Summer Fresh

 

With no specific intentions in mind, I puttered around the house, cleaning and freshening odds and ends as needed. I washed the bathroom floors with a scented Spic N Span product and laundered the quilts from the upstairs twin beds. I hung the quilts on the porch to finish drying in the outdoor air. 

I went away from the house (to do something that I can no longer remember) and when I returned home and walked inside, the happiest, freshest scent greeted me. I was immediately brought back to childhood summers and the clean scent of my mother's cleaning and laundry hanging on the clothesline. What a good and happy reward for a small bit of morning cleaning. 

When I went back into the hall bathroom to put things back in place, I looked out the window and saw a sky with clouds that looked unreal. I imagined Teletubbies would come romping over the hill under that sky. The blue sky and cotton ball clouds were peeking out above the window curtain I replaced a couple of weeks ago. I like to use vintage tablecloths for our bathroom curtains. They are so pretty and it seems a shame to keep them tucked away in drawers where they never get used. Anyway, the fresh, white curtain and the Teletubby sky in the happy-scented bathroom had me feeling pretty good.  

 

Sticks and Stones Quilt

 

Time finally fell into a calm, summer pace this week. I was happy to have time to putter at home. Since it is too hot and muggy to be outside more than necessary, I decided to begin piecing a quilt. 

My friend Pat gave me a jellyroll of Jo Morton's "Timeless" fabric collection that she did not want anymore. I used a Missouri Star Tutorial to stitch it up in the Sticks and Stones pattern. I pieced it randomly but there are many ways this could be pieced using lights and darks to form patterns. I did purchase an additional charm pack of the Timeless fabrics so that I would have enough for a complete piano key border without having to leave part of the border plain as they did in the tutorial. The pattern sews up easily and quickly and caused me no piecing panic. I will drop it off at the quilt shop in Rocky Mount to be quilted.

In summary, I am not a fan of this color palette. But, it matches our old oriental rug in the living room and  it was free. I have another jellyroll and charm pack of "Collections for a Cause: Etchings" which is what was used in the tutorial and which I much prefer. So, I will stitch this again at some point. At sixty by seventy inches, it will be a perfect lap quilt when those cold winter nights are back and we want to cozy up with a movie. 

 

Preparing For a Pilgrimmage, A Jubilee Year of Hope

 

 

The Catholic church has declared 2025 to be a twenty-five year Jubilee. Specifically, this Jubilee is designated as a year of "Hope".

In short, a Jubilee Year is a time for renewal; a pivotal, transitional moment when something begins anew. It is also an opportunity for a "coming together", to bring our joy, our hearts, and our hope to the church. 

This year, Rome expects thirty-five million pilgrims to visit for the Jubilee year. Here in our little Fincastle church, we are preparing a pilgrimage of our own. When Father Xavier suggested  we have a pilgrimage for the Jubilee Year, my heart leapt at the chance. I have never participated in an intentional pilgrimage but I knew this was a special moment in time to further my faith and to participate in what my friend and collaborator calls a "soul altering" experience. 

In order to have a pilgrimage, there needs to be a destination. Saint Andrew's Basilica in Roanoke was listed by the Richmond Diocese as one such destination for a pilgrimage. Lucky for us it is located only thirty minutes away! Father Xavier, Kathy, and I visited the basilica this morning in order to plan our pilgrimage with their coordinator. This was the first time I stepped foot into St. Andrews. The architecture and beauty took my breath away and my eyes filled with tears. The experience was multiplied by the sound of the organist practicing in the choir loft. As we entered the Narthex (entrance vestibule) I could smell the soft, woodsy scent of incense. Further entering into the Nave, the cathedral ceiling soared upward and reminders of the heavenly realm and the history of the church were everywhere. The paintings, statues, and stained glass depicted images and reminders of where we have been and where we are going. 

I felt very lucky to have this chance to roam the church at will, to sit and reflect, and to plan for our pilgrimage. My heart is expectant and ready and my soul yearns to listen and see. My flesh only asks that I do not trip and stumble when I walk up to the Lectern to read. That would be my earthly style. 

I wanted to record this moment of peace and to remember this feeling of expectancy and hope.  

Garden Eats! Beans and Greens

 I ended up having to go to the doctor for the poison ivy rash. He prescribed a twelve day taper of Predisone along with Bactroban ointment for the worse area on my forearm. Relief and healing began immediately. The steroids gave me an enormous amount of energy and I have been channeling that for good.

 The garden is producing good things to eat! We have had our first two large tomatoes and a few cherry tomatoes. The lettuce is finished and the Swiss Chard is coming big time. I harvest the Swiss Chard on the spot, right before I want to cook it. It cooks down to nothing, like spinach, so I gather a big armful for the two of us. I plunge the stack of leaves into a cold water bath in the kitchen sink. It amazes me that there are never any bugs or dirt on the leaves. 

 Once the leaves are trimmed of stalks and sliced into ribbons, it goes into the pot. This night we are having Greens and Beans. This is an Italian dish that my mom cooked every summer from my dad's garden. It uses lots of garlic and chard, chicken broth, cannelloni beans, and olive oil. That's it! It is so healthy and delicious and satisfying to eat. I served some roasted Italian sausage on the side. A good sprinkling of freshly grated Parmesan is a must. The best way to eat it is with crusty Italian bread but Steve and I are foregoing bread most of the time these days. 

 

 

 

The Bane of My Existence

 

As I lay in bed the other night, feeling sorry for myself, I asked God if it was really necessary for me to have a poison ivy rash every summer of my life. At sixty-six years old, must I really continue to suffer these miserable rashes? 

As a child, I played in fields and woods, ignorant of the plant that would hijack two weeks of my summer vacations with itching misery every year. Back then, we gave no thought to sunscreen, tick repellent, or plant identification. Summer vacation was pure freedom to swim, play outside after dark, explore streams and woods, and get into general mischief. 

I don't recall any of the other kids in our neighborhood having poison ivy, only me. I remember one day in particular. I was sitting on our front stoop and my friends came to call me out to play. I was too miserable even to play. The kids studied my legs as though they were a circus wonder. The rashes are hideous when they weep. The best treatment we had at that time were oatmeal baths and Calamine lotion. Neither had any good effect on my rashes. No, having poison ivy meant enduring the rash until it was good and ready to go away. Those rashes lasted for two weeks at the least. On hot nights when it was too hot to sleep, it felt even worse as we tossed and turned in our beds. Oh, the misery. Poison ivy was the bane of my summer existence.

The year that I was entering fifth grade, on one of the last evenings of summer vacation, I went with my  friend, Rosina, to her grandmother's house. It was an old farm way out in the countryside of Averill Park. This was Labor Day and it was our next to last night before school began. We were very excited about school starting but we were soaking up this last freedom. We played under shrubs and hedges, we explored an empty camp building and we generally ran around with no purpose whatsoever. I remember finding a fuzzy leaf and rubbing on my cheek. It was not a poison ivy leaf, I am sure of that now, but we must have been crawling through a patch of the poison plant while we played. The next morning I woke up with my face swollen and burning. My eyes were swollen shut and my skin felt tight. To my horror, I had poison ivy all over my face. That was the first time my mother ever took me to the doctor for poison ivy. The doctor gave me an injection and some cream. That rash went away quicker than other rashes had done, but I had to miss the first two days of school. When I did return to school, I still had oozing sores, red skin and no self-confidence about my appearance. It was difficult walking into a classroom filled with new classmates who had already chosen desks and had begun school without me. In my anxiety I wanted to turn and run home. To my utter relief, there were three girls who were kind and pitying of me. Each of them invited me to sit next to them. I still remember their names and faces and the feeling of melting relief I had for being accepted. To this day, I think of them as my heroes.

So, here we are today. I can identify poison ivy in a flash. It grows in all the outlying edges of our property and I always steer clear. BUT, in the last few years, it is cropping up in our yard. Seedlings grow on our patio, under shrubs and in our groomed beds. I think the birds are dropping the poison ivy berries they pluck or eat from the mature vines in the woods. These berries take root in our yard. I have seen the thick, hairy poison ivy vines that climb twenty feet high on old tree trunks back there. Those old vines have clusters of berries on them. 

Last weekend, I decided that I needed to pull up a poison ivy vine that I had let go last year for fear of touching it. It was growing up one of our Viburnum shrubs and I was afraid it would strangle it. I put on gloves and very carefully reached under the shrub to pull it out at the root. I tenderly tossed it aside where it could shrivel up. Then, I went into the house and, out of caution, washed my hands and arms in rubbing alcohol and then dish detergent. Then I showered. The next day the rash appeared on my arms. Welcome misery. Days later, new patches are still appearing. This is the worst rash I have had in many years. I know that a course of steroids will minimize it. But, I am on the fence whether to endure the rash or the side effects from the steroids. For now, I scrub it three times a day, put Caladryl on it, then bandage the worst arm to soak up the weeping of the sores. It looks hideous but at least it's not my face.

 

 

A Party for Claire

 

It is hard to believe Claire turned forty years old. Was it really that many years ago we had our first baby?! To mark this special occasion, her sisters and I planned a surprise party. Chelsea flew down from New Hampshire and Daniel made up a good reason to drive Claire and their family up from North Carolina. Claire was certainly surprised when she found Chelsea standing out on our patio! We made a celebration of the entire weekend from food shopping, to prep, to party.

We rented a large picnic shelter at Douthat State Park and threw a Tiki themed party.  Audrey and Tess bought lots of decorations, Chelsea made an excellent play list, and we all found Hawaiian recipes to prepare a picnic feast. 

It was a pretty setting for a party out in the woods. It was raining on and off but the kids,grand kids, nieces and nephews all managed to get in a little time on the lake. The rain didn't stop us from eating well, listening to good music, and celebrating Claire. Chelsea switched the music over to forties swing and all the dancers took to the area they had cleared for dancing. 

 

I was a little bit sad for the day to be over and to say goodbye to Claire and her family as they departed back home. Claire was my introduction into motherhood and I could not have had an easier, sweeter baby for my first. My heart is always full when I can have all my girls together at the same time, 

Torrential Rains

 I forgot to post about the torrential downpours we had earlier this week. Right around dinner time on Monday it rained so hard and so quickly that water accumulated in a flash. It was alarming to see flooding occur so fast. I heard reports that in some places four inches of rain fell within thirty minutes.

The flume I built was overwhelmed by too much water flowing down the hill. A normal rain would have caused a light flow of water but this was a gushing stream. The bricks did help prevent erosion of the soil so that was something positive. Some water still backed up to the house and into our basement. Steve kept up with the flow by using the Shop Vac. 

In the midst of all that downpour, I had to drive Chelsea to the airport. Tess went ahead of us down the road. We slowly rolled through high water and carefully avoided washed out gravel and fallen branches and debris. We came upon one small incline in the road that was rushing down with water such that it looked like a waterfall! Tess thought it was too dangerous to traverse. When we saw her turning round, we did the same. We took another back road to cut across to the highway. We saw fields turned into lakes. The hills were sending water into ravines that ran like rushing streams. Emergency vehicles passed us heading north, toward Eagle Rock. The whole scene felt apocalyptic. We could only think of our West Virginia and North Carolina neighbors and what they endured last year. I never saw so much water rise up in such a short span of time. I always thought we were safe in the mountains and on high ground from flooding. But, all the hills, hollows, streams, and ravines serve as channels for heavy rainfall. The water rushes down, carrying everything with it.

Eerily, as we left our county and headed into Roanoke, not a drop of rain had fallen. The roads were dry and flights were on time. I drove back home in a light rain. The washed out gullies left a lot of debris in the road but the flooded areas had receded. I was glad it was still light outside for my drive. 

The forecast shows chanced of storms again on Thursday. Steve and I will need to get outside and work  more on the grading near the back corner of the house to better channel water away. Aside from keeping the house dry, there is really no way to prepare for such flooding. It comes too quickly and the roads became impassable so fast that one cannot safely drive to get away from it.

Our road quickly turned into a fast flowing creek.

This is where we decided to turn around and find another route.