Dreaming Again...

The house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer,

the house allows one to dream in peace.

-Gaston Bachelard

It's happened again,  you guys. I have fallen in love. 

Meet the Whitaker House, a circa 1890s mansion that looks as if it could be the setting for one of my favorite girlhood books, The Velvet Room:

I took my Mom to meet her over the weekend.  This is all I have ever wanted, I breathed, hand wrapping around the iron garden gate that, seemingly by magic, creaked open. I took it as an invitation. Wouldn't you? We creeped inside the brick and iron wall and just stared at the old place.

It was for sale but now it isn't. Apparently a local optometrist purchased it from the estate of an out of town doctor, but there's no word on what the eye guy intends to do with the place.

I intend to find every dollar I possibly can and pray, wish and hope beyond hope that one day the phone will ring and it will be a gruff-sounding voice on the other end saying, So, I heard you were interested in the old Whitaker place....

Not interested. Enthralled, is a better word. Utterly smitten and completely in love.

It's time to find a place to dream in peace again....

A Few Glimpses Into the Life of a Girl Who Keeps Chickens

 

 

 

 

 Anything for a quiet life. 

-Thomas Middleton

  

Cloudy morning. Dark, quiet kitchen. Herbs dry above the sink. Plants stand up for the light.

I make iced coffee, then a zucchini dish- one to keep and one to share. The only sounds I hear are of the scrape of grating green, and the flapping of chickens outside the window.

I think I'll read a book today and listen to violin music.
 

Anything for a quiet life.

The Little Red House

I live in a little red house at the top of a small hill. Have I said? She sits, solemn and weathered, under two oak trees. Her red wooden boards and aging white trim are nailed on, the nail heads rusted in place. When it's windy you can hear her sigh. But she's a strong, resolute little house, and I feel safe inside her walls. I've been here going on two years.

Beside the house sits a little carport. It's leaning slightly and reminds me of an old country barn. At the back is the chicken coop with its heavy beams and old tin nesting boxes. My chicken feeder- a hand-me-down from the man who cuts grass for the local school- hangs from a thick, rusty chain. I like it in there- in the carport/barn and coop. One day I'll organize and show you.

I tried growing organic garlic again this year. I know it isn't time to harvest yet, but I had to pull most of it. The chickens discovered it and, hearing that garlic and chicken don't mix until dinner time, I had to get it out of the ground. Well, all except for a few spare cloves I sunk into soil last fall alongside the little red house. They're mixing well with cherry tomatoes now, and I hope they do well enough to provide me with seed garlic this fall. (It's all getting so expensive now, isn't it?)

Over the next few weeks I'll do my best to show you a few pictures of life around the little red house. Meanwhile, I have towels on the clothesline and cookies in the oven and some scrubbing to do. Talk soon, right?

Love from my little house to yours. -Brin

P.S. I'm trying to get in touch with a Shelly from WI who emailed me last week. Shelly, if you're reading this, my reply to you is bouncing back. Could you please write again? :)

Herbal Remedies and Medicine: Let the Learning Begin!

...their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for medicine.

-Ezekiel 47:12

Herbs. So many folks I talk to these days are interested in growing them. Cooking them. Using them. I'll admit: I'm one of those people. Herbs thrill me. This spring, here's what I have working:

Lemon Balm

Basil

Cinnamon Basil

Thyme

Mint

Garlic Chives

Rosemary

Greek Oregano

In other words, fairly standard culinary herbs. Nothing much to see there. But here... oh!... here's what I want to add:

Lavender
Calendula
Dill

Catnip

Hyssop

Chamomile

Fennel

At least. That's my working list. 

Here is my ultimate goal: herbal remedies. Eleven years ago, I read one of my favorite books in the history of books. It's called A Still Small Voice. And ever since I read that book, I've wanted to be an herbalist. Not as a profession, necessarily, but as a skilled and knowledgeable woman learned in God's creation and dedicated to applying it to health and wholeness.

  

Thus far I've mastered an anti-itch tonic using thyme. (Get my "recipe" here.) But there's so much more I'm eager to learn! I want to whip up salves and lotions, set herbal soaps, take herbal teas and tinctures,  and bottle herbal syrups. Am I alone in this? I don't think I'm alone in this.

In asking around, I  heard this is an excellent book to begin with: Herbal Recipes for Whole Health. I also found that The Herbal Home Remedy Book is perfect for beginners:

I say we learn this. Together!  I'm so curious to hear from all of you regarding homemade, natural and herbal beauty products, cleaners, medicines and concoctions. Please join me over at the Messy, Thrilling Life Community and let's talk Herbal Remedies and Medicines. Let the Learning Begin! If you're looking for or have tips, recipes, methods, or herbal wisdom to share, please come over.  Hope to see you there! (Scroll down once you click the link above; I've shared my anti-itch "recipe" there, too, in case you're interested.)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

By the way, my favorite "Quiet Day", A House Helper Set, was just listed as a Treasury Item on Etsy. :)

Spring Morning

It's one of those mornings: cloudy, windy, heavy. Through the waving grass and knocking branches, bird songs come, carried on the wind. Moss creeps down stone steps. Hydrangeas, awake after their long sleep, yawn and stretch out leaves. Herbs sway. And in the strawberry patch, the first berry ripens- a perfect, storybook kind of berry, almost too perfect to be real.

Welcome, spring. It's good to see you at last.

Feed Store Day

The garden is going in. The garden is going in! After months of dog-earing seed catalogues, sending away for heirloom and organic seeds, and studying seed charts and soil pH mumbo jumbo, the actual planting has begun. So far I have onions, garlic, radishes, spinach, lettuces, broccoli and green peas planted. Everything looks good. (But I don't want to start bragging yet. A garden is nothing if not humbling.)

Yesterday I ventured to the town's Feed Store in search of more seed potatoes. Purple potatoes, baking potatoes, and regular potatoes weren't enough. Actually, my Dad, second generation gardener and Knower Of All Things Gardening, gave me ten dollars and told me to run and buy red potatoes. I did.

The Feed Store here is something from a story book. First off, it's ancient. Its rusty tin roof and creaking wooden steps bid you to an era you only see in movies. I get the feeling sometimes, as I'm climbing the worn steps, that I'll push open the door and, instead of finding old men in overalls cursing Obama and the Economy, I'll find men in coats and tall hats, arguing about President Lincoln and the War.

Once inside the long, slanting building, these are the things you notice first: an enormous black wood stove with a tin pan of peanuts roasting on top. Always. Since I was a girl. The men stand around the stove, shelling peanuts and tossing the shells on the knotted wooden floor. Near the stove, kittens tumble and mew from a basket. I've always wanted one. Since I was a girl.

Horse tack, field corn, chicken feed, dog collars and cattle medicine fill every nook. But along the wall by the door, steps away from the kittens, is what gets me teary eyed: Every Kind of Seed Imaginable. There's pre-packaged seed for (sniff) "town" people and bins of bulk seed for the country folk. The scale by the tower of brown paper sacks groans whenever you weigh your bags. Even if you only have two pounds. Even if it seems the old thing should have accepted her lot in life by now.

I walk the wall, slowly, reading the names of seeds and dreaming. Candy Corn. Louisiana Pink Purple Hulls. Christmas Limas. Big Boy Tomatoes. Red Heart Peppers. Zipper Cream Peas. (Those are my favorite. I bought 4 dollars of "Zippers" as we all call them here. They go for 30 dollars a bushel at market.) And when I get to the seed potatoes, I'm relieved to see nearly 20 potatoes left. RED PONDEROSA is scrawled on the box in pencil. 50 CENTS/POUND. I fill my brown paper sack, weigh it on the groaner, and take my five-plus pounds of good eating and assorted seeds to the counter.

There's a corgi in a dog bed to the left of the register. She's always in the same spot. I have no idea how she gets up there and never ask. She watches you without raising her nose. It used to be appreciated when you'd buy her a Milkbone, but not these days. She doesn't even chase the kittens anymore, I'm told. I shake my head and offer a "bless her heart" as if on cue. The cashier, with her Too Much Lipstick, nods approval.

You pay with cash. Or checks. I can't believe people still write checks, but they do in here. Oh, the Feed Store has a credit card machine, but you get a withering stare whenever you pull out your Bank of America card. Cash is king. Pay, get your change, and pet the kittens on your way out, nodding to the men who nod at you on your way down the stairs.

I got my seed potatoes cut and quartered like you're supposed to do before planting. They're withering now, fanned out on brown paper on the table. But you know, I got to thinking last night: I don't have any good mashing potatoes. Think I'll go back this morning and get the YUKON GOLD- 75 CENTS/POUND.

That and pet the kittens one more time.

Love and Orchids

I love that God created strawberries. I love that God thought of music. I really love that God made orchids.

I mean, it isn't hard to fall for and follow after a God who makes us orchids.

So today I'm sharing my beautiful petals with you. (You don't mind sharing a bloom, do you?) Happy Valentine's Day, lovely one. Hope you know how deeply loved you are.

And God, we love You because You first loved us. Thanks for the orchid. -Brin

My New, Old Thing

Letters are among the most significant memorial

a person can leave behind them.

-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

My Grandfather wrote letters to my Grandmother during WWII; letters I found bundled in her garage last year. The tightly-tied parcels were like paper presents, the writing unfamiliar to me... the stamps and markings both foreign and strange. The crinkled pages inside the envelopes told of feelings and promises that exist now only in my Grandmother's fading memories. And in the significant memorial my wonderful Grandfather left.

I decided after reading the lot that I would become a letter writer. A dying art form, to be sure. But an entirely lovely one. I mean, how often do you get a handwritten letter? A card, maybe, with a line or two penned at the bottom. But a letter? Rarely. I miss letters. I want to send and receive letters. And I wonder: in an era of email and text and Facebook, what are we leaving behind for our grandchildren to find fifty years from now?


So I write. I write people I love, people I've met, people (like a daughter?) I have yet to meet. I have a new, old thing: letters. Stamps. Stationery. Ink. I'm snatching up creamy, heavy pages... old, beautiful postage... and cork-capped bottles of liquid inks. And I'm writing.

With each bundle that leaves my hand bound for someone I love, I realize: my letters aren't just chaining souls; they're building my memorial.

If you're interested in letters, too, here's where I started:

The Art of the Handwritten Note: A Guide to Reclaiming Civilized Communication

Vintage Postage reclaimed by VerdeStudio

Stationery from Kate's Paperie

Liquid Inks and Pens

Pecans, Pie and Pony

A gray, gusty, golden-leafed afternoon. When lunch was done, I drove the short drive to family land on O'Farrell Road. I was on a mission. I had pie on my mind.

Surely I've mentioned it before - how I love picking up pecans, coming home to roll out pie crust, drizzling warm chocolate and a bit of cream over my fresh-from-the-oven pecan pie. Only I'm running out of pecans from my Freeman House stash. Time to hunt for more.

Pecan picking isn't as easy as it sounds. For one, pecans are clever. They wear these tan-and-brown jackets that perfectly camouflage them among the damp earth and crunchy leaves. But look carefully enough and you'll find them. You'll go cross-eyed several times in the process, but you'll find them.

I started my hunt near the property fence under a canopy of pecan and cedar trees. Traces of my Great Grandfather remain stamped here at his old homestead. A barbed wire-scarred tree tells of a long-gone fence. The shed in the background reminds me of garden and farm implements, fishing lures, seedlings. I started here, among my memories, and began filling my cotton bag with pecans. Within an hour I was done. Seems the squirrels and worms had first hunt.

As did Pecan. He's one of the miniature ponies now living on Henry and Belle's farm. He plodded alongside me as I picked. He caught me up on the goings-on at the farm. It was a good talk.

I'm off to make pie now. Time to narrow down this year's Thanksgiving pie offerings. Besides the stand-bys (Bourbon Pecan, Chocolate Creme, and Pumpkin), I'm considering two others: Joy's Buttermilk Pie and Lisa's (Sweet) Pinto Bean Pie.

Glad I still have a week or two to think on it....

Dreaming, Living and Stomping

Dream as if you'll live forever.

Live as if you'll die today.

-James Dean

One of my dreams: to go grape stomping before I turned thirty. Grape stomping was the thing, Delaney Vineyards was the place, and today was the day.

It was a perfect day. I loved the colors best. The sky sat a heavy, muted shade of gray. The vines unfurled an emerald green. And the grapes? They blushed a blueberry blue. Piles and piles of blueberry blue.

I wanted to take them all home and spill them from baskets and just look at them.

You couldn't, of course. It was harvest day at the vineyards and buckets and bins of grapes sat around waiting for their turn in the tumbler, a machine that separated the grapes from their stems. Men with large plastic shovels stood on top of the machine and scooped grapes into the hopper. I thought of those two scoops of raisins commercials and laughed.

I'm not sure what kind of grapes they use for raisins, but these weren't them. The grapes my friend and I saw today were headed for Delaney's wooden barrels, to ferment and age and become Merlot and Chardonnay wines.

After they were stomped, of course.

Stepping into a vat of mushed grapes is unlike any other feeling I've ever felt. Slushy and gritty, the mixture also ran fluid and slippery. Feeling that purple soup churn around my ankles reminded me of something one would experience in a spa. It was comforting, somehow. Almost therapeutic. I could have squished and stirred those grapes all day.

But I didn't. I lifted one foot out, then the other, and breathed a happy sigh. I did it. Under a stormy gray sky alongside twisting, emerald vines, I stomped grapes. Before I turned thirty. And it was as wonderful as I'd envisioned.

I'll drink (a wine sample) to that.

So here's to us. Here's to dreaming a little and living even more. -Brin

Happiness and Thankfulness

Three grand essentials to happiness in this life

are something to do, something to love,

and something to hope for.

-Joseph Addison

I could add a good many things to that list: unyielding faith in an eternal God, spa pedicures, cold lemonade, tied-together-by-our-souls friends and flowers.

And better yet, friends with flowers. Buckets and buckets of flowers. Friends who, on the same day you're prescribed a course of antibiotics for whooping cough (whooping cough?!), instantly brighten up your day by filling your arms with an enormous bucket of zinnias, marigolds and bachelor buttons. Don't you just feel your own kind of happiness when you look at sights such as this?

I thought so. Me too.

Wish I had enough flowers to fill the arms of a few friends who've meant the world to me this week: Sall, Karin, Shelley, Jan and Sondra. Big blooming thanks to you all. Thank you for being such a blessing. -Brin

Forgotten Magic

There's such magic here. At Freeman House. When you're away you forget, but then you come home and there it is. Oh, hello magic. I'd forgotten where I'd left you.

When I hurried away six weeks ago I wasn't excited about coming back. Millie wasn't house trained yet and utilized every corner of this old house as her dumping grounds. Couple that with the fact that this house is still, in fact, under major renovation, and what you get is the desire to get out. Quick. I couldn't pack and lock the doors fast enough.

I put off coming back as long as I could. Then I breezed into town yesterday, dropped Millie off, and headed immediately to the Copperleaf Spa for a back/neck massage and an organic "resurfacing peel". I love, love, love the Copperleaf Spa and all the women who work there. (I was talking to Vickie just before she did my massage and she immediately asked, "Have you read The Shack?!" Yep. That's the kind of place this is. If you ever come to Freeman House I'll insist you head there.)

So anyway, I finally get home and am just dreading going inside. Then I pushed open the door and... WOOOSH! There it was. The magic. The beautiful old rooms. The worn, crooked pine floors. The wavy-paned windows. The fireplaces and clawfoot tub. And that feeling again. That feeling of being wrapped up... that feeling of prayer and grace... that feeling of being home.

I adore this place. I'd forgotten how much I adore this place.

The sadly neglected garden thrived without me somehow. That God's gracey-magic stuff blankets the garden too, I suppose, so there's tomatoes, peas, squash, potatoes, pumpkins and herbs. I picked peas last night after the sun dropped below the crape myrtle... just in time for visitors to come knocking. We drank Cokes and shelled peas in the library and laughed and laughed. It's better than therapy. I'd forgotten how much I adore this place.

Speaking of which, I need to get those peas put up before I head back to the city later. Just wanted to pop in briefly with an "I am here", and wish you all a free and happy fourth. -Brin

Country Life

The town is man's world,

but this country life is of God.

-William Cowper

The stump grinding man is coming this morning. Just typing that makes me laugh. My friend Shelley and I were giggling yesterday about a recent shopping list we made before heading to "town" some 45 minutes away. To buy? Hot rollers, pea seed, coffee, hair dye, worm poop, garden stakes, etc. This country life is something.

I should warn you. Before abandoning your city life to seek out a Freeman House of your own, know this: there are days when you'll miss the hustling and bustling city terribly.

Those days are just very few and far between.

You should see the roses the grounds of Freeman House are coming out with this spring. So pretty I sat on my stone steps last night with a fistful (top picture) and cried sparkly, happy tears.

This country life could only be of God....

[Before someone asks, the small, heavenly pink rose in the above picture is a Elie Beauvillain. The rest are native, plated by Miss Freeman (I assume) and pre-dated my arrival. The next on my rose to-plant list is the Pioneer Spirit.]

The Occasion

Your life is an occasion. Rise to it.

-Dustin Hoffman

in Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium

My birthdays have always had two faces: significant and disappointing. Deeply so. Even as a child. With each passing year, I greet that April day with profound wonderment. Each is a gift. How blessed am I to have been given another year? I wake with this joy and then stumble into a regular day with a crummy cake and signed, pre-worded cards and think, I hate normal, unremarkable birthdays. They seem so... ungrateful, somehow. Why don't we truly celebrate our day more? And why don't we do more rejoicing in each other's days?

I can't say why, but sometimes I wonder if I don't have long here. My mother calls it morbid and scolds me, but there it is: sometimes I think I hear my clock ticking. It wasn't until college that I first recognized the sound. I've doubted - in frantic, terrifying moments- that my next birthday would even come. I'll spare you the melodramatic specifics and recounts of close calls. Suffice to say that I've rounded corners and nearly crashed into Death head-on. We eye each other and slowly back away, me triumphant and him burning with the knowledge that he can't touch me until it's time. And neither of us wears a watch.

Our lives are such occasions. Why don't we do more rising to them?

I was thinking tonight, before giving up on falling asleep, that I'm so torn between the world I see with my eyes and the world I see with my faith. As quickly as I'm ready to go, I'm also itching to stay. I close my eyes and think of my hands... the gardens they could plant and the instruments they could play. I think of my feet and the continents they could walk and the aid they could rush to. I imagine my voice and the songs it has yet to sing and the languages it has yet to speak. I think of my heart and the stories it has left to tell and the love it has yet to give. I think of my ears and the voices they have yet to recognize and the call they have yet to hear. I think of all this and I realize, once again, that these days add up to a glorious occasion and, whatever time I have left, I must hurry and greet it.

George Sanders. Remember him? The British man notable namely because he killed himself in 1972? Claimed on his suicide note that he was "bored". I truly can't imagine. Did he never pass a beautiful, unopened door? Did he never wonder what was behind it? Did no one ever tell him that his life wasn't an accident but an occasion? That he should rise to it?

I wonder, if we were to truly celebrate our birthdays - ours and those we love - how different our lives would be?

Have some exciting plans for mine this year. Silly, perhaps, but plans nonetheless. Because as it turns out, I'm in the middle of quite an extraordinary occasion and I must rise to meet it....

Sweeping Realizations

It's moments like these you realize you're blessed. Blessed beyond belief. It's those quiet moments... those hushed, still seconds you're sweeping your bedroom floor and stop to examine the pile the straw has gathered...

... And once you do, you realize you've swept more plum-colored tulip petals than dirt. You've called out, from the dark corners of the room in which you sleep, scattered flower remnants - delicate as tissue and thin as air.

So you stand on the worn wooden floor that generations of women before you have swept and you examine your own pile and you realize... you realize you're blessed. Blessed beyond belief.

[Monday Update and Edit] ...and you also realize that with blessing comes opportunity. Responsibility. You have things to do. You have a life that's begging to take off. Knocks on doors that need answering. And so you sit on that wooden floor and realize that a blogging break would be... a relief? Yeah. A quiet relief. It would afford you time to realize new dreams and tackle new projects and see new places....

I'm saying goodbye for a little while. I guess that's what I'm trying to say. I'm taking some time off to poke around the house and garden and then I'm boarding a plane. I'm going to spend some time in Istanbul and London. I plan to stay up late and drink really strong coffee and go barefoot. I intend to get lost in new places and read up on new faces. I aim to take naps on trains and eat fruit from outdoor markets and say prayers from the steps of Constantinople. I long to take my friend up on an offer and sing Puccini with an international choir. I want to dance on an ancient cobblestone street and buy a foreign hat and squint as my sun sets on someone else's world.

In a word, I want to live.

Yes, I'm so blessed. My life's blessed beyond belief. And I don't want to waste a minute of it. But I'll be back in a few weeks. I'll be back with new stories and new pictures and new words. Besides, you're probably getting a bit bored with me anyhow, considering this has all come down to me showing you what I sweep off my floor. (Laugh) This will be a welcome break.

See you soon.

Warmly and always,

Brin

Rejoicing...

In the depth of winter I finally learned

that there within me lay an invincible summer.

-Albert Camus

Strange how the bitterness of winter can fan flames of hope in the coldest of hearts. Rejoicing in the eternal summer I've found in the depth of my winter, and wishing the same for you....

Comfort and joy this December weekend,
Brin