Kaymusings

In 1959, my husband became the pastor of a small rural church in Western Pennsylvania. The church was in a community known as Rogers Mill, the rented parsonage was in Millertown (a collection of houses on homes on the side of a hill) and our address was Normalville. The church rented the parsonage from Chester and Minnie Miller and it was directly across the road from where they lived.

Minnie and Chester were very friendly and helpful. They helped us get situated in our new home, and I got to know something about Minnie.

Minnie and Chester were farmers. Their barn was our side of the road and the hill rising from the back of their barn was extremely steep. Minnie told me that several years before, she had been up on that hill and started to come down the hill, –fast. She kept picking up momentum and was running by the time she approached the barn, and she couldn’t stop! She put out her arms to stop her and ran full tilt into the side of the barn! It broke both her arms! She could do nothing with both her arms broken and Chester had to care for her and do everything to help her, –for weeks. What a hard time they both had! But now she could laugh at the humor in the situation.

When my husband asked Chester to give him some advice as to how to tend the coal furnace in our basement, Chester said he would send Minnie over to teach me! In their community, the women kept the furnace running. I had other ideas about my household duties. Minnie taught my husband about the furnace. I learned to put more coal on the fire when he was away and the fire was dying down, but I never did learn about shaking down the ashes, banking the fire, or what to do about the draft. But Minnie knew!

The women in this area didn’t buy packages of noodles, they made them. They didn’t have pasta machines, either. They made the dough and then rolled it out with a rolling pin, thin and flat and completely even. Many times when I visited Minnie, there was a round of rolled out noodle dough, flat as could be, drying out on her dining room table. I don’t know how she did it, but when the dough was dry enough, Minnie could cut it into strips that looked as though they had come in a package of egg noodles from the grocery store. I never could get my noodles to look as professional as Minnie’s did.

Minnie was a great friend to me. She was like a loving grandma to me. She gave me advice and looked after me. One night I had to get up during the night, -I’ve long since forgotten why. But I remember that the next day Minnie checked on me. “I just happened to get up in the night,” she said, “and I saw that your light was on. Are you all right?” I loved that she “just happened” to see that I had been up in the night. I didn’t mind how much she “just happened” to see because I knew she was looking out for me.

When we moved to our next home on the Laurel Mountain ridge, I hated saying “good-bye” to Minnie and Chester, but there would be other close neighbors and great friendships.

At the beginning of this week, on Monday afternoon, we enjoyed a picnic. The air was cool but actually the weather was delightful with a promise of warmer weather to follow. Tuesday we had rain. Wednesday we had a little rain but not much. Thursday was beautiful weather and I was able to get some important outdoor work done. It actually got to hot to work outdoors comfortably in the afternoon. Friday started with rain and the temperature was dropping slowly. The rain stopped, but the wind was high and the temperature dropped to the low forties. The winter coat was very appropriate again. This morning it is snowing!

This isn’t a lot of snow. It’s “loitering down slowly” snowflakes. But it is cold and damp and unpleasant for this time of the year. There will be no picnic for me today.

The picture is of our jigsaw puzzle friends, Edia and Genevieve.

A friend called and invited me to the first picnic of the season. It was supposed to be a warm day for us and his family had decided to celebrate a birthday with a picnic, –and I was invited. We knew it would be cooler at the rocks, and it would get even cooler as dusk settled in, but we wore warm clothing and went for it any way.

I’ve been to the rocks with them several times in the last 8 years. I haven’t been there for a couple of years, though, and it was interesting to me to see the small changes that nature has made. There are a lot more fallen branches and dead stuff under foot, and the rocks are much more moss covered, but the rocks are as solid as ever.

It was colder that we expected it to be but we enjoyed the picnic fare and birthday cake at the end of the celebration. We didn’t have ice cream. It was too cold there to have ice cream!

It was a very nice surprise for me to have my day interrupted by this picnic at the rocks!

Most people let their geraniums die when winter comes, but I bring mine into the house and keep them indoors over winter. They don’t look as happy indoors as they do when they are freshly new in summer, but most of them survive to perk up again in summer light and warmth. Some time in February, the plants start to show their appreciation for the slightly increased amount of light they are getting and they perk up. Now, in March, this geranium is looking well. I like this splash of color against the winter scene outside the window. The little room is quite crowded with plants, but they don’t mind the crowding. I like to see them there.

At the left of the picture there is a little green glass elephant.  This is the elephant that was the beginning of my elephant collection.  Grandma Emma gave me the little green elephant, and ever after that, I was drawn to the little elephants or elephant motifs.

I had to stop collecting elephants because I acquired too many to have sitting around in various places in the house.  There are so many to dust when they are all on display.  I put many of them away but I arranged this parade of elephants on the mantle of the bedroom fireplace, for my enjoyment.

I have two elephant pins which I wear, on two of my blazers.  I have an elephant doorstop, an elephant bell pull, a ceramic elephant that my daughter-in-law painted for me, a special bookmark, and a few other elephants around the house.  One is a huge plush animal, not as big as a real elephant, but the biggest one that I have.  I have a pink depression glass candy dish with an elephant on the lid, and a small elephant pin cushion that makes a safe place to store a ring that I’m not wearing, –on the elephant’s upraised trunk.

I enjoy them all.  When I look at my parade of elephants in the bedroom, I smile with quiet delight.  It all started with a little gift from Grandma Emma!

I loved seeing this turkey in the field one winter day when we were driving to Findley Lake. I took the picture while I was still i the car. I don’t get to see wild turkeys very often but I have friends who have turkeys visit their back yard frequently during the winter. They buy corn to scatter for their wild guests. They have some very nice pictures of the turkeys in their yard, and even of one perching on the railing of their deck. That was tricky, –to get that pictures. Wild turkeys are very wary about people observing them.

Every year at this time, I work at decorating eggs, using the wax resist/dye method of Pysanky, –Ukrainian Easter Eggs.  Dewey Mayes piqued my interest in this religious art form, and then Tammy Hritzvey gave lessons at the Higher Education Center and I took her class and learned how to do the eggs.

People tell me that they couldn’t do Pysanky because they aren’t artistic. But once a person learns the technique, the artistic quality develops.  I think that practicing Pysanky has helped my technique with drawing and painting, though the methods are very different.

Working with the eggs is so satisfying.  I can’t make perfect symmetrical designs, but, to me, the results are attractive, and I do so much enjoy most of the process.  I delight to remove all the black wax and discover the sight of the beautiful colors and patterns that were hidden under it.  Blowing the contents of the egg out of the egg isn’t so much fun.  I use Aunt Margie’s Egg Blowing Tool, which makes it so much easier than using my breath to force the yolk and white out of the egg, but it is still a messy process.  It’s really hazardous to the finished egg!  This is the part of the process where it is most vulnerable for the egg.

I feel so much satisfaction when I see an egg through to the end of the process and put it safely into the drying box.  The next satisfaction comes when I can give a beautiful egg to a friend.  I’m so glad that I was introduced to the art of Pysanky.