feast of the Holy Trinity

 Spirit of the Father and the Son,
ripen your fruits in our hearts:

Grant us patience and gentleness,
charity, joy, and peace.

- from Magnificat, May 2026

Well, last week was finally Pentecost, the end of the Easter season, and today is Trinity Sunday. It's very springlike, and pleasant out. Yesterday it was fifty five, wet, gusty and cold! Well, we'll be in June tomorrow, and done with that sort of thing, hopefully.

We had a nice Memorial Day and before that, a visit with an elderly aunt, my mother's remaining sister. She is ninety four, and doing as well as she can - still at home!

I finished the daffodil dress, except for the hem. I really like those sleeveless, a-line shifts for hot summer days at home, so I plan to make a couple more. I put the green blouse project aside when the heat rose - couldn't stand the thought of it. 

A beautiful Tasha Tudor book was dropped off at the library, in perfect condition; I took it home to read. 

Filled with quotes, poems, prose and everything romantic, I wouldn't put it in the children's section, even though it looks like all her wonderfully charming picture books for children - no, this one would go over the heads of the little ones. Apparently, if you have a toothache, you should kiss a donkey.

That was from Germany. But you're out of luck if you don't know anyone with a donkey, aren't you?

"In the Middle Ages they kissed the newborn baby three times 
in the name of the Holy Trinity."

-  Tasha Tudor

looking for answers

 

I forgot a book which belongs in this pile - Silence and Honey Cakes, written by Rowan Williams. I'm liking it WAY more than I expected to. 

Monastery and High Cross is about something which may surprise you. From the back cover:

"It is a little-known fact that there were Christians in Ireland before St. Patrick. In 2006, an astonishing discovery was made in Ireland. Found by accident in a peat bog [of course, a peat bog - where else?] was an early medieval Irish manuscript with Egyptian papyrus in the binding of the manuscript? How did that get there?"

How, indeed? Connie Marshner, the author, will tell me how. 

My brother called to me this morning: Come quickly with your camera - there's a woodchuck eating a carrot!

He was right near the house, close to the bird feeder. We are still throwing carrots outside for the rabbits some nights, and I'd just been wondering who else would eat a carrot.

He was a good-sized one.

These creatures are also called groundhogs. They don't ever chuck wood, that I know of. 

How much wood
Would a woodchuck chuck
If a woodchuck
Could chuck
Wood?

early morning fancy

It's funny that the atmosphere of peace which abides in early mornings, is not disturbed or hindered in any way by loud and joyful birdsong. 

 One can really imagine fairies moving about at such an hour, too. 

Down along the rocky shore

Some make their home,

They live on crispy pancakes

Of yellow tide-foam;

Some in the reeds

Of the black mountain lake,

With frogs for their watchdogs,

All night awake.

-  from "The Fairies" by William Allingham

"The woods and groves around her, that had seemed so friendly... were strangers now. There were no homelights anywhere. Would she ever get home? All Judy's stories, enjoyed and disbelieved at home, became fearfully true here. Those strange little shadows, dark amid the darkness, under the ferns...suppose they were fairies. Judy said if you met a fairy you were never the same again."

                                                  -  from Pat of Silver Bush, by L.M. Montgomery

busy having fun at work

 In our town there's a winter festival on this first weekend of December every year. Since the library is in the center of town, we have to hustle to get the decorations ready.

Suzy Q wanted more red this year. Red does make a difference.

fur and foolishness

 Can you guess what this picture reminds me of?

I think it was when I saw the "ribbons" hanging down the side -

Lizzie's, of course, is much more elegant.

citizen scientist

 

She runs over to watch when I buzz the stuff off my sweater; she flies into the bathroom if she hears the water running and the door's open. Just now my brother is writing something on a pad in his lap, and he said she was watching; he said she noticed that the pen was making marks on the paper. That's interesting! When the water runs into the sink, she is focused on the water that accumulates, not on the stream coming down. So it's very intriguing to me that she is looking at the result - if you can put it that way (with the sweaters, I'm not sure what she's observing). 

I told her she's just like Aristotle.

it's Twelfth Night

 The Three Kings arrived

and Dolly was there.

the profound stillness

 I think I happened upon an answer to my question from yesterday:

"Why do people always get so still when they watch the snow, murmured Carol at the kitchen window, as if they could see it better that way?
  It is because the beginning of snow is, itself, a profound stillness in which the listener hears the thoughts of his own secret heart."

                                           -  from A Farmwife's Almanac of Country Living, by Rachel Peden

a fancy cat

 When Orphan Annie came to live with us, my brother showed a photo of her to a client - the lady said she must be part Russian Blue. Well, she isn't remotely blue colored, she's kind of a dark warm gray; when she was young you could see faint stripes, and I thought she might be part tabby, but not a Russian Blue.

Her profile, even from the first, always brought to mind those ancient Egyptian cat statues

although, honestly, I don't think the above photo shows it. I'll keep trying, but she does move around so! Anyway, then Clare said something which made me do a bit of research. 

I had put up the video where Annie is playing fetch with me, and I said we'd never taught her this. Clare said there might be Burmese in her. I looked it up.

Well! Rover has a very interesting article, and almost right away something got my attention: They are heavier than they appear. Bingo! This little cat weighs a ton! I always marvel at it. In fact, they are referred to as "silk covered bricks" - yes! Her fur is so flat and shiny it doesn't seem to require combing. This article also mentions the fetching, and other dog-like behavior and cute personality. 

The cats in the photos don't look like Annie, their faces are rounder. The article says there are American Burmese (rounder faces) and British Burmese (more angular faces), so maybe she's a British. They are supposed to have yellow eyes; Annie's eyes are yellow with a green ring around the pupil. They were yellow when we took her in, though. 

Then I wandered over to an article on the Russian Blue. They sure had her angular facial features. They also have faint stripes when young! And, they all have green eyes when fully grown, but first their eyes are yellow with a green ring! 

Well, if she's got Russian Blue in her, it probably isn't much, but I believe she's got lots of Burmese in her. I don't think her eye color will change anymore, but it's pretty funny to me that a fancy cat just sort of ended up here with us. Thank you, Clare, for sending me down that rabbit hole!

foolish musings

We've had this set of dishes for Many Years; I believe they are from the supermarket, in the days when you could get dishes in boxes of laundry soap. That's a long time ago.

We don't tire of them. The scenes are so pleasant, like this one. But in recent days I looked at this more closely, and thought it couldn't have been so hot on this dish day, otherwise that lady could never have dressed like that, nor would they have seemed so calm. But I love it.

spring around the corner

Even though it's only mid February and temperatures have only been in the thirties

it suddenly seems like spring is around the corner.