Sunday, September 2, 2018

Stillmeadow - August


Gladys Taber begins the month in her wonderful philosophical way. She remembers a covered bridge when they first moved to Stillmeadow. It was in quite bad shape.
It was narrow and rickety and set at right angles to the road on either side, so that getting across safely and into Seymour to shop was a delirious adventure. You just never knew. Maybe this time someone would be coming in as you turned out. The old boards rattled, the bridge shook slightly. But how I grieved when the bridge was torn down! ... Even crossing it in a car, you could imagine driving over behind a pair of horses, clop-clop-clop-clop. You could imagine all the people who had crossed this river in long-gone days. It was like opening an old book for a moment and looking into yesterday.
Are there covered bridges all over the US (the world?)? Around here they are kept up quite well, and are still used. They are so special. The wood, the darkness, the sound. When I was a kid, I made a wish whenever I went through one, and actually still do!

Some writers would leave the subject right there, but not Gladys. She goes on to say
There is always something sad about change, even a change for the better. On the other hand, things must change, for there is no vitality in what is static. When I look at people around me, I sometimes think that when people reach the day in which they can see no good in anything different and new, on that day they begin to die. The will to live and the will to grow are the two foundation stones on which humanity is built. During all difficult days, I am determined to keep new interests going, lest I bog down in worry and anxiety. 
She then goes on to talk about the weather, as most of us do, much of the time. Especially this summer. I didn't have one conversation that didn't mention the awful heat, and then the relief when cooler weather came back. Never have I thought seriously of getting an air-conditioner. But I feel I wasted about ten days of my life being miserably hot and unable to do much at all. We'll see if it comes back next year, and if so, we will look into one. The weeds have grown exponentially. They have crept in amongst every flower plant and vegetable plant. I probably should show you. I will be brave and do so. I'll warn you - not a pretty sight.



The tomatoes, cucumbers, basil, and chives have done well, but boy, it looks awful. I feel like if maybe the inside had been cool, I might have been able to spend a few minutes weeding, and then gone in to cool off. Done over and over again, this mess might not have happened. So, as I said, we'll see.

Gladys has a very humorous passage on the perfection of houses and gardens juxtaposed with real life (see pictures above).
Sometimes I am irritated by the decoration experts. The last article I read was about a woman whose house was full of whimsey, said the writer. It was. It was simply bursting with whimsey, if by whimsey she meant a lot of impossible colors slung together and toned down with gilt and red velvet and dark green. When I reached the room where "the dresser had been whimseyed up with white and gold," I uttered a frightful sound and rushed away. Passing rapidly through the living room, which has no whimsey at all, I entered the kitchen and proceeded to whimsey up the stove by cooking plain golden wax beans and a panful of beets with no humor in them. I afterwards scrambled eggs with chicken livers, and whimseyed up the table by putting on the knives, forks, and plates
I just loved this passage!

Gladys talks about a summer pastime.
What I like is berrying. Up the hill to the old pasture land on a summer day, with an old lard pail hooked to my belt - that is something. The pasture is full of blackberries and nobody takes care of them but God. There they are, rich and purple-black, and smelling of sun and summer. They fall in the pail with soft plops, each one a perfect little nugget of goodness.
When I was a girl, women used to talk about "going berrying." I wonder if anyone does this now. We are fortunate to have blackberries growing up the hill, ready for the picking anytime anyone goes up. They are a result of the logging we had done four years ago. The trees are cut allowing in the sunshine. The first thing that appears is grass, and then brush and berry bushes. Tom took a picture when they were first coming.


Here is a batch that Matthew, Margaret, and Hazel picked on a wheeler ride.


I haven't been up because I don't like riding on the wheeler, and I haven't walked because at first it was too hot, and now we have loggers again. They are doing a small cut this time, and as Tom said, the next cut will be done by our kids in 25 years!

I'll end this month with Gladys writing about those early morning fears we all have. She is woken up by her dogs barking.
If it is around two o'clock, I can't get back to sleep. All the assorted worries that any woman acquires wait to pounce on me. I worry about the world situation. I go into anguish over the possibility of not being able to pay next year's income tax. I feel perfectly sure Cicely will marry some no-account man who will be an albatross around all our necks. Dorothy will be misled by some charmer who dances well and has the brain of a hubbard squash. My sinus and arthritis and a lot of unknown diseases will do me in within a week or so. ... These and other two-in-the-morning thoughts keep me occupied for some while. All those dandy little articles on not worrying run through my head, to no avail. I know I should think of pleasant things and relax, but I can't think of any pleasant things to think of. I relax so hard that both pillows fall under the bed and I have to get up and fish them out. My mind goes like an electric mixer on high.  

21 comments:

  1. I understand about not wanting to get out in this heat, especially to work. UGH. And Yes, I and everyone I know open conversation about the oppressive heat and humidity here. Ugh Ugh...
    There are several covered bridges in our area. In an area not far from here there is a Covered Bridge Festival every year in Parke County. A big todo.
    I loved this last paragraph. I could have written it because I live it.

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    1. Dear one, do you know you are very often the first person to comment? I thank you for always taking the time to do so. I'm so happy you told me about "your" covered bridges. I'm happy to know they are in other areas, as well. My "secret" to those early morning worries is my Kindle. I read, read, read and then I fall asleep.

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  2. Morning Nan - loved the pic of your berries. We have them in our hedges and all over the garden. We cut them back and try to get to the end of the roots every year in the flower borders, but to no avail, really! This year we had heat like you for around 6 weeks - exhausting! You could see the brambles grow, literally.... every day another few inches. The result of the heat and no rain was that all fruit was very small this year, so we didn't pick and left them for the birds, who thought fresh fruit such a treat! We have a young robin (ours are much smaller than the North Americans)who has obviously marked our garden his territory for the foreseeable future, and has been singing his head off - lovely for us, but I guess what he is really singing is "be off with you, other robins, this patch is mine!"

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    1. Interestingly, our fruit wasn't smaller. But I think we had more rain than you. Maybe that made a difference? The raspberries were also big and delicious. Love the robin story.

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  3. Brambles are great when freshly picked and still a little warm from the sun! I've not had any yet this season. Maybe we'll find some during our hikes in the Bavarian Forest later this week (leaving tomorrow after breakfast).

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    1. I had to look up brambles! I didn't know they were berries. Thanks. I look forward to your vacation pictures!

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  4. oh my, last thoughts are mine and have to find my copy of this book. love your old barn, you are a blessing to this one.

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    1. What a nice, nice thing to say. Thank you so much. My barn looks older than it is because the boards are weathered. It was built in 1988. This place used to have many barns but they were all gone by the time we moved here. Gladys is such a support and encouragement.

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  5. I'm a world-class worrier and don't wait till the wee hours of the night to pursue this activity, but when it does wake me in the dark I go to my computer and watch silly, inane, old TV shows from NetFlix until I'm sleepy again. PS...Nan, I love this shot of your house! Don't think you've ever posted one like this before.
    PS again ... we have so many weeds in Santa Fe right now they made the front page of the paper!

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    1. I read my Kindle, and usually fall asleep. What shows do you watch on Netflix?? And you are right! I've never posted a picture from the pasture behind the barn! I was quite taken with that view myself. ;<)) I'm going to try and find that newspaper online!

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    2. Jill, I found the article! Very interesting perspective. Thanks for telling me about it.

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  6. My Mom and I used to go out "in the country" to my Aunt and Uncle's house to pick blackberries. We wore long sleeve shirts over our summer tops. Luckily we always came back with a whole lot more berries than chigger bites. It was always so hot and buggy, but the jelly Mom made was well worth it. My cousins and I always ate about as many as we put in our plastic pails. I remember my Mom still picking berries long after my cousins and I had gotten distracted and were down by their pond. It wasn't a good swimming pond, but it was fun looking for frogs, and just getting out of the brambles.

    I just bought 3 old hardback Gladys Taber books online last month. I have loved her writing since her magazine columns in the 1960's. I can't remember if it was Woman's Day or Family Circle. I often get that "electric mixer on high speed" feeling when I can't sleep. Reading her books often helps me with that. Her writing is so soothing to me and brings back memories of a time that was starting to disappear by the time I was still a child. Many things are sure different now.

    I liked seeing pictures of your garden, and even the weeds, because I was seeing if you have the weird monster grass that has invaded our yard. Our yard has sprouted extra weeds this year. We have some kind of giant ugly monster grass that is trying to take over the yard because it has been too hot for mowing on a normal schedule.. Just today my husband and I were discussing how in the world we will get rid of it and keep it from multiplying. We have never before had anything like it in our yard in the 40 years we've lived here.









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    1. Did you see "your" weed in my garden?? We, too have had a terrible problem with what some call "witchgrass". Tall, stubborn roots, and then it gets wispy with seeds. I did see a little bird on the ground eating the seeds the other day, though which made it a little less evil to me! Thanks so much for coming by. I loved reading your words.

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  7. Those blackberries look luscious. My mother used to make us pies every fall from the ones we picked when we went berrying in the woods behind our house. Looks like there's a pie in your future. Or at least a crumble.

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    1. Actually I just eat them plain! I like all berries that way the best.

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  8. Oh my gosh this was my favorite one of your Gladys posts ever. Every paragraph ... picking wild blackberries (a late summer rite here in Oregon too); the 2 a.m. thoughts (needless to say); and oh I too loved the passage on whimsy. I really need to look for this book (or of course I could always re-visit your posts because your thoughts make me smile too. I hate A/C and here in Oregon it never used to be something people needed. But it has become necessary this summer (we had to buy a portable one so that we could sleep).

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    1. Same here, exactly. Very few people had it. One year we had one in the bedroom, and I didn't like it. But if this weather comes next summer, I'll have one downstairs and one up - portable like yours. Thanks for your words about Gladys. She is so genuine and open. What she writes is who she is, and she doesn't try to be someone else. I admire her very much.

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  9. The vines that creep into my garden from the forest have grown exceptionally well this summer. I keep untwisting them from the stems of things I want to grow, like my tomatoes and peppers and yanking them out of the ground, but it's only a matter of time before they return. That said, my tomatoes have done amazingly well after a tree that would leave my garden plot in shade by 11 a.m. every day was removed.

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    1. I think we have some of those vines, too. Great about the tomatoes. They do love sun!

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  10. I don't recall having read Gladys Tabor's account of night anxieties--how well I can relate!
    It has been an impossibly wet/hot/humid summer in Kentucky--by late June I had to give up weeding. My perennials are buried in bindweed and a nasty invasive plant called mugwort. Many of our vegetables simply rotted on the vine. Still, we have green peppers by the dozens, some late roses--and the newly installed A/C.

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    1. In another book she writes of going to the kitchen and having cereal at 2 am! You're right. Even with all the weeds, some things did really well!

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