It's May! Can you stand it?

 

May is almost too wonderful to bear. 

 When I opened the curtains this morning, the front porch was a bower of purple clematis, overnight!

 The Kousa dogwood that RH planted as a veritable twig a few years ago now fills the window. He planted it much too close to the house but it was a matter of sidewalk and water line limiting spaces to dig. This year is the first for it to be loaded with white flower bracts making it a replacement for the huge Kousa at Valley View that was like a bridal bouquet in front of my bedroom window every May.

And this is what one daughter-in-law brought me on Mother's Day, a sample from the Valley View dogwood. The bracts are huge!

This a bouquet RH brought inside one morning last week, a twig from one of our two black locusts trees here. I could have sworn I dusted that lampshade. The lamp's an oldie that we bought in 1973, made in Denmark, or was it Sweden? 

And the clock radio was a gift from my firstborn after I did a post here hinting to him (if he saw the blog post) that I sure would adore a 1953 Zenith clock radio because it was SO Me!

Unbeknownst [I've always wanted to use that word] to me, he researched it and searched high and low to find this beautiful piece. He told me it was a big seller in its time, nicknamed The Owl Series. If you look at it closely you'll guess why.

 

We have a small locust tree in the middle of some trees in our turnaround and a very large one outside the bathroom window. The week the trees were in bloom we had the windows open and they perfumed the house magnificently. [It helped mask the odor of pee on area rugs. I'm sorry, BreeBree, but you know you do choose not to use the pee pad sometime.]

 Here's the turnaround where the small locust is and another May gift of nature.

 Believe me, we're the most popular driveway in the neighborhood with the UPS and FED-X drivers with this turnaround near the kitchen door.  And look how large the wild rose has grown this year!

A climbing rose planted by Mother Nature!

And to end my tribute to early May's gifts, here is a lovely bouquet brought to me last weekend from our youngest son's garden.

 

The fragrance of these peonies was amazing and they were gorgeous.

Ah, May, you're almost too wonderful to bear! 

But I'm up for the challenge.

Of Dogwoods and a Little Sprite

 

A month ago I asked our youngest son if he had any pretty pictures he'd taken in previous springs of pink dogwood in bloom. He couldn't recall any but one day spotted a gorgeous one in full bloom in his city and stopped to photograph it for me.

 It was a beauty and the white skirts spread around its base made me wish for one exactly like it.

 My list of plants I wish we had planted in our past years grows longer and longer but a pink dogwood has been moved to the top of that list.

And while RH hunts for one he might as well choose a white dogwood too.

 Even if the trees are mere twigs compared to the ones Daniel captured above. 

We planted a Kousa dogwood at Valley View that grew to a large bouquet of white in our May dooryard garden there over 26 years, and we have a small Kousa that RH planted here at Home Hill a few years ago. It had a few white blooms on it last year and is putting on green leaves right now so I'm hoping for more blooms this year but a Kousa is just not the same as a dogwood dogwood, in my book. 

Of course this sweet little Sprite would need to come stand in front of our dogwoods and blow bubbles.

 Then they would be perfect!

 

 

The Lion of March

 

 Determined to publish one March 2022 post, I'm sneaking this in on the last day of a month that brought some surprises following the fall I had towards the end of February. 

I couldn't resist showing Karen Adams's handsome lion on her March calendar but King Leo got it a little backwards. March came in here like a sweet lamb who eventually had to put back on her winter coat.

 

Then decided to festoon the pond with pear blossom.

And last night the Lion of March came roaring back with winds strong enough to toss garden furniture around the yard. Thankfully, our area was not visited by the tornadoes that were predicted a possibility.

March has been a thinking month for me as I approach another birthday and changes in health and a continued problem with my right arm. 

 I've tried to assess what is possible for me compared to what is important to me. I considered stopping blogging but the truth is, going 5 or 6 weeks without creating blog posts made me realize I miss it terribly. I still need to finish catching up on visiting commenters at Dewena's Window before I can post again there and decided to attempt to post once a month there from now on with comments turned on but to turn comments off here so that I can use this as an outlet for posting more often. 

The posts here may be longer in length, written more for my own pleasure and without expecting anyone to read them unless they so desire. That goes for my besties too, so please don't feel that you have to email me after reading them! Emails, yes, but not because you're responding to a post, otherwise I'll start to feel like I should only post when I'm caught up with emails--you know who you are! 

This has been a hard decision made after many prayers. I hope you'll understand. 

My best to all my dear friends and family,

Dewena

May of 2021...It Came!

 

May is here! 

"The day threatens splendour."

Ronald Blythe

 

 

It was blissful to turn my calendars to May this morning. 

 

31 days of May ahead, God willing!

 

 

What shall we make of them, James Mason? 

 

A horse in the yard and The Tennessee Waltz

 

Some people have gnomes in their front yard, but in Nashville we have horses. Real horses and statues of them. 

This old stone house sits high on a bluff overlooking the Cumberland River and RH and I chuckled at their garden art as we drove on the river road that I traveled twice a day from first grade through sixth while attending elementary school and on family outings to Shelby Park. 

Even as young as I was, I coveted the houses on this street. These old houses were so different from the small post-World War II bungalow I grew up in.

 

 

So many of them were made of the stone that even as a small child I loved. I went to a birthday party in one like this, although I'm not sure if it was this particular one. I was hooked then, in stone love. 

But even ones on this street that were made of wood made me feel something I couldn't at that age name--house envy.

 

 Ones like the one above for the simple reason that they meandered, their footprint jutting out here, there, everywhere. It was what many years later I fell in love with at Valley View, our home for twenty-six years. A smaller version of these houses overlooking the Cumberland River that were added onto over the years. A room built here, a new wing jutting out behind as finances improved and needs arose from a growing family.
 

The house above and below made me want to tour it as well as the stone houses. Because...who has a garage like this?

Here's a house I got a poor picture of through the windshield. It's imposing, even has some stone, but for some reason it doesn't call my name. Maybe because it's too much of a McMansion? 

 Now we come to the house I always devoured with my eyes as my school bus rolled by it.

 

A log cabin. 

 

 But not just any old log cabin. This log cabin belonged to the King of Country Music. 

Roy Acuff lived here with his wife for many decades, unto her death. My family was surrounded by country music stars, both in this neighborhood and when we moved to a small town nearby when I was in the eight grade. In that new house our across the street neighbors were Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, bluegrass geniuses, with my best friend living in the house between them. Many people back in those days had country music stars for neighbors. 

But Roy Acuff,  well, as Hank Williams said, "For drawing power in the South, it was Roy Acuff, then God."

 Mr. Acuff may be remembered most for his recording of The Wabash Cannonball, but I love his recording of The Tennessee Waltz, perhaps even more than Patti Page's popular version.

When I was growing up, The Tennessee Waltz ended every dance, whether it was a formal or a hoedown. I'm going to try to embed Mr. Acuff's version of it from YouTube if I can. For those of you who don't care for country music in any form, just remember that these melodies came over with the British who settled in the Appalachian Mountains and brought their music with them. 

 https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-Lkry-SF01&ei=UTF-8&hsimp=yhs-SF01&hspart=Lkry&param1=mT_bNn8bGpOss0nFZ1v6AthlPdRzexgUbrsUPJTC30AxknM6H1Ft9HEzUCbyHuQIBO-FjiWXDV-9XxjAOIegfqVP0JCsjWsuEiB9fCopj67V-a754MN5c85t9G48Q9YIMAaxaFUPRwq8WHlp6v294zOsuDofzlhRwV5BZIdafuL_tWCiDyijfcTayCwN6rQOsIRhTbCBEKwBmmhHzjdVxiQ8FvvlWD-BucgbJC5POYKMS8bmrK_WM4Hes9z_lfdr5XvnGnM_5hxmi8WyMjHy4DhEQ2OFkpn5Lo6VspdACFaN0X_Xaal1tuZeH8_qO0Rt1g%2C%2C&p=youtube+Roy+Acuff+Tennessee+waltz&type=ANYS_A1GXS_set_bfr_%2452462_000000%24#id=50&vid=e83a911882bf3d4c73d823945d78a173&action=view
 

I think there's a better way of attaching this but I've forgotten how. Hope this works because this is the song of my youth.

Upfront warning, a boring post.

 

There's probably nothing more boring than a late seasonal post, except for posting the same picture, with slightly different perspectives, over and over.

 

However,  forsythia in full bloom is anything but boring and I've wanted to take pictures each spring of this magnificent hedge of forsythia in our neighborhood that stretches across the back of a huge lot.

And so I did one day before Easter, asking RH to drive slowly past it as I snapped a shot a second.

Thankfully, the owners of this magnificent hedge of forsythia have never pruned it into any other shape than its own natural, gracefully arching lines.

 I'm playing catch up here, having fallen so far behind but not wanting to waste these pictures. Easter passed without me marking it on either of my blogs, an Easter that was very low key except for the powerful day that Easter always is, recorded with pictures or not, pandemic or not.

Our granddaughters did not miss out on the joys of a childhood Easter, though. This is one of many pictures I loved of their Easter of 2021, standing in front of their fireplace where their mother had decorated the mantel with vintage Easter things from her own childhood. And it makes me very happy that she included a Beatrix Potter picture that I embroidered when my own children were little.

 Here at Home Hill, my simple Easter decor was a jug of daffodils from the front yard, a few Beatrix Potter books, and one of Miss Potter's characters, sweet Little Black Bunny that I rescued from our daughter's yard sale after she was married. I also rescued Jemima Puddle Duck and Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, whose nose was my focal point when I was in labor with my last two babies. 

 

Our daughter sent us this sweet Easter card that had to be added to our Easter table so you can tell that she's now much more sentimental than when she was selling off her childhood Beatrix Potter collection. She even has a new granddaughter herself now, with two more expected this year and may very well be wishing that she'd held onto the Potter characters. 

 

She'll have to wait to reclaim Little Black Bunny, though. He stands guard by my writing desk where his mischievous brown eyes challenge me to have fun every day, even though we're both becoming more vintage every day.

 

Future Garden Prom Dresses

 

From my journal of April 10, 2004:

Yesterday was lovely, even today--overcast and chilly--is beautiful because of all the spring colors outside, daffodils, redbud, flowering plum. The most beautiful of all is the crabapple outside my writing room window. Planted just across the creek by the finch feeding station, it is as filly as a 1950s prom dress. I could sit quietly for hours and look at it. There is another one further off, and towards the barn are two red crabapples.

Here is the tree at Valley View that I wrote of:

 It did remind me of the prom dress my mother made me for my senior prom. 

 

Three years ago RH planted three crabapple trees here at Home Hill. 

Some day they will become frilly garden prom dresses and will shade the afternoon sun that pours into the big living room window.
 

When RH clipped the lilac for me before our two nights of freeze, he cut a few small branches of crabapple, too.

 

 I would rather have these garden offerings than buckets full of expensive florist roses...

But...those pink sweetheart roses that RH bought for my wrist and hair were pretty darn nice too!

A happy and blessed Easter to all! 

 

This is my Father's world,

the birds their carols raise,

the morning light, the lily white,

declare their Maker's praise.

 

Lilacs

 

"Beauty is lilacs in a crystal vase."

Jane Merchant in "Tangibles"

 

No crystal vase but a Goodwill glass will do. Before the past two nights of freezing temperatures, RH went out and clipped a handful of lilac twigs in bud for me. Two days later they opened fully and the room is fragrant with their sweetness. 

The 1830s English Staffordshire Blue Willow platter was the first important antique that we bought as young marrieds and foretold a love of blue that has never left me. 

I think that most shades of greens are my favorite color, especially the chartreuse greens of Spring, blue comes next, but purple in the garden moves me as no other color does. 

 

 

Exit Driveway; Turn Right

Does anyone take Sunday drives anymore?

I was a part of the generation that grew up taking Sunday afternoon drives. First church then home for either a fried chicken or roast beef Sunday dinner. Dishes done and Sunday paper read and maybe a short nap in their chairs for our parents, then there was often time for a drive.

Drives through the country were a big part of RH and my marriage--even when we moved to the country in 1990. And we explored the surrounding country roads when we moved here three years ago.

But we had never turned Right out our driveway since we moved here. Always it has been Left turn, towards the small suburb outside Nashville where we do all our shopping. 

After I had stayed home the first month of this time of pandemic, only taking walks around our 2 1/2 acres and down to the pond, I was desperate to Go somewhere and asked RH to turn Right out of our driveway to see some of our neighbors' houses.

Want to go along with us? Hop in the backseat!

Here are our neighbors.

Pretty soon we come to a house that catches my notice.

If you know me, you know that I love Red!
And I love quirkiness. This house has both and I feel they surely must be kindred spirits. Even their garage is red.

 
We're seeing many horse and cattle farms and lots of fencing on our long road.

 But it is always the touches of Red that I snap pictures of. 

Slow Down, RH!

 I would love to stop and visit these neighbors. Should we knock on the door?

Better not, they might be napping.

We have miles like this between houses so we are surely in the country now.

I always wanted donkeys but could never talk RH into them or llamas or sheep or the Toggenburg goats I badly wanted. Now that goat cheese is the only cheese he can eat, maybe he should have listened to me.

We're seeing miles and miles of fencing.

Aha! Now we know where our train sounds come from at night when we have windows open. Don't you love the sound of a 🚆 at night?

Another cattle farm. Black Angus?

Now our road circles around to the tiny hamlet near us, high in the hills, where Nashvillians built summer homes at the turn of the 20th century. We'll save that little village for another day and continue our drive on a country road that I often take when I'm coming home from shopping (in pre-Corona days) to avoid traffic on the state highway. 

This house is much older than it's style looks.

I dearly love this style of flat log house and the pale gray color with white.

Here's a rounded log cabin and more power to them if they still want Santa Claus and Frosty on their front porch. Maybe there's a story there, as Dolly Parton's character said in Steel Magnolias; I hope it's not a sad one.

 Okay, I have to show you a stone post that I would absolutely love to have in our yard. Don't you love this?

 
 Here's a nice old farmhouse that's been fixed up but it's the other building in their yard that I want to show you.

 
 How would you like to have your own personal Country Store? If we see someone out in the yard we should ask them if it's open to the public.

 
 Want to see where RH and I vote? It's in this sweet little country ⛪!

Now we have to pull back out on on the state highway our road runs off of. I wrote here about our new neighbor across the street from us who lives high on a hill in this gated neighborhood. 

 
It's much more charming than these first ones built, I think. 

This next one is way too imposing for our neck of the woods.

 I mean, do 50 people live there?

We turn Left by it onto our street and soon are home again, to where two people and two dachshunds fit very comfortably in a 1935 cottage that was the farmhouse for what was once only farmland.

 Our drive through the country did me so much good. I hope you enjoyed riding in the back seat!

When was the last time you took a Sunday afternoon drive?