Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Sarah and the robins

This morning while I was out on my walk, a saw a small group of robins rustling through the dead leaves on the woods' floor.  While I'm still hoping for One BIG Snow, I guess the robins, like the worm I saw last week, and the daffodils that are out already, are convinced that Spring is here.  But the robins made me think of Sarah.  While I lived in Ireland, working on my master's degree, I took care of Sarah, who was in her early nineties.  I have all sorts of memories of Sarah... the stories she told me of sailing the whole Atlantic Ocean to New Jersey with her mother and twin sister when she was only six years old (they eventually returned to Ireland because her mother was so homesick), how she met her husband, Michael, how her son would bring home all sorts of stray animals, especially dogs (even dogs that belonged to other people), even a box of crabs he collected from the beach and hid behind the toilet, unbeknownst to Sarah (and so she almost had a heart attack when she was using the loo one day and heard the crabs scratching around in their box), and the rose garden in her backyard, where she and her women friends would gather and have tea and say the rosary surrounded by flowers.  On warm days, I would help Sarah down her front steps and she would sit with her eyes closed with the sun on her face while I weeded and watered the small beds in front of her house. But there were many more days of cold and rain that we spent inside.  I would make up Sarah's bed, wash her sweaters in the kitchen sink, or iron, or do other little chores, and she usually sat in a chair by the big window in her kitchen, which looked out into her backyard.  There was a huge red fox that kept sneaking there to dig a hole, and Sarah would call me over quickly to see it when it came.  One day when she felt strong enough, she latched onto my arm and leaned on her cane, and we slowly made our way over the lawn to the hole.  Very carefully, she bent over as far as she could to see it, and gasped when she realized how deep and big it was.  It was a very cold year, even for Ireland, and Sarah told me that she thought the weather was changing, that when she was young, it had been hot in the summers, that she used to go out in nothing but plain cotton dresses and be plenty warm.  That year I was still wearing corduroys and wool sweaters and socks in July.  Sarah craved warmth, not only because it helped with her arthritis, but also because she loved spring... and she especially loved robins.

Our American Robins are really thrushes, and as you can see even with a quick glance, aren't very closely related to the European Robins that Sarah liked so much.   Their biggest similarity is the color of the feathers on their chests.  Irish robins don't migrate, but stay the whole year round.  However, their song changes in early spring as they begin looking for a mate, and Sarah predicted the coming of Spring by listening for their mating song.  I remember several times in late, late winter, while I was making her dinner (or 'tea' as the Irish say) in the dusky kitchen, she would shush me and tell me to be still, her big blue eyes magnified by her glasses lenses, her chin jutted forward expectantly, and whisper, 'A robin!' and she would smile one of the happiest smiles I've ever seen when we'd hear the beautiful warble through the kitchen window.
American Robin, image copied from Wikipedia

European Robin, image copied from Wikipedia

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

postcards



On Monday, I made postcard prints of some of my watercolors and just put them on my etsy site!  I'm really enjoying making the paper bag tags... because I'm typing them on my great grandpa's typewriter!  It is so satisfying to be able to sew on my great-great grandma's machine, and type on my great-grandpa's typewriter... I feel like my workshop is magic with these old family tools!

Monday, February 20, 2012

the early worm


This morning while walking in the snow, I saw an earthworm crossing the road.  I've never seen a worm on a snowy day before.  But maybe he knows what he's doing... if he can get undercover before a hungry bird finds him.  The temperature is steadily rising, and as long as you don't mind haphazard hunks of snow falling off branches and onto your head, it's perfect walking and listening weather... snow and slush crunching and crackling underfoot, steady dripping, and the hunks of falling snow kind of sound like the cheery thwumps of a feather pillow fight.  All sorts of birds are trilling, crows are cawing, lots of woodpeckers are drilling for bugs, making the happy echo of hollow wood, and dark little birds are twittering in and out of snowy white thickets.

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Pillows, gnomes, bananas and bees

Picture
One of Hanna's photos of her shop, Shabby Love Furniture, opening on Main Street in Orange...
a beautiful old rope bed with three of my pillows!  The shop will be opening up in late February.
To visit her webpage, click here 
Last Tuesday morning, my mom and I drove several hours to a beekeeping workshop taught by the Beekeepers Guild of the Eastern Shore.  We stayed at my parents' cottage on Chincoteague Island.   On Tuesday night, we went to to the island grocery store to get a coffee cake we were going to eat for breakfast with our neighbors the next morning.  I loved these two displays.  They really gave me the giggles.  Maybe after the store is closed and the gnome has finished selling bananas, he jumps off his tractor and goes over to get a good night's sleep on the little bed made up with King Tut sheets in the freezer and bread aisle!  

We learned a lot about bees.  I've wanted to keep bees for as long as I can remember, but like the lavender patch, I just haven't had my own stable place to be.  Lucky for me, my mom is enthusiastic about it now, and has decided to start two hives.  So I'll be able to help and learn.  We have part two of our class next week, and then we'll get our bees and supplies!