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…

I’m working on my autumn schedule this afternoon, and getting excited about the change of season I feel coming, though it’s still ninety degrees outside and will be for weeks yet. And though this summer has had a routine of its own, albeit a laid-back one, I am almost giddy over the prospect of a new one…The freshness and novelty of even ordinary things, and all the energy that always seems to accompany a turning point in the year. There’s just nothing like the autumn to me for getting things in order and clearing out mental clutter. I feel inspired just thinking about it. But it’s time I went back to the task…I just wanted to pop in and say that I’m gearing up for more regular posting again, probably after Labor Day. That’s when the school year always started for us, and I am a creature of habit.

I didn’t actually keep my readers informed of postings on YLCF like I said I would, but here’s a sampling of this summer’s work:

Eagles’ Wings

Tolkies

Ideals and Expecations, Part One

Ideals and Expectations, Part Two

These Days… 

Summer Drinks 

June Brides

That should be enough for now…just so you’ll know I haven’t been idle!

I hope that y’all are having a lovely summer! It’s getting too hot here to go out and garden past ten o’clock in the morning, but there are plenty of pleasant indoor things to put one’s hands to. Not the least of which is a good book when all (or almost all ;)) the pressing things have been attended to…

Here’s a list of some of my favorite summer reads from years past that I compiled for the Young Ladies Christian Fellowship.

One of the books I’ve read this summer that I didn’t include there was Rumer Godden’s The Greengage Summer. I found myself so tangled up in it that it’s a good thing it didn’t take me long to read it! Rumer Godden writes with great beauty and poignancy…and the fact that the action takes place in an old hotel in the Champagne region of France in the 1950’s certainly appealed to me. Five English children are cast upon the mercy of the haughty proprietress after their mother is taken suddenly ill. When a mysterious and dashing English gentleman intervenes and makes them his charges for the month of August the children embark on what they imagine will be an idyllic and magical summer. Which it is–you feel like you are there, experiencing it with them–until Monsieur Eliot’s behaviour takes a sinister turn. It’s a coming-of-age story, with many of the inuendos and expressions that such suggests, but nothing untoward actually occurs–in that respect, at least. In other respects…it’s amazing what can be hidden beneath the quiet facade of a sleepy French village…   

I usually keep Philip abreast of the plot line of whatever book I happen to be reading. The day that I finished this one, we went out to dinner and I was polishing off my narrative in rather intense tones when Philip cracked a smile and nudged my elbow. The waiter at the neighboring table was listening in with unconcealed interest–apparently he thought I was talking about real people. Perhaps he was even wondering if he should call the police!

Here’s a piece I wrote for the Young Ladies Christian Fellowship chronicling the Great Tumble…

We’ve just returned from an idyllic family vacation on St. Simons Island–one of Georgia’s famed ‘Golden Isles’–which I managed to enjoy immensely despite the fact that my right foot is encased in a cast and I can only hobble about on crutches at present! (A long story, involving a ladder and a peach tree and a sprayer…two days before we left on our trip…) We even went to a dinner dance one night on neighboring Jekyll Island, but my husband said that ‘dancing’ with me was like dancing with a coatrack!

It was such a lovely respite, sitting by the pool with my books and my journal that I hated that the week had to come to a close. Watching my sister-in-law’s beautiful children play and enjoy the complete leisure of a seemingly endless summer ahead made me a bit nostalgic for that sense of vacation that I really haven’t experienced since high school. I still save so many projects for the summer months, my mind trained on the idea that it’s holiday time. But it’s only a slower time if we make it so. Vacation–even a vacation mentality–won’t thrust itself through the rigid parameters of the ‘normal’. Something has to give a little, there needs to be a change, even a re-arranging. My grandmother always had a winter arrangement and a summer arrangement of her furniture, and, somehow, that represents a lot to me now as I’m considering what little adjustments I can make to give these dear, fleeting summer months a more laid-back quality.

Now, in my ‘forced retirement’, I’m having to relax a bit and realize that the stars won’t stop in their courses if I can’t make up my bed or do the dishes for a while. But even when I’m mobile again (and how grateful I will be for two good legs!!) I want to have a quiet summer. I want to remember that I have a hammock strung between two trees in the back yard and that porch swings are for sitting in, not dusting from time to time. I’ll have my dear garden, and the longed-for visit of a precious friend for a few weeks, and another trip to see my sister in New York to look forward to and enjoy. And stacks and stacks of books!

So, I’m going on something of a summer holiday around here. I’m not closing up shop till September, or anything. But the pace will be noticeably light. I’ll still be writing for the Young Ladies Christian Fellowship, and I’ll post links here when I have anything new. Check back in from time to time…but in the meantime, enjoy your own summer holidays!     

A couple of weeks ago we were sitting on the front porch of our dear friends in Birmingham, savoring a cup of tea and fresh scones with them and a new friend from across the street. How effortlessly does conversation flourish upon the common ground of our fellowship in Christ! We womenfolk had kept up a steady stream of it—all through the morning’s occupation of canning just-picked strawberries into preserves and the afternoon’s job of painting siding. And now, with our work wrapped up, we were idling in comfortable chairs and on the porch swing, thrashing out the implications of the simplified life we’d been espousing in our talk all day long. The variance between balance—which is what we all seem to begin with in our search for simplicity—and complete surrender to God and His purposes for us—which, in the end, is the real answer and essence of what we’re longing for in the first place. God’s call on our life shouldn’t stress us out; it’s all of the personal expectations we add on top of it, all of the ‘ought to’s’ and ‘should have’s’. And the ‘yes’s’ that needed to have been ‘no’s’.

I happened to have with me an essay by Thomas Kelly which addressed this very thing, which I’ve read over and over and am still trying to digest, and which seemed to both express and underscore all we were groping to articulate. I was only too eager to comply when my friend suggested that I read it aloud. And so, with babies bouncing on laps and children squealing on the swing in the yard below, and with many an exchange of knowing looks among ourselves, I shared these words from a great Quaker saint of fifty years ago. It is staggering to realize that our ‘modern’ problems of haste and hurry are really nothing new…        

Here are a few choice selections from The Simplification of Life. This essay in its entirety can be found in the jewel of a book A Testament of Devotion by Thomas R. Kelly, which I highly recommend.

One can have a very busy day, outwardly speaking, and yet be steadily in the holy Presence. We do need a half-hour or an hour of quiet reading and relaxation. But I find that one can carry the recreating silences within oneself, well-nigh all the time. With delight I read Brother Lawrence, in his Practice of the Presence of God. At the close of the Fourth Conversation it is reported of him, "He was never hasty nor loitering, but did each thing in its season, with an even, uninterrupted composure and tranquility of spirit. ‘The time of business,’ he said, ‘does not with me differ from the time of prayer, and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament.’ "

Our real problem, in falling to center down, is not a lack of time; it is, I fear, in too many of us, lack of joyful, enthusiastic delight in Him, lack of deep, deep-drawing love directed toward Him at every hour of the day and night.

I think it is clear that I am talking about a revolutionary way of living. Religion isn’t something to be added to our other duties, and thus make our lives yet more complex. The life with God is the center of life, and all else is remodeled and integrated by it. It gives the singleness of eye. The most important thing is not to be perpetually passing out cups of cold water to a thirsty world. We can get so fearfully busy trying to carry out the second great commandment, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," that we are under-developed in our devoted love to God. But we must love God as well as neighbor. These things ye ought to have done and not to have left the other only partially done.

One can live in a well-nigh continuous of unworded prayer directed toward God, directed toward people and enterprises we have on our heart. There is no hurry about it all; it is a life unspeakable and full of glory, an inner world of splendor within which we, unworthy, may live. Some of you know it and live in it; others of you may wistfully long for it; it can be yours.

It is because from this holy Center we re-love people, re-love our neighbors as ourselves, that we are bestirred to be means of their awakening. The deepest need of men is not food and clothing and shelter, important as they are. It is God. We have mistaken the nature of poverty, and thought it was economic poverty. No, it is poverty of soul, deprivation of God’s recreating, loving peace. Peer into poverty and see if we are really getting down to the deepest needs, in our economic salvation schemes. These are important. But they lie farther along the road, secondary steps toward world reconstruction. The primary step is a holy life, transformed and radiant in the glory of God.

This love of people is well-nigh as amazing as the love of God. Do we want to help people because we feel sorry for them, or because we genuinely love them? The world needs something deeper than pity; it needs love. (How trite that sounds, how real it is!) But in our love of people are we to be excitedly hurried, sweeping all men and tasks into our loving concern? No, that is God’s function. But He, working within us, portions out His vast concern into bundles. and lays on each of us our portion. These become our tasks. Life from the Center is a heaven-directed life.

Much of our acceptance of multitudes of obligations is due to our inability to say No. We calculated that that task had to be done, and we saw no one ready to undertake it. We calculated the need, and then calculated our time, and decided maybe we could squeeze it in somewhere. But the decision was a heady decision, not made within the sanctuary of the soul. When we say Yes or No to calls for service on the basis of heady decisions, we have to give reasons, to ourselves and to others. But when we say Yes or No to calls, on the basis of inner guidance and whispered promptings of encouragement from the Center of our life, or on the basis of a lack of any inward "rising" of that Life to encourage us in the call, we have no reason to give, except one–the will of God as we discern it.

Then we have begun to live in guidance. And I find He never guides as into an intolerable scramble of panting feverishness. The Cosmic Patience becomes, in part, our patience, for after all God is at work in the world. It is not we alone who are at work in the world, frantically finishing a work to be offered to God.

Life from the Center is a life of unhurried peace and power. It is simple. It is serene. It is amazing. It is triumphant. It is radiant. It takes no time, but it occupies all our time. And it makes our life programs new and overcoming. We need not get frantic. He is at the helm. And when our little day is done we lie down quietly in peace, for all is well.

Way back in March I promised to share a new poet I’ve grown to admire. I thought it was high time I kept my word.

Sir John Betjeman (1906-1984) struck a chord with me from my very first perusal of his works. He was called a modern-day Tennyson, and I can see why. His lyrics flow on with such grace and careful poise; his subject matter is often sentimental. The critics didn’t know what to do with him, but the people loved him. And in 1972 he became the Poet Laureate of England. He was a contemporary of Evelyn Waugh’s at Oxford (who among you would recognize the large teddy bear he carried with him througout his college days?), attended C.S. Lewis’ Magdalen College (though he never completed his degree) and came to Christ, as he claimed, by the lure of the sheer beauty of the Church. Many of his poems capture the mystery and holiness of the Anglican service, from choir boys chanting timeless anthems to rosy light falling through ancient stained glass windows.  He was as famous for his crusade to save England from the irrevokable ravages of development as he was for his poetry, which often addresses the same cause. And most of the pictures I’ve ever seen of him are of a great, jolly-looking man with an enormous smile on his face. I can’t help but like him.

Here is the first poem of his I ever read, which still remains a great favorite of mine. It caught my heart with its lament for the England I love. But I found a sad parallel in what I see happening in my beloved historic corner of the South.

Inexpensive Progress

Encase your legs in nylons,
Bestride your hills with pylons
O age without a soul;
Away with gentle willows
And all the elmy billows
That through your valleys roll.

Let’s say goodbye to hedges
And roads with grassy edges
And winding country lanes;
Let all things travel faster
Where motor car is master
Till only Speed remains.

Destroy the ancient inn-signs
But strew the roads with tin signs
‘Keep Left,’ ‘M4,’ ‘Keep Out!’
Command, instruction, warning,
Repetitive adorning
The rockeried roundabout;

For every raw obscenity
Must have its small ‘amenity,’
Its patch of shaven green,
And hoardings look a wonder
In banks of floribunda
With floodlights in between.

Leave no old village standing
Which could provide a landing
For aeroplanes to roar,
But spare such cheap defacements
As huts with shattered casements
Unlived-in since the war.

Let no provincial High Street
Which might be your or my street
Look as it used to do,
But let the chain stores place here
Their miles of black glass facia
And traffic thunder through.

And if there is some scenery,
Some unpretentious greenery,
Surviving anywhere,
It does not need protecting
For soon we’ll be erecting
A Power Station there.

When all our roads are lighted
By concrete monsters sited
Like gallows overhead,
Bathed in the yellow vomit
Each monster belches from it,
We’ll know that we are dead.

John Betjeman (High and Low, 1966)

For more on this fascinating artist and Christian gentleman, visit the official John Betjeman site. 

And I’m looking forward to diving into Summoned by Bells, his autobiography in verse. I obtained a copy from that same little English book shop in Birdhole Lane.

I’ve been having trouble with my internet connection this past week and the windows of time that I’ve been able to get online have been quite hit or miss…my apologies to those of you who have sent me kind emails and such.  Hopefully we’ll have this resolved soon!

Also, because I have been inundated with all kinds of tacky spam–and, consequently, using my online moments to delete it!!–I am now requiring that anyone who wishes to leave a comment be registered as a user and logged in. (See the ‘Log In’ button on the side bar.) This only takes a moment, for those of you who haven’t already done it, and gives me no more information than simply leaving a comment does. I hope that this won’t discourage any of the sweet conversation we’ve had here in the past. :) 

And for today, here’s a piece that I wrote for the Young Ladies Christian Fellowship.

A wonderful week to all of my dear readers! :) 

I could read a seed catalogue from cover-to-cover.

Especially one with beautiful photographs. I still remember the thrill of that first one from Park Seed, and the infinite sense of possibility that it offered me. I was seventeen, and completely dazzled with the notion that a whole garden could come from an envelope of those famous gold seed packets. And so inexpensively! I promptly ordered all sorts of unsuitable things for a beginner, like delphinium and larkspur. And while I was waiting for them to come, I obtained permission to appropriate a corner of our front yard for my garden. My mother was so gracious…and when none of the seeds came up that first year, she bought me some pretty little annuals in a burst of compassion.

The next year I was smart. I set all my new seeds out early in flats under plastic and nurtured them on our enclosed porch. Sweet peas and forget-me-nots grew and flourished into tiny seedlings. But the first night that I set them out to ‘harden off’ we had a rain storm of torrential proportions. I didn’t remember them until a burst of lightning awakened me with a start around two a.m. Mama and I stood on the porch together in our nightgowns and mourned all the poor little plants. Another year for annuals…

That year’s tragedy was mitigated somewhat by the fact that I had diversified. To be sure, my flowers had all been lost upon the flood, but a delightful delivery was on its way: three hybrid tea roses from Jackson & Perkins.  They had been ordered for weeks, and were promised to be sent at the appropriate planting time for our area. And that magic time happened to fall right in the middle of my two week mission trip to Russia that spring. Mama opened the box with fear and trembling, and she and my brother set them out where they hoped I wanted them. (Which was precisely correct, by the way.)

I learned so much through those early failures and sweet little successes. Above all, I discovered that despite the heartbreaking trials of it all, I really, really wanted to garden. To be a gardener. To cherish some of God’s loveliest creations into existence. Through the sage advice of other lovers of the soil, and through lots and lots of disasters :), I’ve gotten a little experience under my belt now. Even so, every season poses a new challenge, and bitterly-remembered adversaries to contest with. Bacterial rot. Squash vine borers. Slugs and drought and mildew and hail. But every time I put out my seeds or nestle a plant into a prepared bed, my heart whispers that very same little prayer that it did years ago when I patted those tiny bits of promise from Park Seed into red clay in my parents’ front yard:

Thou visitest the earth and waterest it…Thou makest it soft with showers: Thou blessest the springing thereof.

Psalm 65: 9, 10

I love to read about gardening almost as much as I love gardening itself. And really, the studying and learning is every bit as important as proper maintenance. It’s all part of the same joy of discovery. So permit me to share a few of my favorites…

That second spring I purchased my first two garden books. They were both respected Rodale publications: Illustrated Encyclopedia of Perennials and Growing Fruits and Vegetables Organically. The former was fuel for my aspirations; the latter was fodder for future dreams. Now the Fruits and Vegetables book is warped from sun exposure and muddied from on-site reference, and remains one of my all-time, hands-down favorites. It was there I learned about pasteurizing potting mix and when to harvest beans and how to pinch back tomatoes. But don’t imagine that Perennials has fallen upon neglect. It still ventures forth with me from time to time, especially with the introduction of a new lady to my flower garden.

A gardening friend gave me a gem for my birthday one year: Month-by-Month Gardening in Georgia by Walter Reeves and Erica Glasener. It’s such a fabulous reference tool, with an extensive chapter on each of the various classes–annuals, bulbs, edibles, houseplants, lawns and perennials–that tells you what you should be doing for your garden at any given time of the year right here in Georgia. I can only recommend it to local friends, of course :), but I encourage you to find out if your state has a similar publication. A few years ago I made a huge calendar of all the things I thought we needed to be doing during each month, gleaned from reading old Southern garden books. What a relief to find everything all in one place! With the non-essentials eliminated! More time for actually smelling the roses…

Speaking of old books, another of my dearest ones is a trim little volume I picked up years ago at Downs Books. It’s called Gardening in the South by George R. Briggs, and its glossy pages are peppered with black and white photographs of old Southern homes shaded with magnolias and spreading lawns fringed with spirea and azaleas.  The information in this solid little book is straight-forward and no-nonsense. Reading it is like talking to one of our grandmothers about plants. Good, sound advice with no unnecessary frills. The best quote of all comes from the chapter on roses–you must permit me to share it with you:

The writer knows of one great lover of Roses who buys dozens of the finest varieties each year which grow and bloom beautifully, but this person’s Rose garden is lacking in beauty and fails to show its splendor because the Roses are not in beds and bare soil only glares at the onlooker, thus ruining the entire display.

I confess, we read the above with a few chuckles. But then we went right out and bought some grass seed to sow in our rock-lined rose bed, in place of the shameful mulch-covered dirt.

Another gift from this book is the intensely practical information on propagation from cuttings. I have become a firm believer in this most satisfying of garden rituals, thanks to this book’s simple illustrations and forthright text. I almost felt like George R. Briggs was standing over my shoulder that first winter as I stared in amazement at the tiny buds appearing on what seemed to be dead little twigs, saying, ‘See, I told you it would work.’ (I’ll share the process later, if anyone’s interested. :))

I’ve already mentioned Ruth Stout, the guardian angel of vegetable gardens. I’ll just re-iterate here that reading her book absolutely changed my whole approach to gardening and made it so much more fun and rewarding that I can’t say enough in her praise. If you’re thinking of starting a garden, and feel overwhelmed–as I did five years into mine–then get your hands on anything Ruth Stout has written. Post-haste!

Tasha Tudor recommended Flowers from Seed to Bloom by Eileen Powell, and I bought it without a second thought. It’s another reference, indispensable if you have a penchant for perennials from seed. And if you need a reason for going to all the trouble and worry, then all I suggest is a perusal of Tasha Tudor’s Garden by Tovah Martin of Victoria magazine fame. It will have you planting fairy rings of pinks and weaving daisy garlands.     

I just finished a charming book called Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth Von Arnim. Some of you may recognize her as the author of Enchanted April. I bought it from an English bookseller called ‘Brimstones’ on Birdhole Lane (how enchanting!). This is a non-fiction account of her happy days buried away in an old schloss in the German countryside with nothing but books and babies and an unspeakably dear garden to occupy her mind and heart. An Englishwoman married to a German nobleman at the turn of the last century, she finds her life somewhat cramped by the dictates of decorum which prevent her from so much as taking up a spade in her own hands. But her wearisome trials with various gardeners and assistants have a spice of humor to them which she is well-aware of, and which she portrays–along with her raptures over roses and flowers–with a truly beautiful and engaging style. Her simple joy was a fresh-faced reminder of why we garden in the first place. A delightful read…and full of so many gorgeous color plates that it’s a feast for the eyes.

 from Elizabeth and Her German Garden