Ru – Woodsmoke and Cardamom

Phlox and Asters

It’s November now. The phlox and asters have long since ended their blooming season, and the time is fast approaching when the house will once again be filled with the heady scent of cardamom as Christmas bread rises and bakes. How the seasons swirl by, with one set of pleasure-to-the-senses melding into the next! One of my nieces asked me recently if I would be baking Christmas bread this year. “IF”?!?! It could hardly be Christmas if not!!! So, yes – of course!! And I can hardly wait to get started!

If you are among the fortunate souls who take great pleasure in the baking of homemade bread, you need no explanation for the joy it brings. If not, I will try to describe it as best I can.

It often begins with merely the delightful anticipation of the process itself! The gathering of the tools and ingredients, greasing of pans, seasoned to black from many years of use. Though my lovely black bread-tins are used only for our toast and sandwich bread, they are a precious treasure to me, handed down with love from my mama after her many years of baking for our family.

My bread-board, too, is a treasure I have used for many years, built by my dad, well-used by my mom.

My “canister” for flour is immense: 11″ tall, 9+” in diameter, holds the 10lbs of flour I buy at a time throughout the year. 25lbs at Christmas time won’t fit all at once, but it doesn’t take long to get through it!! And my lovely bread bowl that only comes out for Christmas bread (I use my bread-mixer the rest of the year)

flour “canister,” bread bowl and wooden spoon

I have always loved the scent of yeast, that conjures memories of my childhood home and Mama, baking bread in our cozy kitchen. From the moment the yeast hits the lukewarm water, I am transported to that kitchen and all the wonderful memories of the best childhood, filled with love and laughter.

Here is a link to the recipe for Christmas Bread, aka Swedish Coffee Bread:

https://wp.me/p2i29U-1D

And to circle back to the title of this post: another simple joy of my childhood, and the beginning of my lifelong love of these wildflowers, was the tiny not-quite-meadow of tall grasses, phlox and asters that grew between our yard and the next-door neighbor’s.

On Growing Old

by Lucy M. Young

It starts the day we're born this aging process.
No power on earth can halt its steady progress.
Inevitable, inescapable and constant.
It never slows or falters for an instant.

It's a road that every one of us must travel,
It's a tapestry of living none can ravel;
Woven with joy and pain, with tears and laughter,
And love to keep it bright forever after.

But growing old has several compensations_
We need not wait a year for our vacations;
And if we should embrace someone who's younger,
We need not fear the sharp-tongued gossipmonger.

Our vision may be dimmed, our hearing lost;
And dreams of high adventure torn and tossed;
The swift years pass, our youthful looks depart,
But years can never age the young at heart.

Autobiography of Lucy M. Young

written in 1988

I was born seventy-one years ago on a beautiful farm in northern Vermont, the oldest of three girls. Only my father and a neighbor woman were in attendance as the doctor was busy elsewhere delivering another baby. I've been told I came into the world yelling lustily in protest against it all and I am still protesting although not quite so belligerently. As age creeps up on me I have mellowed somewhat, but I still hate prejudice, jealousy, discrimination.

I attended a small rural school (all eight grades in the same room) high school, and two years at a teacher's college. I loved school and cried graduation night. I taught school for two years then I married. At the age when life allegedly begins (forty) I went back to college, majoring in English, hoping to get my degree. I was unable to complete more than one year for financial reasons. I loved my English courses, (especially Creative Writing); hated Physics, Chemistry and Math.

I have always wanted to write. Even in the lower grades I tried to write stories, In High School I wrote reams of poetry which my teachers liked but publishers did not.

Between the ages of forty and fifty I began having pain in my hip, very severe at times. I thought I was wheelchair bound until my doctor told me about hip-replacement surgery. As soon as it could be arranged I had the operation. Before it was healed I fell, necessitating another hip replacement. During that surgery my femur was shattered. After more surgery and many weeks in the hospital I was sent to an orthopaedic surgeon in Boston, a miracle worker who takes hopeless cases no other surgeon will touch. With the help of God and the prayers of many friends he did indeed perform a miracle. Today I can walk without crutches. After ten years of nearly constant pain, hobbling on crutches I am free.

My husband died six months ago and I find I have time to pursue some of the things I have always wanted to do. I live alone with eight cats and three birds. My home is in the country where I can enjoy clean air, peace and quiet. I love the solitude and I am never lonely because I know I am never really alone. The Lord has seen me through many years of pain and disability, and through His grace I am now free to do many things I have been unable to do for many years.

I love gardening, good music, historical novels and TV sitcoms. I have no patience with self-pitying, self-righteous people. I am deeply grateful for the good life my parents gave me on the farm and I would like to write about country living sixty years ago. My nieces and nephews are fascinated by my tales of "long ago."

The Lord has done so much for me that I want to do something for Him. I hope in some way my writing may help others to know Him better. I want to write the story of my miraculous recovery in the hope that it might give someone else the courage to keep trying, even against seemingly impossible odds.

Words

by Lucy M. Edmunds

Hares are rabbits
And rabbits have hair;
Hair isn't a rabbit
A rabbit is a hare.

I get so mixed up
I wonder why words
Have to be so confusing.
The bees and the birds

Don't have to worry.
They just sing a song
And everyone knows 
That nothing is wrong.

Soft Rain

by Lucy M. Edmunds

Soft rain is so queer and wonderful
It washes the sky all clean;
The big warm drops come tumbling down
And make the brown lawns look green.

The street is a shiny black ribbon
That somebody dropped and forgot;
The trees are like leaky umbrellas
That the rain has torn and cut.

It makes such beautiful puddles
It's too bad I can't go out;
I'd like to put my boots on
And run and splash about

And play with the soft warm raindrops,
And hear what they have to say
Perhaps they would tell me about their homes
And why they came away.

Winter Sun

by Lucy M. Edmunds

In winter the sun is a sleepyhead
He stays in bed so late, and then
I hardly get back home from school
Before he's back in bed again!

He hurries through the day so fast
He doesn't even warm my nose.
I wish he'd stop a little while
And try to warm my cold, red toes.

But then, I s'pose he must go on
So other boys and girls can play.
I shouldn't call him sleepyhead,
'Cause where he is it's always day.

I Wish I Were a Little Bird

by Lucy M. Edmunds

I wish I were a little bird
With strong wings I could fly
Away up there above the clouds
And pick a hole in the sky

Wouldn't that be wonderful?
Cause then I could see God.
I'll ask the birds about it
They wouldn't think it odd.

They prob'ly see Him every day
I'm very sure they do
'Cause they are always so happy
They make me happy, too.

My Kitten

by Lucy M. Edmunds

My kitten is the prettiest
And smartest in the town.
He sings to me 'most all the time,
And follows me up and down.

I call his name Tuxedo Cause he's a high class cat;
I couldn't call him Tommy,
Or a common name like that.

Besides he has a white bow tie.
He keeps his fur so slick,
He looks so dressed up all the time,
I couldn't call him Dick.

So I'll call him Tuxedo
'Cause he's a special cat.
I always will be good to him,
And he'll grow sleek and fat.

A New Game

by Lucy M. Edmunds

(This poem, and the 5 that follow, were written by Lucy as a child)

When I am tired of hide and seek
And baseball and tag and such
I have another game I play
Which I like very much.

I lie on my stomach out in the field
Where the grass is tall and deep
And close my eyes just halfway up 
So I won't go to sleep.

Then I lie still and quick as a wink
The grass is a forest tall
And in and out and round about
Come animals large & small.

A measureworm measures carefully
The distance from here to there
While a great big bee goes bumbling around
For honey to take to his lair.

The ants are busy collecting food
To pile in their winter store
While the grasshopper sings with never a thought
For winter wind's bite and roar.

I feel like a king in this tiny world
When I close my eyes and pretend
But when I stand up and look at the sky
I am just a child again.

Loving A Sailor

by Lucy M. Young

Loving a sailor is not all play
In fact there's very little of gay
It's being young and feeling old
It's mostly to have and never to hold.

Loving a sailor is all milk and no cream
It's being in love with a misty dream
It's getting a Valentine from a southern base
And sending a stamped letter with an upside face.

It's hoping for leaves you know won't come
It's wondering if he'll ever get home
And when he does it's laughter together
Unconscious of people, of time, of weather

It's hearing him whisper his love for you
And your answering whisper that you love him too
And then comes the ring and the promise of love
And knowing you're watched by the Father above

And loving a sailor is good-bye at the train
And wondering if you'll ever see him again
And reluctantly, painfully, letting him go
When inside you're crying for wanting him so.

Then you watch for a word that he is well
And wait thru a long dragg-out "no letter" spell
And your feet are planted in sand not sod
And your source of strength came solely from God

Loving a sailor is unidentified fears
And crying until there are no more tears
And hating the world and yourself and the war
And stamping and kicking 'till you can't fight anymore

And really meaning the prayer that you're saying
And when the mail comes you bubble with joy
And you act like a baby with a shining new toy
And you know he is oceans away
And you just keep loving him more everyday.

You're proud of the job he's helping get done
And you don't care anymore if loving's not fun
Then you grit your teeth and muster a grin
You've got a job and you'd better begin
You've got a fight, the same one he's in
We've got a war and you'd better help win

When comes your birthday, you're a year older today
But you feel just the same as you did yesterday
You're not, you've changed, you're wiser [and] stronger
You can weather this way if it's twenty years longer
You'll work and you'll sweat every hour of the day
Your job will be hard but you'll sure earn your pay
You're tired and you're weary but you're doing your share.

So loving a sailor is bitterness, tears
It's loneliness, sadness, unidentified fears
It's nothing to take for a darn lot of giving
It's fretting, sweating and living
No, loving a sailor is really not fun
But it's sure worth the price when the battle is won.