Date Bars

Clematis - May 2012

The Spirit of '76

This is one of my favorite photographs!  My grandmother is on the far right with the flute, her best friend Mae Grubbs is on the far left with the drum and the girl in the middle holding the flag is noted as being M.D..  The photo was taken in 1926 when my grandmother was in boarding school at St. Mildred's Academy in Laurel, Maryland.  She notes on the back of the photo that it was taken on June 9th, 1926 when she was 15 years & 6 months old.  The girls were doing their own patriotic version of the famous "Spirit of '76" painting depicting the American soldiers of the revolution.  I treasure it!

The mail's here ...

So True!

Thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.  

E.E. Cummings 

Australian Finches

This pretty notecard was sent to me at college in 1980 by Mildred (my step-grandmother).  She dated it "Wed. Oct. 1st" and writes inside:

"Here I am on a very rainy miserable day scratching a little note to you to say hi and hope the weather is better there.  I know we needed rain real bad but I think we had enough for now?  Well, it sure was a welcome to the farmers and rivers that ran dry and what all.  I might have told you about a little white mama cat who has litter after litter and didn't belong to anyone although I have been feeding her and her three little children?  I finally was able to take her to my house and have gotten her to the vets along with her little white female kitten who got real sick outdoors one rainy night.  I'm going to have them both spayed.  Mama cat is pregnant again and got real big although Dr. Johns said he could operate on her.  This would have been her fifth litter and she is so small and helpless.  I had tried for about a year to take her but she was so wild.  I also have her two sons in my house.  One is yellow style and the other is white with big patches of gray stripe and a striped tail.  Well, so much for the new addition.  Hoping you can find some use for this little check.  I remain with love always, Mildred"

Oh we would definitely have found a use for the check no matter how much it was worth!  Mildred was a very kind woman and she loved cats as is obvious from her note.  Mama cat was lucky to have crossed paths with her! 

Coconut Fingers

Dad - early 1960s

This photo of my Dad was taken in the beautiful Blue Ridge mountains sometime in the early 1960s.  What a great guy!  My mother made the comment the other day that if she had to use one word to sum up my father it would be "fun".  And she's absolutely right ... he was fun to be around and as good natured as they come.  We think of him every day and miss him terribly. 

Happy Father's Day!!

So True!

It is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all.

Laura Ingalls Wilder

Brickle Crunch Cookies

Me - mid 1960s

Muddy Lily after chasing frogs in the pond - April 2012

Petunia - April 2012

What we say to dogs ...