Cooling Off With Summer Books

Vogue 1930

Is it hot where you are this week?

I've got my beach hat on and am pretending to be in Cape Cod--the old uncrowded Cape Cod that I posted about on July 24, 2015 post.

My book bag holds the old-fashioned books of Cape Cod by Sara Ware Bassett. They may not be for everyone but if even one of you tries one for a summer read it will be worth the post. And you won't hurt my feelings if you scroll quickly through or exit altogether.

  
I found a couple of Bassett's books when antiquing years ago and have been adding to them. I've gathered some seaside props from around the house to make the pictures a little more interesting. 

I'll start with Bassett's final novel from 1957, The Girl in the Blue Pinafore.

As in each Bassett novel there is a love story and beautiful scenery that fulfilled my take-me-away to Cape Cod longings. Here's an autumn description dear to me because I would love to be there in autumn as well as summer.

The day was cool, the sea a somber blue ruffled by the east wind into white caps, but across the bronzed marshes the setting sun gilded the tips of the pines and turned to ruby the leaves that still clung to the oats, and the spire of the little white church to gold.

And there are good cooks in each book...

The chicken, broiled as only an experienced chef could broil it, was browned to a turn, the whipped potato a mound of snow, and fresh peas, jelly, and a bit of crisp parsley lent color to the white china edged with gold.

I don't know about you but that sentence rings my comfort-food bell. And all of the good cooks in Bassett's novels make delicious biscuit. Yes, biscuit, singular is also plural. I really like this odd detail from New England days past.

In Within the Harbor, from 1948, there is another description that made me want to be a citizen of the fictional Belleport.

 [My sister gave me this mermaid and since I pretend she's 

from Cape Cod I call her Madison.]

The sea, a deep sapphire, was ruffled just enough to be afoam with whitecaps, and along the dunes and edges of the small salt creeks the vivid marsh grass rippled in the wind. There was a clear, bracing tang in the air, and the sails of the boats scudding outside the harbor bellied white against the blue of the sky.

I've always longed to sail on a day like this. And there's something about marshland that whispers to me, as crazy as that sounds from the mountain girl that I am. And part of this Southern girl would also have been happy in a New England town of the 1940s and 50s.

From The White Sail of 1949 was such a small village.

 

A sun as bright as the treasure of Midas streamed down upon the village, gilding the ruffled surface of the sea and flooding every inlet that cut the shore with molten gold. The brown fields quickened beneath its warmth, it flooded with radiance the small white houses huddled about the bay, glistened on the cock that tipped the church steeple, turned to drifting splendor the smoke that streamed from the chimney.

And in the village a visitor came for refuge. The young woman went to work in a new shop where her job of transforming the old building fascinated me.

The rooms on the left and right of the hall had been tinted a warm creamy tone, the fireplace had been preserved, small-paned windows put in, and every suggestion she made incorporated. As for the hall, with its Dutch door and vista beyond, at which Myron Fletcher had jeered, even he was found to admit it was the glory of the house.

Hello! Instead of Lorna, our heroine, making it look like a store with shelves, it looked like a home, with pretty things displayed on tables, "scouring the antique shops...interesting prints, candlesticks, vases..."

Is this not a woman after your own heart?

Here's another capable New England woman in 1937's Shining Headlands.

  
I love the silver engraving on this oldest Bassett novel. Details like this enchant me. 

It is an old-fashioned story about a woman who is very nearly ready to be considered a spinster by the villagers. Thurza Bourne lives on the shore where a "little lane threaded its way in happy-go-lucky fashion down to the shore, wandering in and out of tangles of bayberry, sweet fern and wild roses." It was a place where artists came to paint.

Miss Thurza did not care to wed. She preferred to keep with her own hands the ordering of her life.

But on either side of her immaculate home live two men who hope Thurza will change her mind, one of whom would love to order her around, Luther, and one, Leander, who is perfectly happy to be ordered around himself.

1938's New England Born has a pretty dust jacket and book front.

Bassett often includes the same minor town characters over and over again in her books and many of them are the wise and droll New England characters that you'd expect. Abel is one of them.

Yes, as I said before, silence is golden. The man who's credited with knowin' all there is to be known under high heaven ain't the feller who prattles his knowledge. It's the one that shuts his mouth. He may be blessed with the wisdom of Solomon or he may be the biggest nincompoop alive, but so long as he seals his lips there's no earthly way of determinin' which he is.

Not bad advice from Uncle Abel, right?

In Head Winds, published in 1947, another uncle gives his niece advice.

You're a sensible girl an' have a sensible appetite. I've no patience with this notion some women have of livin' on an unbuttered eggshell until they shrink to a bag of bones. It makes 'em look scrawny an' twice their age, did they but know it. No woman who has a garden to take care of an' does her own housework need fret about her figger. 

I guess those of my readers here who do their own gardening can attest to Uncle Mac's dietin' advice.

The cover on 1953's The Whispering Pine, is my favorite.

I would have bought it for the cover alone. It takes place in Boston and rural Massachusetts instead of on Cape Cod. Two young women from Boston go exploring in the country where one of them ends up buying a house at a country auction just to save the large pine tree from being cut down by one man bidding. I always enjoy a novel where a house is transformed.

The gloomy brown paint was gone! Gone, too, the piazza with the jigsaw trimming which she had so spiritedly detested. Instead a charmingly quaint entrance with an arch for roses framed the doorway...the cottage now wore a coat of soft daffodil-yellow paint, a trim of white, and had green shutters which gave it style and character.

 If anyone is still around after this long book post you deserve a gold star! 

  Have any of you ever vacationed on Cape Cod? Please tell me about it!

Is there a certain place and time period that you love to read about? 

Any beach time planned this summer?

Stay safe and stay cool!

P.S. I'm so fond of this old glass block. If I had a house with a wall or window with ones like it, I'd never tear it down.

One client of ours wanted to keep the plain ones in her second floor bathroom remodel. Here's a pic of it after we installed the live edge counter slab she chose.

Would you have kept it?

Supper Thyme

Did you ever put thyme in pie?

If you haven't, consider putting it in blueberry pie now that summer is here. 

Here's the link to Southern Living's Thyme-Scented Blueberry Pie.

I added a cup of frozen cranberries to the recipe because I didn't have nearly enough of the

blueberries the recipe called for.

RH said it was the best blueberry pie I'd ever made, but maybe that had something to do with the crust. The recipe calls for refrigerated crusts, which I've been known to use, but I had been wanting to make a crust with vodka so tried it.

Oh, my word, the vodka does make it so tender!

Recipe here from Cook's Illustrated.

The recipe called for the crust to be made in a food processor. I had never done this but I bet many of you have. I am directions-challenged but read the recipe over and over and finally did it.

You can't possibly know how proud of myself I was to do this instead of using my trusty old pastry blender.

I'll tell you one other thing I did last week for the first time in over a year--I drove myself to the grocery store and shopped alone, carried in the groceries alone when I got back home.

And I was so proud of myself! You see, part of what I've been doing the two months I was on my blogging break was going to physical therapy two times a week, three times a week the first month.

I've had bad knee pain since January and was diagnosed with patella femoral pain syndrome, similar to runner's knee. The therapist also discovered I had tibialis anterior tendonitis. 

Since I had felt this winter that I was soon going to need a walker to get about, I have been faithful to my PT appointments and doing the exercises at home. And next week, God willing, after almost three months, I will be finished with PT but of course must continue the exercises at home--if I know what's good for me.

So that, combined with my computer being down for three weeks, made it easy for me to almost drop out of blogging. 

But a blogger I am and so to blogging I returned in my last post. Just as once again driving gave me a renewed sense of independence, so blogging gives me that indefinable unexplainable feeling of accomplishment too.

Those of you who blog or are on Instagram, etc., do you feel this way too?

No one may really care what we had for supper except ourselves, but isn't it fun to share?

The organic vegetables above went into Jacob's Lentil Stew, recipe here. I also added a couple of turnips to it as we really like the tang they add to vegetable soups.

Thank you for reading my rambling supper post. What are you having for supper?

Here is supper. It smells good.

It looks good. It tastes good.

It is good.

All good things come from You.

Gunilla Norris in

Being Home 

 

AUGUST...the beginning of the end of Summer

"Yes, it's a wonderful day,

an August day,

the beginning of the end of summer."

Ann Batchelder

in Ladies' Home Journal

August 1950

August First is always a special day for me and my sisters.

This year it is even more special because it is our parents'

75th wedding anniversary.

Although our father is in his heavenly home now,

our mother is 92 years young.

And we all know that he is very real to her,

often has just stepped out of the room

or is working in his garden.

Happy Anniversary, dear Mama and Daddy!

We love you!

Garden Art and Blogging

It was July of 2003 and two of our sons were home from college and working on a red metal roof job with their dad and older brother out in the country.

The boys were fascinated by all the garden art at this beautiful farmhouse.

I loved hearing about it all and wished they had taken more photos, but you can see the reflection of the red roof in the round mirror. I hope the beads kept birds from flying into it.

Zack liked this farmer taking a rest from his chores.

Maybe Defee thought he was Rodin's The Thinker?

I remembered these photos this week when I was reading one of my vintage magazines, a June 1965 House & Garden. The theme of this issue was "The Delights of Summer At Home," and it made this Autumn, Winter and Spring aficionado fall head over heels in love with Summer for the first time since I was a schoolgirl set free from lessons and homework.

Two pages celebrated garden art and one photo took me back to the fun our older two children had playing in their sandbox. I don't think our younger two had one--do kids play in sandboxes anymore?

I would love to have this one for my granddaughters, a canopy of roses above their heads and a large stone turtle nanny to sit upon.

House & Garden said that "one playful conceit can make a summer" and that this gingerbread dog below was perhaps awaiting a calico cat.

I think they had him mixed up with the gingham dog and the calico cat, side by side at the table sat, but I've always loved pictures where a grand house has two stone or iron dogs in the garden. Tara Dillard believes the dogs should always face each other, not out. Wouldn't that be much more companionable?

At Valley View we had various pieces of garden art scattered around, mostly farm relics, all left there when we sold the place because they belonged there and were left in caring hands.

The only garden art when we moved here to our new home was a green rabbit that I brought inside to save for Easter tables and a little blue bird that I yanked up and threw aside one cold winter day after we moved in. It was only when a little granddaughter visited, spotted it and wanted it put back that I began to look at it as worthy of keeping.

Now I wouldn't dream of throwing it away. It keeps visiting songbirds company at the bird feeder that sits on top of an old well. The birds and squirrels and this little piece of garden art entertain me through my kitchen window.

Recently a piece of garden art came to live with us that has great sentimental value, a pineapple, symbol of hospitality.

This pineapple is at least 35 years old and was an unsold item from our family garden center, first owned by my father and then sold to RH and his brother Bill.

The pineapple sits below our front porch in front of a large rosemary bush.

We hoped that other herbs would surprise us in this bed but instead there are many succulents and odd little plants blooming successively.

There are also patches of this plant in the bed but there are many bare spots in the sea of old bark. We hope to fill the bed in with perennial herbs and more succulents, a few plants at a time.

Everything is a work in progress here.

For now my herbs are in pots on the kitchen porch, seen below through the storm door, handy for me to use.

Bill knew we had left all our garden pots behind when we moved and said we were welcome to the old garden center pots that were still at his house.

So these 35 year old Italian pots hold my herbs for now under some lathe to protect them from the sun that shines here almost all day long. That porch will get a pergola roof eventually, knock on wood, and hopefully the large smoker out by the fence will be moved someday. It detracts from the view to the neighbor's pond. 

Perhaps I should just pretend that it's a piece of garden art? I do love garden art. What about you? Anyone have an interesting piece of art in your garden?

I know Doreen does at that beautiful log cabin of theirs that is now up for sale.

Anyone else?

I started to say that plywood cutouts of dogs peeing in the garden don't count, but hey, a lady whose garden art is a concrete pineapple, however beloved, shouldn't set any rules, should she? 

That's the Garden Art part of this post, the Blogging part of it has not been as easy to write.

Rodin's Thinker has not been the only one a-thinking. The past few weeks while I've been missing from blogging have been a time of reflection for me.

And it's been a time of waiting. Are you a good wait-er? Isn't waiting the pits?

Is there anyone who likes to wait for a doctor's report, for lab work to come back?

Before you start thinking the worst, let me tell you right now that all is well.

But I've waited for lab work reports since an annual skin cancer exam recently turned up suspicious spots. And after I learned that once again I had squamous cell carcinomas to deal with, I waited to hear when I could see the surgeon, and then waited for the surgery and then waited for that lab report. 

Don't you just wish we could just smash cancer into smithereens? 

Decades ago I waited for a surgical breast biopsy for cancer. It was benign.

Then I waited for a hysterectomy because they thought I had ovarian cancer. That was a difficult wait but it was endometriosis, not cancer.

In 2004 I had Mohs surgery for squamous cell cancer on my face and nose.

Last fall in Florida I was told that a growth removed from my nose was most likely malignant. Nine days later the lab report showed that it was benign.

I was lucky last week after the surgery on my shoulder. The lab report said they got it all, it had not metastasized. It has not been fun but cancer is fun for no one. And I am very grateful for all the prayers of family and friends.

But it has been a time of thinking, of deciding what is important. And the answer to that is that each day God gives me is what is important, a day.

A gift to be used wisely.

During this time when it has hurt to type much or hold a laptop, I turned back to pencil and paper. I worked on the books I've been writing on for years. I finished editing one for the dozenth time, worked on others, spending hours and hours each day instead of stolen minutes.

Some of you have been through this with me before, back at Across the Way. I gave up blogging then, missed it, began Dewena's Window. I don't want to stop blogging again, but I do want to cut back on the time I spend on it.

So I'll be trying to post only a few times a month at Dewena's Window.

Ha! That's about all I've done anyway this last year, isn't it? Only now it will be by plan, not by procrastinating. So you won't have to wonder where in the world Dewena has been. I'll still be here, I'll just give in to being a slowpoke.

It's summer, a time I usually want to pass quickly, to get on to the wonderful months of autumn, then to the holidays, and then to spring. Poor hot summer, how I've neglected you. Not anymore. Cancer has a way of making you appreciate each month.

What do I want now? I want what all of us want. 

I want art in my garden, I want art in my home. 

On my table, on my plate. On my mind.

I want artful work.

I want an artful life and I want to enjoy it. And I guess I'm admitting that at my age it all takes time. Especially for a slowpoke like me.

Thank you so much for listening! I hope your summer and mine is filled with days of joy, with days of contentment....I just plain old hope it is full of days--a gift from God.

Much love to you all,
Dewena

Classroom or Beach?

[Woman's Home Companion August 1943]

Aren't they darling?

I wonder if they're getting ready for school?

The children today are already back at school.

I just hate that.

Do they really learn anymore than if they started after Labor Day?

I complained about that last year, HERE,

so this year I'll just say that all children should be doing this in August...

instead of sitting in a classroom. 

What do you think?

Classroom or beach?

Classroom or beach?

 Classroom or beach?