Sunday, September 17

We’ve spent the weekend getting ready for our housepainters, who will arrive with the sun Monday morning; Philip has been polishing up the details on our newly converted porch. We’ve called it so many things since the project began back in the spring: summer kitchen, mud room, sun room, keeping room. And the vision has evolved with the name. What began on paper as a utilitarian space has become yet another concession to beauty and peaceful reflection. It’s facing west, commanding a splendid sunset view—in summer down across the pasture to the north, and in winter kindling behind the thick pines on the southern end. And so, instead of a washing machine and dryer, it will contain a deep window seat, cushioned wicker chairs and a sea grass rug. There will be shelves for Wellies and garden tools, a sink for washing vegetables and eggs. But the primary pursuit in this room will be dreaming. Drinking tea and reading. Good conversation. Rest. Of that I am sure.

We’re so pleased with how it’s coming. We replaced the screens with wonderful old salvaged windows from a lost building downtown, eight-over-eight with wavy glass and great big pulls. (The actual tale of how they came to be in our possession is a story in itself, and one I’m not sure I’d like to revisit! If anyone is familiar with the notion of ‘dumpster-diving’ they will get a pretty good idea of what we went through to get them.) And yesterday, Philip and his dad finished setting in the old French doors we found for a song. It’s so exciting to see a project come together like this. I never cease to be amazed at what my husband can do! He is a true craftsman and I love what he fashions with his mind and his hands. When it’s all finished, inside and out, I will have to post pictures just to brag on him a bit.        

And so, the weekend winds to a close tonight with a gentle sunset under brooding clouds. The hens have wandered home to roost and have been shut up tight for the night in Fort Poulet. Four cats are prowling about giving me the eye and a hungry dog is awaiting his dinner. Philip is making the final rounds as the dusk gathers, making certain that all is in readiness for tomorrow. (Long-time readers and friends will remember that this house-painting venture has been a saga of almost two years’ duration…)

It is the calm before the storm. In the morning the peace of our farm-in-the-city will be temporarily shattered. But it’s happy to think how beautiful this old lady will be when they’re done with her. A regular face-lift. My painter told me she’d look like Gone With the Wind. I feel quite certain that he is referring to the book and not the film, for while the latter is admirable in itself, it bears but occasional resemblance to Margaret Mitchell’s masterpiece. And nowhere does it diverge more seriously than with Tara itself, perhaps the central character of the book. What Mitchell portrayed as a typical Georgia plantation, modest, sprawling, almost spartan in many respects, was represented in the movie as one of those flamboyant belles along the Natchez trace. Gorgeous in her own right. But not Tara. So, of course, I may assume that my painter has no intention of adding Corinthian pillars and wrap-around verandahs. No frills and furbelows here. Just simple, honest lines, unpretentious contentment with herself and with her surroundings. That’s what I first loved about this place from the moment I saw it. Which is another story, too…   

Such a rambling post! But I am glad to be back, and glad to hear from so many of you dear folk in the past few weeks who are kind enough to drop in to see what I’m thinking about…thank you for your beautiful words and comments.

God bless you all this week!

September 4^th

Today was one of our favorite kinds of days: we call them ‘farm days’. Getting up early, a hearty breakfast, a brisk ‘constitutional’ around the property in the fashion of Thomas Jefferson. And a long, productive day of meaningful tasks, either working together or blowing kisses in passing as we delve into whatever projects have been slated for the day.

This morning, my gentleman farmer opted out of the walk because he was eager to get to work. His big undertaking was to burn a bunch of old wood and debris down in the barnyard in anticipation of our cows coming home. Yes, Flora, Fauna and Meriwether will be joining us soon, ‘the good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise’, and we are in the final stages of preparation. The last real hurdle—other than locating and purchasing the girls themselves—will be to track down a few vintage cow bells. I can already hear them dingling down across the pasture…

So Caspian and I walked without him. It was evident that Caspian’s every sense was awake to the freshness in the air. He frisked ahead on his leash, darting off to the right or left without warning after some fascinating scent, prancing along with a new liveliness in his step. (He could certainly tell you why they call them the ‘dog days’, or, at least, he thinks he could.) As we came down under the walnut trees a light breeze scattered golden leaves on our way and bore the scent of wood smoke from the bonfire. My heart leapt—it was a moment of pure joy, and potent enough to make me believe that autumn is really coming. I love the burnished season ahead. I love fires and big pots of soup on the back burner and baked apples on frosty mornings. With the coming of each season I always feel at the outset that I’ll be sad when it goes, with all of its unique pleasures and beauties. But autumn is the only one that I really do mourn. And thus, my delight in its appearance is a thing apart. A ripe, golden-hearted joy that just seems to intensify with each passing year.

It made me happy on that almost-cool morning to think of the lentils I had sprouting in a colander in the kitchen in advance of a hearty soup for our dinner that night. Lentil soup is one of the ultimate comfort foods, and so full of amiable associations for me that the very making of it is a joy, simple as it is. And paired with hot carrot muffins, it makes for the perfect early autumnal meal.

Here’s my recipe: 

Lentil Soup

Early in the morning, rinse 1 pound of dried lentils in a colander and cover with a paper towel that has been soaked in warm water. Every hour or so, rinse them again with warm water and replace the wet paper towel. By five o’clock they should be sprouted.

In a large stock pot, sauté one onion and two or three garlic cloves in 2 tablespoons olive oil. Add the lentils and cover with water, up to about 4 inches above the surface of the lentils. Stir in 1 1/2 to 2 teaspoons salt, pepper to taste and 1 big tablespoon of cumin. Bring to a boil and simmer gently for an hour or so. Before serving add a nice splash (okay…1/2 cup or so?) red wine.

You can add sliced carrots to the soup, as well, but I prefer to serve them on the side as muffins.
 

Carrot Muffins

 
1 ½ cups all purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon nutmeg

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon baking soda

2/3 cup vegetable oil

1 cup sugar

2 eggs, beaten

1 cup grated carrots

Preheat the oven 350 degrees. Sift together the dry ingredients and set aside. Combine the oil, sugar and eggs in a large bowl and mix by hand until blended. Gradually add the dry ingredients and mix well; stir in the grated carrots. Spoon the batter into greased muffin tins and bake 20-25 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

The only real trick with these muffins is keeping your husband out of them until dinner’s on the table.

Sunday afternoon Philip and I held one of the solemn little ceremonies that our year is so happily and liberally laden with. Celebrating the ordinary, homely things that make life both interesting and familiar gives us so much joy. Things as commonplace as a new sweetness in the air and a new angle to the sun’s rays slanting across the backyard. Something as simple as flipping a page on the calendar and finding ourselves embarking on the most poignant month of the year.

We toasted September today, and with it, the coming autumn, with tea on the front porch and readings from Coleridge and Wordsworth. (I managed to work in one of my very favorites, The Solitary Reaper, reasoning that though it says nothing whatever about autumn, reaping is an autumnal activity, thus qualifying it for our purposes. I didn’t even offer an excuse for Surprised by Joy, though. )

We read one that was new to both of us, and particularly apt: Wordsworth’s The Kitten and Falling Leaves. Oh, do, go and look it up, preferably in a nice, worn, leather bound book, and cherish it for yourself, whether it’s known to you or not. There’s just nothing like the precision of poetry, the elegant sword-thrust of perfectly turned words, to make the realities of life so piercingly clear! At the beginning I was laughing at the expressive imagery of a kitten pouncing fierce upon wafting yellow leaves—by the end my eyes were burning with tears.

And I will have my careless season

Spite of melancholy reason,

Will walk through life in such a way

That, when time brings on decay,

Now and then I may possess

Hours of perfect gladsomeness.

—Pleased by any random toy;

By a kitten’s busy joy,

Or an infant’s laughing eye

Sharing in the ecstasy;

I would fare like that or this,

Find my wisdom in my bliss;

Keep the sprightly soul awake,

And have faculties to take,

Even from things by sorrow wrought,

Matter for a jocund thought,

Spite of care and spite of grief,

To gambol with Life’s falling Leaf.

William Wordsworth, 1804

I felt these words to be such a charge: to be resolute in all the things I have to be glad about; to refuse to allow all the grown-up cares of life dampen that sweet, stabbing joy in such little things. How frightfully, fearfully easy it is to let oneself grow too wise to smile at life. The characteristic I love most about the woman of Proverbs 31 is that “she laughs at the future”. She takes no anxious thought; she trusts all to God. Her heart is at rest in His love where there is no room for fear of any kind. I want to be like that—it’s one of my most oft-repeated prayers. And I can only believe that when we are trained to such an upward gaze it will serve us well ‘when time brings on decay’, when cherished plans fail or when our hearts are wrung with pain.

I wonder sometimes if it’s the fleeting nature of so many potential joys that keeps us adults from laughing at life the way we should, from savoring all the adorable pleasures that each day holds. A kitten turning a laundry basket over on top of himself. Squirrels bickering over a nut on some unseen bough. A shower of golden leaves on a sudden gust of wind. A baby’s rich chuckle.

I had a very obvious revelation the other day—all the beautiful and noble and lovely things in life are just as real as all the ugly, horrid things. More real, in fact, for they are eternal. They are of God and His redeemed creation. And, as such, it behooves me to fix my mind upon them with all my might and main and leave the sorting out of this life to God. It’s not naïve to focus on the good. Neither is it wise to prepare for the worst by dwelling on it—in fact, when carried that far it’s sin.

Laugh and fear not, creatures. Now that you are no longer dumb and witless, you need not always be grave. For jokes as well as justice come in with speech.

                                                                        C.S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew  

 After our tea we took a long, leisurely walk, stopping every few feet to examine the delightful mushrooms that daily showers and tropical-ish humidity have brought forth all over the yard: emerging from a deep loam of leaves under the oak trees, raising puckish little caps all along the drive, springing up on a rich carpet of moss (some people have grass in their front yard: we are quite proud of our beautiful moss). We counted 21 different varieties, all ranges of colors and shapes and sizes. Pure, silvery white to vibrant yellow, rich velvety browns and clear reds—how we laughed at their diversity, and the marveled at the majestic creativity of the God Who made them. A lovely end to a lovely day…