SUMMER AT TEELSIDE

Summer greens are everywhere around here - thanks to rains and heavy dew. The days have been so humid (typical WV July) that even I am thankful for air conditioning.

Maggie days have transformed into canning days. Every year I think next summer we'll just grow enough garden for the table and for sharing. And every year we check the canning shelves and decide we could always do with a few more quarts of this or that. This summer it's green beans. We did the first two canners yesterday - Roma II, which have become a favorite for lots of reasons. No strings, good flavor and good canners even when they've grown on the vine past peak.

This year Wayne also planted some pole beans and half-runners...just for old times sake. The sapling teepees cut and covered with bean vines used to be a familiar sight on gardens that grew on any lot of any size. These days we don't see so many gardens. Tha't a loss on several levels.

Wayne's 'old-times sake' backs me into the kitchen, but he is so good to help that I could hardly be so mean as to complain. Assuredly kitchen assistance is not quite fair as he does the planting, tilling, tending and picking. But hey, we all know he's addicted to work, right? And did you notice those rocks? We think they come up from China, as they seem to surface no matter how many you gather and haul to the creek banks. 

I'm not immue to the call of tradition myself ...though my call usually takes the form of quilts not canning. Call or no, I know not to plan too much sewing during garden times. Garden times are so much a part of "what we knew first" that it is hard to give it up, especially for Wayne. That is evident in spite of the fact that I no longer do a stitch of work there - except for taking the farmer a drink of water from time to time.

Without living in the past, we are still bound to memories of it. That is a blessing and I'm really thankful the Lord designed our minds with memory banks.

 

SINGULAR PASSAGES

Passages once traveled will seldom reappear -

Stronger, then, incentive for holding them as dear.

Some are set indelibly and easily revived;

Others blend in patterns indistinct, but still alive.

Scenes of fond remembrance seem to etch on glass

Lines to lend fresh import to portraits of the past -

Ne'er to be forgotten, or lessen in their worth

E'en when tethered well beyond the reach of mortal earth.

Who can weigh the value e'er they travel on

Of ethereal summers basking 'neath the sun?

Once the snow has melted, magic glows no more...

Scales will find a balance true on far more distant shores.

Is the heart ungrateful - just redeeming time,

Scarcely comprehending the reason or the rhyme?

Who can know the pattern, gather up control;

Weaving through the tapestry the threads that form the whole?

Time may not uncover hidden meanings of

The raptures of a moment, the painful loss of love...

Soaring hearts, descending tears alike must understand

The soul will win its vict'ry by His near, Almighty Hand.

Patience molds the passage with resolve to hold

Faith for the duration, nurture for the soul -

Pausing and reflecting while memories yet yearn...

For hard it is to turn them free and not wish for return.

 pjt 07/04/2012