peaceful and content

We woke to a very wet and chilly early morning here on Deerfield Farm. Every leaf, every blade of grass and the mint fields stretching out to meet the hills are covered with droplets of rain and everything in such beautiful shades of green.... 

Mist covers the low places and the pond and doves are calling back and forth. The scent of wood smoke in the air from our chimney.

  It reminds me very much of visiting Tasha Tudor's home and gardens in her beautiful kingdom of Vermont. 

      photo of Tasha Tudor's gardens by Richard Brown

 Wishing you all a beautiful Memorial weekend, be safe and enjoy this beautiful spring day!

 And here is a little something for you~

 ~~~

  "I n  the dark of early morning just between fading starlight and the first bird call, she opened the door out into the kitchen garden.

Wrapping her shawl closer, she stepped onto the stone stoop. Sipping hot tea from an old handless cup decorated with mulberry-black pastoral views, held in both hands. Steam rose from her cup, she sighed with content, warming her hands against the early morning chill.

The fresh scent of garden herbes and the apothecary rose enveloped her as she stood in the doorway. Rain left droplets along the saw tooth leaves of the Ladyes Mantle and there, a small cottontail darted away from his breakfast of tender lettices.
As the pale light came through the trees she could see that it would be a damp day. She drank the last sip of tea & slipping the empty cup into the pocket hidden beneath her flowered petticoat, she walked down the brick path, out of the kitchen yard and down a trail through the tall grass into the apple trees...."

excerpt from " Song of the Doll maker" by Christine Crocker of Deerfield Farmhouse
published in "A Simple Life Magazine" Winter issue 2010.

photo by Richard Brown of Tasha Tudor's gardens

Easter Sunday

the old church at Simnashio

 

 

 I hope you all had the loveliest of Easter Sundays~

 I hope that you have had a day of Rejoicing and

filled with love and family,

 a chocolate bunny or egg or two,

 and a moment to reflect in the beauty of this day~

 

it has been the loveliest Easter Sunday.

a spring like day, warm soft air, birds singing,

a chorus of frogs down in the creek, daffodils

waving in the warm breeze.

The lawn has sparkles of brightly colored egg shell remnants left from

the Bunny McEggers Grand and Great

Easter Egg & Scavenger Hunt...

another great success!

Thanks so much Uncle Bryan!!

 

Great Grandma & Grandpa were here today

holding great grand babies and visiting

~lots of wonderful food and laughter~

I think my house was rattling with all the laughing and

everyone talking at once...

 

my very favorite thing is to sit back and watch them enjoying each other and themselves.  

To let fleeting times like these just flow over me and soak into my soul.

Looking around our table at all the people I love together, talking and laughing.

Eating wonderful food that we all made together, the little ones frosted the cookies and hung them

on the Easter cookie tree, a little frosting on the corner of each little mouth, using their best

table manners, using the good silver, drinking from old pressed glass glasses, napkins carefully placed just so...please and thank you...my Mother exclaiming at their  table manners...

just a lovely day together, nothing amiss, sharing food and love for each other.

 

The big & best things in life are indeed the little things.

Our days are made up of precious little things that make the big things...

wonderful Easter egg and spring flowered colors..

 

memories.

 

wishing you all a wonderful week ahead,

 

love to you,

Christine



good friday sunrise

Good Friday sunrise over our little Deerfield Farm


~Wishing you all a happy and Blessed Good Friday ~

soon.....

my garden last spring

this winter weary season will quietly come back to life~

in indigo,cerise and lime..
with soft warm air, meadowlarks and frog-song lullabies...
armloads of long stemmed purple doubled lilacs..

I'm digging in the garden today.
Moving old brick, neatening edges...sorrowing a lost rose...
glad at so many volunteer columbine under the leaf mulch,
pale green yellow of the poplar grove trees...
soon..

I hope that the sun is shining on you wherever you might be today. 

riding the wind with love and popsickle smiles~

 

the March winds whip, blow and howl. It teases, tickles and torments, like cousins will do to one another. 

wild winds carry away the dry leaves, dust and last remnants of grey days,

soft rain washes the winter weary faces of the counryside

and in it's place~

 fresh green pastures filled with wildflowers and grasses and ocean blue skies~

days like today leave us with the promise that soft warm days are peeking

around the corner just waiting to be lolled and luxuriated  in...

with popsicle smiles and bare feet.

these are the happy little sunshine faces

that I love... so much that it truly hurts...

and then...there is this little man...

...lordy..

.

oh me, oh my, how much can one Grandma's heart take...

well, I'll take all of it,

Happy First Day of Spring!

warming in the early morning sun

~ early morning sun warming my favorite chalk lamb hand made by Netty~

"The March wind roars

Like a lion in the sky,

And makes us shiver

As he passes by.

When winds are soft,

And the days are warm and clear,

Just like a gentle lamb,

Then spring is here."

Our first day of March here on Deerfield Farm is warm and calm winded.  Robins and Red-Winged blackbirds fill the trees with singing and flitting from the water barrel and then to the wet earth to stretch a worm from it's sleepy garden bed.

There's a slight yellow-greening of the tree tops down in the poplar grove and in the tea fields, tiny mint leaves, burrowed down in the winter mulch have begin to send out dark runners.

The rhubarb has deep red shoots pushing up through it's blanket of grass hay and the old lilacs by the barn door have fat buds.

I know this calmness and first taste of a soft and  almost warm day, with the grass fields beginning to lose it ochre and put up it's tufts of spring greens, is only a fleeting taste for us.

The winds begin to blow and howl when Spring first decides to grace us with her presence.

So, this calm and almost warm first day of March is so welcome to our winter weary souls.

I hope that wherever you are, that the sun is shining on your face and the sure hope of  Spring warming your hearts!

Happy March my friends!

love,C.

our Humble is so very pleased

little Humble recently became the very happy owner of her very

own wee Sewing Coffer and a Farmer's Wife flax comb~

both are lovingly hand made
 by Lori & Peter Brechlin

of  Notforgotten Farm

are they not the loveliest little things?

Peter hand made them and Lori has given them her special graining and aging~
They hand make many other wonderful little wooden items
that any seamstress and collector of fine folk art would love~

as you can see, little Humble is ever so pleased.
Thank you Lori & Peter Brechlin!