Category Archives: Country Living

Autumn color

These hydrangeas spend their summer in cool blue bloom, then change their wardrobe with the season just like magic!

Our trees tend to be a bit monochromatic fading into pale green and gold or just oak brown so I really enjoy the lasting color changing in these plants to compliment them.

We had a glorious drive to a farm stand through fields of grains harvested and fields of soybeans and fields corn still waiting. And although we went for apples, it was the pumpkins and other squash that steal the show with color and form. White, orange, blue, pink…

Pink!

And such shapes to stir imaginations – Cinderella’s pumpkin – ah, for a fairy godmother to touch this one!

Back in our own yard, I find a few soft golden fern fronds.

Sarah Helen Whitman wrote A Still Day in Autumn, it begins –

I love to wander through the woodlands hoary, In the soft light of an autumnal day, When summer gathers up her robes of glory, And, like a dream of beauty, glides away.

And so October ends and the freshness of a new month stretches out before us bringing ever changing days.

The naming of plants is a serious matter!

I grew up calling this Autumn Clematis. Dad grew it on a trellis in the back yard and I loved the luxurious bloom and the amazing fragrance. I finally have a plant descendant from that vine growing well and blooming this summer.

A number of years ago, I was gifted with a 1939 edition of The Gardener’s Bed Book. Richardson Wright’s language is a bit flowery at times as he takes the reader through the months. September 9 he wrote on Virgin’s Bower, Clematis paniculata. “...even the Latin of it is pretty.”

“Early September sees its stars appearing — here a star and there a star, as the light of the heavens twinkle through dusky mists. And when that Milky Way has come down to dwell with us, it brings also a divine fragrance.”

I had never heard the name Virgin’s Bower so I searched to see if it is the plant in my garden.

Shockingly, one man’s poetic beauty is another gardener’s invasive nuisance! Two different plants with the same common names of Sweet Autumn Clematis or Virgin’s Bower, one native, the other an import from the 1880’s.

My search brought be to this post of beautiful photos and a “cautionary tale”. After reading it, I will be pruning my plant before those seeds ripen!

Cinnamon Coffee Cake

I can’t think that I will ever be a food blogger but I want to share the recipe that Mom used for her coffee cake. I like it anytime but especially in fall and winter when the cinnamon scents the house with warmth. Her recipe came from an old Spry Shortening cookbook. Spry is no longer made and Crisco shortening is what I use. It is fun to make these two cakes and give one away.

I found this link to the original recipe for “Queen Cake”. I have no memory of mom making it as a layer cake with the filling mentioned. By the time I came along, she had perfected it as single layer coffee cakes with this cinnamon topping:

4 Tablespoons granulated sugar

2 Tablespoons flour

2 teaspoons cinnamon

Then work in 2 Tablespoons room temperature butter with a fork till crumbly and spread over batter before baking.

I’ve increased the measurements a bit (Multiplied by 2!)

If I’m not giving one of the cakes away, I bake all of the batter in a 9 x 13 inch pan for 20 minutes and find it done. Be sure to test your cake!

And, as an older generation of cooks wrote, “I hope you have good luck with this!”

Childhood Days

Memories of childhood days long forgotten can be stirred to the surface sometimes by a simple thing. This one came from a brief exchange remembering the early days when Mom went back to work. A kind lady several houses down the street from ours watched our younger sister after kindergarten till we got home from our schools. I remembered that she sometimes had a simple treat to offer me – sugared butter bread!

As I thought about her house with its broad front porch complete with swing and its bright, cheery kitchen, a snatch of song came. As I waited on it, the song seemed to come from the old record player in her living room and I stepped back in time listening.

Tra-la-la, tweedlee dee dee it gives me a thrill

To wake up in the morning to the mockin’ bird’s trill

Tra-la-la, tweedlee dee dee There’s peace and goodwill

You’re welcome as the flowers on Mockin’bird Hill

“Mockingbird Hill”. I loved that song and the cheerfulness of it all, imagining storybook cottages as I twirled about. Today, as I queued it up to play, I realized that I live that girlish dream!

It’s all different and yet the same and my heart is filled with gladness.

I wish you peace and goodwill from our hill in the country where Mockingbirds sing and nest outside our window.

Ordinary days of summer

Early morning view — a little ritual of each day — to look and see the wonder of the sky first thing.

The sun comes up and washes the butterfly bush in light and they come and drink deeply.

And then, in the middle of the day, they come…having no shame, they come and taunt me with their presence, reminding me of the havoc they wrecked in the gardens through the night. Boldly lapping even the birds’ seed from the feeder. Huffing at my complaint. Think me mean if you will but I cannot love them.

A fancy gift

Many years my older sister gifts me with a lovely perennial plant to try in my garden. Last year she found one with my name. How fun is that? The name of this beauty is “Dublin Elaine” which is rather a play on words as the flower itself is a double and it is also considered a re-bloomer – a double season. This daylily is now blooming after most of the others have finished so it is quite spectacular showing off its fancy ruffled edges in the mostly green border.

I caught this bloom today in early morning sun; so beautiful!

Queenly beauty for only a day

Such beauty for only a few hours and then gone. This year the day lilies have had quite a bloom season. Each day in the garden is so different. I have found it very difficult to photograph this red Pardon Me, but this light was about perfect for it. So many bloom stalks and buds this year will make it a joy for some time yet.

This blosson just looks so happy to be spending itself for its Creator’s pleasure.

The last of the Gentle Shepherd blooms for this year, so exquisite!

The common orange daylily. Common only because they are plentiful; this orange is always a welcome sight along the highways and I tuck some along the edges of the hedgerow here. One somehow got to be front and center in the daylily bed where it makes quite a statement and makes me smile.

The Stella D’Oro’s are finished for now. I hope they will re-bloom this year, they don’t always.

Consider how the wild flowers grow. they do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.Luke 12:27

Through a lens

Earth’s crammed with heaven,

and every common bush afire with God;

But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Recently I read this post by Chuck Summers on his need to take photographs. I felt a kindred spirit as I too can feel a need to step outside even just my kitchen door and capture something wonderful – a blossom, a darkening sky, a tendril, a bird or squirrel – reminders that one day is never the same as the one before nor is an hour or even a minute.

And bees do not always sleep in a hosta bloom.

Everything can change in an instant. Possibilities abound! Somehow, entering into the world of photography in my small way enables me to engage my whole day with different eyes. As Chuck Summers says, “There is something extremely therapeutic about spending time in the midst of God’s Creation.”

And at the end of day, I sense the words we sang at every campfire closing –

Day is done, gone the sun

From the lakes, from the hills, from the sky

All is well, safely rest

God is nigh.

Amen

Wren Day

Things seemed very quiet when I opened the door around 6 am. Then Momma Wren showed up and breakfast was delivered, and received with the usual enthusiasm!

Then I noticed one of the nestlings at “the door”. I decided to go out and sit near in case this was The Day.

I didn’t have long to wait! What a thrill to watch first one and then another fly about seven feet into the oakleaf hydrangea! The next youngster was unceremoniously pushed by the eager one behind him and down they both fluttered into the shrubbery and then took a short flight into another hydrangea nearby. Such a privilege to watch the story unfold!

I know, they all look alike! But this one seemed more chubby. And reluctant to leave the nest. Mom coaxed with chatter and a bit more breakfast but it was back and forth to the doorway.

Then I watched amazed as its siblings flew up onto the tree trunk and join the chatter of encouragement! You can see the tiny one on the trunk while mom sits on the roof top.

Five to ten minutes of indecision and then flight! And the nest is empty.

Chatter continued through the day and from the lower level windows we see the parents feeding their fledglings gathered in the branches and stems of the hydrangea. I’ve read that the parents will continue to feed the young for about two weeks.

And finally the quiet of late evening after such an exciting day! In the many years we have had bird houses, I’ve never seen any actually fledge before. Such an exciting day for me too!

Peony Spring

The white blossom seemed like an explosion of petals, its golden heart glowing in the early morning light. Then later, pink blooms open and I blink memory seeing little girl tutus in the frills.