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