something that stayed with us all day

 We had a visiting missionary priest at Mass yesterday; he was of the Redemptorist order. Polish, but the accent didn't sound like it to me; he had served in Denmark and other places; when they come, it's always to raise money for their poorer locations. After speaking a little while he suddenly began to sing a very simple melody - a chant, really - calling on the Holy Spirit. It was unexpected, beautiful and very moving - everybody felt it. After getting used to the melody we joined in for a while, and then it was done. 

O Wisdom of God, you are the light by which we see:
- shine on the paths we are to walk this day.

-    from Magnificat, July 2024

finishing

 "Something about a robin makes me feel he/she would be very good on committees."

                                                  -  Gladys Taber

I am almost finished with my blue lawn skirt; the elastic is pulled through the channel and the hem is basted and pressed. I'm not sure I like the elastic waist, though. So, I may switch to a waistband - I'll think about it.

I harvested a small cabbage from my garden for dinner today! A customer of my brother's gave us five of the plants and I took one. My garden is a mess, but the one bed where I actually have things planted is growing like crazy! I'm thrilled.

I finished To Kill a Mockingbird with Close Reads - it just so happens it was published on this date in 1960. The conversation on the podcast was enjoyable, and we all agree that every page was beautifully written, and frankly, couldn't be improved upon. Another of the modern American classics, like The Great Gatsby, which I read last summer. I wouldn't read Gatsby again, but this one I would.

surprise climbers

 My brother bought a packet of Italian bean seeds to plant - we liked them so much last year. It wasn't long before he noticed the tendrils and had to put up poles for beans that were supposed to be the bush variety. 

At least they are Italian beans; the packet wasn't entirely mis-labelled. 

finding Alice Waters

 

Of course I've heard of Alice Waters. But I haven't been curious about her cookbooks. And then I saw this one on the sale table at the library. It's got recipes, but also lots of advice on technique and method. Maybe it's just that the cover appeals to me, but I took it, and then out of curiosity looked up her famous restaurant, Chez Panisse. There was something on the Cafe menu: mezzi rigatoni with roasted eggplant, tomato, basil, mint and feta. It was the holiday weekend; my brother is having a vacation of sorts and he always liked pasta. I decided to try and make it. 

No recipe, but it seems a rather basic idea. She gives directions on the roasting of eggplant, so I loaded it up with mint and basil and roasted it. Out of the oven I stirred in some feta, and diced tomato from a can, and put it back in the oven to mix the flavors together a bit more.

We had to have protein; I browned a few chicken drumsticks, then braised them in stock, red wine and the tomato juice from the aforementioned can. I cooked half a pound of the rigatoni, mixed it up with the eggplant, made a basic salad, and - so good! I think I was in a rut when I found that book. Thank you, Alice!

the key to all existence

 "We have the bad habit of thinking that faith is nothing else but believing that God exists. But such faith in no way distinguishes the nonbeliever from the Christian. How many men fully admit a force that surpasses them, without being for that reason Christians? Faith is not the simple intellectual certitude about the existence of God nor even the assurance of the existence of Christ. Faith is that force which comes from on high in an always contemporary Pentecost and opens our mind to God's way of looking at things.

If one truly searches for him, he searches for him as the key to all existence, as the One without whom nothing makes sense."

                                                                     -  Fr. Bernard Bro, from Magnificat, July 2024

July Fourth holiday supplanted by rabbits

 A couple of weeks ago I notice one of the tomato plants on the side of the house was wilting, so I watered it. Meanwhile, my brother came home and said he saw some grass clippings scattered around that plant and he surmised it might be a rabbit's nest, so he was just going to call that plant a loss. There are more rabbits around.

I just was coming up from the basement and heard him call to me, hurry up, but carefully! There's a mother rabbit nursing her baby right out here at the foot of the back steps. Oh, my word, there was.
It was a haphazard affair, I have to say: she was sitting upright and the babe was just sort of hanging underneath, doing its best. It's a wonder that rabbits survive. It looked kind of like this.

She must have seen my brother's movements as he tried to take a photo, and ran off. The baby wandered around the driveway. 

On the same subject, he was mowing yesterday evening and complained afterward that three times a young rabbit suddenly appeared in the grass and ran off - he is very dismayed to think he might run one over some day, as they're impossible to spot. 

everything on the table was blue, so I had to find a red something

Anyway, this subject has almost trumped the fact that it's July 4th, and we had a nice time. I tried to make a red, white and blue dessert.

Raspberry crisp with blueberry coconut "ice cream".

rosy evening clouds

last night - it didn't last long

 

like creatures out of an ancient fairy tale

 "It is a comfortable thought that we have so much wildlife around us. For as houses go up along the country roads more and more, the wild ones tend to fall back into the forest.

 ...a pair of young rabbits playing on the lawn on a dewy morning is a charming sight. They spring so lightly in the air, their long ears quiver, they look like creatures out of an ancient fairy tale."

                                                                   -   Gladys Taber

twinklings

 When I'm not too tired, I go out after dark (a little after nine), and look for the fireflies. This is their time, the peak of firefly season. I stand on the bridge and look to the left; I see flashes of light here, there, near, a way off; I turn right and they are flashing among the tall weeds along the brook's edge. I look up and see some in the tree-top and sometimes they come along the grass near my feet. I wonder why I don't get a chair and just sit there for a length of time? But it's hard to burn the candle at both ends at my age.

Like children we stand and stare, watching the field
that twinkles where gold wisps fare to the end
of dusk, as the sudden sphere, ivory shield
aloft, of moon stands clear of the world's far bend.

- from Fireflies, by Fred Chappell

June projects

 We're in a drier spell right now, except for when there's a thunderstorm, and in hot, humid weather, thunderstorms will occur. What I'm getting at is water in the basement. We have had a couple of instances of it, and it's not from a crack in the foundation but is seeping up from a saturated soil around the house. It wasn't much, but my brother decided to dig a hole outside, let it dry out and then paint it with tar. 

When the tar dries, he can fill up the hole and things should be all right. Here he has plywood over the hole, in anticipation of some rain. Last night there was a storm we didn't expect, and while it was thundering and pouring, he realized the hole was uncovered. The other day he scooped out eighteen gallons of water - it's ongoing. 

So, the ground is saturated, but the brook is sluggish - figure that out! It's been very hot, but considering the wet weather we've had in past months, is it possible the brook can dry up so easily? It has dried up in late summer many times, in a drought, but not in rainy seasons. 

So I put away my green linen dress and am working on a blue lawn skirt. It's a pretty blue - what would I call it? - I don't know, a cool medium/dark shade. I'm usually drawn to prints, and it's strange working with a solid - almost boring, but that's ridiculous.

"When he gave us our air-rifles Atticus wouldn't teach us to shoot. Uncle Jack instructed us in the rudiments thereof; he said Atticus wasn't interested in guns. Atticus said to Jem one day, ' I'd rather you shot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know you'll go after birds. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."

                                       -  To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

feast of St. John the Baptist

 Midsummer Day. We had an early supper: baked salmon, with a topping made of wholegrain mustard, lemon juice and zest, bread crumbs, feta and pepper. Stovetop mac and cheese, and a green salad. A summery meal. After a week of hot and humid days, today was not so hot, and drier. Very welcome. 

Lo, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me;

And suddenly there will come to the temple the Lord whom you seek,

And the messenger of the covenant whom you desire.

Yes, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.

-  Malachi 3:1

summer glories

 There's not a plant or flower below,
but makes thy glories known,
And clouds arise, and tempests blow,
by order from thy throne;
While all that borrows life from thee 
is ever in thy care,
And everywhere that we can be,
thou, God, art present there.

-  Isaac Watts

sloshing around

 When you have a garden, you always notice how much more the plants respond to a rainfall, as opposed to the water they get from the hose. After a couple of thunderstorms, I won't have to water for a couple of days, at least.

And I never put on my little wellies without feeling around inside them first - you never know.

reading a classic

 They're reading this on Close Reads

I can hardly put it down - the writing. 

the longest days

There's a bird who seems to sing when it's getting dark. He's the only one singing, and it's nice and loud, very melodious. Tonight, it made me turn to the window and there I saw a peach sky! I knew I wouldn't be able to capture it, so I just sat there, enjoying.

I think I saw our little patient in the garden this morning - at least, it was a small rabbit; there's no way I'll ever get close enough to tell if it's him.

 It's very much like summer now. We are going to have days in the nineties for the next five days; they're warning us to be careful. I made dinner early in the day, and that was the smartest thing I did. It didn't heat up the house much, and I had that work behind me.

Somebody just set off something quite loud out my window. It's nine o'clock, and dark. My brother said it sounded like a cherry bomb. It sounded to me right out my window! Well, as long as they don't do it all night. 

I am putting the green dress aside - in this weather, it seems heavy. I can't stand the thought of it! I've got some pretty deep blue lawn and I'll choose a skirt pattern for it. Something nice and floaty, I hope. 

I discovered a new bread cookbook, and the method is quicker and with a much wetter dough. The loaves are small but I don't care about that. This is something I won't mind doing in summer, if bread is needed.

direct us into the way of justice

 Have mercy upon us, O God of all, and behold us, and show us the light of thy mercies. And send thy fear upon the nations that have not sought after thee, that they may know that there is no God besides thee, and that they may show forth thy wonders. Lift up thy hand over the strange nations, that they may see thy power. For as thou hast been sanctified in us in their sight, so thou shalt be magnified among them in our presence, that they may know thee, as we also have known thee, that there is no God besides thee, O Lord.

Renew thy signs, and work new miracles. Glorify thy hand, and thy right arm. Hasten the time, and remember the end, that they may declare thy wonderful works. 

Gather together all the tribes of Jacob, that they may know that there is no God besides thee, and may declare thy great works, and thou shalt inherit them as from the beginning. Have mercy on thy people, upon whom thy name is invoked; and upon Israel, whom thou hast raised up to be thy firstborn. Have mercy on Jerusalem, the city which thou hast sanctified, the city of thy rest.

Fill Sion with thy unspeakable words, and thy people with thy glory. Give testimony to them that are thy creatures from the beginning, and raise up the prophecies which the former prophets spoke in thy name.

Reward them that patiently wait for thee, that thy prophets may be found faithful, and hear the prayers of thy servants, according to the blessing of Aaron over thy people, and direct us into the way of justice; and let all know that dwell upon the earth, that thou art God the beholder of all ages.

                                                -   Sirach 36:1-7, 10, 13-19

a rabbit tale

 Yesterday evening I heard my brother say that the gray cat who wanders around our property (but who I assume must belong somewhere) had caught a small animal. I looked out the window and thought it was too bad, but what can you do when they're running fast and you'd never catch up with them? This is what one thinks, isn't it? But my brother ran out.

I saw the cat turn this way with its prey dangling - I could see that it was too big for a mouse. The cat ran off and my brother was searching the grounds for something; I assumed he looked for the little creature. He walked back to the house, and laid a small rabbit on a beam of wood on the driveway. I assumed it was dead, but he said it wasn't - I didn't know how he knew, but he was rubbing it, perhaps trying to revive it - ? Anyway, he told me to call the emergency animal clinic a couple of towns over, to see if they would take it. He said, "I suppose they'd put it to sleep", and I said, "not if we insist we'll pay - why would they?" * I called; they said they don't take wildlife, but she gave me a website address with all sorts of contact information, so I picked one and began to call, but then he remembered something: he has a client who lives in town and does wildlife rehab, and she even hand feeds rabbits in her yard! She feeds them bananas, in fact! Yes, I guess it's well-known among rabbit enthusiasts that they love bananas. So I held the little one while he drove down to his business to get her phone number and call her.

For a good ten minutes I held a baby rabbit. I saw his little ears, felt his soft fur, held tight while he periodically struggled to get free. He had two areas where the fur had come off, and the bare, raw-ish skin was exposed. There was very little blood. So, I petted him, talked to him, told him I was sorry for the whole business, and tried to avoid touching those bare places, but that was hard - he was little. But he never cried, or made the slightest sound. Then my brother returned.

The lady said to put Vaseline on the skin and try to put the fur back over the areas. Yes, in one of them the fur was still there, just loose; the other part was gone. She said, "Put him in the garden where he may have been born (because they do go in and out of that place), and give him some banana and carrot, and some water, because they tend to get dehydrated. We brought him out, and set him down with the food. He didn't move, of course. We went off, but my brother went back there just a few minutes later and he was nowhere to be seen; he didn't eat the food. 

She happened to have a hair appointment today, and she told him that rabbits have fur which will peel off in that way to enable an escape. So, we are hoping this little one will heal over and be all right. Because his family won't help him. He is on his own. She said a grown rabbit will fight a young one over food, so there is no real family feeling. 

big rabbit relaxing - not our little friend

 But this is their life, and what they're used to, what they expect. But anyway, back to the beginning of the story, when my brother chased the cat, it dropped the rabbit and it darted to and fro. My brother was searching for two sticks, to pick it up with. But that didn't work well, and when he brought it over near the house, it must have fainted for a while. So, that's how he knew it was still alive. 

*A few years back, one of Diane's cats somehow got a baby bird on the ground in our front yard. He brought it to this veterinary hospital, and they euthanized it. So this is what he was afraid of, but they must have misunderstood him when he brought it in. 

summer approaches

 The birds are quieter, the fireflies are increasing and a mockingbird sang a brief concert on the power line. The air gets more humid, but nights are still pleasant; the rabbits are more used to our human noises - there was one out my window yesterday afternoon while my neighbor was mowing nearby! 

My little garden crops are getting bigger and there aren't any weeds due to the grass clippings all around.

My dress needs the side seams sewn and then it will look like something. I wake up with the sun in the mornings, but am too tired at the other end of the day.

I want to plan a menu for the longest day of the year, which is next week. It's supposed to be hot. I'll have to take that into consideration.

I suppose I could start the day with pancakes.
  

growing

 I was just watching an adult rabbit and a young one grazing in the lawn. Then the baby hopped right through the fence around the garden, and disappeared inside. Maybe he was born in there, as happened a few years ago. Anyway, we'll see.  

I have four squares in that area, and plants in only one (weeds in the other four). There are curly parsley, red onions, Italian beans, cabbage and a butternut squash plant. There were two of those but one disappeared shortly after I planted the two. It's quite overgrown in here, especially around the perimeter, where tall grasses are growing. But I saw a rabbit reaching up and eating those, so now I'm almost glad they're there. 

Tried starting some watermelon, but even after a week nothing happened. I'm doing it again in a wet paper towel, and have got some zinnia seeds in the little pot, and borage seedlings outside, getting bigger.

"This is the singing month. Rambler roses everywhere, over white picket fences, over grey stone walls, climbing old well-houses, blooming on lattices in old-fashioned gardens. The whole green countryside is laced with shell pink, ivory white and rose red. The sky sings, too, such a deep tranquil blue. I think I can hear the horns of elf-land faintly blowing as I go out to the Quiet Garden to shell peas."

 

                                                    -   Gladys Taber

To live a contemplative life is to live at depth;
to live below the surface in the world of faith, 
the world of reality and not appearances. 

- Sister Ruth Burrows, O.C.D.

cats in the world

 In between reading more weighty books, I picked up Pat of Silver Bush for a more soothing experience of beautiful scenery, etc.. And I came upon a quote:

"No matter what dreadful things happened at least there were still cats in the world." 

But when I re-read something, it's the same passages which pop out at me every time, so I checked my previous posts, and yes, I posted this ten years ago. And there was this picture, too.

Forever in our memories.

in season and out of season

 

Yes. This is an amaryllis growing on our property. I am as surprised as you are; we're in zone six.

My brother got one in a pot at Christmas, and couldn't just toss it afterward. He stuck it in the ground, in front, right against the foundation. He just stuck it there, sticking up, in the winter. Obviously there was no snow, and last winter wasn't terribly cold. 

And here we are - it bloomed. I can't say I like amaryllis. But it is rather fantastical looking, here in New England. I feel like we should move it to a spot where it will "fit in". But it's a southwest exposure, and near to the house - it wouldn't do better anywhere else. 

catbird at the garden

 showing off a beautiful tail.

 I had no idea.

another Memorial Day

 It rained much of the day - it's pouring now - so I imagine the parades were cancelled. There were no military plane flyovers, which I always look forward to. We still had our little celebration, though. And I've got some Italian bean and butternut squash seedlings.

BIRCHINGTON CHURCHYARD

A lowly hill which overlooks a flat,
Half sea, half country side;
A flat-shored sea of low-voiced creeping tide
Over a chalky weedy mat.

A hill of hillocks, flowery and kept green
Round Crosses raised for hope,
With many-tinted sunsets where the slope
Faces the lingering western sheen.

A lowly hope, a height that is but low,
While Time sets solemnly,
While the tide rises of Eternity,
Silent and neither swift nor slow.

-  Christina Rossetti

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

suddenly it's summer

 The scent of grass as its being mowed. The musical conversation of the catbirds. Going from flannel to muslin nightwear, overnight!

The lawn is a little squishy, but the sun came out and it's going to be full summer for a few days this week. I went out to the garden to spread some compost and grass clippings around but am still not sure if it's ready for plants. But I don't have plants anyhow - I set up the greenhouse nice and early, but never started any seeds in the house - the thought of Daisy getting hold of them made me hesitate and then I was paralyzed. Meanwhile, April winds knocked the greenhouse over twice - good thing it was empty at the time. And all the rain we've been having, and not being sure the raised bed was quite ready - well, looking back I'm actually glad I didn't start the seeds without being certain. I'll just have a late start.

Yesterday was Pentecost. "In our labor, rest most sweet; grateful coolness in the heat." And now the season of Easter is over.

caring for the seed of eternity

 "The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time. It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world.

He who wants to enter the holiness of the day must first lay down the profanity of clattering commerce, of being yoked to toil. He must go away from the screech of dissonant days, from the nervousness and fury of acquisitiveness and the betrayal in embezzling his own life. He must say farewell to manual work and learn to understand that the world has already been created and will survive without the help of man. Six days a week we wrestle with the world, wringing profit from the earth; on the Sabbath we especially care for the seed of eternity planted in the soul. The world has our hands, but our soul belongs to Someone Else. Six days a week we seek to dominate the world, on the seventh day we try to dominate the self."

                                                    -  The Sabbath, by Abraham Joshua Heschel

the deep down things

 I finished C.S. Lewis book. Toward the end, there was a section that seemed so dense and I decided that I didn't have to read every word, but then, looking at the last chapter I felt like reading it.

Jason Baxter speaks of nostalgia as a positive thing: "Lewis was nostalgic for the future." he says. "The old model was not wrong, strictly speaking, but a kind of deep, human subconscious desire for a world that, in some sense, we are meant to occupy, but not yet."

He says, "The experience of nostalgia is a feeling of beauty's remoteness, but only because it is so far in the future, rooted 'deep down things'.* It is hope. And the great thing about true hope, this nostalgia for the future, is that it has none of the irritability, fear, anxiety, and discouragement that flavors many of the words of those who describe the demise of Christendom in our day. We were denied the garden, and then we were exiled from the enchanted cosmos. Now we must own our modernity, But by doing so, we engage in an extraordinary ascesis of the senses. We must move forward and look beyond."

                                     - from The Medieval Mind of C.S. Lewis

*God's Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is smeared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell; the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs -
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

- Gerard Manley Hopkins

elf patterns

 I thought Daisy was asleep on my bed, when she suddenly got up and went to the window, obviously seeing something. I looked out - a rabbit. She actually heard a rabbit, eating grass (or whatever). Well, everyone knows rabbits make the earth shake. But really - she heard a rabbit hop in the lawn and eat grass. Amazing.

It rained and stormed yesterday evening, and I saw a rabbit sitting in the rain - they like it, I've noticed, and they like eating the wet grasses. And I like watching them. You knew that.

I'm sorry to say I've made no progress on my dress, as there's been other sewing to attend to. One of them is this pretty blouse.

It has a wide-ish neckline with elastic all around. It's fine when it's on, and it covers my narrow shoulders all right, but it makes me nervous, because if the neckline were to get caught, who knows what would happen? I thought if I made the area stable, it would be better.

I took a double strand of embroidery floss and stitched on the inside all around, into the folds, to inhibit the stretchiness.

You see how I did it, and it was just like basting stitches, but it really reduces any stretching, and the neck is wide enough that I can easily put it on and take it off. So I didn't really sew on the elastic, I just stitched the bunched folds together so they can't open out again. 

A friend gave me a Lenten Rose (hellebore) and I want to put it on the north side where I can see it from my window, but the stockade fence there is partly collapsed and we have to decide on if we'll change anything over there first. 

From the defining conversation between Tolkien and Lewis:

You look at trees, and call them 'trees', and probably you do not think twice about the word. You call a star a 'star' and think nothing more of it. But you must remember that these words, 'tree', 'star' were names given to these objects by people with very different views than yours. To you, a tree is simply a vegetable organism, a star simply a ball of inanimate matter moving along a mathematical course. But the first men to talk of 'trees' and 'stars' saw things very differently. To them, the world was alive with mythological beings. They saw these stars as living silver, bursting into flame in answer to the eternal music. They saw the sky as a jewelled tent, and the earth as the womb whence all living things have come. To them, the whole creation was myth-woven and elf-patterned.

                                                  - The Medieval Mind of C.S. Lewis, by Jason M. Baxter

the emphasis is mine

the whirlwind

 I was lying in bed, the sun had just come up, the birds were singing. Suddenly, a whirlwind - no, not the Holy Spirit, Pentecost isn't for another two weeks - came rushing down the hall, up onto the bed; it ran up the length of my body and down again, and out the bed onto the floor. I hardly knew what hit me. But, of course I did know.

You guessed it.

heliocentric

 "Through faith we must all learn a kind of Copernican revolution. Copernicus discovered that it was not the sun that went around the earth but that this earth along with the other planets revolved around the sun. We all begin by seeing ourselves as a tiny earth around which all the suns must turn. Faith teaches us to leave this error and to behave like brothers and sisters, joining together with all the others in the round dance of love around the one center that is God. Only if God exists, only if he becomes the center of my life, is this love my neighbor as myself possible. But if he exists, if he becomes my center, then it is also possible to reach this inward freedom of love."

                                                 -  Pope Benedict XVI

*emphases, mine

good morning

 A festive chirruping announces the day,

singing in the light of dawn.

Christ spurs on the soul,

inviting us to a rebirth, this day.

Arise from your beds, he urges,

where a feeble languor makes you inert.

Be watchful, chaste, good, and sober;

for I am close to you.

Let us invoke Jesus, aloud,

sorrowing, praying, repentant;

an ardent invocation

keeps a pure heart on the alert.

O Christ, drive away sleep,

break the chains of night,

make good the ancient fault,

bring to us new light.