Simple Days

 

"Don't let yourself get so busy that you miss those little but important extras in life ~
the beauty of a day...
the smile of a friend...
the serenity of a quiet moment alone.
For it is often life's smallest pleasures and gentlest joys that make the biggest and most lasting difference."

A Saintly View

Despite the heat of late August, the morning glories are happily blooming away.

Everything else in the garden has withered and surrendered, or so it seems.

I'm patiently waiting for the cooler, albeit shorter days of Autumn, to appear.

 

 

 

 

 

Summer's Gold

"Oh, the summer night
Has a smile of light
And she sits on a sapphire throne."

- Barry Cornwall

Childhood Memories

Windsor Tea Kettle


Why is it that small things we remember growing up, seems to have such an influence on our taste, as adults ?

My grandma Ciss used a tea kettle on her stove to boil water.
It was a sturdy kettle made from chrome-plated copper, and built with a raised element at the bottom in order to conduct the heat more efficiently from her gas stove.
When the water was at boiling level, it whistled, to let you know it was ready.

It lasted a lifetime, or so it seemed to me.

As soon as I set up housekeeping, I always wished for one of those kettles.
I shopped specialty catalogues endlessly, until one day, I came across the very same kettle, in the Williams-Sonoma Kitchen Collection. "Imported from England" caught my eye.

My choice was the one made from solid copper, lined with tin, without the element, and more suitable for use with an electric stove top.
It was shipped with a lifetime warranty, and a lovely little keepsake card, telling how it was handcrafted, and the name of the original craftsman, whose talent it took to create it.

It gets used everyday, reminding me of all the times my grandma served pots of tea to family and friends alike.
The local "bobbies" (policemen), walking the neighborhood beat, were a staple around her kitchen table.

I can hear them now, shouting through the front door letterbox......."Put'the kettle on Ciss".

Where's Tom ?

Follow the trail....

And The Rains Came

Mother Nature sent rain today.

Buckets full, with the odd peeking of the sun in between, enticing you into the garden with the hope of getting those much needed chores done.

Just in time for the beginning of the annual County fair, it always seems so.
Three days of continuous rain, for which we are grateful, even if her timing is a bit off.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

A break in the heat
away from the front
no thunder, no lightning,
just rain, warm rain
falling near dusk
falling on eager ground
steaming blacktop
hungry plants
thirsty
turning toward the clouds
cooling, soothing rain
splashing in sudden puddles
catching in open screens
that certain smell
of summer rain

~ Summer Rain : Raymond A Foss

 

Timeless Treasures

I  have always felt that old pieces of furniture have souls.
They have been a part of a family's household, have witnessed births, celebrations, milestones, and even deaths.
When I bring an old piece into my own home, it's as if I am the new caretaker, mine to love and enjoy for only a few short years.
A temporary position, until it passes along to the next homestead.

Last year I brought a century old Kentucky Pie Safe into our midst, a much-loved piece of furniture, that has served it's utilitarian purpose well.
I can imagine all of the homemade pies that have sat upon it's shelves....... still warm from the oven.
Maybe stacks of linens, or dinnerware, or served as a pantry, in some distant rural farmhouse.

 

 

Each time I pass it by, I can't help but smile.

 

 

 Old Furniture

 

I know not how it may be with others
Who sit amid relics of householdry
That date from the days of their mothers' mothers,
But well I know how it is with me
Continually.

I see the hands of the generations
That owned each shiny familiar thing
In play on its knobs and indentations,
And with its ancient fashioning
Still dallying:

Hands behind hands, growing paler and paler,
As in a mirror a candle-flame
Shows images of itself, each frailer
As it recedes, though the eye may frame
Its shape the same.

On the clock's dull dial a foggy finger,
Moving to set the minutes right
With tentative touches that lift and linger
In the wont of a moth on a summer night,
Creeps to my sight.

On this old viol, too, fingers are dancing -
As whilom--just over the strings by the nut,
The tip of a bow receding, advancing
In airy quivers, as if it would cut
The plaintive gut.

And I see a face by that box for tinder,
Glowing forth in fits from the dark,
And fading again, as the linten cinder
Kindles to red at the flinty spark,
Or goes out stark.

Well, well. It is best to be up and doing,
The world has no use for one to-day
Who eyes things thus--no aim pursuing!
He should not continue in this stay,
But sink away.

Thomas Hardy's : Old Furniture

August Days

                           

 

 "Fairest of the months

Ripe summer's queen

The hey-day of the year

With robes that gleam with sunny sheen

Sweet August doth appear."

~ R. Combe Miller

 

Tom

Tom has been following the mister around this entire week. 

Busy days, entailing house-washing, and painting from dawn until dusk, exposing a small inquisitive kitty to endless hours of new experiences.

He has to take frequent naps throughout the day, it's all just a little too much excitement.

 

click to enlarge

Growing

Tom Kitten has grown by leaps and bounds in the past two weeks.....literally.

He no longer runs for the safety of his potting shed hidey-hole when a human approaches, instead he enjoys daily brushings, and all the attention a sweet kitty deserves.