"Keep taking steps in a certain direction and you're going to end up where you're headed."

 Elizabeth Moore

The Sky in the Glass

By Elece Hollis

If you know me, you know how I love birds. I love to watch them flying, feeding, nesting. I love the way they move in communities like sparrows, ducks, seagulls, and cardinals, or individually—territorially, like hummingbirds, mockingbirds, and Blue Jays.

I am intrigued by their variety, their colors, their designs, theirs shapes, sizes, and camouflage. Their movements: the “V” of geese, the swirls of brown-headed cowbirds, the dainty flutter of goldfinches, and the dive of a Red-tailed hawk amaze me. The soundless swoop of the Great Horned Owl, the strut of a meadowlark, swagger of crows, the hop-hop-hop of the robin interest me.

I have been startled as I stood watching out a window when a hapless bird flew into it with a thump—a bump that it seemed it would kill the poor little bird. I have seen birds lying still and almost dead, and then beginning to breathe once more; start up and fly again.

Last fall, I had a problem with a bird flying at my window repeatedly—purposefully again and again. He was just knocking himself loopy—self-destructively. He seemed to be bent on getting through that window. Maybe he saw his own reflection and thought it was another bird he had to ward off—who knows?

I am like those birds some times, like the first one only, I hope, who flies at the glass thinking it is open sky. I brain myself on the reflection—hard and cold. I rest awhile and then get up and shake it off—fly again, wiser, watching to see I am not fooled another time.

As a wife and mom there are days like that, usually when I am nonchalant and cheery—zipping along here and there with abandon. I forget to check things out with God, to stop and pray about my situation. I forget to ask for direction. I go flying with my eye on myself. I get fooled and fly—“thump,” at my own reflection.

I don't want to be stubborn and refusing to learn, like the other bird who spent days battering himself—fighting an enemy who turned out to be only himself.

I must never give up flying for fear of mistakes either. There is wide open sky out there—vast expanses of clear safe sky. A few lumps shouldn’t keep me from picking up and taking off again. I can’t let them.

Daddy's Home!

Dad is back from a week in Reno, Nevada at his company's annual national convention. It was a long week for him and a long one for me and the kids. He missed his flight early this morning and didn't get home until nearly six.

There were shouts,"Dad's home!" and thundering hoofbeats through the house out to the garage to meet him and welcome him inside with all his luggage. When the kids were little they'd run squealing to meet him at the door when he came home for work. They still are excited, though granted, a little more "respectable" when they see him drive up to the house after a trip.

It does my heart good to see them hurry out and hug him. My big teen sons never hold back from  expressing their love for their dad. Brenna squeals and won't even let him get out of the car before she gets her hug. I loved my own daddy like that-- still do. Good fathers are a decided and incomparable treasure.

Today, after going to pick up a granddaughter, he will take us for a Christmas outing to choose a tree and we will get to spend the evening listening to Christmas music and decorating our tree. Families are a wonderful creation!

Daddy Cooked Tapioca

When I was growing up in a large family, Mama was often busy with the little ones' bedtime routines in the evenings, so Daddy would cook for us older ones if we wanted a meal or snack late at night. One of his favorite projects was tapioca pudding.

Sometimes he cooked  tapioca after church on Sunday night. It is now a food I crave when I am homesick or when the weather is nasty and miserable. I love to eat it hot with a sprinkle of nutmeg or cinnamon on top.  It reminds of my sweet daddy and so it comforts my soul.

Many of you have experienced tapioca as a school  cafeteria or restaurant food. That form of pudding may have been gooey and cold and practically inedible. You probably have never tasted any cooked at home from fresh ingredients.If you have tasted the real thing, you likely love it like I do.

Daddy used Minute Tapioca, which is ground so it doesn't need to be soaked overnight before cooking. In the pan you combine eggs, a few tablespoons of tapioca, salt, milk, and sugar. Let it sit for about ten minutes then cook over medium heat like any  pudding. When it begins to boil, take it off the heat and let it set. The pudding will thicken. While it is still warm, ladle it into bowls and sprinkle with a dash of nutmeg.

Tapioca keeps well in the refrigerator and is delicious cold, or reheated in the microwave.I make a double batch. My children love it as much as I do and so often there is none to keep. It makes a perfect winter dessert.

All's Well

The evening sky was clear and stars began to show even before the sun set. The world was still and faded like an old woolen coat. The were colors, but not bright or harsh ones in the setting sun behind the bare tree's filigreed silhouettes. The only sounds coming to my ears were the gentle creak of the porch swing's chain and the rustle of dry leaves as the dog settled into them to sleep under the bedroom window. In the distance, I heard a cow bawling, a few birds calls, and an occasional far away bark of a dog. There was no wind, no tractors rumbling, no sound of traffic passing. All quiet on the home front.

Like A Green Pine Tree

"I, the Lord, am the one who answers your prayers and watches over you. I am like a green pine tree; your blessings come from me." Hosea 14:8

"He that has a bountiful eye shall be blessed, for he gives his bread to the poor." Proverbs 22:9

Truant Sun

The Truant Sun
By Elece Hollis

The sun peeped out this morning
No color, no majesty,
No pomp and splendor, just a peep.
I think he must have been ashamed of himself
After all those days of gloom and drear.
There he was!
He peeked out like a child
Accused of a cookie snitching,
Like a puppy who has
Shredded the morning paper—the Sunday paper
The severity of his crime escaped him.
To my eyes he was a traitor seeking amnesty.
”It’s about time you showed!” I blurted
And sent him scuttling for cover
Like a frightened rabbit back
Behind a cloud.
“Oh, no, I’m sorry! Please don’t go!” I cried
“ We need you today! We can’t take it!”
Out he peered tentatively
I sighed with relief.
“Please,” I pleaded plucking carefully
At the sliver of light like a weaver
Who has dropped a thread
And must most gently attempt to reach
Through the warp
To retrieve it and pull it back into the design.

The Snowflake

It snowed in Oklahoma last week, which was the cause of a great deal of delight at my house. The kids zoomed through their schoolwork and headed for the back room to don overcoats, stocking caps, and gloves. I ventured out long enough put a tray of extra birdseed in the front yard for my cardinals, juncos, sparrows, and nuthatches. Two pairs of bluebirds and a Jay scrabbled at the suet feeders with the woodpeckers.

I watched the kids build a mini-snowman (a snow-baby or a result of global warming shorter snowmen?). I watched them slide down the hill on a blue plastic sled and clobber each other with snowballs. Their shouting and laughing didn’t dissuade the birds from eating.

The snow fell in huge flakes. Soon the whole ground was covered and the branches of the trees and the bushes were frosty. The blowing snow against the dismal browns and grays of Oklahoma’s January were a welcome sight. It made me understand Northerners for a fraction of a minute.
No wonder they love it. It is beautiful!

Have you ever felt like a snowflake—just a one small person in the great span of eternity—just one diminutive drop in the great ocean of humanity—just one tiny part of God’s world? Oh, I have.

Snowflakes are formed when minute particles called ice nuclei pass through the clouds. As a particle tumbles in the super cooled moisture, it forms a six-sided crystal—radiating from the center. The sides add branches and buds that make the snowflake grow and change as it falls. Though each snowflake is small, flakes soon cover the ground.

I am like one of those snowflakes. My influence begins inside my home, with my own children and my grandbabies. The things I do and say affect my neighbors, my community, and my society. My influence reaches beyond my house to other homes. My influence, for good or bad, grows and continues past myself, past days at home washing faces and sweeping up messes, past soothing quarrels and folding dish towels, past cooking supper and changing bed sheets.

My home is a mission field and I serve God here. I represent Christ here. Some days I feel like I am being tumbled in cold places—buffeted by trials and weighed down by work and problems. Some days I feel small, fragile, and isolated. That is the time to spread my hands farther and be like a snowflake, helping to cover the world with the beauty of the knowledge of Jesus.

(Taken from What's Good About Home 2007)

Woodstove Warmth

Fire is crackling in the woodstove this morning. This old house is blessed with a fine large square woodstove. It is a comfort on winter days when cold creeps in like smoke around windows and doors. We love to open a door and watch the orange flames until the fire grows so we have to close the doors. Then the stove radiates heat to our whole house and we sit nearby or take spare minutes to stand in front of it and absorb the heat.

I suppose it is piece of yesteryear, in these modern times of central heat systems with thermostats that keep houses evenly toasty. Still , it is a benefit to us, the only cost being the labor of cutting and splitting wood , hauling the wood in, and cleaning the hearth of ashes.
This is not the first stove this old house has known. Out in the barn we found an potbellied stove that may have once heated the Evening Star School. The Evening Star was built in the early 1900's by homesteaders who claimed acreage along what is now Highway 52, near Morris, Oklahoma. When a new brick school was erected in 1930, the old frame building was moved to this land and converted into a home. Old timers say the building was hoisted onto wagons and pulled by oxen teams to this spot. Later, several additions and siding created the house we now know.

I had hoped to fill the old stove with soil and plant strawberries and flowers in it and set it on the porch. The stove , produced in 1906 at a foundry in Kansas City, might be the one which was ordered by the school board's building committee to heat the newly built schoolhouse. It was shipped by train to Okmulgee where a farmer waited at the depot to load it into his wagon. He hauled it to the schoolhouse to be installed in the center of the classroom in time for the winter session.

I imagine the school teacher arriving early in the morning to start a fire and soon afterwards, students arriving , hanging their hats and coats on hooks along the walls and coming to warm their cold selves by the stove. I imagine boys carrying in armloads of firewood to keep the fire going all day. The teacher may have heated water in a kettle atop the stove for warming cups of tea or coffee or simmered a kettle of beans for lunch or even baked potatoes in the coals.

My woodstove, though you may be messy and troublesome, I thank God for the blessing of comfort you add to my home.

Breaking and Enduring

As my friend Dawn was helping me wash dishes one night during their visit she dropped my Phaltzgraf soup tureen into the white porcelain sink. It bounced twice and split in half like a ripe melon. “Oh, don’t worry, Dawn. It’s just an old bowl. I have loads of bowls.” I tossed it in the trash can and later threw out the useless lid. I didn’t tell her it had been a gift from my mother-in-law. WAH.

I love all my pottery, crockery bowls, bean pots, and pitchers. I have a set of bowls from Marshall, Texas, besides many other heavy bowls, and a couple of old pitchers that keep tea cold and fresh. I have a pickle crock that I store rolled maps in all year, except for a month or two in summer when I make pickles in it. On my dinner table I have a lovely satiny blue pottery bowl that I bought from a Creek Indian potter.

Recently, I threw away my “pomegranate bowl”—a beautiful antique cream-colored bowl with fruit painted delicately on the side. It cracked during a move and I had kept it on a shelf and put some old spoons and packets of flower seeds in it. I chipped the edge of my brown Hull platter and had to throw it. I have trouble parting with some things— any pottery dishes especially. I kept the pieces of a broken china teapot with a wicker handle for years before I could throw it away. Why do I cling to these things so?

But living with kids, which, of course, is one of those things you do during motherhood, means things will get broken. I could put all my pretty breakables aside and never use them. I could pack them up and preserve them, but I love to use them. Life is fuller and richer with them. A friend whose house burned told me she had never eaten off her china—never! She said if she ever got more she would use it as often as she liked.

My mama, who raised nine children, used to say in despair at an accident, “You can’t have anything!” I know the feeling. Things get broken, scuffed, worn out, cracked, chipped, stained, scarred, scratched and marred. It can’t be helped. But you can’t get mad. People must be valued over things. We toss and go on. There will be other pretty things to enjoy in the future. Today there are friends and family to love and the sun is shining.

Barns in America

Traveling to north Michigan, across Illinois and through Indiana, Arkansas, Missouri, and back into Oklahoma, I became intrigued with barns and the state of farming in America. This barn is Silver Lake in Traverse City, Michigan. A beautiful well-kept barn and grounds with a neat silo and a good roof, this barn seemed the essence of the small long-established family farm. These barns are huge and stand out above the farmland and houses around them. Some had silos of stone or brick. Many had silos missing. Some were maintained and many were decaying and no longer used.

The Boone Farm is a landmark. The family is proud of it and maintains it. Notice the stone base and the word BOONE across the front. Beside it is a small shed and the farmhouse which is small by comparison to this monster-sized barn. The porch of the white clapboard house is embellished with scrollwork--a fine touch of beauty for its day.

This stone barn must have been used as a home at one time. Now it is full of fresh-baled hay. It is located east of Westville, Arkansas. It is built of round white and gray rocks. I can imagine it with pigs, cows, a pair of mules, and a chicken yard. The farmhouse is gone; maybe burned down or swept away by a tornado. Who knows?

Many old weathered barns like this one seem to still be in use. Imagine it full of life with snow banked against it outside. Imagine the farmer and his sons working- feeding the animals, forking down clean hay from the loft and dried corn from a silo, long-since dismantled. Imagine children playing in the loft; hide and seek and swinging on a rope out of the loft to the floor below.

Several old red barns had white trim and the white arches painted on the side doors like this one does. I wondered if that style is a particular ethnic style like a Polish farm, or a German farm. I will have to study. The silo is empty and in bad repair. Barns are not used as much for farming, for animals, for hay or storing tractors and wagons. They are picturesque reminders of the days when a farm could support a family growing corn, beets, potatoes, working a cherry or apple orchard, tapping maple trees for syrup, milking a barn full of black and white dairy cows, or harvesting wheat.

There is certainly still much farming going on. We are a rich country as far as arable land is concerned. Farmers have formed cooperatives and they have the means to ship to markets and yet they cannot compete with the huge conglomerates that have the money for irrigation systems, major equipment like combines and tractors, fertilizers, crop storage with refrigeration, transporting, and marketing.

We drove past hundreds and hundreds of miles of corn, soybeans, and past orchards of peaches, apples, and cherries. We saw farm equipment, irrigators, windmills, and barns; larger barns with tin roofs, larger silos for the huge amounts of corn a farmer can produce with all the equipment -faster and more efficient than a team of mules.

We stopped at one old barn and bought corn. We stopped at still another to buy gladiolas - white with pink edges. We dropped our quarters into a weathered wooden box since noone was minding shop.

Soon I will tell you about the trip -the lakes, the bay, the birds, the foods, the people, the fun, and mishaps. I'm too tired now. Be watching for more beautiful barn photos.

Busy Painting Days

There is so much going on around home this week it is hard to know where to begin sharing any of it. The main occupations are getting ready for our family vacation in Michigan, and painting the living room and dining room.

I don't mean to imply that I am actually doing any painting. I bought the paint and that's just about all. Our room was white. Now it is four colors. One wall in each room is now a startling and beautiful shade of cranberry. The ceiling flat white, the other three walls in each room Sandy yellow-like light wicker. and the trim is a white with a pale pink tinge. The trim color is surprising because I didn't realize it had the pink at all until it started to go on.

I love the deep color of the "cranberry " wall. I think I was brave to choose it. Thanks to my friend Rose who encouraged me to move out of the boring comfort zone. I love the sand color. It will certainly change the feel of my house. It is warm and natural feeling.

Ron was shocked by the cranberry, but now he likes it. At first, it looked pink and red while it dried and the painter had to add four coats to cover the white completely, even with primer! I sat and watched as the paint dried and it was fascinating (and I know that watching paint dry is the ultimate boring activity.) The colors changed quickly as the paint dried and it was really ama zing. See how red? After it dried it was much darker.

Ron was also upset that we were painting over the stenciling that Audra did years ago of vines. I think we had to though and will need to paint the window frames as well, since they are in such sad state.

The walls are uneven and have bumps and lumps, but that's the way old houses come and can't be helped much. You have to love that "Character." I know that with pictures hung and furniture in place these details will not be noticable. Here's how the wall where the buffett was looks now with no trim paint and the window and door frames still unpainted.

Pickles and Peaches

My jars of sweet pickles spice up the house with the pungency of vinegar, like a sugary clove and vinegar potpourri. The syrup heats up and the pickles boil. Steam rolls up from the open kettle. Then I dip the slices of cucumber hot into the scalded jars and screw on the lids before I lower them into the water bath boiler. When the timer sounds in fifteen minutes, I lift out the quart jars. They dry sparkling clean glass over green. Summer in a jar waiting to spice up winter’s table.

We missed the annual Porter Peach Festival by a week. Yet, when we arrived, the peach barn was crowded anyway, even then, with peach lovers. The harvest was in full swing and I thought how cheerful the crowd was. I love to mingle and watch these people. They are people of character and early risers. They drove miles down dusty dirt roads to get the finest fresh picked peaches from the orchards. They are happy people, go-getters, and enjoy working with their hands. You know their homes are happy places!


In the orchard sale barn, they lift half bushel baskets of sunshine unto wagons and simply glow with happiness as they tow their precious cargo to the checkout. They are visionaries who dream of peach cobblers, and peach pie a la mode, and of peach jam spooned between the halves of hot flaky biscuits.


From between the rows of peach trees, families wearing flushed faces blushing with heat and joy come carrying baskets they have picked themselves. I could see they had fun and wished I had opted to pick my own.


As we drove back into town I noticed that some streets had been named after peach varieties. Picture, if you can, a peach with with each of these luscious, interesting names: Early Star, Autumnglo, Ruston Red, John Boy, Glohaven, Loring, Creasthaven, Encore, Sweet Country, Sunhigh, ConTender, Victoria, Coral Star , Reliance, Bounty, Rich May, and Sweet Dream.


How about Blazing Star, Canadian Harmony, Desiree, Gloria, Ernie’s Choice, Ouachita Gold, and Flamin” Fury?


I felt rich driving away home from the orchard. There is something so wonderful about such bounty.

Sky, Sky, Sky

Then God Said

Then God said, "Let there be something to divide the water in two." So God made the air and and placed some of the water above the air and some below it. God named the air "sky."

The sky has many faces. We think of it as blue and lit up by the sun. Yet, it can be dark and glowering, lit by flashes of lightning. It can be deep blue, almost black with twinkling stars or hung with a lantern of a orangey harvest moon.

This school year we will continue to study weather. I have become so fascinated with the sky and clouds that I watch it whenever I can. I photograph clouds and carry around my Cloudspotter book. Look at the swirls of cloud in the blue above. Can man, even with digital photography, catch the actual amazing tones of blue? I doubt it.

The sky, the heavens, the air we breathe is another of the wondrous creations of God.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sky

Sky, God named the air "sky."

Sky, blue and bright with light.

Sky, black and twinkling with stars

Sky, glowering and gray with storm.

Sky, the air I breathe.

Sky, my feet on the ground, my face in the sky.

Sky, I twirl in it, move in it, dance in it, live in it.

Sky, I must have sky, the wide expanse, the great wild blue;

Sky, the heavens, the firmament, the roof of our world;

Sky, ever-changing, moving, swirling air.

Sky, He named the air "sky."

Summer Shade

Ah, the shade of a tree! What a grand creation. I can't bear the thought of people living where there are no shade trees. I know many people do live in cities where the sidewalks meet the bricks of the buildings and there are no shade trees except in parks. How sad it would make me to have to live without trees.

We sat this afternoon out under an aged spreading pecan tree with its sandbox square around its trunk. We ate bowls of peach ice cream sitting in that sweet shade with a warm breeze stirring across the west orchard.

Here are Ron and Rachel under the big pecan-the swing tree. The old playhouse we call the oil shack because it was once used as a workman's shed for oilfield workers. The big pecan tree is probably 125 years old. (The one with the treehouse in its arms.)

Brenna and Alton love to climb the sycamore tree that I hang my bird feeders on. Whenever I see them climbing that tree I realize why it was a good sort of tree for Zaccheaus to climb. The branches are almost straight out from the trunk which would make it easy to climb even for a small man. "Zaccheaus, You come down!" We sang that little song in Sunday School when I was a child and I always thought sycamore trees were native Holy Land trees. How surprising to find them in Oklahoma!

The sycamore tree makes a fine shade too since its leaves are the size frisbees. It shades the porch and the side yard. Our picnic table sets there, and in the spring the hard balls of seeds disintegrate enough to drop and fly off as brown fluff.

It does seem unfair that I have been blessed with so many wonderful trees while some people have none at all. Maybe God gave them to me because he knew I would love them so much.

Elece

Making Memories

"Each day of our lives we make deposits in the
memory banks of our children."

Charles R. Swindoll

Fourteen and Counting

My new grandson, number fourteen, was born yesterday, July 30th. He is Delaney's sixth and that makes 3 boys. She named him Brian and is considering Nathaniel as the middle name. Brian weighed 8lbs. and 4 oz. and was born by emergency c-section. Everything was fine until Del's water broke and he flipped over. So, he was breech and too long to turn.

He has a shock of soft dark brown hair, brown eyes, and a cute dimple on his right cheek. He seemed alert and intelligent. He was looking around at sounds and lights. He learned by the fifth photo to scrunch his eyes shut at the camera's click.

Grandma Elece

Swimming the Jordyn

The last weekend and Tuesday and Wednesday this week I had my four-year-old grandbaby Jordyn here. She loves the backyard pool this summer. Last year, she spent every swim session with both arms firmly gripped around my neck. Today, she was splashing and a-crashing. She swam under water, jumped from the ladder and dog-paddled across the pool. She had a blast and I had fun swimming with her.

The water was chilly this afternoon but she wanted so much to get in a last swim before her Mama came to pick her up. She is a treasure of a child—a gifted precocious child with a zest for life that can’t be matched.

She plans to be a gardener, a flyer, and a story writer when she grows up, she tells Grandpa. She starts to Pre-K this fall. All those years of school ahead will soon be passed. What kind of a woman will she become? We wonder and we pray over our children and grandchildren. It's fun to watch them grow and change (and scary too!)

Grandma

The Dog Days of Summer

Summer is still here. I have a bushel of peaches to slice and send to the freezer and a bushel of corn to blanch, and freeze today. A watermelon is napping in the corner of the kitchen. Several large zucchini are waiting to be processed into loaves of sweet bread. I will serve sliced crimson garden tomatoes on a pretty pink glass plate with supper. (There are few things as pretty.)

The sun has made all the plants in hanging pots droop. Only a few pink and purple petunias still raise their colored trumpets. The pansies in the bell bed are all gone. I saw a flowerbed of zinnias yesterday. Oh, I love the colors and shapes of zinnias.

A pair of barn swallows is feeding a third batch of nestlings under the eaves of the porch. There is a little painted bunting at my seed feeder this morning. He is a regular visitor. He's so bright colored that I almost think he can't be real. The American Goldfinch is another bird I watch for. He is bright yellow with black trim in the summer.

The temperatures are roving around in the nineties. We are probably past all our 100 degree days here in Oklahoma. These are the long stretched out days when summer seems to linger on and on. They are days that make me long to reread To Kill a Mockingbird, while I listen to cicadas throb their song and wait for fall.

Here is my poem about the last days of summer.


Dog Days

The porch swing hangs heavy.
The potted plants sigh;
But none is so hot or
So weary as I.

The music of crickets,
The buzz of the fly
Is droning unanswered
Tired and dry.

The sun on the garden
Has dried every leaf
The vines have all withered
Gone summer’s feast.

The Queen Anne has faded.
Is no longer white.
All life waits in stillness
For coolness of night.

We watch for the promise
Of color on trees
Of pears and of pumpkins
To come with the ease,

Of cooler and wetter
Oh, welcome relief
From the dogs days of summer
The satin cerise

Of summer’s late sunsets,
Those guarantee all
The geese winging southward
God sending us fall.


Elece