Of Family, Books, and Explorers

49°f/9.4°C, clear after a stormy night.

More gravel arrived yesterday, big stone to make a solid base over the new culvert. No stuck dump truck this time! But Larry had a lot of tractor work to do getting those boulders spread. It is going to be a rough ride until next week when we can get more gravel. Just dollars disappearing into mud, but it has to be done, sigh.

We had dinner with Derek and most of his family, and Sarah of course. Derek made his famous chicken and pasta salad, and one of his baked cabbage heads---this time wrapped in bacon and absolutely heavenly. 

Sarah came down from her cabin for breakfast, and is now on her way back to Colorado.  So sad! We will certainly miss her.

After she left, we did...nothing.  Larry is exhausted from the tractor work, so he went to sleep.  I read and cleaned sime silver then made dinner, a simple meal of chicken,  baked potatoes,and salad. But eaten out on the deck made it seem like a feast  

I am continuing to read multiple books at the same time, and am really enjoying them all. I have added Culpepper's Complete Herbal since I finished Winter Morning Walks, reading one alphabetical section at a time. I miss the poetry though, so I will add another book of poems to my daily stack.

Reading The Assassin's Cloak has taken me down several rabbit holes, as I follow up on diarists' entries that catch my interest. Today it was Robert Falcon Scott, the British man who explored Antarctica in the early 1900's. The entries included in Tbe Assassin's Cloak have been stark, detailing the difficulties of his final attempt to reach the South Pole. As of March 21, 1912, the situation of the expedition was dire, and several had already lost their lives. I couldn't stand it; I had to look him up to learn more about him, and how it all ended. 

Then I wondered, what about his wife? He had just married her in 1908. Who was she? How did she manage his absence and (spoiler alert) death? As I found out, Kathleen Scott was no weakling either. She was a well-known sculptress, an activist, a WWI volunteer,  and was a single mother for a number of years. 

Reading all this reminded me of the movie Shackleton, about yet another harrowing South Pole expedition, which thank goodness ended more happily. 

These hardy explorers really puzzle me: why on earth did they do it? Was it really only for the glory and fame of getting there first? Granted that they did many scientific experiments along the way, and in Shackleton's case, there was an expert photographer, Frank Hurley, on board who recorded the trip in stunning photos, which are available today in a beautiful book. Perhaps it was just the times, when countries were exploring and claiming land everywhere (with really no right to so so). Even today,  there are people like Musk, intent on going to Mars! I am sure someone will get there but at what cost? And how many lives will be lost in the effort? 

Larry has cleaned up after our meal while I was writing this, so I better be getting busy too!  No wild adventures for me today, just cleaning up outside. Fun, fun.

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

Two Days and Two Poems

41°f/5°C, partly cloudy but warming to 61°f.

A crazy couple of days. We continued work on the back room, finishing the cleanup yesterday before a trip to town for animal feed and dinner out with family. It seems like this has been a week of run, run, run, but it's been fun and we have managed to get some things done. 

Today I focused on housecleaning, sweeping, mopping, and putting away clutter. Then I moved on to making chicken noodle soup and a fruit salad since Derek and his soon-to-be step-granddaughter were here to help Sarah with some things in her cabin. They moved my old 1950 Tappan Deluxe range up to her cabin at last-- it has been sitting in my kitchen for almost 2 years, ever since I bought a "new" stove, a 1951 Tappan Deluxe. The extra stove wasn't really in the way; my kitchen is huge and there was a spot we could store the stove.

Next I put together a dozen grab bags and some mystery discount cards for the open house at one of our locations this weekend.  I had just finished when the gravel we have been waiting for arrived. Of course it did, just as I was about to leave. And of course the truck got stuck in the muddy place where Sarah's gas line and a new culvert were put in last week. After some finagling the driver managed to get the truck moved and the gravel got spread. Whew.

I left right after that drama, taking Derek's step-granddaughter with me. I guess she'll be my step-great-granddaughter, hadn't thought of that! She is a sweet 8 year old with beautiful red hair, and was a joy to be with. She helped me get the grab bags set up in the booth,  then had a good browse through the mall. Of course, Granny bought her the t-shirt she loved!

Then home to pack ebay and finally sit down and take a break. Which I am doing right now as I write this. I never even got finished one cup of coffee all day, but it's too late for caffeine now.

I mentioned that I read a couple poems at the open mic the other night, and I thought I'd share them here. This first was written about 10 years ago and it's one of my favorites. I have never submitted it anywhere for publication, but maybe someday I will.

Old Dogs

Old dogs don’t mind sleeping on the floor,

but they prefer the couch.

They like heat; scorched fur

means they’re warm and by the stove.

 

Old dogs like candy, even chocolate

and don’t care if it is bad for them.

It might even be fatal, but old dogs

will take the chance because they know

they only have a few years left anyway.

 

Old dogs know how to get scratched

in places they can’t reach themselves

since their legs don’t bend like they used to.

They wriggle under an idle hand,

and wait patiently because

a scratch is a scratch wherever it lands.

 

Old dogs snore and fart and pretend

they can’t hear when someone tells them

to get away from the table and don’t beg.

They beg. They’re not proud.

Table scraps are tasty and worth the risk

of being put outside.

 

Old dogs know about the important things in life:

warmth, comfort, food, a good scratch.

What else is there,

for an old dog?

This second one was written around 2018, I think, and is in the chapbook Porch Poems my three friends and I published a couple years ago. The book is available from me, or from Sheila-Na-Gig Publishing.  The poem is based on an actual experience of meeting this intriguing man at his yard sale way up a holler. I will never forget him.

The Rusty Spoon

“Why do you keep it,” she asked, “like it’s something special, 

an ornament or a treasure? It’s just a rusty spoon.”

She didn’t know his eyes, glimmering blue,

sharp as ice needles. She didn’t see his skin,

 worn and beat, craggy with years and hard use,

or hear his voice, smoke-darkened, prison rough.

She didn’t smell the sharp acid of oak or his sweat

from splitting a mountain of winter warmth.

She didn’t feel the tough skin of his hands, split,

callused, nails bitten to the quick. She didn’t know

the story, how he found the spoon,

two feet down in  red clay, digging a grave

in a churchyard with markers so old

the names were worn away.

She didn’t see his cabin,

 tucked under the edge of a laurel thicket

beside a dark stream, hidden from curious view.

She didn’t hear the wonder in his voice,

see the mystery in his eyes

as he handed the spoon to me.

 

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

Sorting Out and Open Mic

29°f/-2°C this morning, snow until around noon. Total for thr past 24 hours about 5 inches. Now cold and clear,19°f/-7.w°C.

Buddy and Pip had to go look early this morning, while Daisy wisely stayed inside!

Another full day. Granddaughter Sarah came down from her cabin for breakfast so I made Denise's oat and eggs pancakes with strawberry syrup. So delicious.  Then Larry and I tackled the back room where we store projects to be worked on, lumber, Christmas and Fall totes, etc. It was a huge sort out, with stuff that's been waiting a long time getting pitched out or put in the donate pile. Hard work, heavy lifting, but almost done. It feels ao good to have that room organized, and space created where we can actually work on stuff! 

I made a quick lunch from the root cellar: turkey salad sandwiches, tomato soup, and diced peaches. The grocery store provided lettuce, bread, and mayonnaise, but everything else was home-canned.

Then we took a break before getting cleaned up and heading out to the open mic. What fun! A young man named Brandon Scott did several Irish songs.

His mother,who is blind, did stand-up comedy,

my friend Suzy told a well-known Irish folktale, a young guy did a few songs with his guitar, and I read a couple of my poems,  told a tall tale, and sang an old Scottish ballad, The Great Selkie of Sule Skerry. It was truly a memorable evening.

After the open mic we stopped at a local restaurant where Larry had his first green beer. 

Every year we say we will go out to celebrate Saint Patrick's Day, but every year something intervenes, so it had become a sort of bucket list item. Now at last we can check it off. But I have a feeling that we will be looking to celebrate again next year!

My shirt for tonight:

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