Monday, December 24, 2012

Traditions!


     My family was strong on traditions, many were continued, amended, new ones added as we had our own family and they grew to adults.  Each season had it's own.
     At Christmas time, we gathered on Christmas eve with extended family at my Dad's home, our home, or my brother's home for Christmas Dinner.  Dinner traditionally was a repeat of the Thanksgiving with the addition of some Smithfield cured ham.  Often, our table included one or more "strays."  Over the years, the extra folks have included friends of one of the children who for various reasons could not return to their home state or country, or an immigrant family that was attending my parent's church.
      Once we had children of our own, each Christmas Eve ended with hubby reading "The Night Before Christmas" to the kids. 
     Christmas morning the children were not allowed downstairs until the tree lights were on and one of us had checked to make sure that Santa had come, stockings dumped, a big breakfast, and gift opening in our own home.  We would put out turkey and ham, cookies, condiments, rolls, eggnog and other beverages and my husband's family would come over for gift exchange.  Early in our family life, we sometimes had his parents staying with us, his sister and her family, my Dad and Mom, my brother and his family and until my sister moved out of state, her family too would come to our home on Christmas Day, sometimes in shifts and once when our home was much too small, all at one.  This one sent my husband and me separately but at the same time into the utility room, where both of us looked at each other, opened our mouths and created the "silent primal scream."  Giggled at the stress relief and rejoined the love of the group.
     Now our kids are scattered with their families, our eldest and his family are here this year, and we will have the traditional turkey dinner tonight, including a young adult neighbor who is alone this year, and a neighbor couple with no kids at home.  "The Night Before Christmas" will be read to grandchildren that are not here by phone (I really think it is for our daughter).
     Tomorrow we will dump stockings, have the traditional big breakfast and gift exchange before son and his family drive across the state so that eldest grandson can also share Christmas with his other grands.  And now we are the grandparents, so we will travel to visit our other two children and their kids in their homes over the next few days.

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Tree Day in the Mountains

     Today is tree day for us, much later than usual and it means such a short time to enjoy it, but thus it is.  Today dawned cold and gray, rain forecast this afternoon, snow tonight and tomorrow.   The house prepared, the carpet vacuumed, we properly bundled up for a trek on the local tree farm hill sides to pick the right one to adorn the house this year.  Our first choice tree farm had no one there at 10 o'clock and no hours posted, so we drove about 6 miles to the other local farm to find a delightful gift shop and trees of all sizes and shapes from which to chose.
This one?  No too small.  How about that one?  No too tall.
 
    Finally we found just the right tree for this year, maybe 7 to 8 feet.  Got it cut and loaded on the car, bought some local beef from the shop and a couple of last minute gifts and home to unload it.  Arriving home, we found, not just Ferdinand, but 6 of his harem, happily grazing in our yard with one young cow almost off our property and up on the road.  A bit of herding them deeper into our property was in order, until we could call the owner to alert them.

Wish they were ours, but still not sufficient fencing to keep them in, but then again, the owner can't keep them in either.
 
     The tree was unloaded and put in water while we ran some errands in town, leaving it to drink its fill while standing on the porch.

     The neighbors, were repairing the fence again and rounding up their herd when we returned home, so no kebobs on the hoof left.  The tree was brought in and put in its stand with more water and the branches freed from the twine and allowed to fall back in shape.
 
 
We wonder if the pups will leave it alone.  Merry Christmas to all.
 
 
 

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Oh Tannenbaum, where art thee?

     In late September, 2007, I moved into our brand new, still not quite finished home, with half of our furniture and our eldest son and his family.  Hubby had remained behind in Virginia Beach with our youngest son and the other half of our furniture while the house of being completed and to wind down his practice.
     We settled into a routine of my son and his mate, working on the house, completing the upper kitchen cabinets and the interior doors and I left for work each day, sometimes babysitting their then little one so they could visit friends or work together on a project for the house that required two adults without the help of a toddler.
     Before we knew it, it was December, our first in the new house, hubby was coming up with youngest son, daughter had said she and her 11 month old would try to come up from Florida, the whole crew with kids for our celebration.  That meant decorating, which I always have taken to the max at Christmas.  Out came all the Santa collection, up went wreaths, fresh garland was purchased by the yard for the loft and stair railings and I wanted a real tree, a substantial tree.  After all, we had a cathedral ceiling with heavy timber support at the ceiling of our log home and only half the living room furniture, so there definitely was room.  Eldest son went with me into town to look for a fresh cut tree.  At that point, I didn't know that there were two tree farms just miles from our house, but we knew of a lot in town run by one of the local farms that sells produce at the Farmer's Market.  As soon as we drove into the lot, I turned to son and said, "I want that one!"  He looked incredulously at me and said, "Mom, are you sure?"  I couldn't be more sure, it was perfect, full and at least 10 feet tall.  Son shrugged and said, "OK, I'll help."  
     Tree was paid for and with the help of the lot attendant, we tied it on the top of my CRV with the garland in the trunk and headed home.  The tree was so full, that even tied, it barely came through the front door.  Three of us struggled to get it upright in the stand, securely so it wouldn't topple.  The decorations that had adorned our 7 footers for years, looked sparse, but wonderful. 
      There have been subsequent trees, some live and root balled, later planted in the yard, some cut, but none quite as generous as that one.
      This year, the house is decorated with Santas, wreaths, but so far, no tree.  Between illness, dealing with two pups, one of which will be terrified once the tree is up, helping a neighbor try to repair the bull neighbor's fence to keep Ferdinand off our property, we just haven't gotten around to the tree yet.  The house just doesn't look complete yet.  Eldest son and family will be here Saturday, so we best get on it, I think tomorrow is tree day and though we won't have the whole crew here this year, we will see all of our children and grandchildren on or within a few days of Christmas.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Broken light

The overnight front has the clouds breaking and scuttering away to the south east.  That is the ridge you couldn't see yesterday.

Monday, December 17, 2012

Solstice

     The morning is bleak, the sun didn't lighten the sky until well past 7, in part because we are approaching the shortest day of the year and in part because we are on our third day of much needed rain and the sky is heavy with thick gray clouds and the oft presented morning fog.
The ridge beyond is hidden this morning.

Though I don't truly suffer from SAD,  the short days, long nights, and the heavy overcast sky are depressing.  I look forward to the Solstice, knowing that with each suceeding day, the ratio of light to dark increases in the favor of light.  I am sure that I would never be able to live in Alaska, though I would like to visit, as the extended period of dark would likely require me to be medicated and in counseling to survive those months and the period of light would be equally irritating as I don't sleep well in light and don't like my sleeping room tightly curtained.  Perhaps I would have done well when the families bedded for the night shortly after full dark, to conserve the candles or lamp oil and rose with the sun to begin the day's chores.  In retirement, there is little heed to the clock unless we have an appointment or a plane to catch, I rise with the sun's lightening of the morning sky, we eat when we are hungry, and though we have the conveniences of modern electricity and lights on our little farm, I am ready for bed early each winter night.

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Aching Heart

     The first time I was consciously aware of a child dying was as a young adult and the child of family from church died of illness.  Though I didn't know the child nor even the adults very well, I cried.  As a new parent myself, the thought of losing a child was incomprehensible, children buried their parents, not parents burying a child.
     Over the years as a school counselor, I was faced with entirely too many incidents of a child dying in a car accident, by suicide or illness, dealing with the grief of a few or huge groups of adults and students who had taught or been friends with the young person lost.
     Living and then working near Blackburg, I was part of the grief support team after the mass shooting at Virginia Tech, then shortly after a murder of one of our students and her mother by an acquaintance of them.
     None of these experiences has made it any easier to deal with Connecticut's tragedy, for a community of families to have lost so many children makes my heart ache.  I have cried for them and my heart goes out to the community and the families who lost a child or have a child that was fortunate enough to survive yesterday's tragedy and will have to learn to live with the trauma that they experienced.
     I hope the media will quickly leave them alone and let them heal.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Hats, hats, and mittens

     Christmas knitting progresses, fortunately fairly quickly.    Daughter by love will get mittens and a slouchy beret to help keep her warm as she walks to and from the Metro between home and classes on two campuses.


The mittens are a basic vanilla mitten pattern with Paton's Classic Wool, Harvest colorway with a crocheted shell pattern at the top of the cuff.  The Stripey Slouchy Beret is the same yarn with the alternate stripes of a solid brown Paton's Classic Wool.  The photos do not do justice to the colors of the set, nor do they look like they match, which they do beautifully.

     Eldest son is also a lover of Mom's handknits and he will get a Pepper and Wine hat to go with his black overcoat as he also is a student and walking to and from the Metro bus to campus.

     The last project is the most difficult for me and may or may not actually get finished before it is hand delivered to our daughter several days after Christmas.  As a late teen/young adult, she had a lacy mesh black sweater that she wore over camisoles.  Now living in Florida, she wants a similar sweater for the rare cool days or evenings.  As the original sweater was a store purchase and is long gone from her wardrobe, all I have to go by is a dark photo of her wearing the sweater, standing in front of a dark, very busy background.  I have started the sweater 3 times, the first attempt of a saddle shoulder sweater, quickly messed with the lacy pattern.  Try two is a better choice of a pattern, but after about 6 inches of knitting, I realized the lacy was too bulky looking, even though I am using sport weight wool on size 9 needles, so again it was frogged and restarted with a simpler, lighter lace.  As the yarn is black and my arthritis makes using larger needles difficult except in short stints, I am plodding along on it between other projects.  It will get done, but maybe not by the time we get to her house.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Catchin' up

      Yesterday was spring like.  We resumed our riding lessons after a three week hiatus first due to family visiting, then a couple of weeks of the crud.  Though we are both still coughing, we are feeling better.  Our energy levels are still low, we must work on that as we have two ski trips pending after the first of the year.  One we fear might end up being a condo stay with 18 strangers with little or no snow as it is in West Virginia and it has been as warm there as here.  The other is in Colorado and the reports from there are positive.
     A little at a time, Christmas shopping is being done and wrapped as purchased or made.  The house is decorated, though we still need a tree.
    Knitting has resumed, a Florida weight sweater for daughter, her request is lace in black yarn, not my preference, but it is progressing.  Mittens for our daughter by love and a hat our son.


     The spinning wheel has been active also.  I spun and plied 346 yards of light fingering weight merino and silk blend that is gorgeous.  So far, I haven't decided what it will become, but I'm thinking about Flip Mitts or a scarf for next year's Christmas gift stash.  It would be awesome to make all of next year's hand knits from handspun yarn.


     Yesterday was rainy and last night the wind whipped up as a front rolled through, this morning it is winter again with mountain snow flurries blowing around.  Perhaps we may actually have winter this year.

Friday, December 7, 2012

Dirty dogs

     This morning, hubby was feeling particularly poorly so I turned the pups outside to play away from us in the house.  After about 30 minutes, they were nowhere to be seen, would not come when called and though we live on 30 acres with nothing but farmland around us, we are only 4/10 of a mile off of the road up to Mountain Lake Hotel,, so I began to worry about them.
     My concern increased when after about 15 more minutes, they still had not appeared, nor came when called.  On went the jacket and sneakers to set out looking for them.  The plan was to go look down the bull path to the sinkhole as they often come out of the woods from that direction, then if not there, to get in the car and go check the local roads.
     Fortunately, and unfortunately, I found them, in the sinkhole, Shadow running back and forth through the muddy creek, Ranger laying like a fat sow in the mud beside the creek.  Once caught in the act, Shadow came up the hill at a trot, muddy from the bottom of her paws to the tip of her ears and wanted to launch herself on me.  After finding her leash, I led her to the yard hydrant and hooked up the hose to wash her down.  Hubby walked to the bottom of the hill and retrieved the slow moving hulk of a mastiff to slowly follow him.  While  he was bringing the beast up the hill, I tried to hose down the shepherd.  She danced and jerked on the leash like a puppet on a string, not at all in favor of the cleaning, so I brought her in and tried to bath her in the tub.  She was in no more favor of that and tried to bolt from the tub, spinning and tugging at the leash like a dervish.  Once semi cleaned and not willing to be dried, she was put back outside on a tie down, also not to her favor.
     In the meantime, Ranger was dancing and trying to eat the water coming from the hose, thinking it was all a big game and hubby enjoying playing with him.
     Shadow has not been allowed outside for the remainder of the day or evening without being tied out on a long chain.  She is not pleased with that and I am not pleased with her. It may be a while before she is given free run outside while Ranger is also outside.  We may have to invest in invisible fence or work more on training them as to where they are allowed and to come consistently when called.  If we could figure out how to keep Ferdinand the neighbor's bull from coming up the path, it would probably keep the dogs from going down it, but so far that has been a failure.

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Warding off the winter chill...

                                                                Warm spot of sun,

borrowed from the dog.

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Flu season

     The news is reporting that this is an early flu season and that the strains of flu this year are wicked.  I can attest to this.  What I thought started as a cold over 2 weeks ago, flattened me a week later with pneumonia.  Leaving the doctor's office with antibiotics and a heavy duty prescription cough medication, I came home to curl up in my recliner with a quilt and a book, which I slogged through between naps as the cough syrup's primary duty seemed to be to make me sleep.  As I was fighting to get better, my hubby was coming down with what he thought was the cold.  Yesterday, we were both back in the doctor's office, he being given the antibiotics and cough medication for bronchitis and a sinus infection, both of us being given inhalers to try to help tame the inflammation in our lungs.  Usually by now we have both had flu shots, but as hubby nearly always reacts to his, we delayed  because of household visitors and a trip to Texas for a birthday party for a cousin.   We both have had pneumonia shots, both endured the not too effective shingles shots to hopefully stave that malady, but the flu found us and in both of us, produced secondary infections.
     Rest assured, as soon as we are better, we will get this year's version of the flu shot and will be in front of the line next year when they are available.