the course of human events

 The pie came out well, I decorated the table with lots of red, white and blue, I made strawberry coconut milk ice cream and we stayed in with the air conditioning. Of course! One has to make the most of things. I wore my latest dress creation - the coolest thing I own.

I was hoping I'd hear some bells ringing if I stuck my head out, but I suppose city dwellers would be more likely - nobody near me was ringing any bells. I would have rung some, if we had any. I even had the idea to dig around for some little Christmas bell decorations, but I stored my ornaments differently this year and have no idea where they are! I would have rung anything if I could have just found it! 

We were talking a bit about the founders: what made them persist, what gave them their momentum to  shake off the British and start their own government. It's easy to give up, especially when the average person complains in the pub, but that's about all. I did read a book about Samuel Adams where the author gave him credit for never letting go of the idea to throw off British rule; he was constantly talking about it, planting the idea in people's minds. I need to find more books about that. 

And after a week of extreme heat, it was barely seventy today, and raining. Cold air was actually blowing in! I'm happy for the creatures - I couldn't tell if anybody was drinking from the little trays I set out with water. The rabbit above was out in the rain for a while today, and didn't mind the wet at all. Maybe the leaves he ate were jucier.

"just live your ordinary life"

 "Whoever said that to speak about Christ and to spread his doctrine, you need to do anything unusual or remarkable? Just live your ordinary life; work at your job, trying to fulfill the duties of your state in life, doing your job, your professional work properly, improving, getting better each day. Be loyal; be understanding with others and demanding on yourself. Be mortified and cheerful. This will be your apostolate. Then, though you won't see why...you will find that people come to you. Then you can talk to them, quite simply and...about the sort of longings that everyone feels deep down in his soul, even though some people may not want to pay attention to them: they will come to understand them better, when they begin to look for God in earnest."

                                                                     -  St. Jose Maria Escriva

becoming renewed

 The paths my brother plowed for the rabbits are getting wider, the grass in them is more visible. Water was running into the drains at the supermarket parking lot. It's been a little warmer. There will be more snow tomorrow, but I actually hung something out on the line today! It was very pleasant.

Breathe deep and be renewed by every breath,
Kinned to the keen east wind and cleansing air,
As though the blue itself were blowing through you.

- Malcolm Guite*

I bought some lamb and made Scotch broth today, and I had a very-belated revelation. I always buy the shoulder chops because that what I'm familiar with, and they're cheaper than other cuts. I bought two packages, and by the time I'd cut out all the bones and fat, what was left was a smaller amount than the pile of fat and bones. Is that economical? I had looked at the loin chop package, and noticed it seemed less fatty.  l will have to try that next time. I'm making lots of soups this Lent, and am using every good recipe I've got. It's just the thing for this time of year.

*from The Word in the Wilderness

resisting the machine

Spring is definitely in the air! It's warmer, but not terribly; but the birds are singing, the daylight lasts longer, the paths my brother plowed for the rabbits are showing grass! Everything feels like it's coming alive. Under the surface, of course, except for the birds - they're the ones who show it.

I am almost finished reading Defending Middle Earth by Patrick Curry. I picked it up when it was dropped off at the library. I do not exaggerate when I say that not a day goes by when someone does not drop off books at their local library - at least, I assume it happens everywhere; it sure does where I work! And of course I have to look through them. 

Anyway, Mr. Curry defends the Lord of the Rings stories, and their focus on the simple enjoyments of home, community and nature. He tries to explain the popularity from different angles. I feel I should read it again, so I put a note in it to that effect. Anyway -

"Why can Tolkien's 'mythology' be described as universal? I have already shown that it embodies an attack on unchecked modernity in all its worst aspects, and presents a world of community, nature and spiritual values that successfully, albeit barely, struggles to survive such destruction. That world seems to be a different one, with strange people and places; yet at the same time, it is also recognizably ours. And because the processes of rampant modernization - economic, political, cultural - are now truly global, the potential appeal and relevance of Tolkien's attack and alternative are also effectively universal. This is a social and historical development; there is nothing necessarily mystical about it. 

But his universality comes about in another way, too. For the very terms of his critique are mythic; after all, that is ultimately the most (and perhaps even only) effective way to counter a worldview which is rigidly rationalistic and scientistic. And there is literally nowhere in the world without some native tradition of a mythical way of relating to the world in which it is alive and saturated with spiritual meaning - enchanted, in a word. Those traditions may be deeply buried, but - like the gods they embody - they can still be revived by recognition."

This book was published in 1997, and even back then he was speaking of "re-enchantment". There's a lot of talk about this: that, in a nutshell, we have lost the ability to take true delight in the world, and we need to re-enchant our way of seeing things, like they did in the Middle Ages. 

There is an article in Plough by Paul Kingsnorth about this very thing, speaking about his new book, Against the Machine: "Its modus operandi is the abolition of all borders, boundaries, categories, essences, and truths: the uprooting of all previous ways of living in the name of pure individualism and perfect subjectivity. Its endgame is the replacement of nature with technology, in order to facilitate total control over a totally human world."

According to Patrick Curry, the popularity of the Tolkien books shows that we really don't want a world like that, whether we realize it in this way or not. 

Brothers and sisters: We speak a wisdom to those who are mature, not a wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age who are passing away. Rather, we speak God's wisdom, mysterious, hidden, which God predetermined before the ages for our glory, and which none of the rulers of this age knew; for, if they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory,,,, For the Spirit scrutinizes everything, even the depths of God.

 -  1 Corinthians 2:6-10 

crow on the shed

keeping warm

 Snow was predicted last night and all day today, and by morning light, everything looked fresh. Then around eight, visibility dropped and the wind was blowing it all around - I wondered if they'd be wrong again about the amounts, but it must have been a squall; it settled back into a light snow and ended mid-afternoon. But it's cold, and windy.

We throw out timothy hay, cracked corn, carrots, peanuts. The mourning doves seemed to like the corn this afternoon. 

I'd bought two large plastic bins for organizing the Christmas things, and today I can say it's done - everything is sensibly arranged in the bins and a couple of shoe boxes. Much better than it was, and I feel light as a feather! I'm surprised at how relieved I feel to have that done. By using the bins, I got a lot out of the closet, consolidated a few smaller boxes, and things that I like to group together are stored together - like it should have been all along!

Daisy sitting under the corner cabinet to warm up near the heaters

Peter Wohlleben, who wrote The Hidden Life of Trees, also has written The Inner Life of Animals; I just finished it. I liked some parts better than others, but many things were interesting. Here, he explains why moths fly around lights:

"Moths... rely on the moon when they want to fly in a straight line. For example, when the moon is at its height and they want to fly west, all they have to do is keep the moon to their left. But little moths can't tell the difference between the moon and a cozy lamp adding a decorative touch to a garden at night. Now, as the tiny winged wanderer glides past the tulips and the roses, it immediately gets turned around. The brightest light at night must be the moon, mustn't it? And so it tries to keep this new moon to its left, but the lamp is unfortunately not 238,900 miles but only a few yards away. If the moth keeps flying in a straight line, the "moon" appears behind it, and it seems to the moth that it must have flown in a circle. And so the insect pilot corrects its course to the left to, as it thinks, continue flying straight ahead. This makes the "moon" appear on the correct side, but what's really happening is that the moth is flying in circles around the light. The spiraling flight takes the moth ever closer to the light until it finally end up at the center. If the artificial moon is a candle, there's a brief "puff", and the moth's life is snuffed out."

bumping into Thomas Traherne

I've come across mention of Thomas Traherne a couple of times lately and wonder if I should get some of his writings.

 "Principles are like a seed in the ground; they must be continually visited with heavenly influences or else your life will be a barren field."

                                             -  Thomas Traherne

the road to Bethlehem

 It snowed today. But then rain, and now it's gone. But - not forgotten!

"Advent is a short season, yet it covers a long distance. It is the road of a soul from Nazareth to Bethlehem. It seems such a short distance as we are accustomed to thinking of distances. Yet it is a road into infinity, into eternity. It has a beginning, but no end. In truth, Advent is the road of the spiritual life which all of us must start if we do not want to miss the way. We must start with a fiat that re-echoes Mary's fiat - Let it be done, O Lord. It is a fiat that each of us should say in the quiet of our hearts. 

Let us arise, then. Let us shake the sleep out of our eyes - the sleep of emotions run amuck; the sleep of indifference, of tepidity, of self-pity, of fighting God. Let us arise from that sleep...and begin our journey to Bethlehem. But let us understand that this "Bethlehem" we seek is within our own souls, our own hearts. ...It is an inner pilgrimage, a pilgrimage in which we don't use our feet....So, then, let us enter, you and I, into the pilgrimage that doesn't take us from home. For ours is a journey of the spirit, which is a thousand times harder than a journey of the feet. Let us "arise and go". 

                                                      -  Catherine de Hueck Doherty, from Magnificat, December 2025

a Happy Thanksgiving

 Well, it was a nice day and we had a good time. The cats didn't end up getting any turkey - they were sleeping while we ate. Daisy, of course, was at hand when I set the table.

Don't tell me I should have driven her off as soon as I saw here there - I already know that. I think she liked the tablecloth.

On the subject of cats, my brother went to the church early in the morning; his intention was to go to Mass, but first to the office, where he had to use the copier. He noticed some bags on the steps of the church, but did not investigate - this was before seven. At eight thirty, it was still there - it was an orange cat, in a carrier, with all its possessions, i.e., bowls, harness, etc.. As he was wondering if he should just bring it home, the organist came along and said he'd take it, and see if the local vet could find a home for it. So he took it upstairs in the choir loft, where the poor creature was crying. But there is a crying room up there, so that's where the kitty went. We are looking forward to Sunday when we'll see him, to find out the rest of the story.

I was pretty shocked at this - I follow several cat rescue channels on youtube, and see this sort of thing all the time. But I never saw it here. That is probably naive, to be surprised. 

Anyway, we are hoping for a happy conclusion to this Thanksgiving story. 

My autumnal display on the front steps looks pretty, I think.

Everybody likes Thanksgiving.

"In sober moments [Sir Walter] Raleigh's friends had no faith in his stories, but tonight he held them spellbound. In America, he said, vines laden with grapes cling to tall cedar trees, and sitting beneath them the natives drink the powdered bones of their chieftains in pineapple wine. 

Why? asked Nicolas....The customs of these people seemed to him odd.

That they may have their courage in them, of course, cried Raleigh, bringing his knife-hilt down with a crash on the table. Don't you know that we all of us feed on the courage of the dead? If there had been no valiant men in the past to show us the way to live would we be anything today but spineless idiots? 

Tell us some more, said Philip with kindling eyes. Is it very beautiful, that land?

                                                          -   from Towers in the Mist, Elizabeth Goudge

"As we have grown and prospered in material things, so also should we progress in moral and spiritual things. We are a God-fearing people who should set ourselves against evil and strive for righteousness in living, and observing the Golden Rule we should from our abundance help and serve those less fortunately placed. We should bow in gratitude to God for his many favors."

                                               (thirtieth) President Calvin Coolidge, 1925

almost there

I had some windows open today while I did my work, it was so mild! The dampness didn't matter because I was using the oven. The cats were certainly happy.

The squash pie is in the fridge downstairs, and I made the gratin, too, also in the fridge - squash pie because I also baked some pumpkin cookies. The pie recipe is the same for squash, pumpkin or sweet potato, and I've made all three over the years. The squash has a light, thinner texture, the sweet potato is the most substantial. I like to use dark brown sugar for that one, light brown or maple sugar for the pumpkin pies. 

Half an hour before dark, I finally got a pot, and made it outside to cut those berries. I stuck them in with two dried hydrangea heads and - let's say it looks artistic. I'll soon be looking for evergreens, anyway, since Advent is almost upon us. Just as I was coming back inside, a skein of geese flew right over, dark against the cloudy sky, in formation and honking. They were heading east, but I'm sure they knew what they were doing.

wishing for more

 I keep seeing what look like orange berries in the hedge outside my window, so I went outside before dark to get a closer look; they had an autumnal look.

They are not orange, but I may cut them tomorrow if I can find a suitable pot for the front step area, and get the pot filled. In between sprucing up the living room, changing the beds, making the squash pie, the gravy and the Winter Vegetable Gratin. It may rain.

"Time is something people take for granted, wish they had more of, complain they never have any of for themselves, and waste as if they had flowing wells of it in their back yards."

                                                -  Rachel Peden, Speak to the Earth

may he rest in peace

 Well, everyone's stunned by the sudden death of Charlie Kirk, assassinated by a sniper with a high-powered rifle. He must have been hired by someone - surely those with such a skill are known to the kind of people who want to force revolution on the world, who want to sidestep the order of the constitutional process. 

They are cowards, and they do not love their fellow beings. Gavin Ashenden has a lovely youtube meditation with his thoughts. It's just under ten minutes.

a lot of sparkle

I had just shut off the a/c, opened my side window, and was watching the pretty sparkle of the fireflies, when someone on the street behind us set off quite a colorful display of fireworks. So much for the quiet beauty of nature.

Daisy is in my back window, watching fireworks set off by another neighbor - it looks like a big sparkler, or something. Annie is on the hallway chair, which is brave for her; she isn't hiding. Our town event is scheduled for Tuesday, so this sort of nightly show may happen again. For the first time in days, I don't hear the mockingbird. Well, the creatures don't know what to make of the loud noises and I feel sorry for them. 

I don't know where I've been - mentally - for the past week. I always mean to post, but something gets in the way. I am making a linen top: sleeveless and simple, and I've been researching various ways of cutting bias strips. There are many, and it's interesting! I have to bind the neck and armholes and didn't want to use the packaged stuff. 

I've been experimenting with strawberry frozen yogurt, and frozen coconut milk pops, coffee-flavored. Something cold for the mouth must be kept on hand at all times in summer heat!

days off

 We've had some people leave the library for various reasons, so I've worked a few double shifts - not exactly double, but I stayed till closing, eleven hour days. But now I have a week off! Sewing and gardening are the plan.

I'm making a dress with a firefly-printed cotton. A sleeveless maxi, a-line, a pattern I've used before. I'm almost done!

I've also got a dragonfly fabric in the wings. Black, with blue, purple and gold dragonflies. No plan yet.

the telling of it

 "We temporarily added another member to the household this week when Hollyberry Red loped onto the terrace with a very wee rabbit. No bigger than a thimble, bright-eyed, incredibly soft, the rabbit was not injured by the sudden trip. The soft mouth of an Irish setter is always a surprise, it is really truly an egg can be retrieved unbroken provided you want to play games with eggs. 

Connie was home for the week end and she spent two hours at a stretch with a baby nursing bottle trying to get the tiny thing to take some nourishment. Finally she got down a few drops of warm evaporated milk via a dropper. She kept working every little while.

In four days the small one had developed personality, waggling its ears bravely, putting a paw out, giving great shiny looks when milk was in the offing. He also made small gestures toward fixing the grass up in his shoebox. 

By the time we learned from my naturalist-cousin Rob that rabbits have front teeth so designed that they must nurse sideways, so to speak, the baby was doing very well. His will to live was astonishing.

He fitted inside Connie's small palm at first, and then he seemed to begin growing. And then we gave him to a little girl whose rabbit had been run over, partly because she needed a rabbit and partly because it didn't seem practical to raise a rabbit with eight lively cockers and a livelier Irish setter romping around. Jill said everybody would get complexes. 

But I hated to see him go. The way this very small, very wild youngling adjusted to circumstances was amazing. Lugged from the nest by a fierce huge creature full of great teeth, dumped in the midst of people, he nevertheless gathered his small forces together and made up his mind to manage."

                                    -    Gladys Taber

I just finished the most wonderful book. Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton - do you know of it? A true account of a woman in the English countryside, during the lockdown, who finds a baby hare alone on a path. She passes by again four hours later and it's still there, so she decides to take it home. 

When I think back on the books which have made a difference in my life, it's not ever just the story, but how it's told. Galileo's Daughter, The Salt Path, Under the Tuscan Sun, God's Hotel, Fort of Nine Towers - it's always in the telling of it. 

This woman focuses the book on the relationship between herself and the leveret (baby hare); she has a life, but it is in the background to this compelling situation which requires much of her time and attention. It's not a tragic story! No tears at the end, although hares and other wild creatures don't live as long as we do. She opened up her life, her home, her mind and her heart to this helpless animal, and she was changed by it. When I was done with the book, I looked around at my life and thought about all the extraneous things here, things I can possibly let go of. Things that would get in the way of allowing such an event to possibly overturn parts of one's life.

Chloe Dalton was the perfect person to have this experience, not only because she writes wonderfully, but because of the way she respected this creature so entirely. If you like animal stories, consider Raising Hare.

trying to bloom in the cold

 It's been more like mid-March: cold, and snow predicted three times this past week. Neighboring towns got it when we didn't - until today. And it never reached forty today. But I was also looking at my blogposts from five years ago, and we had some snow in April then, too! It's helpful to have a way to remember these things.

Of course, it's gone now. The pansies I bought at the supermarket are cheerfully keeping company near the daffodils, but even though they're hardy, when it's threatening snow or twenty-eight degree temperatures, I take them in for the night, high up and out of Daisy's reach.

But everything is wonderfully green.

Love's as fresh as spring,

Love is spring:

Bird-song in the air,

Cool smells in a wood,

Whispering, 'Dare! Dare!'

To sap, to blood,

Telling, 'ease, safety, rest,

are good, not best.'

-  C.S. Lewis, from The Word in the Wilderness

 I know what we're going to eat for dinner all week - Holy Week is upon us, and to have a plan is a relief.

"what our Lenten journey is for"

 "It's worth reflecting on the idea that certain things and certain things only have been 'assigned to our brush', given us to work with, know and describe. It reminds me strongly of the Prayer Book petition that we should 'do all such good works as thou hast prepared for us to walk in'. Most of us are under pressure, external and internal, to do everything, be good at everything, be accountable to everyone for everything! It is not so. In the divine economy each of us has a particular grace, gift and devotion. Finding out what that is, and learning how to be guilt-free about not doing everything else, may be part of what our Lenten journey is for."*

                                       -  Malcolm Guite, The Word in the Wilderness, Sunday, 3rd week of Lent

*The emphasis is mine.

a real winter, it is

It's snowing. It should stop at midnight, with freezing rain a few hours later. We've had to go to Saturday afternoon mass two weeks in a row - so unusual, and there are rumors of a nor'easter on Thursday. 

The grocery shopping had to be done, as much as I dreaded being there before a storm. It was busy; at one point the line extended to the other end of the store. Thankfully, by the time we were ready, it was back to normal. And I noticed it was after twelve - lunch, even before a storm, must be eaten! There is still some regularity, some predictability in this world.

When we got to church, the organist was about to go up the stairs to the choir loft, and he cheerily said, "Good afternoon", at the same time I said "Good morning". It was so automatic; if I'm seeing him, it must be morning!

Before today's snow

I saw rabbit tracks in the snow around the bird feeder; do rabbits eat sunflower seeds? I hope he found some food.

I finished reading The Bird in the Tree. It's the first in a trilogy, with the middle one being my favorite. But I had forgotten how good this was - or maybe I hadn't realized it before. I'm wanting to read the whole thing again, but it's not long ago I read the second, so I may just go right to the third, which is The Heart of the Family - I don't remember it that well, but I know I loved these three books.

"In times of storm and tempest, of indecision and desolation, a book already known and loved makes better reading than something new and untried. The meeting with remembered and well-loved passages is like the continual greeting of old friends; nothing is so warming and companionable."

                                                   -  Elizabeth Goudge, The Bird in the Tree

Meanwhile, I continue with J.D. Vance's memoir of his youth in Appalachia. He's come a long way from that very unstable childhood, to the fellow who made that terrific speech in Munich the other day. 

a bit of snow

This looks like a good snowstorm, right? Well, the predicted six to ten inches ended up being -
not quite four. Honestly. 

Of course, we weren't longing for a load of snow, but they hype it up so - and the drama on the weather sites - there are terrible earthquakes all around the world, volcanoes erupting - snow in New England is to be expected, for heaven's sake. So I made a little cake, with spices and pumpkin. And some dark chocolate pieces. 

"I have tried to make life a creative art... Happy homes are very important, I think, far more important than you realize, and God knows how many of them have been built up by the sacrifice of private longings. I am inclined to think that nothing so fosters creative action as the sacrifice of feeling. It's like rain coming down upon the corn."

                                                                -      Elizabeth Goudge, The Bird in the Tree

"the purpose of education"

 "The purpose of education, finally, is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions, ....But no society is really anxious to have that kind of person around. What societies really, ideally, want is a citizenry which will simply obey the rules of society. If a society succeeds in this, that society is about to perish. The obligation of anyone who thinks of himself as responsible is to examine society and try to change it and to fight it - at no matter the risk. This is the only hope society has. This is the only way societies change."

                                                          -   James Baldwin, from Plough, Winter, 2025

"How Samuel Adams supported his family starting around 1769 is a mystery. With his brewery closing that year, his only steady income was his small salary as clerk of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. According to gossip, the Adamses were so poor at this time that John Hancock and other friends sent them food to keep them from starving and repaired the Purchase Street house to keep it from falling. There was even a joke around Boston about Adams's letter writing: 'Samuel Adams writes the letters and John Hancock pays the postage’.”

Dennis Fradin, the author of this biography, says that Samuel Adams never held a good job when he was younger, he was more of a thinker. And it seems that our revolution would Never have come to pass without him. He knew we needed to revolt against the oppressive British rule and he never stopped insisting on it, trying to stir up the populace. 

the little King

 Come to be born, to bear us to our birth,
To touch a dying world with new-made hands
And make the rags of time our swaddling bands.

-  Malcolm Guite, Waiting on the Word