County Fair

Not even two years ago, after we closed on some of our land and home here in Kentucky in late August 2007, we returned to New Hampshire and went to our state fair held in Hopkinton over Labor Day weekend. The day was clear, warm, and wonderful and it was still a few days before the boys returned to school for what would be their last semester. We knew our time in New Hampshire was waning and what better way to celebrate all things good about summer? We'd never been to our state fair before and it was just right on the midway and attractions while emphasizing 4-H projects and all things agricultural. And yes, I even blogged about it (the above photo of the tall man and our boys, who have grown even taller themselves in the past 23 months, was taken at that fair, and yes, I forgot my camera yesterday–kick, kick!).

So far we've been to two county fairs in Kentucky and I'm sure they are all different. There are also so many counties in this state–too many to name or count on all hands and feet (New Hampshire has seven). I suppose I expected more of an agricultural emphasis at the county fairs we've attended–Casey and Pulaski–especially as there is still so much active farming in our region. But they were both small fairs with few displays of jams, preserves, crafts and produce and no animals in sight. Then I realized that perhaps that is more at the state level.

But nevertheless, yesterday when coming home from the latest Harry Potter movie with the boys, we did something quite spontaneous (which for two middle-aged parents isn't always possible and is increasingly more rare). We saw that it was the last day of the Pulaski County Fair in Somerset and, better still, a sign saying "Tractor and Truck Pull Tonite." Well, that was all we needed. For $10 per Pond we got into the fair and had unlimited access to the rides and attractions (rides alone can be so expensive if on a per-ride basis). The tractor pull (the trucks came out later) was surprisingly exciting and oddly addictive. [And my son Henry and I decided we were in a live-action episode of MTV's "King of the Hill"]

The midway was manageable and not too crowded and there's nothing like a riot of noise, color, lights, action and the occasional giddy scream to put a smile on your face. I rode a few rides with the kids but nothing prepared me for this twisting, spinning up and down thing, rather like one of those black octopus rides that were always my favorite. [However, I'm certain now this operator had this particular ride cranked to the max.] Our boys were game but we couldn't all fit in one car. So I sat near them in the next one in the cluster of three cars. As I was solo, the ride operator decided to put a teenage boy in with me. This boy was far from happy about the idea but his friends thought it was the funniest thing they'd ever seen. I told him I was a kid at heart and that I promised I wouldn't scream. (He still wasn't really amused or even that friendly.) PHOTO: Our boys at the Cheshire County Fair in New Hampshire, August 2005

Well, the ride started and talk about G-force! Let's just say that if I'd been on it any longer, all of my reproductive parts would have likely centrifuged down into my toes and I would have shape-shifted into some gelatinous goo. Or, perhaps I might have just spun out of time and gone back to the 1970s when roller coaster rides at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio were just a matter of course when my father brought my brothers and I every summer. Needless to say, I am not a youngster any more. Within seconds of take-off I was screaming loudly while trying to watch my boys to make sure they were not getting sick. I could catch a glimpse of my husband's straw hat as we whizzed up and down and all around. When we finally stopped–and I was hoping that moment would come soon–there he was with a big smile on his face. I managed to get out of the car but was rather wobbly for a few minutes. Then, off to the Ferris wheel. That ride was averted as the lightning was returning and a bit too close for wanting to be on the highest point at the fair. PHOTO: The Tilt-A-Whirl, one of the oldest rides on the midway, at the Hopkinton State Fair in New Hampshire, 2007

So home we went: happy, tired and feeling like summer all the way down to our toes.

A Kentucky Jaunt

Oh what an adventure this evening. The best kind–errands and a destination but along the way you aren't exactly sure what you might see or who you might find. I have often kicked myself, and I mean right in the road, fist on car kind of "kicking," when I've gone off on errands and have forgotten my camera. I've learned to throw it in the car no matter what. This afternoon I was not disappointed. As my boys and husband are on a trip out west to visit a relative, I thought I'd bring our Aunt Cynthia along, too, who, bless her, made this great trek to Kentucky along with us, and have a "girls' outing" for a change.


Agricultural equipment, like this hay rake, has a beauty as well as purpose.

When I have my camera with me, I'm on alert. It's as if my inner eye is on overload and sees things in a different light or angle. Here where we have such vistas and changing skies and variable light, and scenes that transport you back to a time before you were even born–but that you know deep down in your soul–you may never pass this way again. I like being a tourist in my own land. Part of it is because even though we've been living here for eighteen months, visiting for well over the past three years, and completely moved (as in our old house sold) for almost a year, I still do feel like a tourist at times. A more settled tourist. Yet, wherever I go lately I feel I need to document my life in photographs. Perhaps it is keeping a blog for over four years: I often think about what I'd like to write and how I'd like to illustrate it. So, let me just say here now, thank you for having come along on the journey with me and here's a big "shout out" and warm welcome to all the new readers here in the pantry. I hope you will continue to visit.

Tonight, in addition to the usual philosophizing, I've included a photo essay with captions for your enjoyment. If I can't be somewhere myself, I'm a contented "armchair traveler." I sometimes feel like Macon, the travel writer in Anne Tyler's 1985 novel, The Accidental Tourist, who preferred the comfort, order and routine of his own home while writing travel guides from the safe sanctum of his study–and whose sister liked to alphabetize her spices and canned goods in her kitchen. I can somewhat relate to both of them:

“As much as (Macon) hated the travel—he loved the writing—the virtuous delights of organizing a disorganized country, stripping away the inessential and the second-rate, classifying all that remained in neat, terse paragraphs..."

"Maybe he couldn't get his guidebook organized, but organizing the household was another matter entirely. There was something fulfilling about that, something consoling–or more than consoling, it gave him the sense of warding off a danger. Over the next week or so, he traveled through the rooms setting up new systems. He radically rearranged all the kitchen cupboards, tossing out the little bits of things in sticky, dusty bottles that Sarah hadn't opened in years."

–Anne Tyler, The Accidental Tourist

I don't hate to travel or to visit in the world, whether near or far, but sometimes I dislike it. I have to be in the mood to leave my home, my nest, my familiar. I believe many women can understand that feeling. However, I so enjoy writing about the world around me from this new place where I am now–"organizing a disorganized" layering of thought–here at this point of midlife, betwixt and between my former home and settling into the new, where I am both comfortable and on a new cusp of something exciting and also something so comfortably ordinary. I'm not certain what, but I'm enjoying the journey just as I'm planning on "travel(ing) through (my) rooms setting up new systems."



Aunt Cynthia and I started our late afternoon journey on an infrequent drive down to our creek farm and over to the next ridge. It's a short cut, but steep and treacherous at times so it is "weather-depending." I saw a heron (Great Blue? I'm not certain as he was rather gray) and was able to get within fifteen feet of him by walking quietly. He didn't seem to be bothered that I was taking a lot of photographs, either. We finally left him alone to fish and went along our way.









Baldock Chapel, constructed in 1895 in Casey County, has seen better days. It hasn't been used as a sanctuary for many years and, until recently, much of its contents remained inside, as if the "Rapture" had come and taken everyone away during a Sunday morning service. Now the only ones who worship there are the pigeons in the belfry.

Two rabbits were playing together in a ditch and paused long enough to let me take their photos from my car window.


This big old Brahma bull had enough posing for one sitting. He is standing in front of Green River Knob that straddles Casey and Pulaski Counties and is the tallest point in Kentucky west of the higher Appalachians in the eastern part of the state. And yes, just like Babe the Blue Ox, he is bigger than Green River Knob!




We stopped at Middleburg Dairy Freeze for supper and then Aunt Cynthia had a butterscotch sundae. While there, by chance, we met up with a new friend (and "In the Pantry" reader) and her husband. We both discovered Shelley's Middleburg Dairy Freeze, and her delicious "Middleburgers," on our friend Teresa's blog. A few weeks ago, Teresa wrote about the place in such glowing terms that I surprised my husband and boys with supper out on the very day she wrote it (July 3).




Summer fun and smiles all around at our first visit to the Middleburg Dairy Freeze on July 3: excellent cheeseburgers, onion rings, French fries, soft serve ice cream, even corn dogs and real old-fashioned lemonade. Who needs the fair?

We had just been saying that we missed a good place to get burgers and soft serve ice cream when Teresa blogged about it. "Ask and ye shall receive..." Sometimes, yes, it's that simple, isn't it?



A rare photo with my boys as I'm usually the family photographer.


Heirloom tomatoes on an Old Order Mennonite porch in Casey County–I stopped to get some goat milk on our way home and they offered some to me along with a large, ripe canteloupe. Just before that, I dropped some tomato plants, a New Hampshire rhubarb root, and some Kentucky strawberry plants from our garden at my friend Teresa's house. In September, I'll hopefully have tomatoes like these!


Warning! I break for root cellars...more on these very soon. I've had a blog rooting around in here for a while now...and on that note, I bid you goodnight!

Blackberries: "...there is this happy tongue."

This being our first full summer in Kentucky, we are enjoying the wild blackberries of July and how they are as abundant here as wild blueberries are back in New Hampshire. Spilling over hedgerows, coming up in brambly places in abandoned fields, lining old roads, blackberries are a Kentucky gem and it's no wonder one of its famous country cakes has to do with blackberry jam: Blackberry Jam Cake with Caramel icing–yum!). PHOTO: Multitudes of blackberries grow along hedgerows on our ridge.

Of course you have to contend with briers, chiggers, and the occasional lurking snake but it is worth it–especially when your husband and boys go off to pick for several hours, giving you a quiet house, and after you offer to clean and freeze the berries upon their return! [Besides, the promise of blackberry jam slathered on a buttered biscuit or a winter-time blackberry pie or cobbler is enough to send them running for the hills in pursuit...] PHOTO: Blackberries in an old tin lard pail, one that my husband used as a lunch pail for several decades.

Well, pantry friends, this is my third blackberry-related post at In the Pantry in the past four years. All week I've been wanting to blog about blackberries and I had this subsurface feeling that I'd written about them before. My old way to find that out was to "Google" the subject and my own blog name and see if I got any hits on my blog. Now I'm delighted to have discovered a new Blogspot feature so I've just added a "Google" search of my blog (with related links that have been included in blog entries) that you will find on the left column of In the Pantry. You can use it to discover things for yourself if you don't want to troll through the archives: just enter a name, favorite author, subject or any word you want and it will come up in a separate box as to how many entries at In the Pantry there are related to it. How cool is that? PHOTO: Pure leaf lard is a perfect compliment to a blackberry pie so it is fitting that the berries were picked in old lard tins.

So this morning it was handy to discover two other blogs that I'd written before on this topic –Berry Season (written about wild black raspberries in our last full New Hampshire summer) and Blackberry Winter (written during our first Kentucky spring)–which means that, technically, I can keep this one much shorter. Yeah, right... [I've rediscovered, also, that earlier blogs have a different format and I need to go back and edit them, especially to include links, now one of many handy design and functional features that were lacking in early blog days.] We'll see...brevity is not always my strong point unless assigned an article that can be no more than 700 words, for example. Then that is a delightful challenge for this writer.

I made blackberry jam yesterday and I am so embarrassed. My Mennonite friends told me that the reason jams and jellies don't often gel is that you must use cane sugar, even if you are also using pectin (I was using Dutch Gel, something I've not tried before, in fact, I've never used any pectin in my grape jam). Who knew that plain old "sugar" is usually beet sugar? So look for sugar bags that specifically say "cane sugar." [Although it may just be the jam-maker in this case.] So I bought cane sugar just for that purpose and of course when I went to get sugar I went directly to my sugar tin by habit. Well, needless to say, from 2 quarts of blackberries, now I have three pints of blackberry "sauce" (oh well, it might be good on lemon cake or poured on pancakes this winter). I am a stubborn one and will try again and post my results. For now I am thankful that my husband and I froze the other several gallons of their picking efforts. [Grape jam I have made many times but it also has a lot of natural pectin: here is my blog about that process.]

For all of you history and farm foodies out there, I can’t say enough good things about a book I discovered last year, Food and Everyday Life on Kentucky Family Farms–1920-1950 by John Van Willigen and Anne Van Willigen [University Press of Kentucky: 2006]. Here they talk about the origins of blackberry jam cake, something I have yet to make myself: “A classic rural Kentucky dessert was jam cake with caramel frosting. These dense, flavorful cakes were associated with Christmas and were often given as gifts. Some women even baked them in order to sell them.” [p.30] Towards the holidays, when I’m baking again, I will post the recipe from this book and more about its history, as well as my own attempts. [Our family is taking a “low carb” hiatus for a time and while it is paying off, I miss baking! Perhaps, too, this is why berries have become such a treasure for us now as they are healthy, delicious and naturally sweet.]

I have included, also for a third time here at In the Pantry, a favorite poem about picking blackberries by belated poet Mary Oliver. It is from her 1984 Pulitzer-prize winning book of poetry, American Primitive. If you have a chance to read that collection or any of her other poems, you will revel, as I do, in her words and descriptions of the natural rhythm of her days, mostly from her own rural experiences. They are spare and luminous poems. Just as with many pantries, I want to live in them.

August

When the blackberries hang
swollen in the woods, in the brambles
nobody owns, I spend

all day among the high
branches, reaching
my ripped arms, thinking

of nothing, cramming
the black honey of summer
into my mouth; all day my body

accepts what it is. In the dark
creeks that run by there is
this thick paw of my life darting among

the black bells, the leaves; there is
this happy tongue.

~ Mary Oliver

Bookshop Finds

Farm memoirs or farm novels, usually by women, are among the kinds of books I collect, as well as the back-t0-the-land genre. And always just when I thought I had them all...three more are found.

It's a tough time economically for used bookshops, too, and on a recent trip back to New Hampshire and returning through Ohio I went to too many bookshops doing my best to stimulate the economy. And alright, I admit it, I trolled a few antique malls in Medina and Holmes County, Ohio, too...but more about some good affordable antique finds in another blog. I can't resist a used bookshop (and I'm calling them so here because I think of a "bookshop" as something old and slightly rumply with a certain character–and a "bookstore" as an overlit book place you'd find in a mall or "big box" type megabookstore in the homogeneous suburbs).

A particular favorite back in New Hampshire is Old Number Six Book Depot owned by Ian and Helen Morison in Henniker as well as Books by the Lake, just up the road in Bradford. I've found a lot of Tasha Tudor books there, and other New England regional books and cookbooks, especially. [If there is a particular Tasha Tudor you are looking for it is worthwhile to call them.] Another is the used book section of The Toadstool, a fabulous independent bookshop (and yes, they still exist) in several locations in the Monadnock region where we lived. Of course, their new book section is always alluring, too.


Cookbooks–a woman can never have enough cookbooks! (No matter what her husband says...) Although that book on the Pennsylvania Dutch? A history for my husband (and I picked up loads of books for he and the children, too!).

There was a lovely book written in the 1970s called 84 Charing Cross Road, by Helene Hanff, about the actual correspondence between a woman in the United States and a very respectable bookshop owner in London. There is a certain romance about an old bookshop and as a student in London many years ago, I enjoyed browsing in shops there, too. [Here is a blog entry that I posted last September over at Cupcake Chronicles about "English Bookshops"] And who hasn't seen the movie Crossing Delancey, based on a play, from 1988 (with a great soundtrack by the Roches)? You will enjoy a romance between a woman who works in a New York bookshop in Greenwich Village and a pickle vendor who, after he cleans his hands of the pickle juice each night, smoothes them with vanilla. It is a lovely movie.


Janice Holt Giles, a Kentucky author, is hard to find in local bookshops so I was pleased to find an early edition of her second novel, Miss Willie, for only a few dollars back in New England. The Soujourner, by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, is a later novel about a farmer and his estranged brother. Hal Borland wrote a lot of back-to-the-land books, like another favored author, Lois Bromfield.

Here in Kentucky, whenever I'm in Berea, I go to Robie & Robie Fine Books. College towns are often great places to find good used bookshops and Berea is no exception. The Casey County Library in Kentucky, and many other libraries across the country, have "Friends of the Library" groups that often maintain excellent used bookshops or have annual book sales.


I'm a Barbara Pym fan and discovered this biography by her friend and executor, Hazel Holt, that I had not read before. Jane Kenyon is a favorite poet and Red House, a memoir about an historic New England house in the same family since it was built, is a book I've been wanting to read since it came out.

The good thing about buying a used book is that you are recycling. The "bad" thing, I guess, is that the original author does not get a share of a resale–just like if an artist were to sell a painting for $1,000 and then it gets resold years later for $1 million. The artist gets none of that inflation. I've read that eBay sales are down or that vendors are increasingly dissatisfied. Maybe it is the economy but perhaps, also, people just missed getting out there and hunting for stuff in shops, picking it up and savoring it. There are some things that the computer will never quite replicate. In this era of Amazon "Kindle" I can not even imagine doing without a book, new or old, to linger over in a shop, to treasure in my hands and perhaps later on my bookshelves.

PS Maybe Amazon is hurting, too. On my splash page just now for publishing my blog, there was a usable $20 off at Amazon coupon. But don't worry, I'm not at all tempted. Well, maybe just a smidge...

Wash Day

For once I am actually doing laundry on a Monday and it has been productive in others ways as well. Multi-tasking up a storm here on the ridge, although, alas, not outside much on this glorious day (hopefully a bit of time in the garden after supper–people tend to garden here in summer during the longer, cooler hours "of an evening," as they say). I got caught up with most of our laundry on the weekend but today I washed those things I wanted to hang outside on my old Victorian drying rack, a precursor to the modern ones. The day is just hot–and not humid–and perfect for drying clothes.

I have been in touch with Project Laundry List and they've invited me to contribute as a "Clothes Pegger" to their blog [For my first contribution, today, click here.] I have also been assigned two clothesline-related articles for Old-House Interiors and Early Homes about the subject and history of laundry–and the mighty clothesline in our domestic past and present (more about those articles when published in the next month and later this year, with links). It's been a productive "wash day"!

In the meantime, I have been gathering clothesline and laundry-related quotes and, horrors, just realized that I blogged about Wash Day already on my other blog, Cupcake Chronicles, way back in March 2008. [I was either having a "senior moment" yesterday or a complete brain freeze but you will find on that blog some more illuminations on the subject of laundry and all things good.]

Along with "several" wonderful friends in New Hampshire, I contribute the occasional blog posting to Cupcake Chronicles. Our blog started two years ago this August as an off-shoot to our newly-formed book group that is now virtual (although we are privileged to meet in person from time to time). If you enjoy the posts here at In the Pantry you might also enjoy what we talk about at Cupcake Chronicles–not just books but all manner of topics: food, home, recipes, the odd musing or rant, and well, yes, most blog entries usually integrate books in some way. It is a welcome conversation and one way to stay connected with dear friends through the miles. [I post both as Catherine, my alter ego "Della T. Lutes"–who likes home-related discussions–and a few others, and you can click directly on most of my archived posts (some may not be) here or if you go to the right sidebar on the Cupcake page and just click on "Della." I know that you will also enjoy the blogs of Peaches LaRue, Edie and Queenie.]

I will be back soon this week with "more blogs about pantries and food" (to paraphrase Talking Heads), root cellars, and even pie–oh yes, pie. I also have some new monthly mini-columns–"Pantry Cupboards" and another one I wish to introduce–on similar topics and will invite your participation. Right now, I'm on deadline for an article (tomorrow) and must also go start something for supper!

However, I will leave you with this wonderful quote from Mildred Armstrong Kalish's book, Little Heathens–Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression [Bantam: 2008] The Cupcakes read it this past spring and there were moments I was reading it it in bed and laughing so hard my husband thought I was really losing it. This memoir has detailed descriptions of farm life growing up in the Great Depression as well as many memorable stories. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it.

From the chapter, "Wash Day" (which was always on Monday):

Is there any sense in trying to make the modern-day reader understand the immense satisfaction we experienced in viewing our bright, clean wash arranged in such a meticulous fashion on the clothesline? Heaven knows we had more than enough to do without this added display of superhousewifery. But the whole ritual was a matter of pride.

There was a rumor in Garrison that a wily housewife, whose husband drove a long-haul semi truck, resulting in frequent and erratic absences, chose the clothesline method for signaling her handsome, blond lover. When her husband was in residence, she pinned the belt of his pants to the line; when he was absent, she pinned the legs of the pants to the line so they hung upside down. I never knew whether this was true or not, but it did make for good gossip.

There were a few years when the women in Garrison hung their panties and bras inside a pillowcase to conceal them from the eyes of any lascivious males who happened to pass by while these unmentionables were drying. But people made fun of the practice and it was soon abandoned. I don’t recall that we ever engaged in that bit of silly primness on the farm.

In the summertime the clothes would sometimes dry so fast that by the time we got the second basket out to the line, the first batch was already dry. We removed the clothes from the line as soon as they dried, being careful not to wrinkle the sweet-smelling, deliciously warm, sun-dried garments. We, meaning Grandma, Mama, my little sister, and I, would immediately put the sheets and pillowcases back on the beds, looking forward to the time when we could lie down on them...

To crawl between crisp sheets, warm and fresh from the sun and air, at the end of a bone-wearying day, is one of the true soul-restoring luxuries of life, which hardly anyone of the current generation will ever know.

The Right to Dry

Dresses hang at an Old Order Mennonite farm in Casey County, Kentucky.

I was going to blog about root cellars today (very soon!) but instead find myself on this humid Sunday, with the laundry more or less caught up, thinking about clotheslines. The "Right to Dry" movement is not new, a few years old now, and is probably not news to many readers. But this morning it was news to me. [Photo by an unknown photographer, taken during the 1930s, perhaps WPA sponsored.]

While watching some of CBS Sunday Morning with my coffee I learned that there is actually a movement out there to banish clotheslines from suburban developments and other areas. Project Laundry List is an entire "green" movement (and there is even a blog for "clothes peggers"). I was surprised that there even needed to be a movement lobbying for "the right to dry" and hang up clotheslines, especially in this new era of conserving our resources and dollars.



Alexander Lee, director of Project Landry List, which is based in Concord, New Hampshire (another reason I'm surprised I didn't know before, as Concord is about an hour from our former home), told The Boston Globe in an article written in 2008 that, in America, the oft-considered offensive clothesline has an image problem that is not shared in other parts of the world. "We want Martha [Stewart] and Oprah [Winfrey] to make the clothesline into a pennant of eco-chic," he said, "instead of a flag of poverty."


Curtains flap in the breeze at a farm outside of Hancock, New Hampshire.

I've always seen the beauty in laundry hanging and billowing on a clothesline (in fact, an old-fashioned laundry room is as near and dear to me as a pantry). Years ago, at a farm where I lived for a while (not the farm where I grew up) in the former servants' quarters at this sprawling Victorian farmstead, there was a clothes drying yard on the northwest side of the house between the kitchen ell of the main house and large barn (and just behind the connected annex/woodshed of which my apartment was atop). I loved hanging my laundry out whenever I could and would bring it home from the laundromat in town just to do so. The splendid, seemingly private, view of Mount Monadnock sprawling before me to the northwest was only part of that experience for me. The yard was also private, as so many laundry yards once were. [And yes, somewhere there are photos...in a box...someday!]


One of the highlights of writing and styling The Pantry was finding great spaces like this early 1900s farmhouse laundry room, still in use, which we included in the book even thought it isn't technically a pantry (a "laundry pantry," if you will). I styled it using what was already on hand and still in use there. [And I want one!]

A few years before that I lived and worked at the Gibson House, a Victorian house museum in Boston's Back Bay, where I was resident guide (and lived in the old fifth floor servant's quarters, up five svelte-inducing flights of stairs–and yes, I guess I have a thing for living in former servants' quarters!) for a few years in the 1980s. Some laundry may have been hung to dry in the service courtyard behind the kitchen near the back alley. Imagine laundry hanging in downtown Boston or any urban area today!


The laundry room at Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill in Harrodsburg, Kentucky (as above right, also).

But as for people seeing my laundry? Why not? I've peppered this blog entry today with other people's laundry that I have taken in recent years with my digital camera, like this photo, right, of laundry drying in front of the Sawyer Farm in Jaffrey, New Hampshire. The farm is near to the farm where I grew up and we've always been family friends–a place near and dear and still in the same family for five generations. [Their pantries are described in The Pantry.]

I also like to hang up duvets and air out bedding. There is nothing like a line-dried sheet: it has a certain smell and crispness to it and I liken it to having a field grown tomato ripened by the sun versus one in a hot house. They are not the same thing. That said, does anyone like towels hung on the line? I certainly don't but maybe it was a lack-of-using-fabric-softener kind of a thing.



The clothesline industry is big business, too. Lyman Orton, owner of one of my favorite stores in Vermont (and via catalogue), The Vermont Country Store, has seized upon the "Right to Dry" movement and sells many laundry products for outdoor drying and old-style care and washing. Also Lehman's in Kidron, Ohio (where I stopped on my way back from Akron, Ohio last month–Holmes County and environs, although increasingly more touristy in recent years, has been a favorite destination for us for the past two decades) has been selling clothesline and laundry-related products as long as they've been in business. ABOVE: Old Order Mennonite laundry hangs near a bell used to call in the troops for meals.


My friend Norma on wash day. Many Amish and Mennonites have large attached rooms to their kitchens that they use for washing and canning.

Many people I know in Kentucky–"plain people" and others–have a clothesline and some still wash their clothes by hand on their back porches. Double washtubs, galvanized tin tubs and washboards–and clotheslines of all varieties–are put to good use here and don't just serve as old-timey porch ornaments. There is a beauty to driving by a farmhouse and seeing a load of laundry on the line, even though there is little romance in actually doing laundry (but there is a calming purposefulness in the task, I will admit). Those who don't see that not only don't "get it," they clearly aren't farm girls or guys, now, are they?


"Monday is Wash Day." I don't recall when every day had a designated chore but what a great idea. Here are some laundry-related items in my laundry room.

I have collected clothesline and laundry paraphernalia for years: old wicker laundry baskets (one an old Shaker one given to me by a dear writer friend who even had her name penciled on it, perhaps for laundry sent out), clothespin bags in the style of dresses and pantaloons (back when they were affordable on eBay and still an occasionally affordable find when trolling in an antique shop), clothespins, laundry "stuff." You are probably wondering, as I am: does she have a clothesline now? The short answer is 'no' – we are waiting to put one in "when we build our new house" (a chorus of late). Right now, I am happy and grateful for my chicken house (which we designed to go onto a roll top and move up the hill when we do build...). Most available land around our place will soon be used for pasturing cattle. However, I might just have to put up a makeshift clothesline this year, maybe to the north of the chicken house on the island in the middle of our driveway loop. Already my porch rails are generally covered with things and I use several old clothes racks, too.



Here is a beautiful, spare poem by the belated poet, Jane Kenyon, who was married to former poet laureate Donald Hall. They lived for several decades in the old New Hampshire farmhouse that was his family home and are two of my favorite modern poets. Hall has also penned several memoirs and children's books, especially Ox-Cart Man and Lucy's Summer. [His current memoir is on my "books to read" list.] "Wash" is followed by the first and last stanzas of another of Kenyon's poems, "Wash Day." Like a true poet, she saw the beauty in the domestic and the every day. ABOVE: The preserved kitchen at the New Hampshire Farm Museum in Milton.

Wash

All day the blanket snapped and swelled
on the line, roused by a hot spring wind....
From there it witnessed the first sparrow,
early flies lifting their sticky feet,
and a green haze on the south-sloping hills.
Clouds rose over the mountain....At dusk
I took the blanket in, and we slept,
restless, under its fragrant weight.


Two vintage Old Order Mennonite quilts at a 2008 auction ~ wish I had bid!

Wash Day (first and last stanzas)

How it rained while you slept! Wakeful,
I wandered around feeling the sills,
followed closely by the dog and the cat.
We conferred, and left a few windows
open a crack.
Now the morning is clear
and bright, the wooden clothespins
swollen after the wet night.

How is it that every object in this basket
got to be inside out? There must be
a trickster in the hamper, a backward,
unclean spirit.
The clothes–the thicker
things–may not get dry by dusk.
The days are getting shorter....
You'll laugh, but I feel it–
some power has gone from the sun.

[For more laundry-related writings, click here.]

POSTSCRIPT ~ When The Pantry was accepted for publication by Gibbs Smith, Publishers, they sent me a lovely little book that they wanted me to use as reference for size, design and "look" for my book design and format. It is called The Clothesline by Irene Rawlings and Andrea Vansteenhouse (and is still available here). It captures the bliss and vintage nostalgia that many feel towards clotheslines and laundry things. It is one of many favorite domestic-themed books in my collection. ABOVE: Vintage photo of two girls in front of a clothesline from eBay (available for sale now).

Local Produce! Bring it!

Local peaches and plums from Harvey Hoover's expert orchard.

One of my favorite books from early childhood was an illustrated edition of Eugene Field's Victorian-era poem, The Sugar-Plum Tree. Another book in the same format and by the same author was a bedtime favorite, Wynken, Blynken and Nod, which also featured The Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat. [Readers of The Pantry might also note that I included a quote from Field on the very last page of the book, one of my favorite descriptions of why I love a pantry.] If we were entirely unpacked–one day!–I would be able to locate the book in an ideal world and photograph some of its lovely, memorable images. Perhaps you, too, have favorite childhood picture books that you'd look at for hours on end, before you could even read? What I loved about the book, especially, is that it made me crave fruits and berries, not candy or sweets (OK, well, I could have eaten the chocolate cat and gingerbread dog on many occasions!).

In our on-line book group over at Cupcake Chronicles, we've been reading food-related books this summer, starting with Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. She describes, in good detail and with recipes, her family's food journey in one year to eat more locally and sustainably from their Appalachian farmstead and environs. It is an admirable idea and involved her husband and daughter, too. As a mother and chief cook, I imagine it would have to involve the whole family, as it should.

Reading this book has made me think more about eating red, delicious strawberries in season and trying to buy, as much as possible, fruits and vegetables in season (and canning and freezing them for winter). It is a feat only possible with sacrifice and one I'd like to at least attempt. [Now I can better appreciate why citrus fruits were so precious to the early colonists and later pioneers.] We already shop locally for–and are starting to raise–most of our foods. My goal is to go to a big grocery store once a month, if necessary. [Another reason to have a pantry and root cellar! Sometime I will share our root cellar woes...]

We live near Casey County where there are abundant produce markets and auctions and even farmers who will often sell things right out of their patch. As of mid-July the summer squash, cukes, corn, beans, new potatoes, onions and tomatoes are in, as well as local peaches and plums. Lettuce and peas are May events here (into early June, if you're lucky, because of the heat that kicks in).

The strawberries are long gone, the local blueberries are dwindling but the wild blackberries, bring 'em! (We've found a thicket of them near one of our fields and will be heading there soon.) And soon there will be cantaloupe (or "mush melon" as they call it here, an altered version for "musk melon") and watermelon–lots and lots of watermelon! Summer apples are also starting to come in as well as local peaches and plums.



Last week I was even surprised to find rhubarb still at the local produce market at South Fork. I chopped it up, like celery, and threw it into quart bags in our freezer for winter pies, cobblers, maybe some jam or chutney, when or if I'm inspired. [While I was away in June, my friend Anna did the same thing for us–and for herself–with some rhubarb we had ordered from a local farmer.] In the meantime, I'm pleased that the clumps of rhubarb I dug from my old New Hampshire garden last year–offspring several times over of the rhubarb at the Gray Goose Farm where I grew up–is doing well in their pots in the shade, waiting for me to figure out where to put them! Now, that's patient rhubarb.



Last Friday, which seems to be working out for me for produce runs, I got a craving for something to munch late afternoon. A friend of mine had a daughter out selling blueberries for $2.00 a pint. I don't know if they were local but I bought one and munched it down. Delicious and way better than grabbing a peach cream-filled donut at Sunny Valley Bulk Foods! I also went to 501 Produce, more off the path for us, where I bought three quarts of blueberries for our freezer. The week before I had bought twelve pints of blueberries at the produce auction for $3.00 each. A bit high but I wanted them. Our own bushes, twelve of them, are five-year old transplants and have just started to bear this summer. We managed to get a gallon or so.

My own first Kentucky garden is still pathetic. Here is the object lesson: if you are fortunate to go away for two weeks by yourself, in early June when the garden is just starting to crank, don't expect your husband to tend your garden amidst everything else! In other words, mulch, mulch, mulch before you leave and no "crab, crab, crab" upon return, even though your garden is choked in crab grass. I've managed to unearth the pepper and tomato plants from their crab grass prisons and I got the cabbage and broccoli in too late for them to head (now it is too hot). Our plan is to let the chickens "have at" the garden as soon as tomatoes are done. Then we'll till it up and try some fall or late summer crops. After that, lots and lots of chicken house compost that can percolate for the winter. The nice thing about gardening is that there is always another season.

Meanwhile, as always, anything in a container or pot or window box–like most of my flowers and porch plants–is thriving. Maybe that is just the way I should garden, especially with the abundance of local produce almost at our doorstep. At least that's what my husband thinks: grow berry bushes and fruit trees and leave the rest to Casey and Pulaski County farmers. But if I'm anything, it's both stubborn and determined.



I've included two pages of another version of the poem, from a beloved set of childhood classics that I found years ago in a bookshop when my daughter was little, The Bookhouse, edited by Olive Beaupré Miller. It comes in a rainbow of volumes and progresses in reading readiness and ability. My grandmother had a set for her children when they were young and I used to spend long hours reading them on summer days at the Gray Goose Farm. The illustrations are the best and typical of the 1920s and 30s in children's literature. Some publisher would do well to reprint them (and they would be great for homeschoolers, too–they can still be found, on occasion, in used bookshops). In case the print is too fine for your eyes, here is the written poem. Now, doesn't it make you want to eat fruit?

However, as my now 21-year old daughter used to love to repeat when I read this poem to her, "HURRAH for that chocolate cat!"



The Sugar-Plum Tree
by Eugene Field

Have you ever heard of the Sugar-Plum Tree?
'Tis a marvel of great renown!
It blooms on the shore of the Lollipop sea
In the garden of Shut-Eye Town;
The fruit that it bears is so wondrously sweet
(As those who have tasted it say)
That good little children have only to eat
Of that fruit to be happy next day.

When you've got to the tree, you would have a hard time
To capture the fruit which I sing;
The tree is so tall that no person could climb
To the boughs where the sugar-plums swing!
But up in that tree sits a chocolate cat,
And a gingerbread dog prowls below---
And this is the way you contrive to get at
Those sugar-plums tempting you so:

You say but the word to that gingerbread dog
And he barks with such terrible zest
That the chocolate cat is at once all agog,
As her swelling proportions attest.
And the chocolate cat goes cavorting around
From this leafy limb unto that,
And the sugar-plums tumble, of course, to the ground---
Hurrah for that chocolate cat!

There are marshmallows, gumdrops, and peppermint canes,
With stripings of scarlet or gold,
And you carry away of the treasure that rains
As much as your apron can hold!
So come, little child, cuddle closer to me
In your dainty white nightcap and gown,
And I 'll rock you away to that Sugar-Plum Tree
In the garden of Shut-Eye Town.

Chicken Houses I Have Known

Anna and Melvin's chicken house was to have been the cupola for their round barn, but it proved too big so it made the perfect place for chickens.

I've always been partial to chicken houses long before I had any chickens–or a hen house–of my own. For several years I've collected chicken-related things in anticipation of the day that I had chickens to raise. Not just practical chicken house things like feeders and waterers but "eggs for sale" roadside signs, Staffordshire hens-on-nest, even a fabric folk art chicken, at right, made locally by a woman in Liberty, Kentucky. We use it in the kitchen for stuffing plastic bags up its well, you know.



LEFT: A nineteenth-century chicken painting on the wall behind the rubber "Chicky" (that you get when you roll double twos in Bunco) for an October night of Bunco that I hosted at our Kentucky home last year. ABOVE: A row of Staffordshire hen-on-nests in our Welsh dresser.


We get all of our chicken feed and supplies at Goldenrod Feeds in nearby Casey County–in fact, my husband is heading there as we speak to get some feed and return some chicken crates.

It is heartening to know that chickens are now thriving in all parts of the country–even in urban areas–as more people are raising them for eggs and meat. There is even a national radio program now called Backyard Poultry with the Chicken Whisperer–who knew?


Our Cornish X chickens, at about seven weeks old, fattening up nicely. They were bred to eat, drink, sleep, sit and poop (a lot). The ultimate chicken "couch potatoes," their growth rate is astounding.

Yesterday we drove back from Crab Orchard with our 24 (several died in their first weeks) 8-week old Cornish X birds, all dressed and half-frozen and ready for our own freezer. I found a butcher up there, J & V Slaughterhouse on route 39 a few miles north of town, run by Joe Yoder, a burly and friendly Amish man originally from Delaware. The drive, an hour each way, is lovely but long. When my Mennonite friend Irene heard we were "going all the way to Crab Orchard," she insisted on butchering our chickens for us (and two other women I know, not Mennonites, just had a "plucking party" and put up about 200 chickens in several hours–so that put me to shame, too!) I've "done" chickens only once–when I was 11 and helped my mother and her siblings put up about fifty chickens for the freezer after my grandfather had died. I thanked Irene but had already made arrangements this time around.


An old Kentucky chicken coop on a former home place in Pulaski County.

Besides, in the heat of July I did not want to risk contamination or mess. We had 12 chickens kept whole for roasting (at $2 a chicken) and 12 in parts (at $3 each). So for $60 plus gas and the four hours transportation time/gas (including delivery and pick up the next day)–as well as the price of the chicks and their feed for two months–I thought it was well worth it. However, next time we will have a "chicken frolic" in a cooler month–like November–and raise some meat birds for our friends who will help us. It does make sense to do them ourselves and save time and gas, and to just learn how, but not a job I will welcome doing (maybe I'll take noon dinner duty for the assembled instead!).


The brick poultry house near the magnificent round barn at the Hancock Shaker Village in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

On my recent trip to New Hampshire I saw my friend Judy's chicken house in action for the first time. Her daughter, Courtney, designed it and was just building it last summer when we were packing up to move. I love its gables and whimsical quality. Courtney even wood-burned designs around the decorative windows, which include a Renaissance or Moorish-inspired double-arched window in the peak of one of the gables.

Meanwhile, Judy's other daughter, Lindsay, a landscape gardener, has taught classes on how to butcher chickens. [NOTE: Judy's in-wall pantry and Hoosier-turned-display hutch for her collection of LuRay Pastels are both featured in my book, The Pantry–Its History and Modern Uses.]


The horse barn-turned chicken coop-turned office at the Gray Goose Farm in Jaffrey, New Hampshire, once occupied by four generations of my family for almost sixty years (1946-2005).


RIP: This barn, converted for chickens, in southern New Hampshire is now among the barns of the past.

When in New Hampshire I also learned of the sad but inevitable demise of one of my favorite barns over on Route 10 just south of Keene. Thankfully I'd gone around and taken many photographs a few years ago of old barns in the region. This center-aisle barn American-style barn from the mid-19th century was converted at some point into a chicken barn. Note the dormers and many windows on the south side. Someone told me it had been demolished and the house set fire for practice by a local fire department. I was just as glad not to have driven past it while up there.


Our chicken house in late June. I was surprised to find several established clutches of day lilies that survived the winter-time construction over Miss Lillian's former perennial bed. They emerged in front of the entrance step as they had for years before, just as groupings of peonies came up on the south side.

Of course, I'm pleased with our own chicken house–a duplex we had built this winter to my design. With it's 100 square feet on each side for hens and meat birds, who have to live separately, and two adjacent fenced-in yards, it has worked quite well. Our hens have yet to lay–probably in September as they are not quite four months old–but they've settled in nicely, despite a few losses (to natural causes and the dogs). We even have a rooster and I welcome his crowing at all hours. PHOTO: Our chicken house, in late May, with peonies blooming all around.

We've realized we can not free-range the chickens with the dogs around so a compromise has been reached: the dogs can free-range until late afternoon, then they will be cooped on the back porch while the chickens free-range until dusk. This will likely change during the winter months when there is nothing to graze on. [And sadly, our little Patch has been missing since July 3–I fear another predator or a neighbor but am still hoping he will return.] PHOTO: Stew, our "surprise" Barred Rock rooster from Murray McMurray Hatchery, struts his stuff on their first day of free-ranging, which we will try again in the future with some modifications and provisions, mostly dog-related.

I am fast learning that life on a farm, and with chickens, is not without its challenges, compromise and the occasional mishap. It's really all about cooperation and community, just like it is, ideally, with the human race. And a reread of The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald, author of the "Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle" series of children's books, is long overdue. Now, it's also high time I stop blogging and go make dinner. Yes, that's right, we're having chicken! PHOTO: Judy holds some of her jumbo-sized eggs.

A Friendship Quilt

Being a peripheral but accepted part of our Old Order Mennonite Community here allows for the most amazing things to happen from time to time. Last winter my husband eyed a quilt that some friends were making–a friendship quilt–and commented that he would like to have one some day. Well, my friend Anna picked up on that, told me about it, and we've been scheming ever since.

Anyone who knows me knows I am not a crafty person, try as I might. Ten years ago I finally learned to knit, before our youngest son was born. Several finished–and way more unfinished–projects later (and a trunk or two full of yarn), I hope to pick that up again but I'm in no way a Zen Master knitter. Knitting has always seemed like a great wintertime pastime while watching television or visiting friends. Scrapbooks are another thing lost on me–besides, I think of my blog as a public scrapbook of sorts and I'm way more facile with a computer and camera than I am with a pair of scissors. I cook, can fruits and preserves (I fear the pressure cooker so have only ventured into cold-pack canning), bake and garden, too (but my green thumb needs a bit of remedial aid, as do my "domestic goddess" skills).

Once, long ago, I used a sewing machine. I jammed the bobbin and broke a needle. It was my mother's. Before that I owned (and still have somewhere, like the one above–this one care of eBay) a little Singer Touch & Sew Sewing Machine. It came complete with a sewing book, craft ideas and little sewing notions. I got it for Christmas back in the early 1970s along with a little pink woven sewing basket. Adorable. I liked the gadgets and the tiny functionality of it all but again, a seamstress it did not make. Before I moved into my first apartment and once in college I actually borrowed a sewing machine, that I did not break, and made a simple duvet cover out of two sheets, some curtains and some throw pillow cases. In fact, it was so easy, thinking back on everything, that maybe, just maybe, I'll tackle a sewing machine again one day. For now, that would require more time and a lot of patience–and a decent sewing space that isn't the dining room table!

But quilters! Oh my. While I've always been an admirer of those who quilt, I have no desire to learn. I am not a quilt maker but a quilt appreciator, a quilt patron, if you will. I've collected old vintage quilts from the 1920s and 30s at bargain prices, turn-of-the-century quilts with a particular provenance or sentiment, beat up quilts for future "projects," Amish-made quilts, and repro-style quilts that we use everyday (in fact, my husband for our anniversary just gave me a lovely quilt/bed cover that we got at the local Bread of Life Café–it is made in China, as virtually most bedding is today, but imported by a woman in Kentucky, if that counts–it is perfect for every day summertime use).

Last fall, Anna and I went to the Galilean Home's annual benefit quilt auction, held each October at the Galilean School campus in Liberty, Kentucky. I bought a few crib quilts, as I knew the quilter, and some throws and other quilted gift items. I was happy to do so as the proceeds all go to an excellent cause. [I will post some photographs from the 2008 auction in the fall, as promo for their next annual auction in October.]


Norma, Anna's daughter, called this a very "Catherine-ish" fabric. I bought enough to make an apron as I loved the berry theme–there are even gooseberries!


Another vintage style fabric for a future apron–this one is a 1930s feed sack reproduction from Darlene Zimmerman's Clothesline Club by Robert Kaufman (shown here on our new anniversary quilt)


Yummy harvest fabric for a fall apron–with enough fabric cut, also, for an everyday tablecloth.

One reason I love quilts, apart from the extreme skill, care and attention that goes into them, is because I love fabric (and another reason I love and collect aprons is because of the fabrics, old and new). I enjoy what goes into a fabric–the color, pattern, inspirations. Naturally I am drawn to vintage fabrics or reproductions but I also like the whimsical and farm-related and often pick those up specifically for "aprons I want to have made one day" (or make myself–and yes, I have many assembled apron patterns, too, as well as aprons old and new). I'm almost thinking cheap "beginner" sewing machine for Christmas (I saw one for less than $100 at Walmart and maybe it is idiot proof). But then again, I like to support our local economy and there are two Mennonite women I know who sew aprons as a side-line business.

So Anna's offer to coordinate a "Friendship Quilt" for my husband's next birthday in late December brings together so many things: women who enjoy and take pride in their quilting and sewing, my desire to help pick out special fabrics, an amazing gift for my hard-to-get-for husband (that I can also enjoy) and I get to go to my first "quilting bee." A friendship quilt has an interesting history in the Pennsylvania German community and they were, and still are, often made for women about to be married or moving away or to honor a special occasion. There are as many designs for friendship quilts as there are regular quilts, the difference being that everyone embroiders, ideally, their signature onto a panel that is pre-cut and sewn. Then the blocks are joined together and quilted.

This past Monday, a much needed "town day" in which Catherine drove four of my Mennonite friends into Somerset for errands, we went to one of our favorite local stores: Paul's Discount on old Route 27 north of Somerset. This store has it down: hunting stuff, guns, tools and hardware for the men in your life and a seeming acre of fabric and craft supplies for women. They also sell clothes and canning supplies (last month I got several reasonably priced galvanized tubs for misc. yard, garden and farm use and some smaller enamel basins, too, for canning) and old-time hardware stuff. Children also love to explore the place and there's free popcorn.

Much of their great variety of fabric is discounted to $2.25 a yard every month with a vast selection. Another good spot for cotton fabric at a reasonable price is King's Department Store in Liberty, Kentucky where I have often bought fabric for future aprons (lots of vintage feedsack-style fabrics) as well as good old reliable oil cloth for table coverings.


The six color groupings of red/tan, light blue, green, blue/tan, purple and pink that will comprise the star pattern on the quilt blocks. Below are the fabrics atop the quilt backing, border color, and muslins.



At Paul's, we spent over an hour–but a decisive one–selecting fabric for the quilt. I knew if we didn't go there first, my mind would be mush and I wouldn't be able to make decisions later on after so many other errands. Color and pattern is a visceral, immediate thing for me: I either know I like it or I don't. Greens are my hardest colors to get right and my preference is for the vintage 30s greens, the more utilitarian, rather than the earthy greens. We chose six groupings of three colors/patterns for a total of eighteen fabrics that will form, in groups of three, the patches. We chose light, medium and dark in each color tone of red/tan, light blue, green, blue/tan, purple and pink. I had a lot of help and suggestions but we chose quickly, as well as a muslin for the embroidery patch center and a patterned off-white for dividers. Also, we selected a frame color for the border, from a vintage Civil War era fabric, and a backing fabric with a cream background and a reddish floral motif. The total for fabric for a king-sized quilt? $125 (and all but one fabric was from the $2.25 a yard selection tables so we did well!)


The backing fabric, border fabric, and two off-white muslins will frame the colored patches and bring them together.

Most of all, this project will bring together over twenty-five families in the community whom we have befriended and know well or have done business with on a regular basis. Every family will get a patched star with a plain muslin center. They will write and embroider their names and add embellishments. Then Anna will piece the patches together into the quilt, put the filling in, then the backing. Finally, it will be quilted on top by the assembled women, likely at Anna's house this fall after harvest season. [As I don't think they will let me near their quilting area, as I do not know how to actually hand "quilt" either, I have offered to provide and cook a huge noon dinner for all of the women who will gather to do this–while they are quilting.]

When the pieces get patched, before they are distributed for individual embroidering, I will take more photographs and include information on the pattern itself (and certainly at the "bee" of busy hands quilting). Stay tuned.

I am overwhelmed with good feelings and the friendships we have made in our first full year here. When I have knit, I often imagine each stitch in a garment as a prayer or a devotion for the person for whom I am knitting. A quilt is joined together with the same benevolence. Above all a quilt is the stitching together of a community of women–it is both a gift and heirloom keepsake of comfort, color, beauty, warmth, security, blessings. And we are truly blessed.

NOTE: How am I going to keep this from my husband, you're wondering? Well, I'll trust anyone who reads this and knows him to keep it a secret but also, he still doesn't know–or care to know–how to turn on a computer!

Happy Fourth of July

This evening a traditional New England Fourth of July supper: cheeseburgers (for our son who doesn't like salmon), salmon with dill sauce (thanks, Henry!), peas and new potatoes (just dug at our Mennonite friends Anna and Melvin's farm). We kept it simple this year and more health-conscious but we are already planning a blow-out barbecue (including my special ribs, potato salad and brownies, among many other tasty things) on our knob for 2010 (bring your own lawn chair).

Henry's Dill Sauce

• A few dollops mayo
(of course we use Hellmann's)
• Fresh or dried dill to taste (lots of green bits)

Stir and refrigerate. Glob onto salmon, served warm or cold.



We just returned from fireworks on our knob, our first Fourth of July in Kentucky, a combined effort with our neighbors with local purchases and "bootleg" ammo from over the border in Tennessee. I was impressed, to be honest, with what was shot off as well as other fireworks we could see on adjacent hills on the ridge. Our neighbor's son set up a firing table and their gathering below was able to look up to the knob and watch the goings-on. We were right in the midst of it. The images taken here, apart from the horizon displays, were taken literally over my head on top of the knob.



The night sky was illuminated all around us by distant fireworks displays.



We had our show between rain storms. The best part, however, was watching the countless fireworks displays all around us (and we can see 365 degrees on the top of the knob). In the distance along the horizon, we lost track of counting the displays over Lake Cumberland to the south, towards Berea and London to the east, many to the north and to the west. I couldn't possibly count them all. Their distant rumbling sounded like cannon blasts and I said to my husband, "I feel like I'm hearing and seeing distant battles." I thought of the townspeople hearing the Battle of Bunker Hill being fought seventy miles away in Boston as they raised the first timbers for the frame of the Jaffrey Meetinghouse in June of 1775, just two years after forming a town in the New England wilderness that would become the state of New Hampshire thirteen years later. I thought of the embittered Civil War fought in the North and the South, some battles not far from us in Kentucky. I thought of what it might have felt like for the soldiers in World War I and II to be huddled in the trenches or invading foreign beaches. I thought of the conflicts overseas right now and wonder if they will ever end.



I have traveled near and far and am forever grateful to live in this glorious country: to have the hard-earned freedoms that we have and the rights and privileges to go along with them. I am grateful for those who defend our freedoms but also saddened by those who feel we must always be vigilant warriors, sometimes in places where we are not wanted and can not possibly be of service. I am glad to now be in a country that will hopefully better lead by example instead of imposing its might and will on others. And I am glad I can write this without fear of death.



And then, amidst the pageantry of light, sound and raindrops, I thought of one of my favorite bands, Talking Heads (how could I help myself?), and some of the lyrics from "Life During Wartime" (still great to dance to thirty! years later and even more liberating to celebrate the lyrics now that the past eight years are through, as many were hauntingly prophetic):



Life During Wartime

Heard of a van that is loaded with weapons
packed up and ready to go
Heard of some grave sites, out by the highway
a place where nobody knows
The sound of gunfire, off in the distance
I'm getting used to it now
Lived in a brownstone, I lived in the ghetto
I've lived all over this town

This ain't no party, this ain't no disco
this ain't no fooling around
No time for dancing, or lovey dovey
I ain't got time for that now

Transmit the message, to the receiver
hope for an answer some day
I got three passports, couple of visas
don't even know my real name
High on a hillside, trucks are loading
everything's ready to roll
I sleep in the daytime, I work in the night time
I might not ever get home

This ain't no party, this ain't no disco
this ain't no fooling around
This ain't no Mudd Club, or C. B. G. B.
I ain't got time for that now

Heard about Houston? Heard about Detroit?
Heard about Pittsburgh, PA?
You oughta know not to stand by the window
somebody see you up there
I got some groceries, some peanut butter
to last a couple of days
But I ain't got no speakers
ain't got no headphones
ain't got no records to play

Why stay in college? Why go to night school?
Gonna be different this time
Can't write a letter, I can't send a postcard
I can't write nothing at all
This ain't no party, this ain't no disco
this ain't no fooling around
I'd love you hold you, I'd like to kiss you
but I ain't got no time for that now
Trouble in transit, got through the roadblock
we blended in with the crowd
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines
I know that ain't allowed
We dress like students, we dress like housewives
or in a suit and a tie
I changed my hairstyle so many times now
don't know what I look like!
You make me shiver, I feel so tender
we make a pretty good team
Don't get exhausted, I'll do some driving
you ought to get you some sleep
Burned all my notebooks, what good are notebooks?
They won't help me survive

Here's to Spontaneit-TEA!

Spontaneity! Here's to it. There is something about summer and being more spontaneous that just fits together like a wedge of watermelon in a hand, a baseball in a glove, or having an impromptu water fight with your kids, husband and the hose. The other day after a long gap of not being in touch (apart from Facebook and email), my friend Teresa and I got together for a day of uninhibited gallivanting (another great word). I met Teresa last year at Bunco through a mutual friend. We've both given up Bunco but are still friends–we just haven't tended the friendship in person for a while and in our lives as (busy) women that can be all too easy to neglect at times ("my bad" as I'm working on live–and genuine–connections and friendships these days).

Teresa really lives just up the road from us, not too far as the crow flies, on a scenic 30-minute stretch along these wonderful country back roads that wend through the valleys and ridges of the knob region of south central Kentucky. Teresa is a native, has a lovely blog about her home chronicles, and she and her husband grew up not far from where they live now. I enjoy her perspectives, appreciate her genuine faith and growing friendship, and admire her country life.

So last week we hatched a plan. Thursday at 9am. Great. I arrived at her house and we looked at some brochures (you see, we didn't yet have a destination, just the day reserved between us), then we got on the Internet. Teresa suggested finding a tea room. Great idea as Kentucky has many scattered about and I'm always up for a tea room. So, we found the Candleberry Tea Room in Frankfort. Even better, it also had lunch! I remembered a farm stand I'd wanted to visit but didn't remember the name or the town–just that the farmer was also a published cookbook writer. So with some good Googling, we deduced it was Honest Farm up in Midway. Ah ha, a start, or an end, to our journey.


Midway, Kentucky was our unexpected destination after our Frankfort tea room.

Off we went, catching up along the way (something about a confined car ride that is so conducive to talking). Frankfort is an easy 90 minutes from our region and the tea room is located just outside of it. I'm a bit of a tea room snob, for lack of a better term, having been to many in England and New England (and I even ran and catered one myself on summer Sunday afternoons at an historic museum house, where I used to be site manager, that was even featured in the original Victoria Magazine–sorry, toot toot!) but the fare was good, the menu appealing and the tea first rate. We each got the sampler platter. Perfect: a slice of quiche, a small cup–not much bigger than a demitasse–of cold tomato-basil soup, and a dollop of chicken salad. None of the portions was too large, as I appreciated. We had iced peach tea with our meals and we both had a cup of vanilla chai for dessert. (Teresa chose the Chess Pie, a pie of Southern origin that is popular in Kentucky, and I had an Almond Joy muffin: it was small, thankfully, and had coconut, chocolate chips and almonds in it.)

Then we got onto I-64 east and went a few miles down the pike to the historic town of Midway to find the farm of which I kept asking Teresa the name: Real Farm? Good Farm? "No, it's HONEST Farm!" she would say, exasperated, "Do you have a block on that word?" Clearly I did as I could not remember it when we went to Google it earlier so it's amazing we found an Internet reference at all! (More about that later.)

Soon off the highway we came into the small town of Midway, Kentucky. Oh my. Needless to say, it was a car-stopping experience. We were headed to the farm but ended up detouring for several hours in the town, strolling up and down Main Street and going into most every shop–antiques, clothes, crafts, gifts–along the way. (I was proud of myself for not spending a penny but eyed a few possibilities for another time–and kept seeing things my husband would like, or like to buy me!, always a good sign! Because Teresa had nicely paid for our tea room luncheon, all I spent all day was gas money: and this trip was a half-tanker in our Honda Pilot.)


We counted at least five restaurants in the small downtown area of Midway–each enticing us for another visit. But, alas, we'd already eaten lunch!

There were also five bistro-like restaurants and pubs with reasonably-priced (mostly) and mouth-watering menus (I believe we checked out almost every one.). A town that can support five restaurants in less than a 1/8 mile block is doing well. [I immediately thought "horse country," as the town is just north of some of the largest and most picturesque horse and stud farms in Kentucky. Also, being located a stone's throw from I-64, between three of Kentucky's larger metropolitan areas, certainly helps, too. Location, location, location!]


A good paint job, preservation of historic features, inviting signage and attractive plantings or tasteful decor never hurt a business. It is such an easy concept and yet there are so many business owners who don't "get" that.

Midway was a railroad town founded in the 1830s, virtually "midway" between Lexington and Louisville, Kentucky (and not far from Frankfort, the state capital). The still active railroad line goes right through the middle of the town. I could see immediately that they had an involved historic district commission because of the appealing signage, diverse but preserved commercial architecture, as well as inviting shops and a cohesive–but eclectic–street facade. Yet, it has not been overly Disney-fied and there is still a bit of peeling paint here and there and other funky features that add to its inherent charm.


The hulking big green metal box, lower left, is indicative of buried power lines along the Main Street commercial district of Midway.

One shop owner we spoke with said they've had to fight the good fight over the years to get townspeople to appreciate and want to preserve their historic architecture (isn't that always the way?). The town was also part of the Kentucky Main Street Program in 2003, a grant-funding program that enables the economic and historic revitalization of (selected) towns across Kentucky (using the National Trust for Historic Preservation's "Main Street" tenets). It is most often a highly successful marriage between revitalizing a town's economy alongside historic preservation and is proof-positive that when you restore it, they will come. [The town where I spent my formative years, Jaffrey, New Hampshire, is presently a Main Street town and enjoying great revitalization of its economy, architectural and community heritage.]


The "old" downtown depot is deceptive: it is actually new construction and is a bank, complete with drive-thru window. Although a wee bit "Disney," it is possible to integrate new with old!

Now in certain regions of the country when I've come across a well-kept, preserved town with attractive shops, it can be off-putting because the shop and restaurant owners are sometimes, well, just a bit snooty. This was never the case with our encounters in Midway. Everyone was personable, engaging, and very welcoming, even though only one of us spent under ten bucks in our few hours there. I will certainly be back with my family, friends and out-of-town guests.

And what about that Honest Farm you are probably wondering? Well, we followed our Google map to where it was supposed to be (at Hurstland Farm), drove several miles past, realized we'd probably gone too far, doubled back, got out and asked directions. We discovered the produce stand had been at that exact location (but wasn't any more). We laughed at the wonders–and perils–of the Internet and realized, being almost four o'clock, that we had to give up the hunt even though someone had kindly given us owner Susie Quick's phone number. So homeward we went, over hill and dale, back to our little home farms tucked into our respective ridges.

The day was an "honest" lesson that sometimes it's not about the destination but the journey instead. Thanks, Teresa for a most lovely outing and good company–let's do it again sometime!

NOTE: Upon returning home I realized that Honest Farm is now selling out of a Main Street, Midway location that we'd somehow missed. Another destination for another time!

Midway

I used to be a more spontaneous person. And then I had a child. And then I married a man who likes a plan (generally). And then I had two more children. And then I got rather broody and nesty, where I didn't want to stray too far from home. I'm not complaining. I wouldn't have it any other way and yet, all the while I've had this innate wanderlust: an armchair travel sense of "what's beyond the rainbow? what's through the dell?" It's not so much a romantic spirit or a greener pastures kind of thing, more of a "what's behind door number 3?" But wait! I also wanted to see what was behind doors number 1 and 2. Like many people today, I want it all at once.

Well, I know what you're thinking: didn't this woman just move 1,100 miles across the country from her familiar to a land where she knew no one? Isn't that like opening doors 1-3 all at the same time? Yes, and that hasn't been without its complications, it's string-tugging and introspection and periodic bewilderment. It has also brought a great deal of joy and wonder and shear jumping up and down, too. [Pandora and I would have gotten along famously. "Let's see what Carol Merrill has behind Door Number TWO!"] But now that I'm here and settled and refiguring what is meant by "home place," I'm redefining the concept of home, too, and what is it that I want from my home (and family) and what do I want to give back to it (and them)? Same thing with the rest of my life: what's next?

Occasionally along the journey I've lost that zest–you know, that lust for life that hits you when you wake up in the morning and say, mm, what will I do today? Oh, I think I'll go in a direction I've never been, to boldly go where no (wo)man has gone before, but only after I do ten loads of laundry, plan dinner, and run three miles (no, not really). It's not that bad but sometimes I am overcome by focus–or lack thereof–and if I plan too far ahead, well, then I can easily derail myself. At the same time, I often run from a whim or a possibility because I feel I won't live up to the expectations of others, or I get stage fright, or I think I'd rather be at home puttering in circles like a whirling dervish (and in a home that is not always ready for company). Around and around she goes. [But a fully stocked, well-planned pantry, that I do have...well, sort of: it's in several locations right now. Don't ask.]

It goes without saying that I can drive people nuts or be considered inconsiderate. I frequently apologize to the people in my life. I'm a good idea person–an idea starter with the best intentions but my follow through, well, let's just say a lot of balls get dropped. When I'm writing, it's a different thing altogether. I focus, I do well on deadline, I want to make it all work. I tune out the clatter. I periodically bake or cook something familiar–or new–to help refocus again.

You might say that this woman needs a life, a job, a purpose. Well, part of midlife, midway, so to speak, and being a few months away from my "late forties" is that I'm finding new purposes. My boys are needing me less, or so it seems, and my daughter is off in the world. I've had a "mini empty nest" experience in the past year: both with my daughter being on her own and with my own nest-shaking and relocation. I am settling well at last but it has been a journey and will continue to be one. I've never been a joiner type of person but rather a loner who likes to socialize on occasion but with comfortable small groups of diverse friends or individual friends. I "play well with others" but I crave solitude, too. That's just how I've always rolled.

As I've become older I've grown more comfortable with girlfriends, as I have with my own uniqueness. I have always enjoyed talking with intelligent, interesting men and listening to their ideas, philosophies and thoughts on life–appreciating their usual candor and ability to cut through the cow poop. Yet I often misunderstand the nuances and niceties of other women. Perhaps my newly found candor and authenticity can be off-putting at times. We, as women, tend to dance around each other while men just cut right to the chase. In another life I'm convinced that I ran a literary salon where ideas were discussed as freely and openly as the absinthe was poured. And I'm sure I smoked a lot. Either that or I was a Shaker in a very egalitarian society and did a lot of canning.

Yesterday my friend Teresa sent me a musing that a woman, Pam Young, posted recently on FlyLady. In her "Young at Heart" essay she spoke of dealing with our inner child in our forties and trying to tame her:

We have the ability now to get to know our little child within us. We have neglected that child for a long time. Like any child they are going to get your attention one way or another. We have let her run wild in the streets with our credit cards. She has neglected to clean her room and to eat good foods. She stays up way too late and doesn't get enough sleep! This makes her cranky. Oh and she spends way too much time on the computer and doesn't get enough exercise. Do you know anyone who would allow her children to do this? So why do you allow yourself to do this?

Exactly: Why? But why, also, do we punish ourselves so severely or allow ourselves to be held up to what society says we should be or how we should look or how our houses should appear inside? Teresa has recently become an advocate of the website Operation Beautiful which advocates a form of stealth Post-Its in all the right places–notes of positive reinforcement, a form of paying it forward in the nicest possible way. Think Stuart Smalley on Saturday Night Live, played by Al Franken before he was the (finally) elected Senator from Minnesota (yay, Al!), saying to himself in the mirror: "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and doggone it...people like me." Only you see it on a Post-It, in different expressions and on bathroom mirrors–and other public places–or where you least expect to see them.

This past year I've realized that not only should a mother give herself oxygen first lest the entire enterprise fall to the Earth (my friend Edie calls this "the choose yourself first" mantra, which isn't as selfish as it sounds), but that home is not only where the heart is but where we are. I don't like to reduce life to a greeting card (but hey, it's a blog), but sometimes that reductionist thinking is really that simple. Several from Mary Engelbreit are constant reminders to me: "No matter where you go, there you are," also "Bloom where you are planted" and “If you don't like something change it; if you can't change it, change the way you think about it.” [That is also the core mantra of Buddhist mindfulness as well as DBT or dialectical behavior therapy.]

We can't always change our (sometimes difficult) circumstances or the minds of (sometimes difficult) people, we can only change our reactions and interactions with those circumstances and people. Above all, we have the power to change ourselves or our behaviors. That I am doing: with a lot of introspection, honesty, new purpose and direction. And a very patient family who lives with me (and who love me for who I am). In the process I am peeling back, and peeling off, the layers. It is both frightening and liberating.














In The Wizard of Oz–ironically on TCM tonight and that we watched for the bazillionth time–Good Witch Glinda instructs Dorothy that the power to get home has been there all along, within herself and in her own back yard. It's such a simple sentiment and yet so powerful:

Dorothy asks Glinda, the Good Witch, "Oh, will you help me? Can you help me?"

"You don't need to be helped any longer," A smiling Glinda answers. "You've always had the power to go back to Kansas."

"I have?"

"Then why didn't you tell her before?" Scarecrow demands.

"Because she wouldn't have believed me. She had to learn it for herself."

The Tin Man leans forward and asks, "What have you learned, Dorothy?"

"Well, I . . . I think that is . . . that it wasn't enough just to want to see Uncle Henry and Auntie Em . . . and that if I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own backyard; because if it isn't here, I never really lost it to begin with."

In Andrew Johnson's pitch-perfect essay on The Spirituality of Oz–The Meaning of the Movie on the Theosophical Society in America's website, he writes that this is what Dorothy learned:

1. We have the power. We have Ruby Red slippers to transport us to Kansas, to bring about the Edenic state, or to create our heart's desire.

2. Witches and cyclones, while bad, can be a means for spiritual growth.

3. We must learn for ourselves. Truth is not given so much as it is realized. Look within. You do not have to go off in search of a mystic or seek truth from a variety of exotic religions. Truth is found in your own back yard.

4. Reality is very simple. We create our own reality. We tend to make it more complicated than it need be. The simple universal fact is that, if we believe it to be so, it is.

5. There's no place like home. The kingdom of heaven is not a place; but a condition.
   

Reprint from Quest 88 (November-December 2000): 213-7.

The poet and writer Maya Angelou said, "It is this belief in a power larger than myself and other than myself which allows me to venture into the unknown and even the unknowable." It is a great thing to be comfortable in our own back yard and in "the temple of our familiar," as Alice Walker wrote about, but sometimes it is good to wander a bit outside of it, away from the garden gate and the apron strings. To enjoy a new world and realm–to select a journey, but to sometimes depart from it, too. To always find the way home again after a series of dead-ends, new roads, new horizons. To savor the unexpected as my friend Teresa and I did, today, in a town called Midway, Kentucky. It was a very unplanned, spontaneous visit (the date determined a few days ago and our destination and itinerary were only decided this morning at 10am), and we hadn't seen each other in over six months. It was a great journey and I only spent the gas money (thanks Teresa for lunch!). [Photos and travelogue to follow soon.]