Early

I am up earlier than usual these days, perhaps preparing for the coming time change. It was still dark when I stepped out on the porch and listened to the night sounds. Tree frogs, some insects...what are the ones that sing at night?...and one lone whippoorwill calling a forlorn attempt at late summer romance. An apple fell with a whisper through leaves that rustled as if already drying out, thunked on the ground and rolled downhill, where the deer will be sure to find it later.

Just now I hear the birds waking, a few drowsy chirps high in the tree tops, and one bright little song up in the meadow. Even the chickens are quiet, sleeping in for a change but soon their busy clucking will announce the start of their workday.

There are no human noises yet. Not that I can hear anyway. I am the lone human awake within a mile on this side of the ridge...well, our house is the only house for a half mile in either left or right direction on this side of the hill, although there are several neighbors on the other side. How well I remember the days when it was a mile to anyone's house, when there was no human noises but what we made.

It is getting light now, and I hear the crunch of gravel under tires from a mile or so away. Soon the school bus will huff and puff it's way across our road that winds a narrow, twisting path along the crest of the hill. A cardinal is at the feeder and the hummingbirds have started their daily skirmishes at their nectar feeders.

It is time to make tea and coffee and get busy with the day. Thank you for sharing these quiet moments with me.



Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Breakfast

One of the perks of this time of year is breakfast.

With eggs, tomatoes, and apples in abundance, and fresh pork from our recently processed hog, we are indeed "living high on the hog." Not that we eat like this every day! Bacon and sausage are once a week treats, and the eggs are usually soft-boiled. Fried apples (made with olive oil, honey and cinnamon) are also an occasional treat. And of course, the fresh tomatoes will soon be just a summer memory.

But for now, it's nice to see food grown here on our land (or close by, in the case of the meat) being the predominant items on our table.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Garage Cleanout

Does the title say enough? Dusty, dirty, and far past time to clean it out.

Our garage is really just a metal shed with an open front, not a true garage. And it hasn't been used as a garage in about 6 years--about the time we started buying and selling furniture and such. There's some stuff that's been in there, waiting for me to get to it, for about that long too.

So yesterday we got started on it. You know, if you refurbish furniture, how it is--you see something, and your mind says, "Oh, I can do this and this and this and have that ready to sell in no time!" But it doesn't work that way. Instead, those good buys get added to the backlog and before long there's an overwhelming pile. Be warned, if you're just getting into this! At least 4 big items were sympathy buys--I bought them because I felt sorry for the seller, and they weren't expensive, so...yeah. There they stayed in my garage. Some were against-my-better-judgment buys--I knew better. And some were great buys and I just let everything else get in the way of working on them.

We made four piles: burn, donate, our neighbor who takes scrap metal to re-sell, and keep. We also  burned a lot of stuff that we should never have bought. We had a full pickup load to donate, and two loads for the metal scrapper. We cleared out half of what was in the garage, and I feel much lighter and more optimistic about actually being able to get the rest done.

I had an ulterior motive too. Larry has been getting into repairing/rebuilding small engines, like for our mower and tiller. It will save us money and extend the life of our equipment, but he had no place to work. So I was determined that he would have half of the garage cleared for his projects.

And I have one absolute rule for the future: no more stuff gets stashed in the garage. If we want to sell this place in 5 years (the current plan), we need to get the buildings cleaned out and our backlog of inventory reduced substantially so buyers don't see junk instead of a potential place to live. I have not added anything to the garage in two years, so I think this rule will be easy to keep.

We are almost finished, I'm hot, dusty and dirty but satisfied. Next, the building over the root cellar. Wish me luck.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Podiatrist

"So," I asked, "how did you decide to become a foot doctor?"

"It was 1971, and I was in my senior year of college in Philly. Every day I had class I would go stand by the bus stop with my thumb out. If I didn't get a ride, I'd pay a quarter to ride the bus. If someone picked me up, I saved a quarter.

"I planned to go on to medical school and become a doctor because I didn't want to go to Vietnam. Who did? So I was going to just stay in school. Well, one day this guy in scrubs picked me up and asked where I was going. I told him and he said he was going right by there.

"I thought that was funny, because I knew the med school was in the opposite direction. Oh yeah, he said, but I'm going to podiatry school. I'd never even thought about that. So I asked how hard was it to get in. Not as hard as med school, he said. I decided to look into it. There were 5 podiatry schools in the US then, one in New York, one in Philly, one in Cleveland, one n Texas and one in California.

"I got accepted at all of them. I'd been in Philly, knew New York, and didn't want to go all the way to California. So I chose Cleveland.

"I learned something while I was at school in Cleveland. The sun never shines there. So when I graduated, I got a job in Florida. I was there for 20 years at the VA as a part-timer, but I wanted full time so when I saw the opening here, I moved north."

"My mother is still in Philadelphia. She's 88 and still hangs all her laundry outside, even in winter. She hardly ever wears shoes. Her feet are tough as nails."

Sometimes, all you have to do is ask, and you hear a good story.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Junk Shop Man

We stopped at a junk shop today on our way home from Larry's appointment at the VA Hospital in Huntington, WV. I've wanted to stop here before, but this was the first time we found the place open. I only bought a little strainer, but the man who rain it was worth the stop.

"My wife and I have been married 61 years. I'm 82. In the last 2 weeks I canned over 600 quarts of stuff-dill beans, tomatoes, soup, pickled beets, cucumber pickles, sauerkraut...See that pickup out there? Had it full of beans and no one wanted them, so I canned them."

If you should happen to pass through Henderson, WV, stop in. Especially if you're in need of used appliances. He has plenty of them, but his conversation might be the best deal you'll find.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Bits and Pieces of Life

 

It is a crisp fall-like morning, with temperatures in the upper 50's. It was good to be a little chilly on the porch, a fine change from hot and humid. August has been a nice month overall, and the coolness of mornings and evenings is a good balance to the days when it's been in the upper 80's.

The leaves are turning yellow already and some are falling, making me think we might be in for an early autumn.

I planted mums and celosia yesterday, pulling out the spent summer flowers. I was surprised at how dry the soil in the planters was, even after a good rain the other night. Larry will be watering the gardens again today, even though there's really not much left out there--peppers, a few tomatoes, late carrots and lettuce and some struggling cucumbers and squash. It's been a great year though, so I am not complaining.

Today is applesauce-making day, I think. It's time to start getting it made for whenever we can get our guys together to make apple butter. I am hoping to do it over Labor Day, but we shall see how that goes.

A Pyrex coffeepot I listed the other day. Remember these?

There's ebay work to do too, getting more listings up. Ebay takes a back seat to canning and storytelling in the summer, but now I'm picking it back up and sales have been steady.I sure have plenty to list! Finding stuff is the fun part, listing not so much.

It's also time to get some storytelling promotion materials mailed to schools. I didn't do it last year, and it made a difference in how much work I got. So it's time to buckle down to it and get those mailings out.

I've been sad this week about the death of a friend I hadn't seen in at least 10 years. She died in a house fire and it's been hard to process. We weren't close; we met online through storytelling and over the years saw each other at conferences and kept in touch online for a while. Her life was devoted to stories, writing, and her children and she will be missed by many. My heart is heavy thinking of her children as they go through this tragedy. Life is so unpredictable, and sometimes cruel.

On Inisheer, the smallest of the Aran Islands,
from my visit there in 2015

There is always something good that balances the bad though. We had not planned to travel this year, but both of us decided we needed a break, and we found cheap fares to Ireland, so we're heading overseas this fall. This time I want to spend our week on the west coast of the island. It will be good to walk the cliffs and watch the sea. Even if it rains.

Volunteer sunflower brightens the day

Have a good day, my friends. Stay safe and well.



Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Riverbend Booth Update

We spent most of yesterday at our Riverbend booth, adding new items, rearranging, and taking a few things home to paint or repair.

This cabinet needed only a coat of paint to make it ready to go.

Cake plates take center stage on this table. I am still waiting for the upholsterer to finish covering the chrome frame chairs to go with the table. She's a busy lady, but does great work, so I can wait.

Larry built this shelf using a bi-fold door.

I love this little cocoa set! And it looks perfect on the red table. Hoping to get people in the holiday mood.

Little table needed the black paint, sanding, and dark wax to bring out its primitive side.

And a shelf that needed only sanding and wax. I love its rustic look.

In a prurple mood here--decided to group the amethyst glass.

We brought in this utility cart last week. It needed nothing from me--someone else had already done the hard work of painting!

Big wheel keeps on turnin'---this was a flea market find. It would make a nice driveway marker.

We moved this hall stand from Marietta. It had been there several months, and I figured it was time for a change to a new location. We'll see.

A find from a couple weeks back. Very retro, mid-century credenza and mirror in perfect condtion.

We;ve had this kitchen cupboard for sale for quite a while. When we first started selling, these would fly out of the booths, but apparently everyone who needed on has bought one already. Still makes a great display piece.

Larry built this stand last winter. Gets lots of looks, but no buyer yet. But again, it's great for displaying!

Lots of red, white and blue on the table.

Apparently someone rather heavy sat on the one chair we had left like this (this is an older photo, two others were sold) and broke loose the joints on the front, so it will need some serious work.

This china cabinet I bought a couple months ago to paint was filling in a space temporarily in the booth until I could get something else ready. Now it's home, waiting for some beautification.

That's a look at some of the changes made yesterday. It's always fun to go in and rearrange; not like work at all.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Eclipse

After all the hype and hurroar, it finally happened. It came, and it went, and the world is back to normal, at least on these few acres.

We considered traveling south to see the total eclipse, but a four-hour journey one way to get another 10% of it didn't seem worth the time and trouble. And as I heard reports of traffic jams I knew it was a good decision. So we stayed home. I watched the whole show, with a few darts inside to cool off (it's about 90 degrees here) and Larry didn't pay much attention to it at all. His eclipse glasses were a waste, I think.

I remember an eclipse when I was a child, in 1958 or 1959 I think it was, and we stood in our backyard and looked at the sky. I don't remember any special glasses, but I do remember my mother warning us not to look directly at the sun. Which puzzled me, because we often laid on our backs in the grass, looking up at the sun and sky. I remember it got rather dark, but that's about all I can recall. This was not a total eclipse, but it was impressive to a child of 8 who had just learned about how the sun and moon travel around the earth.

There was another that I remember after I moved here. I was up on top of the ridge and a neighbor was there--he told me there was going to be an eclipse and we watched it together. It was just a partial one, and again I didn't have special glasses or equipment.

This time I bought the recommended glasses and I am glad I did because I doubt I'd have seen much without them. I put them over my camera lens to take photos, and got a fair result. But mostly I wandered in the yard, picking some ripe white grapes and watching the birds to see what they would do. I picked a yellow apple and munched that with the grapes, a make-do lunch in between sky watching. It was quiet--so quiet. Only the rain crows (mourning doves) were calling, predicting rain in the next 24 hours. An indigo bunting perched on the telephone line but it was silent. Even the breeze died down, and the mid-day insects were silent. It was as if everything was waiting.

It is difficult to put into words how the eclipse affected me. I thought of all the millions of people putting away their cares, their anger and hate, their busyness, and just stopped. Just stopped and together looked heavenward. It was as if the whole country was praying. Maybe many of us were. Praying for peace, for harmony between all people who call this place home, for an end to hatred and bigotry and distrust. Maybe there were some doing that. Maybe that lifting of our eyes from the everyday, that pause in the race, reminded us that we are so small in the scope of the universe, mere dots, a drop of water in the ocean of time, and our worries and troubles mean little in that grand scheme.

Maybe when people looked around at each other and smiled, or looked at the beauty around them, the lushness and richness of this great land, maybe they came away with a feeling of new hope and resolve. Maybe.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

In the Kitchen...Again

I'm back to canning this week. Tomatoes, more peaches, corn chowder, and pickled beets. Tomorrow, apples. Corn is in the freezer, and 3 meatloafs made for freezing--they make great fast meals for my husband who hates to stop and fix something when I'm busy or not home.

Yesterday, peaches in the waterbath canner on the left, corn chowder in the
canner on the right, and peach cobbler in between. 

It's been a busy week, but the end is in sight. Then I can think about writing again!

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Bounty and Respite

The gardens continue to give and give and give.

 I am so grateful for this bounteous year.

Even the fruit trees have produced big crops, more than we can process. The deer and other wildings feast on dropped fruit every night.

Today I am freezing corn; tomorrow, we will start on applesauce. The jars and the cellar are filling fast. I've even dumped my old dried herbs and replaced with freshly dried ones.

Onions have been dried, others stored whole. The potatoes need to be dug and the beets await.

I can see the season slowly shifting; the trees seem to be giving a sigh as they release a few leaves; there is a distinct golden tinge to much of the roadside vegetation that isn't goldenrod or the other yellow wildflowers mingling with the blue chicory and other late summer wildflowers.

Afternoons are still hot, but mornings, evenings and nights cool enough that no air conditioning is needed. I do not like July; it seems like a month to simply endure. But August offers occasional respite and we can see the coming of cooler days. August has become one of my favorite months.

It is good to focus on such homey things as gardens, putting up food and weather in the wake of the weekends horrors and turbulence. We need a touchstone these days, a place to return to, to remember that all is not turmoil and anger and hate, and that there is still much good in this world.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Porch Conversation

Larry and I were talking on the porch the other morning as we drank our coffee. These morning conversations take circuitous routes, starting with the hummingbirds, moving on to the dogs and the cats to what is wrong with the riding mower to what canning needs to be done. This particular morning the conversation included some political talk too, as we discussed how the President's pastor seemed to be advocating for a nuclear attack on Korea, and how religion has in some cases been so twisted and so far from what it should be--or what it should be in our view anyway.

This led to talking about praying. For those of you on Facebook, you know how many prayer requests come on any given day. Some for terrible, serious events in our friends' lives, others for what seem to be pretty trivial reasons, still others so vague that no one really knows what they've been asked to pray for.

I remember as a child we said the rosary in our very Catholic home almost every night for years. The custom pretty much ended when Mom began working evenings. I guess Dad didn't have the heart to continue it without her, although he did try. By then my older brothers were working and seldom came home after school, often rolling in late at night; the times were changing and everyone seemed to be on the go. I moved out when I was seventeen, and I do not know if the rosary was continued after that for the rest of the family or not. But when my parents were elderly they joined several prayer warrior groups, and prayed a lot, both morning and evening, for long lists of people. They also said the rosary every night as part of their prayer rituals.

After Mom's death, I would call my father every evening and say the rosary over the phone with him. I had long ceased going to church and the words were rusty and strange at first, but as the months passed I got better at it, even remembering the various mysteries. Those were tranquil times; Dad and I would talk a long time both before and after the rosary and I got to know my father better than I ever had. We were complete political opposites but that didn't matter. I did not argue with him about his views, because what would be the point? He was 83 years old and not likely to change; arguing would have only upset him and that was the last thing I wanted to do, as he was dealing bravely with the grief of losing his love of 61 years. The last time I talked to him, the evening before he died, we'd said the rosary, and as one of my intentions, he asked me to pray for him, something he'd never asked for before. I should have realized that he know he was close to death. I treasure the memory of those evening phone calls.

As Larry and I talked that morning, our conversation moved on to those calls with my Dad, and how being religious or spiritual doesn't necessarily mean going to a church, it can happen anywhere. Then Larry said, "I remember one neighbor, well he and another man would go out in the middle of the road and pray."

"What?" I asked. "In the middle of the road? Literally in the middle of the road?"

"Yes, they'd kneel right down in the road and pray sometimes. I don't know why, but I remember seeing them do it. No one seemed to think a thing about it."

Vincent Van Gogh, Man Praying, 1883.

I try to envision these two men, both coalminers, probably wearing bib overalls, on their knees in the road praying out loud, and the neighbors just passing by with a nod, and maybe a word or two. Why would they pray like that? What were they praying for?

One of the men, Larry said, had a large family, 11 or 12 children. They lived in a house with a dirt floor, although in earlier years they'd had a big house with lots of windows. He didn't know what had happened that made them move to the small, dirt-floored house. Maybe an injury in the mines; the man couldn't work, so he wouldn't get paid and there was no disability or worker's comp pay back then. Maybe the mines had shut down for a while, putting the man out of work. So many things could happen in the days before the social safety net was in place. Larry said the man's wife had the biggest, widest feet he'd ever seen, and that her feet were so tough she could have walked on hot coals and not felt the burn.

Another thing he remembered--the man was hard on his family, and drank a bit. His wife left him a few times but she had to come back because she had no skills beyond housework and cooking and couldn't survive on her own. And then there was all those children who needed her. Despite her husband's temper, she would return. Maybe this was why his friend took him out to the middle of the road to pray?

I will never know the answer to that question, but this story, like so many of Larry's memories, tells certainly recalls a time and place, where life was hard, the people harder, and where the power of prayer was probably called upon regularly to help them get through troubled times.


Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Exploding Cows, Disappearing Dirt and the "Walking Dead"

One story often leads to another, and today was no exception.

We had a great day today, after a marathon day yesterday of putting up peaches and getting our half of a hog into the freezer. Today, we decided, we were going to play. And our idea of play is to go junking and find more inventory for our booths.

We went to a flea market in the nearby town of Ravenswood, moved on to several yard sales in town, and while we were there we added a few things to our booths t Th Riverbend Antique Mall. Then we went on downriver to Point Pleasant and stopped at a yard sale on the way.

This yard sale was in the coolest little cabin. I wish I'd thought to take photos. A lady and her grandson were running the sale, and a nicer, more polite boy you could not wish to meet. The cabin was built entirely by the grandmother, right down to the porch and the shelves inside, and it was filled with collectibles. The grandson and I got to talking, and he said how he wished things could go back to the way it was, before cars and electricity and "all of those things" came along. He was quite a worker, helping his grandfather get in firewood, and gardening and canning with his grandmother.

We stayed a while, just talking on the pleasant porch that looked out over fields leading to the river. The lady was talking about how gullible some people could be, and told us this story:

from The Graphics Fairy website

"We had a calf that died, and my husband had to bury it. His sister came over later that day, and saw the newly dug ground and asked about it, so he told her about the calf. He said it had died way back on top of the hill, and she said, 'Oh my! How did you ever get it down here to bury it?'

'Well,' he said, 'it wasn't too hard. I just stood it up, and it would flop over on the downhill side. Then I'd stand it up again, and it would flop over, and I just kept doing that all the way down the hill.'

She was amazed,and told him how smart he was to figure that out!"

Her story reminded me of something that happened not too far from my house, about thirty years ago:

A neighbor had a cow that died one winter. The ground was frozen and he didn't want to try digging such a big hole in frozen earth, so he came up with the idea of using dynamite to blow the cow up. No need to bury it if it was pulverized, right? He put the dynamite under the cow and ran his fuse wires as far as he could. Now, he'd used a lot of dynamite, but he didn't have much fuse so the line was pretty short. He lit the fuse, and the dynamite blew that cow to pieces. Literally, there were bones hanging in the trees for several years afterwards.

The fuse being so short created another problem though--this man and his wife couldn't run away fast enough and so both of them were plastered with the smelly, exploding cow. I won't even repeat what the wife said to her man at that moment.

And that story reminds me of another, that also happened within a few miles of my house. Again, it was winter, and a cow died on a neighbor's farm. Rather than dig the hole, he figured he'd just bury some dynamite and blow a hole in the ground big enough to bury the cow. He got some dynamite--a lot of it--dug a hole, and buried it. His brother was watching the whole business, and he said that when the dynamite went off, dirt flew w-a-a-a-a-y up in the air and scattered for several hundred feet around the blast site. It worked--there was a huge hole, far bigger than needed for burying the poor cow. But the blast had blown the dirt over such a wide area that there was nothing left to cover the cow. And because the hole was so big, the guy had even more digging to than if he'd just buried the cow the right way in the first place.

All true stories, my friends, all true.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

A Simple Hello, A Memory, and a Ghost

I thought I recognized the lady getting in her car across from mine. Only I remembered her as a teenager, and this woman was middle-aged. I debated whether to speak; after all, I hadn't known her well, and she probably didn't remember me at all.

But I got past my reservations and asked, "Are you L***?"

And I was right, this was the grown-up version of the girl I knew. She remembered me too, surprisingly. We talked a few minutes, just catching up, and she asked what I've been doing. I mentioned storytelling, and that soon I'd be busy with ghost stories. Her husband chimed in then, saying that where he grew up in coal country there were all kinds of ghosts; there were lots of things, he said, that happened down there.

Then his wife spoke up. "I remember when we lived on Bucket Run. It's haunted down there, all right. I heard it myself.:

Bucket Run borders the back of our property--or used to border, before we sold part of our land. And I'd heard a tale about the place myself. The lady went on, "We used to walk out the road to catch a ride to church, and it would be dark when we came back. When we passed the Fulmer place, we'd hear a baby crying, and a woman too. I heard it many times. It always scared me so bad!"

The holler that runs down our land to Bucket Run is known to the old-timers as Fulmer holler. I thought it was named for the people who once lived just below where our house now stands, because there was an old cellar there before we moved here. Someone dug it out with a backhoe, looking for treasure, I guess. We figured if there was a cellar there, there must have been a cabin nearby, and since no one remembered who had lived here, the name of the holler must have come from those long-forgotten residents. But apparently there was a house on Bucket Run where our little creek joins that one, and that house was the Fulmer house. And it was haunted. Wow.

The story I heard was a bit different, or perhaps I remembered it wrong, as it was told to me about 40 years ago by my friend's aunt. She said that some men were coon-hunting on Bucket Run and that the dogs started digging and whining under the old schoolhouse that once stood there. The dogs dragged out something wrapped in a blanket; when the men unwrapped it they found it was a little dead baby. No one ever knew whose baby it was, but people always said they heard a baby crying when they passed the schoolhouse.

Was this two different stories of haunting, or the same story being remembered incorrectly by me or by the lady who told it to me? I don't know, but it was satisfying to hear confirmation of the story told to me so long ago.

Bucket Run is an abandoned road now--indeed, it has been ever since I have lived here, although I remember there was one family living along that holler for a while. I think all the old houses have fallen down or been torn down. I haven't been down there in almost ten years, and last time I was there I hardly recognized the road. But I have this story, and now I have a name for the house, and someone who remembers how it was.

I am so glad I got over myself and said hello.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Late Summer Morning

August mornings...there is something in the light, something in the green, something so peaceful as the gardens and lawn settle back after the exertions of growing. Only the hardiest are still in bloom; the others have given up showboating and are content with green leaves. That's okay with me; the variety of greens is perfect for that late-summer, slow mornings, slanting sun kind of days.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.