S. Smith's Blog, page 34

Why We Love It Here

So, we’re back from two nights camping; just enough time to water everything well, do the laundry, and pick some fruit to freeze for yummy desserts in winter. Then we go exploring for one more night and pick up Son.

Our first night we considered a campground right along the beach, but I have a hard time reconciling “Camping” with “Beach.”  And besides that, all the sites actually overlooking the ocean were taken. (We are not people who make reservations to camp.) So we stayed at a place across the street from the beach, in a forest.  Camping needs to be done in a forest.  :)   So today I’ll post a few shots from the coast and next time I’ll post shots from our second night which was a new find and hopefully a place we’ll get back to sometime.  Oh, and that’s why we love it here:  In two hours you can drive to hundreds of campsites in the mountains in dense forests and along streams or lakes; many towns along the Pacific Ocean; and the biggest cities in the state.  And in one hour you can still get to a fair amount of the above-mentioned attractions.  Especially if you are not taking the “scenic loop,” which I believe is just fancy talk for “windy road going in the same direction as all the other roads, just a little slower in getting you where you are going.”  Okay, yes, they are also scenic.  Enough babble, time for some photos.

This is actually a patch of clover growing in the rocks at the ocean.

A shot of the clover on the rocky coast from farther out.

That’s me.

Yes, we also have the proverbial sandy beaches.

That’s me, making sure I say a proper hello to the Pacific.

Our wonderful little teardrop trailer, parked along the cliffs for the viewing.

Gone Camping

And so we go.  Dropping the Son off at surf camp is an excellent excuse to camp somewhere along the coast.  Because of Aged Cat at home and the promise of hot weather (to cause destruction to potted garden plants), we won’t stay more than a night or two…easier now with the teardrop.

Until our return, I leave you with a camping poem.

Camping Sacraments

Baptism

the cold clear water of a mountain lake

Holy Communion

unexpected reunion

of friends

now sharing the cup around the campfire.

The temple walls

trees

The incense

smoke

The music

frogs and dragonfly wings.

Parishioners with

deer

jackrabbits

and chipmunks.

Feasting on the

sticky sweet manna

of melted marshmallows.

Chasing Poems

Chasing Poems

They’re everywhere, these poems

in the scent of strawberries mingled

with onions

as we cruise down a country road.

They’re written on the scraps of paper

that litter my kitchen counter

half-written recipes

and nameless phone numbers.

They’re in the trees and bushes

of my neighbor’s yard

just beyond sight

calling out in fluty bird voices.

They’re in the sweetness dripping

down my chin

as I bite into the first

ripe peach of summer.

And they are woven in the touch

of that four-year-old

whose fingers have just found

mine.

Have You Done It Yet?

Not everyone reading this has done it.  But most of you will, if you haven’t already.  And you know precisely when.  About three weeks ago I did it.  Deep breath.  Yes, I did it, I turned 50.

“So it went on, until his forties were running out, and his fiftieth birthday was drawing near: fifty was a number that he felt was somehow significant (or ominous); it was at any rate at that age that adventure had suddenly befallen Bilbo.” (Tolkien)

It used to seem like such a long time in the future– you know 2012–that year I would turn 50.  (Go ahead you young’ens, do the math, what year will you do it?)  If you’re as old as me, you remember when the classic future book 1984 was still in the future (the year I graduated from college.)  You remember partying like it was 1999.

I spent the years 1985 to 1988 living in China; when I came back, record albums had disappeared from stores.  I began to fall behind with the rapidly changing technology.  (I’m not even sure where the 90s went, but I think it had something to do with parenting babies and small children.)  Only in recent years have I begun to try to make a come-back.  I made these little trips into Best Buy, trying not to look too much like a tourist, but  beginning my conversations with the sales people with, “Hello, I’m from the 1980s….”

I still can’t get over how much it feels like I’m “living in the future.”  And so I guess, I am.

Today, all over the world, more of you are doing it.  Happy Birthday!  One of those people is a special friend of mine.  And so, I share with you a few pictures of what she left on my porch (somewhat anonymously) the day before my birthday.  Enjoy.  :)

June, Front Porches, and Missing Martians

“Gardening is the handiest excuse for being a philosopher.”–Ray Bradbury  (Dandelion Wine)

I picked up a copy of Dandelion Wine the day I heard Ray Bradbury died.  How fitting he should leave us on a day early in June.

I love Fahrenheit 451, and read it every ten or fifteen years to see how many more things from his imagination have come to pass, but I’d never read Dandelion Wine.  In truth, I was searching for the Martian Chronicles, which I’d had a vague recollection of reading in junior high.

But what I got was Dandelion Wine.  That evening I sat in my white wicker rocking chair, surrounded by red geraniums on my front porch, a glass of iced tea beside me and read:

Hold summer in your hand, pour summer in a glass, a tiny glass of course, the smallest tingling sip for children, change the season in your veins by raising glass to lip and tilting summer in.

And then, four short chapters later, the setting up of the front porch:

On the third day of summer in the late afternoon Grandfather reappeared from the front door to gaze serenely at the two empty rings in the ceiling of the porch.  Moving to the geranium-pot-lined rail like Ahab surveying the mild mild day and mild-looking sky, he wet his finger to test the wind, and shucked his coat to see how shirt sleeves felt in the westering hours.  He acknowledged the salutes of other captains on yet other flowered porches, out themselves to discern the gentle ground swell of weather, oblivious to their wives chirping or snapping like fuzzball hand dogs hidden behind black porch screens. . . Sitting on the summer-night porch was so good, so easy and so reassuring that it could never be done away with.

There are more like this, a chapter on the sound and smell of the first grass being cut, exploits of the children running through the late summer nights.  I’m not finished reading it yet, as I tend to start a lot of books at once , but I’m loving the wonderful sensory descriptions of early summer.  There’s nothing like sitting on your front porch or backyard in June, and reading about a front porch or backyard in June.

And so, one more, a toast to June on this last day:

It was a day in June, all lawn and sky,

the kind that gives you no choice

but to unbutton your shirt

and sit outside in a rough wooden chair.

And if a glass of ice tea and an anthology

of seventeenth-century devotional poetry

with a dark blue cover are available,

then the picture can hardly be improved.

I remember a fly kept landing on my wrist,

and two black butterflies

with white and red wing-dots

bobbed around my head in the bright air.

I could feel the day offering itself to me,

and I wanted nothing more

than to be in the moment–but which moment?

Not that one, or that one, or that one,

or any of those that were scuttling by

seemed perfectly right for me.

Plus, I was too knotted up with questions

about the past and his tall, evasive sister, the future.

What churchyard held the bones of George Herbert?

Why did John Donne’s wife die so young?

And more pressingly,

what could we serve the vegetarian twins

we had invited for dinner that evening

not knowing then that they travel with their own grapes?

And who was the driver of that pickup

flying down the road toward the single railroad track?

And so the priceless moments of the day

were squandered one by one–

or more likely several thousand at a time–

with quandary and pointless interrogation.

All I wanted was to be a pea of being

at rest inside the pod of time,

but that was not going to happen today,

I had to admit to myself

as I closed the blue book on the face

of Thomas Traherne and returned to the house

where I lit a flame under a pot

full of water where some eggs were afloat,

and, while they were cooking,

stared into a little oval mirror by the sink

just to see if that crazy glass

had anything particular to say to me today.

In the Moment–Billy Collins

 

Last Day of June

“Gardening is the handiest excuse for being a philosopher.”–Ray Bradbury  (Dandelion Wine)

I picked up a copy of Dandelion Wine the day I heard Ray Bradbury died.  How fitting he should leave us on a day early in June.

I love Fahrenheit 451, and read it every ten or fifteen years to see how many more things from his imagination have come to pass, but I’d never read Dandelion Wine.  In truth, I was searching for the Martian Chronicles, which I’d had a vague recollection of reading in junior high.

But what I got was Dandelion Wine.  That evening I sat in my white wicker rocking chair, surrounded by red geraniums on my front porch, a glass of iced tea beside me and read:

Hold summer in your hand, pour summer in a glass, a tiny glass of course, the smallest tingling sip for children, change the season in your veins by raising glass to lip and tilting summer in.

And then, four short chapters later, the setting up of the front porch:

On the third day of summer in the late afternoon Grandfather reappeared from the front door to gaze serenely at the two empty rings in the ceiling of the porch.  Moving to the geranium-pot-lined rail like Ahab surveying the mild mild day and mild-looking sky, he wet his finger to test the wind, and shucked his coat to see how shirt sleeves felt in the westering hours.  He acknowledged the salutes of other captains on yet other flowered porches, out themselves to discern the gentle ground swell of weather, oblivious to their wives chirping or snapping like fuzzball hand dogs hidden behind black porch screens. . . Sitting on the summer-night porch was so good, so easy and so reassuring that it could never be done away with.

There are more like this, a chapter on the sound and smell of the first grass being cut, exploits of the children running through the late summer nights.  I’m not finished yet, as I tend to start a lot of books at once , but I’m loving the wonderful sensory descriptions of early summer.  There’s nothing like sitting on your front porch, or backyard in June, and reading about a front porch or backyard in June.

And so, one more, a toast to June on this last day:

It was a day in June, all lawn and sky,

the kind that gives you no choice

but to unbutton your shirt

and sit outside in a rough wooden chair.

And if a glass of ice tea and an anthology

of seventeenth-century devotional poetry

with a dark blue cover are available,

then the picture can hardly be improved.

I remember a fly kept landing on my wrist,

and two black butterflies

with white and red wing-dots

bobbed around my head in the bright air.

I could feel the day offering itself to me,

and I wanted nothing more

than to be in the moment–but which moment?

Not that one, or that one, or that one,

or any of those that were scuttling by

seemed perfectly right for me.

Plus, I was too knotted up with questions

about the past and his tall, evasive sister, the future.

What churchyard held the bones of George Herbert?

Why did John Donne’s wife die so young?

And more pressingly,

what could we serve the vegetarian twins

we had invited for dinner that evening

not knowing then that they travel with their own grapes?

And who was the driver of that pickup

flying down the road toward the single railroad track?

And so the priceless moments of the day

were squandered one by one–

or more likely several thousand at a time–

with quandary and pointless interrogation.

All I wanted was to be a pea of being

at rest inside the pod of time,

but that was not going to happen today,

I had to admit to myself

as I closed the blue book on the face

of Thomas Traherne and returned to the house

where I lit a flame under a pot

full of water where some eggs were afloat,

and, while they were cooking,

stared into a little oval mirror by the sink

just to see if that crazy glass

had anything particular to say to me today.

In the Moment–Billy Collins

 

Seed Savers:Treasure on Kindle

I am happy to announce that Seed Savers:Treasure is now available for Kindle and Kindle devices.  And not only that, from now until July 4, it is on sale for only $2.99!  Hurry on over and download Seed Savers now .

Author Fair

Local Event
Author Fair today at the Salem Public Library, featuring over 30 authors from Oregon. It will be held in the Anderson Rooms from 1-4  pm.  Join us!

First Day of Summer Garden Pics

I decided today to post some current photos of my backyard urban garden.   It was very cold yesterday (61F I think?), but I wanted to eat the big raspberry in the front, so decided to take all the photos, despite the gray sky:).    I don’t have a fancy camera, just an old Cannon Powershot A540 (yes, unfortunately the blueberry photo focused incorrectly).

raspberries

Mmm.  The berries are all getting ripe at the same time.  We still eat fresh strawberries every morning for breakfast.  

Next, is a picture showing the grapes growing on our fence. (The grapes really come from the neighbor’s yard )

Here are some climbing nasturtiums next to a cucumber plant that will hopefully climb up the fence.

And the sad part is that I try to grow my whole garden under a bunch of trees from my neighbor’s yard (the neighbors mostly live in another city.)  There is a giant apple tree and  a lot of squirrel and nature-planted walnut, hazelnut, and maple trees that were not pulled out as seedlings.  Basically just along the fence line.  It gets worse every year.

On a happier note, I’d like to end with a photo of a beautiful flower arrangement my friend gave me for my birthday!

Seed Savers - a series to be treasured

Reblogged from Anakalian Whims:

I haven’t been this in love with a young adult series since Harry Potter.  I haven’t been this in love with an individual young adult book since Lois Lowry’s The Giver, unless you count How To Buy A Love Of Reading by Tanya Egan Gibson (but her book, though it features a group of teens, is not really for young adults as far as I’m concerned.) I plucked it out of my mailbox, opened it, and read it in one sitting… 221 pages of exciting young adult goodness! 

Read more… 584 more words

As a birthday present to myself (it's my birthday, uh huh), I'm reblogging this book review of Seed Savers from Anakalian Whims. After that, I'll go get an hour massage, eat a lot of cake, and spend the evening with dear friends. Happy birthday to me! :)