Frost Flowers

The other night when the temperature dipped into the teens we knew what we would see in the morning.  My hip is still in the mending stage but Andy took my camera and went in search of frost flowers.  He knows just where to look.  Down in the southeast of our property there is a pretty good patch of frost weed.  These plants soak up water and hold it in their stems.  When freezing weather comes at night, the water freezes and bursts the stems.  The ice comes out in ribbons and curls.  Sometimes the stems retain some water and we have a repeat from the same plant.

It is such a treat to look out over the field and see the white frosty flowers at the base of the plants.  They glisten in the sun.  When you move closer in you see such a myriad of shapes and sizes.  They are just marvelous.  I like to break off a piece of ice and look through it, seeing the bands of frozen water.  I know most people who live here have seen these flowers of ice.  Most call it rabbit butter...or a form there of which is not spoken in polite company.  I can see the smirks on faces from here..I know who you are!

Regardless of what you call them, they are one of those Ozark surprises that we all wait to see on a winter day.  Gleaming there in the grass, spread out like a million sparkling diamonds.  Just one of those marvels you see when you live in the country.  Hope you can get out and see some one of these frosty mornings.  Shiver and enjoy.  Because they don't last forever.  A treat to see...and remember.

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That Special Day

What is better than a dinner with friends?  I have eaten many a good holiday meal with Joe and Maxine Lord , Jon and Johanna.  The above picture shows my brothers, Paul to the left, and Derek to the right lifting their glasses in a toast.  It looks like Joe is entering into the festivities.  My mom sits in the middle, laughing as usual.  And Derek's wife Rhoda is seated at the end next to Joe.  I assume that Maxine took the picture.

Evidently I was not present.  Who knows why.  Since Derek and Rhoda and Paul are in the picture, I think this was taken after I was married and away from home.  Perhaps I was celebrating with Andy's family in Maryland.

The whole point of my post is to remember those great times we have all enjoyed with the ones we hold dear.  All of the people in this picture are gone.  One by one they left my life.  And I am still here, alone with wonderful memories and a sadness that is sometimes overwhelming.

So many people can relate to this emotion during these happy times of year.  Family gatherings that are tinged with regret but still full of love and laughter.  I choose to remember with gladness the family that raised me.  I choose to cherish the gifts they gave me....love, acceptance, and a desire to be a person  they could be proud of.

It sounds trite.  But it is true.

This holiday time will be different for so many of us.  But if we would just think about all we have right now.  If we can acknowledge the sadness that will always be there.  The hole in our hearts.  The empty chair at the table.  We can then reach out and feel the warmth of their love for us.  And our love for them...around the table of life.  And especially on that special day.

 

Uncle Gus

Here he is.  My grandmother's younger brother.  According to my family records he was born in Michigan.  I have no idea why his family was up there.  His father was a minister and served Lutheran congregations in Illinois and Ohio.  And perhaps, when Gus was born his father might have been serving a church in Michigan.  

When he was just a kid, he and his mother and the other four children went to live with their maternal grandparents.  The farm was bisected by the railroad.  According to family lore, when Opa...or Grandfather...went to take his afternoon nap the boys were sent to the barn to stay for a few hours.  I imagine this was done to keep the noise level down in the house.  My great- great-grandparents were stern people...or so I gather from what I have heard. And I can imagine taking on a young family when you have already raised eleven of your own was quite a chore.

Gus would listen to the train coming down the track near the barn.  He loved to hear the whistle, the wheels as they clacked along the rails, the thundering power that blew across the cornfield near where he stood.  Every boy's dream.  The railroad.

Gus had a sweetheart.  Her name was Emma.  They made plans to marry one day.  After he came back from chasing his dream.  They promised to write each other as often as they could.  And he would come back and they would start their life together.

Alas, as is true in many of these stories, it was not to be.  Family lore has it that Oma..grandmother..and her daughter, Gus's mom, had other plans.  Somehow they managed to stop the letters coming from Gus to Emma.  I have no idea how this happened.  What was their plan?  Well of course, they had decided that Gus's younger brother Fred was a more suitable husband for Emma.  And so they encouraged that romance.  

Gus was in California and Nevada working on the railroad..  Meanwhile back home, Fred and Emma were becoming "sweet on each other".  Can't blame Emma. No letters from Gus meant that he had forgotten her.  

Gus came home for a visit.  He brought Emma a beautiful fur coat.  I can imagine how he felt when he found out that she would not be his girlfriend nor future wife .  He gave her the coat.  And headed west on the next train out of town.

He succeeded in his life as a railroad man.  I have a picture of him in a Stetson hat, a nice suit, smoking a cigar.  He didn't come home much.  When he retired he stayed out west until his health started to fail.  Then he came home to live with his younger sister, my Aunt Nettie.  

I loved my Uncle Gus.  He had a soft way of speaking.  He was a quiet man with good manners and a quick smile.  I liked to sit on his lap and listen to him talk to my grandmother and my aunts and uncles.  No one ever mentioned Emma.  In fact, I didn't hear the story of their romance until I was an adult. 

I visited Uncle Fred and Aunt Emma once or twice when I was small.  They lived in a town near my other aunts and uncles.  They had no children.  And as long as I knew her, Aunt Emma was an invalid, in bed most of the time.

I share this story because we never know just how our lives might turn out.  Gus had plans.  He was disappointed.  He probably grieved for awhile.  But I know that he enjoyed his life out there, riding the train from town to town.

When he passed away my Aunt Nettie gave his railroad watch to my mom.  Mom gave it to my brother Paul.  And when Paul passed away, it came to me.  

Now we have a grandson named Gus.  An excellent name for an excellent person. I hope my Gus grows up to be a man like Uncle Gus....honest and dependable.  A man able to weather life's storms and come out a winner in the end. 

 

 

The End

And so it ends.  The frost this morning caused the leaves of our zinnias to wilt and turn dark green, a sure sign that this will be the end of flowers in the garden for this year.  Luckily, Andy picked a last bouquet yesterday and brought them in to liven up our window sill.  

The flowers have been especially beautiful this year.  We planted both zinnias and coreopsis in our flower field.  The deer ate every coreopsis as it emerged as a green seedling.  Amazingly, they left the zinnias alone...until a few weeks ago.  One night they browsed every single zinnia bud.  Just nipped them off clean to the stem.  The blooms they left untouched.  They are fussy eaters for sure.

I am sorry to see the flowers end this year.  Being home more has been a pleasure since our garden has kept us busy.  We have had more green peppers than we could use.  Tomatoes by the bucket full.  Lots of okra  And other good veggies.  Our lettuce is still hanging in there.  But the days are numbered for much that we have left.  The last lonely cucumber was kind of pathetic.  It looked a little lumpy and pale, but it did taste good.

We are already planning on what we will plant next year.  What we will try and what we might pass over.  Some things  do really well for us.  And some are just a lot of trouble for too much work.

As the nights get longer and the days chillier we can look forward to what might happen in the spring.  Winter will coat the garden place with frost and snow.  The wind will blow the last remnants of the bean vines and  whisk away the leaves left on the tomato bush.  And as the earth sleeps we will dream of spring and summer...good things to eat and the pleasure of seeing them grow.   

 

The Good Old Days

Seems like a thousand years ago.  Andy and I would add a little extra kick to the Jessie Polka.  No strain.  Just see how high we could go.  Usually we did this in front of the band. We wanted to see if we could get the fiddler to miss a lick when we hollered and got his attention.  It was fun.  Just the best kind of fun you can have.  

This picture was taken at the Taney Center near Taneyville.  They had the best dance floor around.  Lots of our friends from Taney and Douglas County would come to dance and enjoy the great music that Bob Holt played with the band.  We thought it would go on and on forever.  But, just as most things, it came to an end.  

The road to the dance was rough and windy.  Anyone who travels that part of 160 highway knows you have to be careful around those curves or you might end up wound around a tree or headed down into a dark and wooly ravine. But it was a pleasure to take off after work on a Saturday night and make that drive.  We knew that friends and good music would make it all worthwhile.

Usually the floor was full of sets when we did a square.  Sometimes there was a two-step or a polka, but mainly Bob played a fast and furious fiddle tune that kept us moving until we gave out.  What a great memory that is.  

The band would take a break about half way through the dance.  But before they did,  the jig dancers would request a tune to jig too.  Oh my!  It was time to show-out, that's for sure.  I can close my eyes and see so many of my friends dancing away, feet moving at lightning speed, heels and toes clicking to the ever increasing beat of the  music.  We all needed a break after that.

Taney Center dance is gone.  I can't kick high when I do the Jessie Polka.  The square dances are few and far between now.  Many of our partners are gone.  

I love seeing the pictures from those years that have so swiftly gone.  I can close my eyes and hear Bob playing Ninth of January or Black Mountain Rag.  I can imagine the clicking of taps on the floor as we swoop and swing and smile.

But I keep these memories in my heart and in my mind and know that for us those were the best of days...and best of nights.  Kicking high, moving to the constant beat of the fiddle.  The good old days for sure.

  

 

Bring on Fall

Who doesn't love the season as it changes from late summer to early fall?  I can't imagine not being inspired by the gradually cooling temperatures and the changes we see on our hills and in the valleys as  deep green turns to yellow and orange and red.  The garden is yielding its late season crop of lettuce and beans.  Some tomatoes are ripening and some will need to be picked before frost.

Did I say frost?  I look forward to that first frosty morning.  The wood stove may need to be started  to banish the chill in the house.  Warmer jackets, longer pants, heavier coats.  All hanging in the closet ready and waiting. 

My mother loved fall.  It was her favorite season.  Since she lived in Florida, she always made it a point to make a three month visit from late August until after Thanksgiving.  She loved to pick up walnuts, hull them and leave them out to dry.  She adored the drives we would take up on the Glade Top Trail.  She would talk about her own girlhood in Illinois, a trip to Shook's Timber, walking along the railroad on her way home from school in Panola, hog-butchering time.  It was her time of year.

I guess I must have inherited my affection for the season from her.  Football games where my brothers played in a valiant effort to beat a near-town rival.  As a cheerleader, bundled up against the cold, leading the crowd as we yelled and screamed as the final touchdown was made as time ran out.  Then making my way home under the streetlights...the trees over the road outlined in purple with orange and red leaves rustling in the wind.  Trips on my bike to Bishop Hill.  The little town itself a storybook picture of beautiful homes and a park where we roasted hotdogs and made s'mores.

Now I look out my window and see the leaves of a few trees beginning to turn.  My lighter sweatshirt is ready for the chilly morning even though it will be discarded by noon if not before.  I sense an urgency in me.  I can't quite put a name to it.  Change.  The season is changing.  And I am looking forward to what fall may bring.   

 

Dragonflies

You can't see them in this picture.  No.  They fly so fast only a supersonic mini-cam could catch them in flight.  I am talking about dragonflies.  

In the evening they gather in the air on the north side of my porch.  The low light makes it easier for me to see them spotlighted by the setting sun.

They are just amazing.  They fly in formation...each tiny shape aligned exactly, near but not too close to its neighbor.  Holding a steady speed they zoom toward the west, wings a blur, then abruptly turn 180 degrees and fly, without hesitation or slowing their speed, to the east.  Back and forth.  Up and down.  I try to focus on just one dragonfly but it is hard.  First one way, then a climb up and over and down to again turn backwards and around.  It exhausts me just to imagine how they do it.  

A little research tells me  they have almost 360 degree vision with huge eyes mounted on tiny heads.  Their double wings are endlessly mobile, giving them the ability to change direction in a nanosecond.  

All in search of that thing which all living beings need.  Food.  And lots of it.  Gnats, mosquitoes, tiny pinpricks of bugs that are almost invisible to our eyes.  They fly and turn and climb and disappear, only to emerge again in some far off spot.  They fly down the hill toward the valley...and then come back.  Always following their next meal. They need  a lot of food to keep those engines running.

As I sit there, entranced by the flight of these super pilots, I think about how the smallest things in our world can be the most fascinating.  We oooh and ahhh at the ability of  gymnasts and dancers to turn themselves into impossible arcs and leaps of greatness.  We admire the skill of athletes who appear to walk on air.  But this little insect tops them all. 

The light is fading fast.  One or two still linger, flying back and forth seeking a final mouthful.  I scoot back my chair and head into the house.  But my mind is still full of the show I have seen.  A miracle.  A true gift. It makes me smile..