• Recent Posts

  • Archives

  • Categories

  • Meta

More Cornbread

Posted on July 23, 2014 by susanrray

search

When my friend Tommy Sue offered corn light bread* that she’d baked the day before, I was skeptical and almost chose a commercial bun that came with the carry out barbeque supper. “If you don’t want a bun, here’s some corn light bread I made yesterday.” Cold corn bread? The only way my mother served cold cornbread was crumbled into a glass of milk and eaten with a spoon, which was Sunday night supper. I went along with my girlfriends who also sat around Tommy Sue’s dining room table and I laid a piece of her homemade bread, baked in a loaf pan and sliced like banana bread, on my plate. Slathered with soft butter, it was delicious.

During dinner we college girlfriends discussed how we make and bake cornbread differently. We agreed that it is usually baked in a black skillet and in a hot oven, but Tommy Sue’s mother baked cornbread in a loaf pan and often served it cold. We realized that we bake cornbread like our mothers did. Blondie’s mother told her to remember 2, 2, and 2. *  Two cups of cornmeal, 2 eggs, and 2 cups of buttermilk. Heat ¼ cup oil in a black skillet in a 450° F oven and pour about half the oil in the batter, stir well, and watch the batter sizzle when it’s poured into the skillet.

Jo Ann’s family had milk cows and no milk was ever wasted so her mother used the old milk, no-longer-good-for-drinking-milk, to make cornbread. After baking, she turned the bread onto her tiled countertop and covered it with the skillet until the middle was soft. Friend Alicia learned to heat ½ cup oil in a black skillet and drop spoonfuls of thick batter into the skillet allowing the oil to bubble around each spoonful. After baking, the spoonful-size portions break apart easily. All of us agreed that the best cornbread was baked in hot bacon drippings. Our mothers kept a jar or small crock close to the stove to pour bacon grease into and that was used for cornbread and to season vegetables.

Kathy’s mother always baked plain cornbread to serve with pinto beans, and she made Mexican cornbread to serve with vegetable soup. The mention of Mexican cornbread started a whole new topic. Broccoli Cornbread* is made with Jiffy cornbread mix, butter, eggs, cottage cheese, onions, and chopped frozen broccoli and baked in a 9 x 13 pan. There’s Creamed Corn Cornbread, Zucchini cornbread, and Green Chili Cornbread. I googled cornbread recipes and got 3,950,000 results. That’s more varieties of cornbread than there are black skillets!

After the first column about cornbread, readers have shared their stories. Tricia’s mother was born and raised in Ohio and her Sunday night supper was a one-pan meal. She cooked pork sausage – either patties or crumbled – and then poured cornbread batter into the hot skillet and baked it. Seems like this should be a good Southern dish. I’ve heard about hush puppies, cornbread dressing, spoon bread, hoecakes, Johnny cakes, hot water cornbread, cornbread salad, vegetable spoon bread, and crackling cornbread.

This cornbread saga may not be ended yet. There may be yet another cornbread story.

*Recipes posted http://susanrray.com

 

 

 

 

Filed under: Food, Friends | Tagged: , | 1 Comment »

For Better, Not Worse

Posted on June 25, 2014 by susanrray

 

retired_logo

 

My friends said that I’m in trouble.  Said I have some adjusting to do.   Said I should give Husband and me some time. Said it’ll work out, but it won’t be easy.  Said it’s not like anything we’ve experienced in our marriage.  These four college girlfriends have known Husband and me since he and I first met, and my friends have all been where we’re going, but I think they’re wrong.

 

For all the 44 years of our married life, Allen, husband who I must call by name for this column, has worked.  Except for short vacations, he’s showered, shaved, dressed, and gone to work five days a week.  Next week, he won’t.  He won’t go to the office before 8:00 a.m., come home around noon, make his own lunch, eat, go back to work, and come home for the evening after 5:00.  Allen is retiring.

 

My friends told horror stories about some newly retired husbands, but not theirs.  One husband completely reorganized everything in the kitchen cabinets.  One expected three meals a day, cooked and served.  Another thought he should know where his wife was every minute of every day and what she was doing.  One walked from his bed to his living room recliner and called it exercise.  And one husband suddenly needed to know the exact cost of every item that his wife bought at the grocery store.

 

Allen won’t do any of those things.  So why are my girlfriends concerned?  When they ask what Allen planned to do, I said that he might want to work part time.  He’ll want somewhere to go and something to do.  And I said that I plan to continue my erratic come-and-go-as-I-please schedule, and I have a list of places for Allen and me to go and things to do.

 

I retired five years ago and adjusted quiet easily.  I like my quiet mornings.  No TV, no radio, and a leisurely breakfast on our back deck, if the weather is good.  During the past five years, Allen went to work and I spent the day however I wanted.  Exercised at the YMCA.  Played with my Grands.  Hid in my closet office and moved my fingers across my computer keyboard.  Ate lunch with friends.  Piddled the day away.  I didn’t completely neglect household chores.  Laundry and dusting and grocery shopping got done – in due time.

 

I’m really happy for Allen.  He began working when he was 12 years old.  He stocked shelves and swept the floor at his family’s grocery store where he continued to work through his college years.  And he’s worked ever since.  In retail business.  For Tennessee Tech.  Owned and managed convenience stores.  For an insurance agency.  But starting next week, he won’t go to work.  And he and I will have a grand time together, won’t we?

 

I think my girlfriends are wrong. Just because they and their husbands struggled through a year-long adjustment period after they both retired, doesn’t mean the same for Allen and me.   This chapter of our marriage is the ‘for better’ not ‘for worse,’ isn’t it?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed under: Everyday Life, Family, Friends | Tagged: , , | 4 Comments »

Lost Phone or Lost Mind?

Posted on January 15, 2014 by susanrray

7898 While talking on the phone with JoAnn, my college roommate, I said, “Let me read you what our friends sent in texts yesterday.”  JoAnn’s phone doesn’t receive text messages.  I continued talking as I walked around my house.  “I’ll get my cell.  You’ve got to hear Blondie’s news!  Where is that phone?  When are you going to get a phone so we can send you texts?  I can’t find my phone.  It’s not in my purse.  Not charging.  Not on my desk.  Oh, I’m talking on it!”  For the next five minutes, JoAnn laughed in my ear.

I really did that.  I lost my phone while I held it in my hand.  When I told my family and friends what I’d done, they shared that they’d done the same and more.  Daughter said that when she discovered I’d left my cell phone at her house, she called me as I drove out of her driveway so I’d come back for it.  My phone rang while she held it in her hand.

Marilyn said that her cousin’s phone rang while the two of them were shopping in a department store.  Her cousin searched madly in her purse as it rang and rang, but she couldn’t find it.  Finally, she quit looking and told Marilyn, “It’s not here.  I must have left it in the car.”  So how did she hear it ring?

Most of us have called a phone that we’ve misplaced and hoped that its ring would lead us to it.  Jo admitted that she asked a drive-thru window bank teller to call her phone number while she held her purse up to her ear to see if it rang.  That’s good customer service.

Lana said that she lost her glasses while they were on her face and lost her keys while holding them in her my hand.  And her car has a mind all its own.  It automatically turns toward her house even when she plans to go to the grocery store.

Judy washed a load of clothes without any clothes in the washing machine.  Von bought liquid laundry detergent at the grocery store.  Later that day after he’d loaded dirty clothes in his washing machine, he couldn’t find the detergent.  He was upset and sure that the grocery store bagger hadn’t put it in his bags.  At lunchtime, he opened his refrigerator and found the detergent.  Right on the top shelf where he’d put it.

Kathy walked from her bedroom to her kitchen to take medicine.  But then she couldn’t read the labels on the medicine bottles because she’d left her glasses on her bedside table.

Jo opened Belk’s door with her car key.  She pushed the button on her car key to open her car door at the same moment that she stepped in the right spot that made Belk’s automatic door open.  She wrote this message to me, “Crazier than a run over dawg!  That’s what we are, sister friend!”  Maybe.

Kathy said, “It’s good to know I’m not alone.”  I agree.  And you know what makes me feel even better?  Most of these people are at least twenty years younger than me.  So my age has nothing to do with the fact that I lost my phone in my hand?  Right?

###

 

Filed under: Everyday Life, Friends | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a comment »

Come for Tea

Posted on January 30, 2013 by susanrray

images

I’m making a tea cozy.  Or a tea cosy, as the Brits would say.  Its history begins when tea was first introduced to Britain in the 1660s.  I like the word cosy – it’s much more dignified than cozy.  This time last week I didn’t even know I needed a tea cosy and just a few years ago, I would’ve said, “A tea what?”

Now I’m a good Southern girl that grew up drinking iced tea – sweet, of course.  My Aunt Doris introduced me to a ‘spot’ of hot tea when I was a teenager.  And I’ve enjoyed afternoon tea at an upscale hotel restaurant.  But I didn’t expect that inviting my out-of-town college girlfriends to join me for afternoon tea would lead to searching through my stash of fabric and learning how to sew a tea cosy.

My friends responded eagerly by email and June agreed to serve as hostess  – she’s my tea party authority.  My friends insisted that they bring the food: cucumber sandwiches, asparagus roll-ups, ham tarts, cranberry scones, and stuffed strawberries.  Fine with me.  I’ll provide the tea and hot water.  But June said we must use good loose tea and she knows exactly where to buy it.  So it seems that hot water is my only contribution to my tea party.

I don’t have a fancy silver tea service, which includes a teapot for keeping water at perfect hot tea temperature.  But I do have teapots.  One that matches my very first set of china.  One that a family friend gave me when I was ten years old.  And one that my brother-in-law bought and brought to me all the way from China.  A real teapot with a loose-leaf strainer and four dainty teacups.  So I’m set or so I thought.

June agreed that the idea of several lovely teapots would be wonderful.  “But how will we keep the water hot?  I wish we had a tea cosy or two,” she wrote in an email.  I think my microwave heats water pretty fast, but since all I’m providing is hot water, I must follow tradition.

A tea cosy is a knitted or embroidered covering (I don’t have time to knit or embroider) or it’s made from heavy brocade or fabric with a lovely design, and it must be insulated and lined.  It fits right over a teapot.  Got it!  A piece of printed floral cotton material that I inherited from my mother’s scrap fabric box.  And for some reason I’ve saved an unused insulated fabric leg covering from when I had knee surgery.  And there’s plenty of solid colored material for lining.

How could I possibility serve hot tea without tea cosies?  One for each of my three teapots.   The tea cosy was invented not only to keep the contents of the teapot hot, but also to prolong social occasions.  And I want to keep my long-time friends sitting around my dining room table as long as possible.

One cosy made.  Two to go.

Filed under: Food, Friends | Tagged: , , | 2 Comments »

A Teacher’s Lament

Posted on January 10, 2013 by susanrray

images

I said I wasn’t going to write about the tragedy at Newtown, Connecticut.  But now that Sandy Hook Elementary School has reopened, I hurt for the teachers who survived.

On that day in mid-December when I first heard about the senseless killings, I was stunned.  Just like when I turn off the TV or leave the room when a news story is about an abused child, I had to walk away.  I listened to the news periodically throughout the day and stayed busy.  I knew it would be a day, like 9/11, that I’d remember where I was and what I was doing.

A week or so later, a friend said, “Newtown must have hit you doubly hard since you were a teacher.”  We had talked about the children who wouldn’t open Christmas presents.  And we wondered how their parents and grandparents would make it through the holidays.  We ached for those who’d loss a child, whether student or teacher, on December 14th.  But my friend had the insight to allow me to bring other memories and grief to the surface.

I remember when my school first practiced lock-downs.  Fire drills and tornado drills were routine.  Lock downs weren’t.  Lock the classroom door.  Herd my students into a corner.  Pull down the shades over the windows.  If there’s time, cover the twelve-inch square window on the door.  And keep everyone in that one corner, along the same wall as the door, where someone couldn’t look through the small window and see us.  It was never said aloud – a corner where a bullet shot through the door wouldn’t hit anyone.  I huddled my 24 fourth graders into that corner and they learned the term ‘packed like sardines.’  The girls giggled and scratched each other’s noses.  The boys wiggled.  We learned the secret knock on the door that signaled ‘all clear’ and that it was okay to open the door and carry on with learning about electrical circuits.

Even after four years of retirement, I still miss visiting with teacher friends.  Laughing during a hurried lunch.  Hearing about a son’s baseball game.  A daughter’s gymnastics meet.  The funny things a grandchild said.

I can’t imagine the pain that the Sandy Hook teachers are feeling as they stand before their students.  They survived a school shooting and lost friends.  During my teaching days, our faculty lost two teachers.  Tammy to cancer.  Marcia in a car wreck.  Two young friends who should have had many more years to read aloud their favorite books to children.  Teachers who left their mark on students and fellow teachers.

Our faculty mourned together.  Questions swirled through my head and heart.  Where’s my friend who wanted to borrow the foldout book about the human skeleton to read to her class?  Where’s my friend who was planning her daughter’s wedding?

I can’t imagine the questions that haunt the teachers at Sandy Hook School as they carry on, teaching young children.  I can’t imagine the horror of a school shooting.  I ache for those teachers.

Filed under: Friends, School | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a comment »

It’s a New Year……What to do?

Posted on January 3, 2013 by susanrray

images

I don’t know what to do or where to start.  It’s a new year.  And there are so many things that I want and need to do.  Knit a cap for my Colorado Grand?  Stitch pajama pants for my Grands who live across town?  Finish the quilt that Grandma Gladys started fifty years ago?  Bake bread to take to my sick friend?  Sort and throw away outdated medicines? Finish reading the book I started before Christmas?

I love new beginnings.  Mondays.  New calendars.  When I taught school, I liked the beginning of a Science unit and a new list of spelling words.  So I should welcome 2013.  But I’m frazzled with all the choices.  Clean out the kitchen cabinets?  I put clean dishes in those cabinets so where do all the crumbs come from?  Move the bed and vacuum the dust monsters?  They’re too big to be called bunnies.  If I hadn’t dropped my bookmark behind the bed, I’d never seen the monsters.  Ignorance was bliss.  Take pictures and write stories about the family heirlooms in my house?  I can’t expect my children to remember that five blue glasses belonged to Great-Grandmother Rich and that Daddy mailed the green wooden box to Mother while he was stationed in Germany during WWII.

Four years ago when I retired, I wrote a list of things to do, places to see, and people to spend time with.  I’m too big a coward to even look at that list.  But I remember that I thought I’d get back to playing the piano.  Why have a piano if no one plays it?  I’d sew dresses and rompers for my Grands; skirts for myself.  I’d exercise.  I’d throw dinner parties.  Explore the blue highways in the Upper Cumberland.  Eat lunch with friends.  Learn something new every day.

As I sit with my fingers on my computer, I create a new folder for this year’s columns.  Where We Are 2013.  Should I take time to trash and organize scattered documents in the 2012 folder?  Update my computer?  The loud buzzer on the dryer relieves my indecision.  I hang Husband’s and my shirts.  There’s the raccoon costume lying on the sewing machine by the ironing board.  Right after Halloween, I promised my Grand that I’d mend it.  It’ll only take ten minutes.  I could stitch it now.

Focus.  Make a plan, my brain says.  2013 – a chance to start new.  What should I do for the next 365 days.  Recently, I read a devotion that suggested choosing one word for a New Year’s resolution.  One word to guide each day’s choices.  Each day’s activities.   Suggested words:  courage, faith, patience, simplify, study, action, generous.  What about balance or love?

So here I am.  The beginning of a new year and I’m in a quandary.  Choices.  Lists.  Resolutions.  The phone rings.  “Gran?”  I hear the sweet voice of my seven-year-old Grand.  “Are you coming to see us today?”

Yes.

Filed under: Everyday Life, Family, Friends | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment »

Trash or Treasure

Posted on December 5, 2012 by susanrray

photo[1]

My Christmas tree is decorated just the way I like it.  Lights, red bead roping, ornaments and an angel on top.  Ornaments handed down from my parents’ Christmas tree. Ornaments that were gifts from family and friends and school children.  Ornaments made or bought for a special memory.  I can tell the story of each one.  But there are more ornaments still in the storage box.  Some not hung for years.  Enough to decorate another tree, and one tree is all I want.

“Here,” I said to Daughter as I handed her a full plastic bag.  “Take these ornaments to your house, please.  And maybe you’ll hang some on your tree.”  She held the bag in her hands.  “Wait, let me look at those again.”  I took the bag from her.  “Maybe some should be thrown away.”

Who could trash Bert and Ernie?  Handmade, from yarn, and Bert is only missing one eye.  The white crocheted snowflake has just a few yellow spots.  The ceramic angel that I painted would look pretty if someone glued her wing back on.  I can’t trash a Nativity –even a miniature plastic one. A blue Smurf probably means something to one of my children.  The shiny red apple is still pretty.  Why do I have three wooden factory-made stockings?  There’s no name or date on the back of any of them, but they’re cute.

I can’t bring myself to throw away the dozens of calico ornaments that I made in the mid-1970s.  I stitched them at night after our children had gone to bed.  Five-inch stockings and candy canes and wreaths.  Cut from yellow and red and green calico.  Two pieces of fabric zigzagged together and stuffed with polyester pillow stuffing.  Unbreakable.  The only kind of ornament that hung from our tree for several Christmases.  The years when little hands took ornaments off the tree.  And those same hands hung them back on.

I wonder where the picture is of our children when they were 3 and 5.  They were standing beside the Christmas tree and pointing to the ornaments they’d just hung.  Twelve calico ornaments hung side-by-side on the electrical wire between two lights.  Calico really isn’t in style now, but there’s a cotton fabric candy cane and wreath hanging on my tree.

Red glittery plastic bells.  I’m not trashing those.  I bought them at the Dime Store and Husband and I hung them on our very first Christmas tree.  What if I tie a narrow green ribbon through the loop of each one and write “Pop and Gran’s tree, 1969” inside the bell?  I’ll attach one to the bow on each of our Grand’s gifts.

So the red glittery bells are on my gift-wrapping table and every other ornament that I thought I might cull is back in the plastic bag.  I’ll give them to Daughter.  Surely she won’t throw any away.

Filed under: Everyday Life, Family, Friends | Tagged: , , | Leave a comment »

John Stories

Posted on November 29, 2012 by susanrray

Sunday morning.  I stood in my closet choosing clothes for church when the phone rang.  “Susan, do you have a minute to talk?” my college roommate asked.  I sat down as she spoke.  John, her husband of 40 years, was breathing his last breaths.  John, whose doctor had just a few days before declared his heart valve replacement a great success and told him to carry on with normal life.  John, who had planned an evening out with friends to celebrate.  His passing was quick.

I first loved John because Jo Ann loved him.  She and I had shared a 10’ x 12’ dormitory room for three years at Tennessee Tech University.  Sisters by choice.  In 1972, I stood beside Jo Ann when she and John promised to love each other until parted by death.  For four days, I stood behind Jo Ann while she made difficult decisions and received condolences.  And I heard stories.

A ten-year old neighbor boy hugged Jo Ann and said, “I liked when he threw the ball with me.  I’ll miss him.”  The next-door neighbor cried as he told me that just two days before he and John had stood in their driveways.  “He hugged my girls (ages 2 and 3) and said ‘How fast can you run?’  When they ran to him, he laughed and told then they could run faster.  The girls wrapped their arms around his legs and John pretended to fall.  He made everybody laugh.”

Jan and John had an on-going joke about birds flying overhead.  John didn’t want to sit at the outside restaurant table under a tree.  Surely there was a place inside for six people to eat dinner that May evening.  Jan teased him that his bald head would be a perfect target, but she’d make sure that birds didn’t deposit anything on it.  When John turned his back to her, Jan poured water into her hand and dumped it on his head.  John stood, hollered words that his mother would’ve washed out of his mouth, and swiped his head with a cloth napkin.  His friends laughed, and John laughed loudest.

Only his generous heart surpassed John’s sense of humor.  January 1976, a snowstorm hit the Nashville area at rush hour and immediately turned roads into parking lots.  My fifteen- month-old daughter, Alicia, and I were stranded on a neighborhood street, miles away from our home on the other side of Davidson County.  After two hours, my new best friends, whose cars were parked on the snow-covered, icy street, pushed my car into a driveway and watched as I knocked on a stranger’s door.  I asked to use her phone and stay inside her warm house.  The snow finally stopped and the main roads were cleared.  John left his workplace in downtown Nashville.  He drove out of his way to rescue Alicia and me from a stranger’s house and took us to his and Jo Ann’s home.  Midnight supper never taste so good.

‘John stories,’ Jo Ann calls them.  Stories that remind me to laugh and hug.  Stories that make me happy that John was my friend.  Stories that help heal hurting hearts.

 

 

 

 

Filed under: Friends | Tagged: , , | Leave a comment »

Fall’s Biggest Social Events

Posted on October 18, 2012 by susanrray

How about the tailgating at TTU?  Lots of food and fun.  A bounce zone for the young and young at heart.  Fathers and sons playing football.  Corn hole games.  Frisbies.  Some folk bring their own food.  Some dine on the free food and beverages that are provided by local churches and businesses.  Tech cheerleaders pump us up for the game, and my favorite, the TTU Marching Band performs.

When did tailgating begin?  The American Tailgater Association, on its website, details the history of sharing food and drink before events and says the first documented tailgate probably took place in 1861 at the Battle of Bull Run.  It states, “At the battle’s start, civilians from the Union side arrived with baskets of food and shouting, ‘Go Big Blue!’  Their efforts were a form of support and were to help encourage their side to win the commencing battle.”  The Romans ate and drank outside the Coliseum before gladiator games.  Doesn’t that fall into the broad definition of tailgating?  Surely, they shared food and spirits and talked about the upcoming sports events.

In 1869, a group of Rutgers fans and players, wearing scarlet-colored scarves as turbans, paraded before the football game between Princeton and Rutgers.  This was one of the earliest recorded celebrations before a sporting event.

There are all styles and levels of tailgating.  Tailgating was simple when we drove a big wood panel station wagon.  We lowered the tailgate, spread out a plastic tablecloth and food.  Pimento cheese sandwiches, chips, and store bought cookies.  Then came vans.  We packed chairs, coolers with drinks, upscaled to ham rolls, fancy dips for chips, and cupcakes decorated with our team’s mascot.  Or we picked up a family-pack barbeque dinner on the way to the game.

For some folks, RV tailgating is the ultimate.  As good as life gets, I’ve been told, and an event that can go on for several days.  No need to go to the game.  RVers park close to the stadium and watch the game on big screen televisions.  They relax in their comfortable chairs, eat and drink all through the game, know there’s been a big play when they hear the roar of the crowd, and maybe even the game announcer, and celebrate when their team scores on the big screen.

Football fans on the Ole Miss campus take tailgating to the extreme.  And when I tailgated in The Grove, I made a check mark on my bucket list.  Ten acres in the center of a campus shaded by oak, elm, and magnolia trees.  Thousands of fans under a sea of red, white, and blue tents.  And the table settings and fare were fit for a southern girl’s wedding reception.  Elaborate centerpieces, silver candlesticks, tablecloths, fancy hor d’oeuvres, barbecue, fried chicken, shrimp, and all the fixings.

Tailgating isn’t just about the food.  It’s getting ready for the big game.  Food, friends, and fun —what’s not to like about one of fall’s biggest social events?

Filed under: Food, Friends, sports | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment »

Summertime…..A Good Visitor

Posted on September 20, 2012 by susanrray

I’m not finished with summer.  I want more warm days to play in the swimming pool.  “Watch me, Gran!”  my oldest Grand says.  He runs the length of the diving board and jumps into deep water.  “Did you see me?”  he says as soon as his mouth breaks the water’s surface.  Of course.  I applaud and promise to watch as he dives underwater to pick up a toy that lies on the bottom of the pool, four feet deep.

“Swing me around, Gran.  Really fast,” says my five-year old Grand.  She adjusts her goggles, twists the water wings on her arms, and tightens her closed mouth.  I hold her hands and rotate in a circle, around and around and around.  When I say I’m dizzy, she says, “I’m not.  I’ll throw the ball and let’s see who gets it first.”  She dog paddles and holds the floating ball high in the air.  “Did you know I can swim really good on my back?” I watch as she lies on top of the water and kicks across the pool.

“Gran, hold me.  I don’t want to get my face wet.”  My three-year-old Grand locks her legs around my waist and her arms around my neck.  As I walk into water deep enough to reach her chest, she tightens her grip.  I remind her that earlier in the summer, she put her face in the water and blew bubbles.  “I don’t want to.  You can,” she says as she buries her face in my shoulder because her big brother and sister splash water close to us.

It’s not just fun in the pool that I don’t want to end.  I’m not ready to give up late afternoon pontoon boat rides and sunsets at Center Hill Lake.  And I’ll miss my smallest bird friends.  A hummingbird feeder hangs outside my kitchen window, but now it’s time to take it down and encourage the hummers to head south.  I haven’t eaten all the locally grown watermelon and cantaloupe and yellow squash I want, and I need at least one more mess of fresh green beans.

I like hosta plants with green leaves, not wilted yellow and brown leaves.  My knockout roses are knocked out for this growing season, and the blooms of my red impatience flowers are drooping on the end of long thin stems.  I like long days with sunrise at 5:30 a.m. and sunset at 8:00 p.m.  Plus, I’m not ready to give up comfortable summer clothes – shorts, tee shirts, and flip-flops.

The backyard deck is my favorite summertime room.  It’s where I listen to the songs of night creatures and greet the day with my first cup of coffee and eat lunch with my Grands and read in the late afternoon and cook on the grill.

Just like a good guest, summer comes for a visit.  Then leaves while I’m still having fun and promises to come back.  I’ll be ready.

Filed under: Everyday Life, Family, Friends, Grandchildren | Tagged: , | Leave a comment »

« Previous Page — Next Page »