Spring and Mrs. Daffodil

 

Every couple of years I reread Gladys Taber's Mrs. Daffodil in March. It's almost wrong to say this is a novel when it reads instead as Gladys Taber's autobiography, with names changed. 

For example, Gladys' bosom friend Faith Baldwin (see the illustration of Faith Baldwin at the top of every blog post of Dewena's Window) is named Hope Alden in Mrs. Daffodil. During their annual week's visits, they read each others' manuscripts--that's true trust--settle the problems of the world, and go antique shopping together.

I always laugh with Mrs. Daffodil as she recounts the various hired help she and her lifelong friend and housemate Kay (Jill) employ over the years whose ineptitude causes the two women to work even harder than usual. This also brings to mind the five years I had the most wonderful helper named Pam and what I wouldn't give for her now. 

And I cry for Mrs. Daffodil at the end of the book when she says of her husband, someone Gladys rarely mentions in her books, the sentences that tell so much.

She remembered Henry, but pushed the memory aside. Henry was an upright man, but life with him had been anything but one of those partnerships she read about. The truth was, she reflected sadly, that she and Henry had been entirely unsuited. They had just rocked along.

She said a little prayer for Henry.

I read Mrs. Daffodil before falling asleep at night through the first spring like warm days of March when the daffodils bloomed behind the barn, those in the wild area that looked as if some former resident had forked up mounds of dirt where daffodil bulbs had been tossed.

 

So warm were the days that James Mason and BreeBree went to the groomer for a short haircut.

 

And I read Mrs. Daffodil when March became her true chilly self.

 

I lit candles at night as the temperatures fell, especially this pretty one from Court that was a Christmas gift and smells divine.

 I finished Mrs. Daffodil and went back to some old Peter Shandy mysteries, and in the daytime I listened to biography audiobooks while doing some spring chores. I listened to this one in honor of my Star Trek trekki sons and found it to be a fascinating account of a complex man--both Leonard Nimoy and Mr. Spoke. [Sorry, typo--Mr. Spock!]

I hung some spring tea towels in the kitchen...

 Cleaned out some kitchen drawers...

And up went a few little sweet things on the kitchen shelves--the Peter Rabbit cutout saved from Christy's childhood.

 I mixed up some buttermilk waffle batter one day for a special waffle breakfast with Tennessee country sausage, hashbrown casserole and eggs. Melted butter and hot maple syrup.

Attended by our guests, Christy home for the weekend and her big brother who dashed over to see her. If only I had managed to get her whole beautiful face in the picture!

And RH and I will be getting another visit from family Easter weekend, our granddaughters and their parents!

Can you guess where they were one day on spring break?

Now that's way too easy, isn't it? And I know you can guess how much I enjoy visits from family, even quick weekend ones. 

For such is the stuff of bliss, isn't it, dear readers? And Mrs. Daffodil? 

Calling Gladys Taber Fans (A book by her daughter and some Christmas at my house)

 

There was another side to our dear Connecticut countrywoman. For a time she lived in the biggest city of all, New York City where she taught at Columbia University. Oh, to have been a student of Creative Writing with Gladys Taber for a teacher!

Her only child, daughter Constance Taber Colby, despite growing up in Southbury, Connecticut, raised her two daughters in Manhattan.

 The View from Morningside, One Family's New York, published in 1978, is the story of the riches that the City That Never Sleeps offers for children. For Constance's girls, who early on fell in love with the subject of Tudor England the way some children fall in love with a sport, New York was rich with resources for their passion. 

 Interested in the Tudor period? For Colby's daughters there was the Metropolitan Museum, the Morgan Library, the New York Public Library, the Cloisters, Renaissance concerts all over town, Renaissance dance at Lincoln Center, Elizabethan cookery at Riverside Church, and the New York City Ballet.

 

As Colby's daughter Anne says in the book, "living in New York was the next best thing to living in London."
 

 

For fans of Gladys Taber, her daughter's book is not to be missed. For those who love New York this book should be fascinating, including those who like me have never been there. 

I'm definitely more of a Country Mouse than a City Mouse. I live in a 1935 cottage in what was once farmland outside of Nashville, Tennessee.

Before that I lived for twenty-six years in a 1920 farmhouse where sausage once hung in the smokehouse. I love the country!

In this house I'm enveloped by old board paneling that calls for country style.

But the older I get the more I lean toward what goes with the first true antique RH and I purchased as newlyweds.

 An 1800s Staffordshire Blue Willow ironstone platter.

 

 

There's not anything more country than Blue Willow and it's just as comfortable in a humble cottage as in a Georgetown townhome dressed to the nines with Chinoiserie.

Speaking of Chinoiserie, I think a touch of it looks well on our eighteen year old Ethan Allen red leather sofa. So does BreeBree, don't you think?

 

Here is a Christmas pillow I found on Etsy with a red amaryllis in a blue and white cachepot. The front is like a hooked wool rug, the back a velvety fabric, with zipper and quality insert. 

It's fancy but is perfect with an old wool tartan throw from Canada.

I will keep it out through winter and must get a picture of it with our Black Pearl amaryllis from White Flower Farm, which won't bloom until after Christmas anyway, as it did last year when I could not get the lighting in this picture to accurately show the rich dark red. 

If you're interested in Constance Taber Colby's book on raising a family in Manhattan, you can find copies of The View from Morningside, One Family's New York for under $10 online, unless you'd rather pay $43 for it on Amazon. I wouldn't!

Any thoughts on whether you would be up for raising a family in a big city? Cons and pros?

Are you ready for Christmas? I need at least another month!

[I do appreciate every comment you leave! For some reason I can no longer publish comments from my phone even though I've signed in and out from Google over and over trying to. I have to go to my laptop in order to publish them so sometime I'm delayed in getting to it. And emails about new posts from me are no longer being sent out and sometime after Christmas I will try to figure out what to do instead. Thanks for your patience!] 

 

"Never touch cake? Pathetic!"

In Jan Karon's In This Mountain, Esther Bolick thinks:

It was hard, very hard, when people couldn't--and, in today's world, wouldn't--eat cake.

When she was coming up, families lived from cake to cake. A cake was a special event, it meant something. Now a homemade, baked-from-scratch cake meant next to nothing.

For one thing, most young people had never experienced such a thing. All they'd ever known was bought from a store and tasted like hamster shavings, or had been emptied from a box into a bowl, stirred with low-fat milk, and shoved into an oven that nearly blew a fuse from being turned on in the first place.

Such a cake could never be your cake, no way, it would be Betty Crocker's or Duncan Hine's cake, and the difference between yours and theirs was vast and unforgivable...

Worse yet was the inevitable declaration: I never touch cake!

 Never touch cake? Pathetic!

I had to bake a cake. No birthdays, no parties, no company. Still, I had to bake a cake. I had everything I needed for Silver Palate's Williamsburg Orange-Sherry Cake with Orange Frosting.

Rather than type the recipe, I found a link (click here) where you can print it, with their link to the frosting.  

Be sure to soak the raisins in sherry the night before you want to bake the cake. 

Esther Bolick will be so proud of you if you do--if not hers, any cake. 

I wanted this to be a short post but couldn't end without showing you the milk glass cake stand we found last winter during those wonderful carefree days when we could wander crowded aisles of an antique mall without worry. Remember them?

It is a Pitman Dreitzer cake stand in Lace pattern that was under $30, found on Poshmark for $100. It's my only piece of milk glass but I think of dear Gladys Taber's milk glass collection when I see it in my kitchen every day.

The milk glass fills the corner cupboard and the old pine cupboard across the family room and at night when the fire burns on the hearth, it sends a pearly glow over the room.

Gladys Taber

 Stillmeadow Album

 

 

Many Things Help

The lovely golden leaves have fallen since we last talked but I was grateful for them while they lasted. I was also grateful for your emails, thank you so very much.

Family and friends help in a heartsick time, don't they?

Even when it doesn't feel as if your heart is in it, just seeing precious faces around you, hearing them laugh and talk, lightens the sadness. 

We celebrated one son's birthday here with local favorite Centerpoint Barbecue and their amazing barbecue beans. That left me with only potato salad and coleslaw to make. I'm really becoming a believer in make some; buy some company meals.

And have you noticed that more and more we're being encouraged not to "entertain" but to simply "have people over?" I love that, how about you?

I've even noticed a following for a new type of hospitality called "scruffy entertaining," meaning not waiting until everything is perfect before inviting people to your house. Don't deprive yourself of good times breaking bread together just because you haven't done a spic and span clean beforehand.

I know some people are always party-ready but I'm just not, never will be, but I'm going to make a conscious effort not to let that stop me from making memories with my loved ones around the table.

A good dessert goes a long way to finish out an average meal, and the Hershey Bar cake I made for our firstborn's birthday was a hit. He's requested it for his birthday cake ever since I first made it when he was a teenager.


I didn't get a picture of the cake I made for our other family gathering recently. My sweet potato cake was a flop. I'd made it perfectly recently for another son's birthday. I'm blaming it on the oven, another reason for getting a new one soon, right?

The big pot of chili I made the Friday night after Thanksgiving was delicious, even without all the toppings piled on it by one grandson.

We managed to get two sons and their families here for chili that night.

And two grandsons came, one with his wife and son--you know what that makes me and RH, don't you?

I just realized that I don't have a picture of our other grandson who was here, I think because I had him taking pictures for me. Next time, Caleb.

But our great-grandson ate his chili, with onions! Then he got distracted by my new Morvarian Star light hanging over the table when I tried to get him to smile for the camera.

Our local families went home but we were blessed to have our granddaughters and their parents here for the weekend.

And in the mornings were barefoot breakfasts.

Some things do help when you're missing two little dachshunds so very much.

Having loved ones around helps, the beauty of nature helps, for me even baking helps. Maybe it's smelling cinnamon and other spices, maybe it's the beauty of the finished cake that comes out of the oven. Eating a small slice helps, well maybe a big slice. With vanilla ice cream on it.

Getting sympathy cards help because it is a bereavement in the family, make no mistake about that. RH and I even got one from thousands of miles away. 


And beautiful flowers for Thanksgiving from a son helps.

A lot of things help and I've appreciated every one of them during these weeks without our darling Otis and Milo.

"Life renews itself, no matter how much we may suffer.

Whatever beautiful and precious we may have is always ours to keep.

Losing one we love is possible only if we let it be."

Gladys Taber in Stillmeadow Seasons

Our son Zack faced that same loss this week of his beloved Bentley. The coming weeks will be difficult for him and Courtney. They worked hard from June when Bentley was diagnosed with nasal cancer to give him the best of care, and Bentley soldiered on, trying his best to stay here. He stayed as long as he could but then it was time to say goodbye.

It will be a while, Zack and Court, before anything helps. But there will be things that help eventually, so watch for them. 

And Bentley will always be there for you to keep in your heart. Gladys Taber was right about that, as she was about so many things.