Confessions of a Grandma

I have always loved and used libraries in any town or city where I've happened to live. They have always given a sense of connection with the community itself as well as with the larger world that books and libraries open up. Living in the country, there is just not that much that is within walking distance so I love that our little town library can be a destination walk for me. But it is really so important to me as that link to community that I have found frustratingly elusive in this particular rural setting. So I try to support our library in any little way I can. Last Saturday, there was a plant sale to raise some money for the library. I have many plants that are in need of dividing, so I did some digging and potting between rain showers on Friday. I really was not in the market for new plants unless there happened to be some vegetable sets so I did have to check out what was available. I did not need any more perennial flowers, but then of course I succumbed to the desire ...

Five years ago the neighbors' cat killed a female blue bird under the lilac bush. Mike ran to get the bird away and started blowing on it (bird CPR?), but it was really mortally wounded and died within the hour. It was crushingly sad. The male hung around for several weeks but it was forlornly mateless. We didn't have another pair of blue birds nesting in the yard again until this year. They're back! We have been watching a pair that appears to be nesting over by the shed. They seem to like the deck and make a trip there in the evening as we are cleaning up the supper dishes and in the morning as we are having coffee. from the kitchen sink and from the dining table, we have a great vantage on their deck time activities. They like to plop a fat worm or a bug on the railing and have a bit of a picnic. They are very keen on perching on the metal hanger for the hummingbird feeder and take turns doing that--sitting there surveying the yard. The hummingbirds do not like this deve...

Another early harvesting here in zone 4 country is rhubarb. Mike classifies rhubarb, along with zucchini and anything onion, as "nuisance vegetables." He finds it particularly distressing if my culinary creativity leads me to the use of such vegetables in some baked form like muffins or cake. Well, rhubarb is hardly a nuisance. Did you know it can be used to clean burned pots and pans, as a hair lightener, as an insecticide, as an ingredient in homemade art paper? Everything you could possibly want to know about rhubarb can be found in The Rhubarb Compendium ( http://www.rhubarbinfo.com/ ). What a thorough resource. I wish I could find a similar site for chives!

Vermonters have been busily putting in gardens over the past week--even though yet another frost warning is in place for tonight, the last night of May. I've lost my cucumbers and half the basil to frost. I think the tomato plants will not survive either in spite of the fact I rushed out to cover everything at the mere hint of frost. On a brighter note, the first lettuce is up and I noticed today that some green beans have sprouted. And then there are the old reliables. Chives and rhubarb seem to grow around here more like weeds than standard vegetables. So I have been harvesting the chives and adding them to my (but not Mike's) salads, potatoes, and soups. A bit here and a bit there and I do find it quite satisfying to have something freshly plucked out of the herb garden, but, let's face it, this amount of use is not making the slightest dent in the two thriving clumps of chives I keep. Poking around on the Internet, I did find a recipe for chive oil that can be served ov...

There are plenty of advertisements on TV related to finding your true love, soul mate, perfect match. Wow, it's mind blowing. There are tests you can take to show with whom you would find life time love and commitment. I wonder--if Mike and I were to fill out the questionnaires, what are the infinitesimal chances that we would be matched to each other?

Health magazine for June has an article about 50 secrets to fabulous and fun tastic summer hair. By far my favorite for a laugh: Wrap sections of your damp hair in cotton tube socks and tie the ends of each sock together. Go to bed for the night. Socks are more comfortable than rollers, you see. (Does anyone really do that? Sleep in rollers, I mean?) Then in the morning take out the socks, fluff your hands through your hair and enjoy the waves. My hair is already wavy so I don't think that I'll try this. Because my hair is wavy, I naturally yearn to wake up with perfectly straight hair. Also no one in the house has tube socks. It would not be worth the trip to K-Mart or where ever it is one goes to purchase tube socks. This little beauty secret would pretty much hatchet any chance of getting lucky that night and I still think it would be hard to sleep with knotted socks all over your head so you might want to be occupying your time somehow. And really, if I ever did try t...

Memorial Day is the official planting time here in Vermont. Of course, Memorial Day used to be May 30 th when it could be more safely assumed that the season's last frost had occurred . Now that they've gone to the three day weekend approach to so many holidays, Memorial Day fell on the 25 th . Most of the neighbors were out planting just the same. I'm impatient enough to have put in three tomato plants, a cucumber hill, basil, and parsley. The lettuce is already sprouting up from seed. So guess what--frost and freeze warnings out for tonight.

There was an appropriate piece in the Burlington Free Press yesterday, the Chris Bohjelian column. He told about the elementary school in his small town of Lincoln, VT. The entire school walks to the town cemetery for a Memorial Day observance. Students can find graves marked with GAR, soldiers who had fought in the Civil War. In a small town there are many connections between the past and present and this struck me as such a fitting way to honor that. Reflection can sometimes be overlooked in education's current focus on meeting test standards. In Flanders fields the poppies blow (1) Between the crosses, row on row That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with u...

A woman in New Jersey is being prosecuted for animal cruelty. She is the owner of a business called Critter Ridder , hired to get rid of a pesky squirrel. Oddly enough, the squirrel died in a trap on the roof of a building. She was charged with animal cruelty, including failure to provide adequate food. Nothing against squirrels--they're fun to watch--but if I had one living in or around my attic, I would try to get rid of it I guess. I've heard they can become quite pest like . On the other hand, I would hope this could be dispatched humanely, maybe through a relocation program. Although if you really stop to think about it, sending your average city dwelling squirrel out to fend for itself in the woods amidst the owls and foxes that might want to eat it has its cruel side as well. Still, who knew you had to offer that last meal. At the same time, officials in Alaska plan to prosecute a man for actually feeding bears. Apparently he is quite friendly with the neighborhood bear ...

I'm a little anxious about canoe travel. I've been known to dump a fully loaded canoe. Our trip across the reservoir where we camped this week started out on a less than auspicious note, too. It was windy, a warm wind blowing dirctly out of the south, but it made the water choppy. No mishap on the way to the camp site, though. On Friday we took a couple paddles out and around looking for signs of spring and possible wildlife activity. We've seen, in the past, a snapping turtle, an eagle, loons, otter, deer, beaver, a moose, camp site marauding bands of ducks. This time it was something new--at least I'd never seen a sight quite like it--hundreds and hundreds of toads in a marshy area in the farthest corner of the pond. It might have been mating season. Or, they might have all been on a toad holiday and were playing rousing games of horse-back rides. Oh, and then there were the dozens of butterflies floating around the little beach at our camp site. So, I guess...

When spring is lovely in Vermont, it is just wonderfully lovely. Since three such days were being predicted for Thursday through Saturday of this week, we took the opportunity to try out our new Eureka! tent. New to us anyway. Mike bought it last fall on e-Bay. This has a screen front room which we had wanted after spending a few miserable trips huddled in our old, much smaller tent either because it was pouring rain or the bugs were unbearable last summer. We camp in the wilderness--primitive style camping. The new tent was very comfortable. There aren't so many bugs at this time of year but it was unusually warm for May so we appreciated the screened area for respite from the sun. We ate well. I had fixed two cold lunches--shrimp cocktail, cheese, crackers, olives, and wine for one day and cold chicken and salad (and more wine) for the next. Mike cooks over the fire at night and brews the coffee over a small fire in the mornings. We relaxed and read. And there's nothing like...

A while ago I did a wardrobe inventory and cleaned out the closets a bit. One thing I noticed is that now that I'm retired there are certain articles of clothing that don't get worn as much as they used to. I don't really have to project that professional image so much anymore, but one always needs a suit hanging in one's closet, I think. I have quite a growing selection of fabric pieces so I decided to use some of these to make a couple dust covers for suits and dresses. Well, I whipped up a pair this morning and was putting them on the designated clothing in the closet when my husband happened to come in from running his day's errands. Of course I had to explain to him about dust covers and garment bags. His response, "You have too much time on your hands and I think anyone who saw those would say the same thing." Personally, I think anyone who saw my dust covers would say I have a very organized closet. Maybe we are each thinking of a different ca...

I was taking my grand daughter out to lunch yesterday and we went by a highway sign that proclaimed, "Click it or TICKET." Kristen wanted to know what that meant. I explained to her that it meant that you should wear your seat belt and her response was, "But I always wear my seat belt." So, yes, some people wear their seat belts because it's the safe and smart thing to do, but some people need to be reminded and the police will remind them with a ticket. "Like Mike," I said. "Sometimes he needs to be reminded to fasten his seat belt." "And my dad, too," she commented. "Why are men like that??" Good, classic question.

My mother once said to me, "I feel like my brain was programed to last for 75 years and now I'm 80 with a useless brain." It was actually a few more years before the rest of us started to notice evidence of big memory lapses and the start of a long term decline into dementia that ended when my mother was almost 92. I've often thought that her statement about a useless brain meant she was aware of something not right going on in her head. It was doubly poignant to me because she had suffered from mental illness throughout her life. To be lucid about the shifting nature of her thoughts was so curious. It was a comfort to read Still Alice. The story is told from Alice's perspective. Her life as a Harvard professor, high-powered neuropsychologist , internationally famous for her research in linguistics is all drastically and dramatically changed when she loses a word and the losses start quickly piling up. It is a fictional account, but realistic. So many of the expe...

We spent the afternoon digging two feet deep post holes--seven of them by hand with shovels and a trowel when needed. The rail fence itself went together quite easily and I think it adds a finished look to the house. My idea was to have the suggestion of a garden room when I walk out the front door. The daffodils have just gone by. In a couple of weeks I'll plant some annuals, set up a lawn chair and a small side table, sit out in the shade of the afternoon and watch the traffic go by. We had the siding put on two summers ago. i think it made a big difference in the look of the house. That red Masonite was getting really tired and the barn board look, just too 60's-70's.

I was reading Vigor , a health related newsletter from my health insurance provider ( http://www.bcbs.vt.com ). The article was "Five Reasons to Join a CSA Program." The arguments were pretty straight forward: It will change the way you eat--meaning that you learn to appreciate food in its season. We have great strawberries locally, for a very short time in spring. Local tomatoes and fresh green beans cannot be beat in the summer. Apples and pumpkins and squash are yummy in the fall. So that makes sense. It's green--no long distance shipping mean fresher produce and no big carbon footprint from transportation across long distances. Green is good, all the rage. It will change the way you cook--meaning that with all the fresh veggies in the fridge you're less likely to turn to processed foods. Sounds like a good enough idea. We all are aware that processed foods are not good for us and eating more vegetables and fruits is always in nutritional advise. It will ...

I was looking at the weeding requirements of the yard--so many dandelions pop up. Even violets, which I love, are weeds in the lawn if you want to define weed as any non-grass growing where lawn should be. And lily-of-the-valley, by far my favorite smelling flower, are wandering out of their designated territory into where the lawn should be--making two of my all time favorite flowers "weeds." I'm thinking this way on Mothers' Day because my own mother always said that dandelions were her favorite flower. Dandelions are what are plentiful in May and my brother Richard always picked her a huge bouquet of cheery yellow blooms. I, of course, always picked bouquets of vilolets and lily-of-the-valley, which were, as I have mentioned my favorite flowers. This, perhaps, explains why I was not the favorite child of the four of us. Please, this is not paranoia--these things all come out when dementia takes full hold. And that's all okay . Happy Mothers' Day!

So I log on to the blog and see "customize." I click on that thinking it would be good to jazz up the page. Trouble is that I simply do not understand the language. To me, a computer is a glorified type writer. Remember those? Any way, site maps, gadgets, crawling, html--all mean next to nothing. I don't know what to do with any of it. I'm lucky I learned to type. We had an old manual type writer (Remember those?) when I was a kid. By the time I was in high school my father had brought home a used IBM Selectric and weren't we just in the space age then. I didn't take typing in high school, but my mother insisted that I learn to type. Her plan had always been to go to college and that was certainly her plan for her children. Unfortunately, her dad lost his business in the depression, which hit just as my mom was graduating from high school. He could no longer afford to send her to college and she ended up going to a secretarial school so she could...

I have owned eight to ten vacuums in my life of vacuum ownership. In contrast, my mother, when she died in her early 90's, had owned a grand total of two. There must be something to that old saying, "They just don't make them like the used to." Of course, I did arrive at my mom's one afternoon to find her attempting to mow the lawn with her old Hoover, but that's another story entirely. The upright, bagged machine I have now is fine for carpets, which cover most of my floors, but it has no attachments. Instead, you get the little canister thingy with the attachment assortment. I'm sure you've seen it--it is capable of sucking up a twenty pound bowling ball. Sucking up toast crumbs and cat food off the kitchen floor--not so much. Since I rarely to never feel the need to suck up kitchen cluttering bowling balls, I'm not particularly impressed with this little system. Not only does it not do the kind of cleaning up service I would want, especi...

Last Sunday we were driving to the Waterbury Flea Market, and as we were going along the Winooski River, Mike commented that the water was too high for a canoe trip. "You're safe," he said, "or I'm safe." Funny little reference to my proclivity for tipping over the canoe based on my complete and utter lack of any intuitive knowledge of physics and its application to canoe paddling. Last year we took a trip down the river in May. The water was kind of high and moving fast--made for an easy paddle. We stopped at an island to have a picnic lunch. Mike wanted to go to paddle around to the back side of the island. On the way we veered too close to the shore and tipped over so fast we didn't know what hit us. The day was warm and sunny but the water was still cold. We ended up laying our clothes on trees and having a naked picnic lunch. Then when things dried out a bit, we headed on. Just passed the interstate bridge, we came to fork in the river. We ...

I made this dress for Kristen last summer. There's a matching American Girl doll dress--which got me going on a nearly endless supply of projects. The dress I made for myself was not making me happy. I needed to practice and I saw these adorable Amy Butler prints in the local fabric store. One is a procession of ants and the other is bumble bees. I'm sending them to California.

I started reading stepford dreams, a blog that is written by a young woman in Australia. She put her legal career on hold to be a housewife. Being of the bra-burning era feminist persuasion, I was prepared to be derisive but found myself enjoying the wry wit. I guess the experience of homemaking is fairly universal (no matter what else complicates it), but that's what got me thinking about the language. I mean "homemaking," "housework," "child rearing," "parenting" -- these are all things that get done however one chooses to label oneself at various stages of life. When I had my first teaching job I had two small children and a husband just out of the army who was going to start college. For a while, he was a "househusband," pretty rare at a time when women were almost embarrassed to be " just a housewife." Now, I know plenty of "stay at home moms" and "stay at home dads" but no "working mo...

Those Who Saved Us by Jenna Blum is a fictional, but all too believable, account of a German woman who lives through the hell of World War II by doing whatever it might take to keep herself and her daughter alive. It also stories the impact on her daughter as she finds out her mother's secrets. It's very sad and at the same time life affirming. I thought that Love Walked In by Marisa De Los Santos would be kind of a light read. It is essentially a romance but with and added fairy tale like element from the perspective a young girl who is trying to find her parents. Now that HBO is running the series, I decided to re-read the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith. The TV version was striking me as very similar in impression to what I had remembered about the books, but I'm finding that the books are richer than I had remembered. I'm enjoying and appreciating them more with the second reading. I just finished reading Jodi Piccoult's Handle Wi...