I like a kitchen big enough
To hold a rocking chair,
With windows looking to the sun,
And flowers blooming there.
I like big cupboards by the wall,
That hold a lot of things,
The cups hung up on little hooks,
A yellow bird that sings.
I like to do my mending there,
Where I can watch the road,
And see the teams come plodding home,
And smell their fragrant load,
Of heavy sheaves at stacking time,
Or hear the wagons creak,
And groan beneath their golden weight,
If it is threshing week.
I like to have the supper on,
And let it simmer slow,
With rich brown gravy bubbling up,
Around the meat, you know,
With apple pie set out to cool
And flaky new baked bread,
With golden syrup in a bowl
And jelly warm and red.
I like to have the lamps ashine,
With yellow glowing light,
And have the kitchen warm and clean
When they come in at night.
To make a home so snug and dear,
That when they work or play,
They hold a picture in their hearts
Of home, at close of day.
~Edna Jacques, Farm Homes
Beside Still Waters, 1952
I don't know how she does it, but every time I read a poem of Edna's she gets inside my heart and brings out some kind of memory for me of the past. Reading this this morning I was taken back to the farm house of my first husband's family up country at the base of the North Mountain. Oh, but it was a beautiful place, with orchards full of apple trees, fields full of growing vegetables and cow corn, dairy cows, barns, a kitchen garden and a big old farm house just like the one in the poem. This way of life was all so foreign to me, the daughter of a military man. Their kitchen was larger than the whole downstairs of the homes I had grown up in. It was huge, eat-in with a rocking chair right next to the phone and a window where you could look out onto the yard. A big round wooden country table where this father and the farm hand would come in to sit and enjoy their breakfast and their dinner, a dedicated dining room, a formal sitting room, a living room and a small office besides. This did not include the back mudroom which held a back stair case to upstairs and a door to the cellar. And that was just the downstairs, there were more rooms upstairs. Each would have held the whole downstairs of my family home. Then there was the wrap around veranda with it's wooden railings, complete with hammock out front.
My mother in law had a wood stove to use in the Winter months and a smaller electric one for the warmer months, and a long pantry area that held everything she needed when it came to preparing and cooking meals, etc. There was even a large drawer that swung open from the top and held the largest bag of flour that I had ever seen. Many loaves, cakes, pies and such came from that drawer.
His father, whom I loved, would sit in the rocker in his sock feet at the end of the work day, paper in hand, reading while his mother bustled about to get the supper ready. Supper was a less formal meal, dinner having been enjoyed at noon, and was often served on old metal television trays in the living room in front of the evening news.
Before my Senior Prom
In the formal living room of the old Farm House.
Oh how I loved to spend time in that big old house. It was so comfortable and warm, inviting, and completely different than anything I was used to or had grown up with. I learned so much about cooking from my first mother-in-law. Unlike my mother, she did not mind having someone in her kitchen or a mess to clean up afterwards.
It seems like a whole lifetime ago now . . . and it was. I am way older now than my late mother-in-law was then. She lived to be a hundred years old, having lived as a widow for 37 years. The old farm house is still there, but looks quite different now, having changed hands many times through the ensuing years.
I often still go back there in my mind and remember things as they were, way back when. Oddly enough my sister's boyfriend at the time lived in a similar house just down the road from this one. It seems we were both drawn to the rural way of life back then.
How happy I am to have been given a grateful heart.
"Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content." ~Philippians 4:11
I do not take any of these things for granted. These gifts I have been given in my life. Each day I thank the Lord for His bounty. Blessings showered down over me from the windows of Heaven. I read something once which said something like, "Don't forget that the things you are enjoying now were once things that you prayed for." I don't forget. I count my blessings every day.
Perhaps that is the secret to a happy life? And I do have a happy life. Some might think that I should not be so happy, but I am. Happy. It is good place to be.
Now, tired . . . that is a different thing. I spent most of yesterday in a drowsy funk. I fell into bed last night, hoping I would fall right asleep, but alas I did not. It was close to midnight before I fell and then it was a dreamy sleep. Tonight's, hopefully, will be much better. I probably spent too much time yesterday falling asleep in my chair.
For the moors! For the moors, where the short grass
Like velvet beneath us should lie!
For the moors! For the moors, where each high pass
Rose sunny against the clear sky!
For the moors, where the linnet was trilling
Its song on the old granite stone;
Where the lark, the wild sky-lark was filling
Every breast with delight like it's own!
~Emily Bronte from Loud Without the Wind was Roaring
How wonderful it was to have been able to traipse across the Yorkshire moors. Back when I could walk for miles and miles it seemed. So beautiful and so wild. How wonderful it was that I was able to experience things like this in my lifetime. To see great swathes of heather blooming purple and pink upon the hillsides, and great stone walls meandering . . . lone trees standing aloof and silent against horizons, to feel the wind rush past my ears . . . carrying with it the scent of a thousand miles and dreams and hearts. Hair wild and dancing in the air, not caring wither it goes. It goes . . . and I go with it.
Adventures, oh I have had adventures that my seventeen year old heart could not have ever imagined having. I have walked where ancient kings have trodden, where horses pulled their chariots of gold . . .
I wish that I could put into the words all that I have felt and experienced through the years. My keyboard barely does these things justice. They are locked in my mind where only now and then small snippets escape . . . oh that I could only pull them out and share them with you in all their glory . . . but words fail me time and time again . . .
I was thinking just now of my first time up into the Horseshoe Pass. This is a mountain pass in Denbighshire, North-East Wales. It was so beautiful and wild up there. You could look down into deep Welsh Valleys and the sheep were everywhere. Wandering across the road, over the hillsides made of moss covered shale in parts . . . I remember my first trip there I was trying so hard not to step on anything (Yes, there are that many) but I gave up eventually for it was very difficult to pick your way without, but the beauty . . . it was stunning. You soon forgot what you were undoubtedly walking on. To get there you travelled in the car up a road that wound around and around, with wooded forest on one side and steep drops to dark valleys on the other . . . and then, when you finally hit the top, it was as if the whole world opened up before you. On a clear and sunny day. On a rainy day you were steeped in mist, but it was beautiful all the same. A stark wild beauty.
There was a cafe at the top where we always stopped for a cake and a drink and a wander about. I think anyone that ever came to visit me . . . I took up there so that they could experience it too.
I looked at this and it brought a smile to my face . . . the lumps under the throw. I have two cats who like to do the same. I keep my sofa and chair covered in throws, not that it does any good because somehow they manage to scratch the furniture all the same when I am not looking. They do like to crawl beneath the throws however. There are times you need to be careful where you sit because you will often find one sleeping underneath as if in a tent.
They think you cannot see them, but there are signs of their presence . . . lumps beneath blankets, tails and paws peeking out from beneath the skirts of my chairs. How could anyone ever feel lonely or alone. I do not. Not ever.
Eileen was really looking forward to her People's First Pride Day today. I spoke to her briefly early this morning when I woke her up. She wanted me to wake her up at 7:30 so that she could walk down to Tim Hortons and have breakfast before she got picked up to be taken down. She is all packed and ready to come over to my place tonight. She thinks she will be back by 4:30. I will drive over to pick her up then and our sleepover will begin. She really looks forward to this and so do I.
I think tonight we had plans to watch the first Parent Trap movie with Haley Mills in it, but again, that could change according to our mood. It all depends. I will get her settled in and we will have some supper and she has laundry to do. Then it is her shower night as well. So after that we will settle into watching something together on the television together. I have gotten her a new Diamond art kit to surprise her with, so she will likely begin on that while we visit and watch together.
Do I know how to live the high life or what! It is the high life to me, and something I could only dream about experiencing when I lived thousands of miles away. Prayers are answered and often not in the way we expect.
A thought to carry with you . . .
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˚ ˛ •˛•˚ */______/~＼。˚ ˚ ˛
˚ ˛ •˛• ˚ ｜ 田田 ｜門 ★
• ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ • •。★★ 。* 。
*Nothing can be truer than fairy wisdom.
It's as true as sunbeams.
~Douglas Jerrold
I was too tired to cook anything new yesterday so I am sharing an old post which I have updated and rewritten for
James Cagney Eggs. Its Egg in the Hole but with a bit of a bite. Maybe I will make this for Eileen for breakfast tomorrow. She would love that.
I hope you have a lovely Saturday. I need to get to the grocery store and pick up some cat food since I did not get out yesterday. The cats will have to make do with what I can get until I can get to Walmart. They will not starve. Whatever you get up to this weekend, I hope it brings you joy and peace. Don't forget!
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And I do too!
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