When I think about it, I was the lucky one back when watching The Twilight Zone with my cousin. Those were the days when we lived next door to each other out in the country. Separating us was a field with a pathway that we used to go back and forth. Lining one side of that field was a row of tall, stately poplar trees. To this day I can still hear the leaves in those trees rustle in the wind. When Halloween was approaching that rustling sounded more like witches screeching.
Abbey senses something special about the little man tending the reindeer who, along with an old farmhouse, was a gift to Abbey. She and husband Steve, together since the '60s, move in just before the holidays. Now 30 years later, they're looking forward to their boys coming home for Christmas. Turns out this Christmas proves to be more magical than anticipated!
Friday, October 30, 2020
Watching The Twilight Zone With My Cousin
When I think about it, I was the lucky one back when watching The Twilight Zone with my cousin. Those were the days when we lived next door to each other out in the country. Separating us was a field with a pathway that we used to go back and forth. Lining one side of that field was a row of tall, stately poplar trees. To this day I can still hear the leaves in those trees rustle in the wind. When Halloween was approaching that rustling sounded more like witches screeching.
Friday, October 23, 2020
Story in a Hedgerow
I took the above photo of a hedgerow a few weeks ago.
Most any photo taken outdoors this time of the year stirs one’s senses but this
one was telling me a story that I couldn’t figure out. That changed yesterday
when I opened up an old cupboard where I keep little odds ‘n ends of things,
most handmade by my children over the years —like a small ceramic ghost holding
a pumpkin and a stuffed-with-newspapers-brown paper bag made to look like a
pumpkin face and a ceramic statue of Charlie Brown and a painted, wooden tulip
in a wooden vase as well as small candles and small Santas and reindeer and
bunnies and trinkets from Dollar stores.
I’d gone to the cupboard over the weekend for a few
Halloween ceramic pumpkins and while I was getting the pumpkins I noted a
plastic bag way in the back. Sitting on the floor, I pulled the bag out;
reached inside and grabbed hold of three very large and very beautiful quilt
tops my mother had made. (Example of one shown above). I’ve written before of her sewing skills. She was
meticulous. Her eye for color and design was keen. After sitting there for a
bit, I put the quilt tops in the plastic bag and sat them way back in the old
cupboard with all the other beloved treasures gathered together, safe and sound
and out of the way.
So yesterday there I was yet again—back in the cupboard for
a few more Halloween trinkets. The minute I saw the plastic bag with my
mother’s quilt tops inside, it happened. I heard the story that hedgerow was
telling me. I realized the quilt tops were telling me the same story. My mother
had the ability to turn all those little mismatched pieces of color and design into
keepsakes with every stitch she made. Mother Nature took the wind and the sun
and the soil and the rain and turned a simple hedgerow of mismatched brambles
and weeds and mini trees and grass sitting along a country road into a
breathtaking pallet of design and color.
Both told a story of determination. Both revealed a beauty unique
to themselves, even those brambles and weeds twisted together like pieces of
fabric sewn together in quilt tops kept in a cupboard.
Sunday, October 11, 2020
Witches' Brew
Growing up in the country provided the perfect spooky setting when Halloween was looming. Poplar trees with limbs bare transformed themselves into scrawny fingers ready to snatch any one of us kids as we ran by in a hurry. Leaves scurrying over the fields evolved into mice rushing toward us. We were certain our grandfather's old barn with its main door creaking in the howling wind sounded more like screeching witches cackling under the big orange moon. But Halloween wasn't only looming outside with bats swooping down and ghosts swirling about. Things were happening inside the house as well. Especially in the kitchen.