Tuesday, October 29, 2019

Home


Oh, it was a rainy day today. I kept wishing I could send some of it to California. It rained torrents of rain. It was a wild and rushing and powerful rain. There was thunder and lightening and at one point I was on the porch and a bolt hit so close that I heard the thunder and the pop and saw the lightening at the same time. I told August about this later.
"Were you scared?" he asked.
"I was!" I said.
"Did you run?" he asked.
"No, but I did come into the house."
"Did you make a face like this?" And he made a terrified face.
"Yes!" I said. "I did!"

So I suppose it is obvious by now that Jessie and the boys came out for a visit. Before they came I made some little loaves of banana/apple/blueberry/pecan bread for them. Since Jessie isn't eating things like that, it makes me happy to make little treats for the boys. They weren't pretty, I'll tell you that. And they ended up being more mushy than bread-like but they tasted good. Jessie's diet is going well. She feels good and can already see some positive changes which of course, is the best motivation. She brought some avocado and cooked squash and cucumber salad and ate those and some of the roast chicken I cooked last night. I ate some of her squash and cucumbers and they were good. I put out some smoked salmon that Rachel left along with crackers and cheese and the boys ate some of that and a little bit of chicken and August ate some of the banana bread although Levon preferred the crackers. It was a veritable buffet!

When it was raining so hard I said, "Let's go sit on the porch swing and watch the rain!" and we all trooped out to the porch swing, Levon pushing the babies and some toys in the little baby carriage, but as soon as Jessie and I got settled, August said, "Let's go in and do a puzzle."
"Go in," said Levon.
Sigh.
He's at the repeating things stage. Sometime during the afternoon I said, "So rude!" about something or someone. I can't even remember but I must have said it with great drama because Levon kept repeating it in his little boy gravely voice.
"So rude!"
Here's a picture of him in the library.


Jessie keeps saying that she needs to make an appointment with Melissa for him to get his hair cut. 
"Oh, honey," I say. She laughs. She knows how much I love the babies with their long baby hair. They just look too old when they get that first real haircut. It's shocking and I don't like it. But I understand. He's going to be two in less than two weeks and I suppose it's time. He's not really a baby anymore but then again, he is. He isn't quite as obsessed with tractors and trucks as he was. Well, his vocabulary has expanded far beyond those two words. He did want to go out and look at Boppy's "big tractor" though.


Such a beautiful child. 

We read books in the library while Jessie got caught up on some of her diet/study related things. I really still can't believe, even after fifteen years that I live in a house with a library where I can read books to my grandchildren. But I do.


It's rather unbelievable. 

Before too long it was time for them to leave so that hopefully both boys would take a little nap. Good-bye treats were agreed upon and given.
Here's August in his car seat with a sprig of tea-olive that I picked for him. 


After they left I did some stuff around here and made a soup with venison and all the vegetables including a few of the tiny sweet potatoes I dug yesterday and the very, very last of the field peas which have been sitting, shelled and dried in a little bowl by the stove. 
I baked my loaf of sourdough bread (is this loaf #3 or #4?) and I did a few things differently and it looks fine. I hope it's done all the way through. Hard to tell when you're cooking in a cast iron pot. 

The laundry is all done and put away, supper is virtually ready. I've closed up the chickens who sleep in the hen house. Six do, six don't. The pine cone lilies are blooming and look lovely in my new Roseland Goodwill vase. I stuck the two succulents that I carefully dug from the woods in Roseland in a pot of dirt. 
This is such a small life. 
It's raining again. Lily sent me a very short video of Maggie running through a huge mud puddle on their road. I can't quite tell but I think she is naked except for a pair of underpants.
"Living her best life," Lily texted with the video.
Maybe I am too. A small life but my best life. Or at least the only one I am living right now.
Perhaps it would be even better if I shed my clothes and went out and danced in the mud like my beautiful curly-headed, strong-minded granddaughter.

Not tonight.


Love...Ms. Moon




24 comments:

  1. That porch looks so cozy...I hope the bread and soup were a nice ending to your day. Those littles have grown quite a lot. It is hard to believe Levon will be two soon.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's just my tiny kitchen porch. I love it, though.
      Yes. Our Levon is growing up.

      Delete
  2. "This is such a small life." O but this is a life of non-harm, of kindness and love. Some people have large lives where they do so much damage and they cause so much suffering by their actions.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I would much rather live a small life than a large one doing harm. Thank you, Beth.

      Delete
  3. I love reading about your babies. My great grandson (how do I have a GREAT grandson???) just turned 19 months old and got his first hair cut. Yes, he was mistaken for a girl more than once, but all it took was a 'isn't he handsome' to correct people. But those curls!! He had the most beautiful curls! My granddaughter texted me a pic, and I literally cried. Sadness? Yes Love? Oh, YES!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I can't even imagine a great grandchild and I doubt I'll live to see one but what a joy that must be! The amount of love just keeps increasing, doesn't it?

      Delete
  4. You have a perfectly wonderful life. Except, of course, for the feathers in the washing machine.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh yeah, I must agree -- that WAS bad!

      Delete
    2. I think I've just about captured all of the feathers. Now to make a pillow of them. Although, come to think of it, I better get them dry or they'll be so nasty.

      Delete
  5. Most people have small lives and I think that even people with what we would consider a large life, actually have pretty normal lives. You have something better though, you have your grandbabies. You get to see them often, you read to them, cook for them, shop with them and love them. How many grandparents these days get to do that?

    It's not a small life, it's a lovely life.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I know I am so lucky and you are too, in the way of being able to see and be a real part of your grandchild's life.
      It can be a small life and still a lovely life. It's probably easier than a large and lovely life!

      Delete
  6. Your comments made me think of this quote which is close to my heart:A Small Thing, but Mine Own
    By Abraham Cowley (1618–1667)

    From the Essay The Garden

    I NEVER had any other desire so strong, and so like to covetousness, as that one which I have had always, that I might be master at last of a small house and large garden, with very moderate conveniences joined to them, and there dedicate the remainder of my life only to the culture of them, and study of nature.
    And there (with no design beyond my wall), whole and entire to lie,
    In no inactive ease, and no unglorious poverty.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wendy, that's just about the most beautiful thing I've ever read and in some ways, it is absolutely how I feel.
      Thank you so much for taking the time to share it here. I'm going to write it down where I won't forget it.

      Delete
  7. Small life? I think it is a big one because it has stretched across The Atlantic Ocean to me here in my sunny front room in Yorkshire, tapping away on this keyboard - avoiding the emptying of the dishwasher and other domestic tasks. When that night comes - when you're running in the rain like Magnolia - I hope there'll be pictures.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, Mr. P. I appreciate that. I really do.
      But as to the pictures- NO ONE needs to see that. I promise.

      Delete
  8. Not a small life at all. A large and lovely one, which reaches into the hearts of people all across the world. Think about that. Not a day goes by, dear Mary, when you and your beautiful family are not in my thoughts. Not a small life at all.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And not a day goes by without me thinking of you and YOUR beautiful family. In that way, yes, my life is huge!

      Delete
  9. That would certainly catch the attention of your neighbors! I think your life is ideal, really. As YP said, your presence stretches far beyond Lloyd every day -- and down the generations as well.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I wonder if my grands will ever actually read any of this. Owen is quite aware of it now and has some sense of what it's about and how I've kept records of him since before his birth with both writing and pictures.
      Who knows?

      Delete
  10. but you know that humans are considered babies until the age of eight, and I do agree about hair cuts...I guess it is a gender thing for boys to get them but WHY? perhaps it is cultural and macho or something, like circumcision and should be outlawed altogether.
    If the life you are living so beautifully is a small one, I would take it in a heartbeat!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, as you probably know, Jessie and Vergil are about the least traditional parents you could ever meet when it comes to gender and so forth. I think that Jessie is thinking more along the lines of Levon's hair being tidier. Do you know that Maggie has never had a haircut? Those curls, when wet and combed out, reach down to her waist.

      Delete
  11. I am reminded of the song, "Everybody eats when they come to my house". Love the photos of your library and your inviting back porch.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's not my back porch, just the little kitchen entrance porch. But thank you. And yes, mostly everybody does eat when they come to my house. This is the way it is.

      Delete
  12. rained here last night with thunder but the lightning was elsewhere. I had a busy day yesterday.

    ReplyDelete

Tell me, sweeties. Tell me what you think.