their four

grown children, and the innocence of their six grandkids. 

He believed that hot fried catfish and cold beer could soothe any man's troubles,

and that Elvis had been the only white man who could sing gospel music with true soul.

And he believed Elvis was really dead--no small feat in these parts.

Hoke was nobody's fool."

Deborah Smith in Silk and Stone

The farmer's picture in today's post is rather murky--as most dream men are. Did you have a Dream Man when you were young? Or several? I just know that you married women are going to play it safe and say it's your husband! My husband plainly says that his Dream Girl is Barbara Streisand. He prefers her beauty to Angelina Jolie's any day. When you've been married as long as we have you're not afraid to tease each other a little bit. So who is my Dream Man? It would have to be Jimmy Stewart in almost any role he ever played but especially roles where he wore old v-neck sweaters and slightly wrinkled khaki trousers. 

Who is your Dream Man, ladies?

"Like Stars in Vast Space"

"To see me going drably about my business is not to see me at all--

the flame I keep burning within.

It is the same with you.

Like stars in vast space, each in its own orbit,

 we are millions of light-years apart.

We look at each other through dim telescopes,

weigh each other in confused logarithms, 

test each other in cold spectra--

and I burning hot with my own heat, and you with yours."

David Grayson in Great Possessions