Vicki Lane's Blog, page 19

Reading MISS JANE

                                                                

What a beautiful, tender story! A captivating protagonist, a strongly drawn set of supporting characters, and nature writing so lush that I'm reminded of Henri Rousseau's THE DREAM.

The Dream, 1910 by Henri Rousseau

The Kindle edition is a 'deal' on Amazon and after I read the sample offered, I was completely hooked. And pretty much didn't put the book down till I finished.

Set in rural Mississippi in the Twenties and beyond, it's the story of a girl with a complicated difference--a genital birth defect that precludes a 'normal' life of marriage and children. But it's mainly the story of how gracefully and forthrightly she approaches her seemingly circumscribed life.  

Watson's depiction  of country life of the time rings pure and true. As do each of his characters and their sometimes tormented personalities.

A beautiful, beautiful book! Highly recommended.

                                                 

 

Fun on the Faem

Sunday morning shenanigans. A neighbor let us know that three calves were headed down the road.

By the time we got down there, Justin and Claui and crew had turned them back. Now to get them into their pasture. 

In the distance, the mamas were bawling and the calfies scooted back to where they belonged.

The crew: a mama and daughter who spent the night after the party were treated to a mini-roundup. 

The whole episode reminded us of far too many Sunday mornings when our beloved late neighbor Mearl would call. "Git ye out of the bed?" she'd cackle. "Cows is out and going down the road."
We used to tell ourselves that she was letting them out, just for the fun of it. And the same thought passed through my mind today.
Was that a ghostly cackle in the wind?


 

Birthday Party! (a la Barbie)

 

Greengreenevergreen

 

Miss Birdie Remembers

Oh, honey, what about it! However did you come by that old quilt? I can recall just like hit was yesterday, me and Belvy stitching on it, along with some of the others from along the branch--let's see, there was Callie and Aetha and the Goforth sisters Beulah and Lula What a time we had that day! 
All of us had got up early to get the chores done and leave some dinner in the house for our men but we was ever one of us at Callie's house just as Hobart --that was her man's name-- was  heading to the barn to put the gears on his team. Callie's house had a good size front room and the quilt was already on the frame hoisted up to the ceiling. We all called out Howdy to Hobart, but he didn't even throw up his hand, just kept on a-walking. He was a hateful somebody, and that's the truth.


There was something a little quare about Callie that morning; her eyes was kindly wild and she kept looking after which way Hobart was going. I asked was there something the matter and she just gave a little laugh that warn't exactly a laugh and said Hobart had bowed up over her having a houseful of women there all day so she'd packed him a lunch and told him not to come back till dark. 

Now that surprised me right much for Hobart was rough as a cob and I was pretty sure he beat Callie now and again. It warn't like her to go against him. But, thinks I, maybe she's had enough and is going to stand up for herself. I just hope he don't kill her.

There's where she put her name, there on that piece of pink cloth. It was from the dress she was married in and she wore it to church and such till Hobart decided that she was too vain of it and he took and cut it up in pieces for rags. She cried and cried but ever after, all her dresses was dark ugly browns and blacks.
Callie done this embroidry too. I asked her was it a flower and she gave a kindly wild look and laughed another of those quare laughs and said No, it is a bird, flying free.

Well, I didn''t think nothing of it at the time, and every one of us had done some fancy stitching on this crazy quilt. Which we were making it as a gift for our preacher who was moving away, having been left a big house and a lot of money by a maiden aunt.  
We thought the world of Preacher Joshua Raines; he was a good somebody and right easy on the eyes, to tell the truth. He set many a heart a-fluttering with that curly yaller hair and them soft gray eyes. Some of the men faulted him for not preaching more about sin and the hereafter but he said the message he had was about doing good in the here-and-now.

So we was all working away to set off each patch with embroidry and funning, the way women-folk will when they ain't no men around. And Callie was the gayest of all, most like she'd taken a sup of white likker, which I knew she hadn't. Ladies, says she, how would you get rid of a hateful man? 
Well, everyone got quiet and Belvy's eyes got real wide and she was about to speak when Beulah said, Why, I reckon I'd poison him.  Find some mushrooms or mash up a bunch of foxglove leaves and mix them in with lamb's quarters . . .
No, says, Lula, who could never let her sister outdo her, I'd put a rattlesnake in the bed and make sure he got in first. And she giggled like one thing. 
Now everyone was joining in, except me and Belvy. Aetha said to send him to the field with a lunch pail of bees--and we all looked out the winder at the row of bee gums Callie tended. 
That was another thing her and Hobart warred over--he hated a bee but she had brought the bee gums with her when they married and she sold  honey to put by money for the children that, after three years of marriage, hadn't happened. 


Well, it got right quiet and we looked at one another and at Callie, who had pushed her chair back and stood up. Ladies, said she, I'm sorry to leave before the work is done. And she went and pulled out an old cardboard grip from under the bed. 
Just then we heard the sound of an automobile coming along the road in front of the house. Now back then not many had vehicles except for Doc Morris. But Preacher Raines had bought him an A-model Ford when he come into all that money and it was him pulling up to the house and getting out, that purty yaller hair shining in the sun.
I thank you for the ideas, says Callie, as Preacher Raines takes her grip and puts in the back seat. I was right at the end of my tether and, but for Josh, she said, taking his hand and climbing into the front seat, I might have done something dreadful. As it is, I believe I'll just leave Hobart to stew in his own hatefulness. I've left him a note to say I won't be back. Me and Josh, we're heading out now for our new home.
And off they went. 
And again we all looked at one another. Well, says Belvy, what shall we do with this qoing- away quilt? The preacher has already done gone and Hobart's wife with him.
As I recollect, it was the  Goforth sisters said they'd take the quilt home and finish it. We was all in a hurry to be on our way before Hobart come back.
He never did much good after Callie left.  He'd always been bad to drink and he started drinking all day and not tending to his crops. No one knew where the preacher and Callie had gone and Hobart didn't even try to find out.
But one morning he took a notion to get rid of Callie's bees and like a fool, he kicked over the hives, one after another.
At least, that's what those who found him figgered had happened. Hobart couldn't say, being dead as a hammer.


 

Kousa Dogwood

 

Another Re-Bloomer and Banana Water

Another amaryllis from a Christmas past! This is a lovely deep rose.

I don't know for sure but this unexpected bloom may be due to banana water. I've been putting banana peels in a gallon jug of water then. after they're rotting and the water is quite disgusting, I pour the potassium-rich liquid onto various pot plants. The amaryllis were some of the first recipients of this homemade fertilizer.
I needed to experiment further . . .


 

Dear Sir, (Me Again)

Dear Rep. _______,

The "big, beautiful bill" currently under consideration in the House proposes around $880 billion in cuts to Medicaid in order to attempt to cover the cost of $4.5 trillion in tax breaks.

A preliminary estimate from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says that these cuts would, in ten years time, reduce the number of people with health care by 8.6 million.

This is heartless greedy madness.

As many of these tax cuts seem designed to protect the wealthy, I suggest that if, as the President says, children can do with fewer . pencils and dolls due to his tariffs, perhaps multi-millionaires and billionaires can do with fewer homes/jets/yachts/luxuries/golf clubs/tax breaks.

Your disgusted constituent

A Romp in Discworld

I've been nibbling round the edges of Pratchett's massive (40 plus) body of work for some time now but this is the first illustrated one I've read. and, oh! what a delight!

The setting is, of course, the Discworld which, as everyone knows is a disc with a mountain in the center and oceans and continents--all resting on the backs of four elephants which, in turn are atop the Great A'tuin, a celestial turtle swimming though space.

The last hero is Cohen the Barbarian, who is leading a band of-- well, they don't want to be called elderly but they all certainly have a keen interest in the location of the nearest rest stop-- let's say mature warriors to Dunmanifestin, the citadel of the gods, in order to prevent the end of the world.
And then it gets complicated.
Highly recommended.

 

Suggestive Pictures

 Josie did some more marbling and I'm enjoying it as much as she is. This picture above suggests (to me) a phoenix confronting a dragon . . .

                                                    

Not sure about the one above, but the one below suggests a moon in a stormy sky--or a moon reflected in a stormy sea.

In this last one, I see two very sophisticated angels as might have been drawn by Erte.