The Heavy Heavy - Go Down River (Live in Chicago)

Until (if?) I find my writing self again, I’ll post something from a newish band whose work I love. You may read more about them here. I delight in their sound which is reminiscent of older times, but also fresh and new. It is music that makes me feel uplifted and cheery. In the bio they make reference to some bands I love. "Peter Green - era Fleetwood Mac (my favorite period of that band), The Rolling Stones, British Invasion pop acts like The Hollies, and folk-blues Delaney and Bonnie." The last one is a group I was wild about, but they aren’t mentioned much anymore. I even bought Bonnie Bramlett’s album after Delaney died, and one by their daughter Bekka. And there were so many great British Invasion groups that I still listen to and get great joy from.

 

Me and Miss Marple

 I've just ILLed Agatha Christie's The Mirror Crack'd because I began reading a terrific post and saved it for a later time because I wanted to read the book before reading the blog post. 

I was very struck right at the beginning because Miss Marple has been stopped in her tracks because of the ramifications of older age. I checked the publication date, and it is 1962 when Agatha was 72, three years younger than me. She was likely beginning to feel some of those things that seem to happen around 70. 

Miss Marple has been warned off gardening by her doctor who comes by three times a week (think of that!), so she sits and looks out the window. She is resentful of the person she has hired to do the work, because he doesn't do that work. He is busy with his own garden. 

And then she ponders:

One had to face the fact: St. Mary Mead was not the place it had been. You could blame the war (both the wars) or the younger generation, or women going out to work, or the atom bomb, or just the Government - but what one really meant was the simple fact that one was growing old. Miss Marple, who was a very sensible old lady, knew that quite well. It was just that, in a queer way, she felt it more in St. Mary Mead, because it had been her home for so long.

She goes on to note the changes that have come, and the one in particular - a "glittering new supermarket - anathema to the elderly ladies of St. Mary Mead".

"Packets of things one's never even heard of," exclaimed Miss Hartnell. "All those great packets of breakfast cereal instead of cooking a child a proper breakfast of bacon and eggs. And you're expected to take a basket yourself and go round looking for things - it takes a quarter of an hour sometimes to find what one wants - and usually made up in inconvenient sizes, too much or too little. And then a long queue waiting to pay as you go out. Most tiring."

I have always rather prided myself on being "modern" and accepting the world as it is, not the way it was in the "old days". But as I read the above in The Mirror Crack'd, I found it a bit too close for comfort. I have found myself bemoaning a bit about some trends that upset me. I, being a health food hippie from way back, am dismayed by how much candy and junk food children eat now. I have to keep such thoughts inside instead of passing them along to anyone because times do change, and of course, may well change back, but this is the new generation, not mine. The mothers and fathers do a lot of things way better than I did. Kids are busier than mine were. There are more activities available. It all feels too much to me, but I am also not in my thirties or forties. Seventy-five is much slower and quieter than my younger self. And I shall strive to be that "sensible old lady" like Jane Marple.

My thoughts on the Rex Stout books many years ago

 Before blogging, there were email groups online that I belonged to that talked about books. I have kept all my emails to those groups, and just came across the following, written about Champagne For One. The words are just what I would still say, and they were written in May 2006 a few months before I began my blog. The second words are from 2003.

I am so enjoying my visits to Wolfe and Archie as I read them all again in publication order, though as I have said, they really don't have to be read that way. 

I go on and on to anyone who'll listen about the greatness of the Nero Wolfe/Archie Goodwin books.  Some in the series are stellar, like this one, and others not so perfect, but I don't really look at them individually.  They are all of a piece about the life.  It's like checking in to see what Wolfe and Archie are up to.  I love the old familiar words and descriptions of how many steps up to the door of the old brownstone, what Archie is having for breakfast, how the office is arranged, what Wolfe is reading, and of course the mystery he must work on to pay for his gourmet food and his thousands of orchids.  Wonderful, wonderful books.

 I love the way Archie repeats details in each book, in case the reader is on his
first Nero Wolfe story.  "I climbed the seven steps up to the old
brownstone".  "Cramer sat in the red chair".   I love the house
descriptions.  The plots are really secondary.  Each book is a portion of
the lives of Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin.  I think between the Stout
books, and P.G. Wodehouse books, I really could survive without any other
reading material.

Diana Krall - Autumn In New York (Official Video)

The sun went into Libra at 2:50 am today so it is now autumn. And here is Diana Krall singing and playing piano so very beautifully to help celebrate the season. Such a great video, too.

Today's poem by WH Auden

I am currently watching The Last Detective on Britbox. A character called Mod played by the late Sean Hughes quoted the last two lines of this poem. It is the eighth of Auden's Twelve Songs - April 1936. 

At Last the Secret is Outby WYSTAN HUGH AUDEN

At last the secret is out, as it always must come in the end,
The delicious story is ripe to tell to tell to the intimate friend;
Over the tea-cups and in the square the tongue has its desire;
still waters run deep, my dear, there’s never smoke without fire.

Behind the corpse in the reservoir, behind the ghost on the links,
Behind the lady who dances and the man who madly drinks,
Under the look of fatigue the attack of migraine and the sigh
There is always another story, there is more than meets the eye.

For the clear voice suddenly singing, high up in the convent wall,
The scent of the elder bushes, the sporting prints in the hall,
The croquet matches in summer, the handshake, the cough, the kiss,
There is always a wicked secret, a private reason for this.

Come Monday - Jimmy Buffett

We have a radio in the barn, and it is set to an independent radio station in Montpelier, Vermont. There is a daily segment of what is called 33 1/3, when the DJ plays a cut from a record. Because it was Labor Day Weekend, the DJ played Jimmy Buffett's Come Monday. The DJ said it is the best song about traveling and missing your loved ones. It had been a while since I'd heard it, and I was so, so happy. I have been a fan for as long as he has been recording. And I have a delightful, and really unexplainable Jimmy Buffett story. In 1980, we flew to Houston to be Godparents to my childhood friend's baby daughter. We got off the plane, and my friend's husband asked what we would like to do in Houston. The words popped right out of my mouth, "see Jimmy Buffett". He said that there was a show. We got tickets, and saw the most wonderful concert. It was the first show I had been to that sold cocktails, obviously margaritas!

Why on earth would I have said that? Who knows, but it sure was amazing. 

I'm quite sure that the DJ played the song on September 1. And so very sadly, he died that night. 

Quote du jour - Shaun Bythell

 I've just finished Shaun Bythell's second book in his Diary of a Bookseller series, and I loved it so  much! 

Toward the end, the internet was down because of a storm and he started reading a book.

"This is more like the old days, before the tyranny of the Internet, and it was an enormous pleasure to spend the entire day reading, with a few interruptions."

Quote du jour - from Wodehouse to Stout

I have just finished re-reading Some Buried Caesar, book 6 in the Nero Wolfe series by Rex Stout. After it ended there was, on the Kindle version, a 1969 letter from P.G. Wodehouse to Rex Stout upon reading this book for the second time. The letter is actually a copy of the typewritten one. Be still my reader's heart - to think of two of my most favorite writers actually being friends, and respecting one another's work.

"What a good story Buried Caesar is. I had read it before, of course, but had completely forgotten what happened after the adventure with the bull. I find I can re-read Rex Stout indefinitely, which shows the importance of atmosphere."

Atmosphere is what I recall when I think of Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. The house, "the old brownstone on West 35th Street", I feel I know as well as my own. When I walk through the door, it is a bit like coming home. And the places visited when Wolfe has to leave, which he abhors doing! I, too, had forgotten all the details in Some Buried Caesar, but the bull in the field was as clear in my mind as could be.

                                                             Rex Stout

 

                                                P.G. Wodehouse

 

Chickens, and ...

 The ... in the blog title means roosters!! Only once in all the years of getting chickens has there been a rooster. I may have mentioned that we gave it away to a fellow, after warning him that he was not kindly toward the kids. He was fine with that, until the rooster went after his daughters. The man shot the rooster. 

The chicken people always warn buyers that they aim for just hens, if that is what the customer orders, but there is always a 10% chance of roosters. 10% of 18 is 1.8, and we have 2! We began to notice maybe a week ago that a couple had red combs. Female Speckled Sussex do not have any red on their heads. Well, this morning, Tom went into the barn early and sure enough a rooster crowed! We are actually quite excited. The Sussex is a mellow breed so fingers crossed the roosters will be as well. 

See those red combs!

The dividing wire between the young Sussex and the older Dominiques will stay up until the little ones are about the same size.

Anniversary Brownies

 

You can see these are not called "anniversary brownies". I call them that because today I made them for Margaret and Matthew for a belated anniversary of the date they got together, and the date they got engaged. I have probably noted over the years that they had known each other practically their whole lives though not in a romantic way. But one evening they re-met at a party, and the rest, so they say, is history. Matt wanted to give her a ring on the date they met, but Margaret had to work so he asked her the next day. 

I made a recipe out of a book I've used before here. I put in softened butter and 1 teaspoon vanilla and no nuts.

The brownies tasted very delicious, but looked quite a mess!

I have a feeling about what the problem is. I've recently been reading about how baking pans aren't all the same sizes. A 7x11 or a 9x13 may not be exactly those dimensions. I have had a few problems since I bought these stainless steel pans after the "glass breaking episode". I need to measure all the ones I have and see about getting new ones if they aren't right. 

Other breakfasts (of more famous people than I!)

I came upon this in my current print book which I just adore, and thought it went well with my last post.

 Breakfast at Charleston

'Vanessa [Stephen Bell] presided in the dining room, the magnetic centre of all our thoughts and activities. At breakfast she was always down first, and sat for some time alone, enjoying her solitude. She had dressed and washed quietly, almost secretively, and would be in her habitual place on the far side of the round table, looking with dreamy reflectiveness at the still-life in the centre, or out of the window at the pond and the weather.... Now, as she ate a piece of buttered toast with coarse salt and held a steaming cup in long, straight be-ringed fingers, she considered her letters, absorbed the temper of the day, and braced herself to meet its demands....

'Duncan [Grant] sometimes overslept, in which case someone would ask me to play a particularly irritating little Écossaise by Beethoven on the piano directly underneath his room. Eventually he would enter the dining room, growling his dislike of the "beastly tune", ruffling his hair through his fingers and blowing his nose on a large red bandanna. Insouciant and natural, every day he peeled an orange, ate porridge and drank coffee with fresh appreciation, almost as though he had never done it before, conscious perhaps that each new day was a miracle that might not be repeated. For him, objects seemed alive, never simply things, just as repeated actions never bored him but became a source of reiterated pleasure. After wishing everyone good morning and hitching up his trousers, which were tied round his waist with an old red tie, he would squat to help himself to porridge, kept hot on a low trivet in front of the fire, and tell us about his dreams - often very amusing - or about the book which, tradition has it, he absorbed by putting under his pillow.'

                Angelica Garnett, Deceived with Kindness, 1984

Today's picture - breakfast

 

Because Tom and I get up at different times, I eat my breakfast alone. It is a little oasis for me. I am not much a creature of routine, but this meal is the same every day: my toasted homemade bread, plain yogurt with fruit (blueberries and cherry plums today), coffee, orange juice, and water. And my book. I got a terrific new book holder, and I happily read quietly for that time. The rest of the day is filled with something different each day, but this remains the same and I love it.

Today's song - I'm Old Fashioned

In honor of the wonderful Tony Bennett, one of my favorites.

Pretty in pink

Rosa rugosa and Queen of the Prairie

Queen of the Prairie, also known as Meadowsweet

Daylily

Birds

 

That bush to the right of the chairs is a honeysuckle, and we have seen birds flying out of it and back to it. Not sure what they were, but this is a banner year for nesting birds here at Windy Poplars Farm. The voices we recognize are catbirds, phoebes, wrens, swallows, robins, and our beloved whippoorwill. Not only are they nesting here, but they are closer to the house and more visible. Out tiny bushes and trees have gotten taller and really filled out, making them appealing to the birds. You can see in this yard rosa rugosas, lilacs, another honeysuckle, and out of the picture on the left are more lilacs. It is a little heaven. 

And then across the road are many more. Hazelnuts planted when Hazel was born, lilacs, Korean lilacs in honor of our Korean born kids, forsythia, ornamental apple, a small plum, 2 locusts which have popped up, and our remaining maple. All happily welcoming birds to nest or just stop for a while. 

Not sure why the photos are blurry. 

Some words from The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street

 I hope that some of my English blogging friends will see this post, and tell me what they think.

In 1971 Helene Hanff finally made it to England after corresponding with the London bookstore, Marks & Co. at 84, Charing Cross Road since 1949. She ordered books that she could not get in New York City. This is written about in 84, Charing Cross Road, one of my very favorite books which I read again recently.

Her book about visiting London is called The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street, and in it she says something about the English that I found interesting, and wonder what others will think. Well, she didn't say it, a man named Ken Ellis of the London Reader's Digest told her. 

Ken explained to me why everybody over here hates the new money. It has to do with the Englishman's need to be different. The decimal system is much simpler than the old ha'penny-tupenny-guinea-tenner-tanner system, but the old money was theirs; no other country had it and nobody else could understand it. He said they hate entering the Common Market for the same reason. They don't want to be part-of-Europe, they want to be separate, different, set apart. He illustrated this by quoting an old headline which has become a cliché joke over here. During a spell of bad weather when the whole island was enveloped in fog, one English newspaper headline read: FOG ISOLATES CONTINENT.

So what do you think? Particularly in light of Brexit.

And now it is summer!

 At 10:58 this morning in the eastern US, the sun entered Cancer and summer began!

We have had the slowest, wettest, coolest spring in ages! The trees opened and blossomed at the usual time, but the plants have just waited patiently, more patiently than I!, for sunshine. I have written my tale o' woe about our plants, and it continued. The second planting of tomato plants look awful after waiting to go into the ground. The cukes we planted are all dead. The squash is hanging on. A couple of planted tomatoes "might" make it. And the basil looks pretty sickly. Just too cool, with way too little sun. The past few days the sun has COME BACK, and the flowers are happy, happy. The local farmers, both vegetable and flower, have had a hard time. Everything's late, but all should be fine now. Picked up strawberries today. 

For supper I'll be making the first strawberry shortcake of the season.

Just before I wrote this post, I read the following in The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street. Helene Hanff says:

"... every time I eat strawberries here [in England] I think of the English clergyman who remarked:

'Doubtless God could have made a better berry than the strawberry and doubtless God never did.' "

Quote du jour from Keeping The Faith

 In the wonderful movie Keeping The Faith, Anne Bancroft says:

"Our Lady's Bedstraw, the most poetic herb."

I am wild about this plant. It grows all over Windy Poplars Farm and I keep it all. I'm sure some see it as a weed, but I think it is wonderful. I've read that it was (is?) put in the mattresses of women in labor. I just love that.

This is growing between two terrace steps!

And this among the daylilies.

Chickens

I don't think I wrote about the chicks we got last spring. Because we still had quite a few from five years before that, we got only 10.  

Our chickens have always had daily free access to the outdoors from the barn, but until a few years ago, they never ventured outside the pasture fence. They started getting through that fence and coming across the lawn. I even put up a sign that said "chicken crossing". 

Here are a couple of them in mid-July 2020.

We never feared predators because none have ever been around; the very occasional coyote, but never near the barn.

This spring something got all but three chickens. There were no distress noises. There was no sign of attack anywhere. We just don't know whether the killer was from the sky or the earth. I am amazed that Nebby the donkey who is very protective didn't raise an alarm. Perhaps she was out further in the pasture. We'll never know. 

We decided to get some more because three chickens don't provide too many eggs. We've gotten from 1-3 a day since the disappearance. 

The Dominiques which we've always had were not available, so we got Speckled Sussex. While the Dominique is considered America's first breed, the Sussex has a long history in England and came to this country around 100 years ago. It was a Roman breed way back. 

They were born on Wednesday, and we picked them up at the Post Office yesterday!

And today

We ordered 15, but they always include some extras in case any die on the way, which happily we've never had happen, so our total is 18, and with the 3 in the barn, 21 chickens! So out of sadness, something good and joyful has come. They are so adorable. Sussex chickens are supposed to be quite docile and friendly with people. 

Tom has moved the original three into a stall that cannot be gotten into by predators, and is working on a new big, big stall for all of them. They will not be going out. They will have all the mod-cons, as the British say. Perhaps in another year, he will build a run outside their home covered completely so they will be safe. No more wandering chickens. 

Quote du jour/Call The Midwife - Season 12, episode one, last words

 As spoken by Vanessa Redgrave:

"We are more enmeshed in others' lives than we imagine. We are all somebody's memory, someone's joy or their regret. We are the weavers of each other's cloth, the keepers of our fellow travelers in time. 

Change is not a threat. It is a chance, and if we embrace it, we can begin again."

I wanted to put up a picture of Vanessa but wasn't sure about rights, so I decided not to. If you go here, you may see a very recent one.