brewing summer teas

“Drinking tea with a pinch of imagination!” 

I  am enjoying a simple task of taking a gallon Fida jar, filling it with fresh water, stirring in a tad of sugar then adding dried hibiscus flowers to brew outside in the sun. I do not simply sip this tea, I gustily drink a glassful over ice.

 

easing in

This move  to another house just an hour away from our last town has not been a happy one for everyone concerned. And since she leaves in August to go back to school, her adjustment will flow along on a more extended time frame.

But she understands.

Her room is now fixed more to her liking even though she does not stay here but a few days a week. She works at her old job from last summer at a garden center and she has managed by housesitting this summer as well as staying with friends.

But  I love it when she is able to come for a few days. She has helped shovel the pile of dirt outside the front porch awaiting the planting of the various flowers and shrubs I brought from our old home. She has made suggestions for decorating and hanging pictures, and she has rummaged around in the attic to help me find things that were delegated to the third floor until we discovered we needed them.

And one day she helped me drape several stands of white lights around the screened- in back porch. That evening we sat outside and talked...amidst the echoing orchestra of the cicadas and the high pitched mooing of a cow every now and then.  

But by far the most fun we experienced was the evening we removed the handful of skeleton keys from the large ring  we found in the laundry room cabinet and went from door to door upstairs and downstairs finding its proper fit."So satisfying", she simply said when she found the one key that fit that door.

She must ease in to this place and we are letting time walk its course.

One day this week she arrived with her most longest and dearest friend. As they left the next afternoon, I was too late to grab my camera in time, therefore, the precious picture will  just have to stay in my mind. They were walking down the front paved path to the car, Charlotte with a violin thrown on her shoulder and Laura carrying her bow, arrows and target.  I love every minute I have these girls around me...

 

a new place to call home

 I read within a poet's book 

A word that starred the page: 

'Stone walls do not a prison make, 

Nor iron bars a cage! ' 

Yes, that is true; and something more 
You'll find, where'er you roam, 
That marble floors and gilded walls 
Can never make a home. 
But every house where Love abides, 
And Friendship is a guest, 
Is surely home, and home-sweet-home: 
For there the heart can rest.

                                          Henry Van Dyke, "A Home Song"

It was that time of day just before dusk settles, as the lightening bugs were putting on their most spectacular show. And the thought revisiting swept over every part of my consciousness. It was another time frame, another place, a different family dynamics, but nevertheless, cherith revisiting.  I was in a new home with those fond thoughts once again doing something significant. 

We moved. Not to a farm this time, but to a lovely stately 1930 built home in a rural setting. I call it "my city house in the country" with its large rooms adorned with dental molding around the ceilings, beautiful mantles, original doors- some double wide- with brass doorknobs and hardwood floors.