Oodles and oodles

The back 40

It's been a busy week around here, and not just for me. The daffodils are bursting, the lilacs are budding and all kinds of plants are poking up their heads, looking around to see if spring could really be here this early. Our weather, until today, has been amazingly warm. I spent all day Wednesday and Thursday working in the flower beds, and even though my muscles ache and the tops of my ears are sunburned (there's always one spot where I forget to put sunscreen), I'm happy as can be. I can only think our collective mental health would be greatly improved by long stretches of working outdoors. I know mine is.
 
I also think we'd be happier if we had dogs with us at all times. Maybe not this dog, though. This is Ferris, the neighbors' dog, who thinks he lives here. This is an uncharacteristic photo of him. He is almost always up to no good. He's scratched the paint off our side door, trying to come in to visit Carson. He rummages around in our shed and steals things. He pesters Carson no end when they're both outside. Sometimes Carson enjoys his company. Yesterday, though, Carson decided to go back in the house rather than put up with Ferris one more minute. If Carson could talk, he'd have said "M-o-m-m-m-m. Make him stop chewing my e-a-r-r-r-r." 
 
Anyway, with all of this gardening and such, I haven't done any thrifting to speak of. That doesn't mean I don't have junk to show you. What I'm about to show you is something that even my closest friends and many of my family members don't know about. It will horrify some of you, and it may make others of you extremely jealous.
 
We have a junkyard on our property.
 
It's a classic, once-upon-a-time-there-was-a-farm-here junkyard, complete with the obligatory large piece of farm equipment hauled out back and left to rust. Fortunately, the junkyard is at the back edge of our land, so we never have to see it. Much of the year it's covered with snow (it's in a spot where the snow drifts and so stays covered longer than most other places), and usually the snow has no more than melted than the grapevines and scrub trees start greening up and conceal it. This year's early spring, however, has allowed for an extended period of junk viewing. Is this exciting or what?
 
Here's a tractor seat that has seen better days.

Some wheels sunk so deeply into the earth that they're almost like stepping stones. If I thought for one second the American Pickers guys would want any of this, I'd be on the phone to them. Unfortunately, I think most of it is too rusty even for their taste. I have thoughts of getting this cleaned up some day. Without the junk, it's kind of a nice spot. There's what I'll generously call a stream that runs along the back. It's probably more of a very substantial drainage ditch. At any rate, there's water, and plant growth, and all kinds of frogs, so I like it.
 
Ferris likes it, too. The soundtrack of my visit to the junkyard sounded like this: sploosh, sploosh, sploosh (Ferris wading through the water), crunch, crunch, crunch (Ferris climbing up the bank through the brush), shake-ake-ake-ake-ake (Ferris drying himself, always while standing as close to me as possible.) And then he'd do it all over again.

There was also a sweet, faint perfume in the air - not something you'd expect at a junkyard. It was the result of a light, dry wind carrying the scent of thousands of white violets growing in clumps on the opposite bank.

Of course I couldn't leave the junkyard without poking around to see if there might be something of use to me. (Despite the many years we've lived here, the junkyard is largely unexplored.) And I pulled this out of a tangle of grapevines: the rusted base of an old sewing machine, which I think will make an excellent base for a rustic garden stand.
 
Can you make out the words on the pedal? It says "The Free." That's so perfect on so many levels I can hardly believe it.
 

 

  
  
 

 

George W. Bush and me

I figured I'd skip the usual hope-you-had-a-nice-Easter routine and get right to the life-changing event I experienced this weekend. As some of you may recall, our former president, George W. Bush, was famous for many things, including his love for cutting brush on his ranch in Texas. I had brush-cutting on my mind when Mr. Oodles and I were out shopping Saturday morning. Mr. Oodles was buying lumber. I was buying some hardy annuals, because I know better than to think our glorious weather is going to last the rest of the spring. To make a long story short, while Mr. Oodles was buying 2 by 4s, I found the power tool of my dreams, a battery-powered reciprocating saw.


  

I have been searching for such a tool for years, not realizing that what I wanted was a reciprocating saw. It took a series of hand gestures and incomplete sentences, a visit to the wrong department (pruning) and the sweetest kid in the world, or at least at Lowe's, to walk me over to the correct department (power tools). He conferred with the power-tools employee about using a reciprocating saw to trim branches and cut saplings.

"That would work, wouldn't it?" the pruning-tools associate asked.

"It'd be awesome!" the power-tools associate said. I was buoyed by their enthusiasm.

At one point, the pruning-tools associate looked at me with what can only be described as admiration. His mom, he explained, had no interest in power tools. It was a bittersweet moment for me: the pride I felt in overcoming a stereotype, coupled with the knowledge this young man clearly recognized I was old enough to be his mother.
 
I could hardly wait to get home and charge up the battery. While I waited for the green light to appear on the charger, I planted the violas and popped a primrose and more violas into my favorite rusty planter.


Finally we sprang into action. Dead limbs on the lilac - gone! Annoying black walnut sapling planted by the squirrels - bzzzzt! Low-hanging branches that require us to duck when we're mowing - hasta la vista, baby!

Something about being able to cut down pretty much everything in sight has an empowering influence. I wondered if my neighbor would notice if I slipped over the property line and cut down a small tree that's been bugging me. (I'm opting for the diplomatic route. For now.) I started reducing complicated issues banging around in my brain to snippets of folk wisdom. I want to respond to every suggestion by saying "That dog won't hunt!," and I really don't even understand what that means. And I find myself wanting to use (salty language alert!) the word "hell" as a prefix to every declaration.

Mr. Oodles: Any idea when we'll be eating dinner?
Me: Hell, no!

Mr. Oodles: Want a beer?
Me: Hell, yeah!

I drink maybe two beers a year (Super Bowl and 4th of July.) But Saturday night I was sittin' on the porch swing with the mister, sippin' a beer straight from the can. I also, inexpicably, started dropping my -g's.

I now understand George W. Bush, or at least the part where he wanted to go cut brush for a few weeks at a time. It's fun. It's satisfying. I think this could change the way I think about everything. Who wants to go thrifting when there's brush to be cut? Fortunately, I'll have time for other activities while the battery recharges. And while the muscles in my right arm recover.  

 


 

 

Little calico dress on the prairie

There are no better friends than the books of our childhood. I wanted to be plucky and smart like Nancy Drew. I wanted to live among wild horses like Paul and Maureen in the Misty of Chincoteague books. But it was from the Little House on the Prairie books that I learned everything: adventure, love, danger, comfort, the beauty of tiny things like frost on the windows, the potential of every day in any place to bring an extraordinary surprise. I don't really know how we settled on the name Carrie for our daughter, but it well might have been the lasting influence of the Ingalls family and their dear baby Carrie.

I hadn't planned to post these photos, but the mere mention of the word calico last week drew a response from some of you. All of the fabric you see here will soon be going to a new home (it's on eBay this week), but I've enjoyed being its owner for a few years. Originally it came from a wonderful old farm in Pennsylvania. Since I cannot think of the word calico without thinking about Little House on the Prairie, here are some old calico prints, with narration by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

 
He gave Ma a package and watched her unwrap it and in it was enough pretty calico to make her a dress. "Oh, Charles, you shouldn't! It's too much!" she said. But her face and Pa's were two beams of joy. (From 'Little House on the Prairie.')

 
The inside of the store was all new, and still smelled of pine shavings. It had, too, the faint starchy smell of bolts of new cloth. Behind two long counters, all along both walls ran long shelves, stacked to the ceiling with bolts of muslin and calicoes and lawns, challis and cashmeres and flannels and even silks. (From 'Little Town on the Prairie')

 
They were all so happy they could hardly speak at first. They just looked with shining eyes at those lovely Christmas presents. But Laura was happiest of all. Laura had a rag doll. She was a beautiful doll. She had a face of white cloth with black button eyes. A black pencil had made her eyebrows, and her cheeks and her mouth were red with the ink made from pokeberries. Her hair was black yarn that had been knit and raveled, so that it was curly. She had little red flannel stockings and little black cloth gaiters for shoes, and her dress was pretty pink and blue calico. (From 'Little House in the Big Woods') 

Laura smoothed her dress. It was brown calico sprinkled with small red flowers. Her hair hung down her back in long, brown braids, and a red ribbon bow tied their ends together. There was a red ribbon around the crown of her hat too. Mary's dress was gray calico with sprays of blue flowers. ... Carrie was small and thin in pink calico, with pink ribbons on her brown braids and her hat. (From 'By the Shores of Silver Lake')

In the morning Pa was there. He had brought candy for Laura and Mary, and two pieces of pretty calico to make them each a dress. Mary's was a china-blue pattern on a white ground, and Laura's was dark red with little golden-brown dots on it. Ma had calico for a dress, too; it was brown, with a big, feathery white pattern all over it. (From 'Little House in the Big Woods')

 
Wishing you a day filled with all that is humble and beautiful. Like calico.