For the love of aprons

farm-aprons

“I don’t think our kids know what an apron is. The principle use of Grandma’s apron was to protect the dress underneath because she only had a few. It was also because it was easier to wash aprons than dresses and aprons used less material. But along with that, it served as a potholder for removing hot pans from the oven.

It was wonderful for drying children’s tears, and on occasion was even used for cleaning out dirty ears.

From the chicken coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven.

When company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids.

And when the weather was cold, Grandma wrapped it around her arms.

Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, bent over the hot wood stove.

Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron.

From the garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables. After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls.

In the fall, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the trees.

When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds.

When dinner was ready, Grandma walked out onto the porch, waved her apron, and the men folk knew it was time to come in from the fields to dinner.

It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that ‘old-time apron’ that served so many purposes.

Grandma used to set her hot baked apple pies on the window sill to cool. Her granddaughters set theirs on the window sill to thaw.

They would go crazy now trying to figure out how many germs were on that apron.

I don’t think I ever caught anything from an apron – but love…”

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Source: #LoveWhatMatters, inspired by Tina Trivett’s original poem, Grandma’s Apron. (And thanks to C.W. for sharing the original post!)

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Two words

“How can a few short weeks alter the course of a lifetime? Two words: summer camp.”

If summer camp remains the best vacation of your entire lifetime, you are so not alone. Author Dominique Browning (who blogs at Slow Love Life) captures what it feels like to be set free on a mountain (or by a lake, a river or in the woods) with hundreds of small children, a few responsible teenagers and college-aged students (“counselors”) and the requisite number of adults so that no one ends up hurt or in jail and everybody thrives. On our farm we’ve (perhaps unknowingly) created a camp-like environment where kids–and adults–can come relax, play and be at peace. And at the end of each day after feeding the horses, I often find myself humming “Day is done…” as we walk up from the barn and get ready to make a fire. Ever so often, especially in summer, I even dream of camp and the beautiful “Taps” that echoed through the woods after campfire time…tucking us into our rustic cabin bunk beds (no guardrails) where we fell hard asleep, our bodies and minds blissfully spent. It’s a bugle call that lives in my heart and takes me back to childhood. For all of you lifelong campers out there, who find yourselves often “trying to get back to summer camp,” enjoy this piece on The Days of Reveille and Taps. 

Arielle at Camp

Arielle at Riverview Camp for Girls Mentone, Alabama, July 2000

Taps

Day is done, gone the sun,
From the lake, from the hills, from the sky;
All is well, safely rest, God is nigh.

Fading light, dims the sight,
And a star gems the sky, gleaming bright.
From afar, drawing nigh, falls the night.

Thanks and praise, for our days,
‘Neath the sun, ‘neath the stars, ‘neath the sky;
As we go, this we know, God is nigh.

Sun has set, shadows come,
Time has fled, Scouts must go to their beds
Always true to the promise that they made.

While the light fades from sight,
And the stars gleaming rays softly send,
To thy hands we our souls, Lord, commend.

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Under the Stars…with S’mores

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I remember it like it was yesterday. An overnight campout during my little sister’s and my first summer at Camp Skyline Ranch in Mentone, Alabama…and my first bite into a S’more. How was it that our parents somehow failed to expose their 6 kids to America’s easiest and absolute best-tasting dessert? What is it about this 3-ingredient campfire treat that makes even the most erudite adults wax nostalgic about childhood summers? In Dan White’s new camping and travel memoir, Under the Stars, the author, who lives in Santa Cruz, California, devotes pages to the S’more and deservedly so. It’s the object of every camper’s affection and out here at our place we serve them up regularly. In fact, one cold evening last winter, Arielle and I got a craving so strong we made some indoors in front of the Buck Stove in the living room. White gives us the origins of the dessert (tracing it back to a 1927 camping manual called Tramping and Trailing with the Girl Scouts) plus much, errr, s’more on his adventures in nature all across America’s great woods and wilderness. Share your own camping memories and photos now on White’s new Facebook fan page, and you can listen to a special July 4th interview — “How America Fell in Love with Camping” — on Wisconsin Public Radio.

July got here just a little too quickly, don’t you think? So damn the calories — let’s celebrate Summer with gobs of gooey S’mores!

Under the Stars

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An Intentional Summer

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On the first day of summer the “Well Family” blog (New York Times) set forth The Intentional Summer Challenge — a weekly list of simple ideas to help us connect more to the season and to those we love.

The first tip? Walk or bike somewhere you’d normally drive to. Pick a short distance that might turn into a ritual (such as a bike ride to work or the library) or an even longer trek.

Our intentions this summer are also quite simple, including big and little pleasures like…

A family beach trip (check)

The Peachtree Road Race (it’s Mike’s 30th)

Gardening

Making homemade ice cream, and often (the new maker arrived last week)

Spontaneous weekend drives and road trips (our pal David calls this “going loafin'”)

Game of Thrones (Seasons 1-6)

Fun horse time with friends

Read, read, read

And squeezing every possible moment out of being with our kids, without driving them crazy 🙂

Our list really goes on much longer than this, and we hope yours does too. Here’s to a summer filled with loving and fun intentions!

“A sense of autonomy — of making active decisions about how we spend our time — is one of the elements that helps us enjoy our free time.”

 

To get the Well Family newsletter click here.

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‘A Grand Lady’

Daisy Weller Smith, one of the town’s most beloved residents, passed away this week and you can almost feel the sadness in the air. We didn’t know “Miss Daisy” personally, but many of our friends did, and her passing marks the end of an era. The front page of this week’s newspaper paid tribute to this “Grand Lady.”

 

Daisy Weller SmithDaisy Weller Smith, a beloved light from old Jacksonville, dies at 89

Daisy Weller Smith died Monday, and along with her went a light inside Ten Oaks, the stately old home on Pelham Road in Jacksonville.

Smith, 89, had lived in the house — the former home of her grandparents, then her parents —  since 1949. She had, since 1999, shared the home with the law office of attorney Joseph Maloney. Smith had been staying at a Jacksonville nursing home since June.

When contacted, Maloney declined to comment on her, saying he is “too close.”

Penn Wilson, a lifelong friend of Smith’s, recalled her love of fishing, and described her as a “renaissance woman” with a fondness for art and for dressing well.

Wilson recounted the story of a deep-sea fishing trip Smith and her father took Wilson on to Destin, Fla., in 1968.

“It was a wonderful experience,” Wilson said. “We caught 28 king mackerel. It took a long time to use those fish.”

Smith’s love of Ten Oaks was such that, when a new bishop of Alabama’s Episcopal churches was chosen, Smith offered her home to entertain him, Wilson said.

“And the bishop was entertained extremely well. “The ladies of St. Luke’s, they just pulled out all the stops and had a wonderful welcome reception for bishop,” Wilson said, referring to the Episcopal congregation in Jacksonville.  “She loved that house.”

Richard Lindblom, also a longtime friend of Smith’s, described her as “a grand lady of the Southern style.”

“And she was a lady,” Lindblom said.

She loved the Atlanta Braves as well, Lindblom said. If one were to invite Smith over for coffee after church, and the Braves happened to be playing at the same time, Smith would chose the baseball game, Lindblom said.

Smith grew up in Birmingham and Atlanta, but moved to Ten Oaks as a teenager with her parents, Thomas and Anne Smith. Her mother died in 1960 and her father followed in 1973. She had few other living relatives, according to those who knew her, but Smith had plenty of friends.

Smith had worked at First National Bank of Jacksonville, which became AmSouth then Regions bank, for many years. She attended the Parsons School of Design in New York City, and was a lifelong lover of art.

“I won’t say she was a grand old lady of Alabama. I won’t say that, and she would not appreciate it, but she was truly a grand lady of Alabama,” Wilson said. “She was an awesome human being.”

Elaine Hardison met Smith in 1960, when Hardison moved to Jacksonville.

“And I was never with her that we didn’t laugh and have a grand time. She lived a long, full and brave life and she helped others to do the same,” Hardison said.

Hardison described seeing Smith’s small dog, whom she’d named Mr. Peabody, sit at a small child’s piano Smith had and watch Mr. Peabody play the piano with his paws.

“And then she’d say ‘sing, Mr. Peabody,’ and he would cry out like dogs do,” Hardison said.

Phil Sanguinetti, former publisher of the Jacksonville News, said that Smith was one-of-a-kind.

“She was one of the finest ladies I have known,” he said. “She will certainly be missed by this community.”

Ten Oaks, Home of Daisy Weller SmithTen Oaks Jacksonville

 

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