Snow Rescue

We have had so much snow this year. It started right after Thanksgiving.

The following pictures were taken a couple of years ago after a big snow. I couldn't get out of my driveway, so I called my son to help dig me out. Here is the story.

This is the view from my front porch. It was a winter wonderland.

My deck furniture shrouded in snow.

My snow shovel and a view of my snow-covered driveway.

Nothing to do but start shoveling.

I didn't get too far when I turned around and saw the following scene.

My son is a fireman, and he brought his fellow firefighters to shovel my walk!

Needless to say, they got the job done in a hurry.

Here is my son the firefighter finishing up the job.

The end.

The Clothes Line Saga

Clothes Line Saga

After a while we took in the clothes
Nobody said very much
Just some old wild shirts and a couple pairs of pants
Which nobody really wanted to touch.

Mama come in and picked up a book
An’ Papa asked her what it was

Someone else asked, “What do you care?”

Papa said, “Well, just because.”

Then they started to take back their clothes

Hang ’em on the line

It was January the thirtieth

And everybody was feelin’ fine.

The next day everybody got up

Seein’ if the clothes were dry

The dogs were barking, a neighbor passed

Mama, of course, she said, “Hi!”

“Have you heard the news,” he said, with a grin

“The Vice-President’s gone mad!”

“Where?” “Downtown.” “When?” “Last night.”

“Hmm, say, that’s too bad!”

“Well, there’s nothin’ we can do about it,” said the neighbor

“It’s just somethin’ we’re gonna have to forget.”

“Yes, I guess so,” said Mama

Then she asked me if the clothes was still wet .

I reached up, touched my shirt

And the neighbor said, “Are those clothes yours?”

I said, “Some of ’em, not all of ’em.”

He said, “Ya always help out around here with the chores?”

I said, “Sometimes, not all the time”

Then my neighbor, he blew his nose

Just as Papa yelled outside

“Mama wants you t’ come back in the house and bring them clothes.”

Well, I just do what I’m told

So, I did it, of course

I went back in the house and Mama met me

And then I shut all the doors.

Copyright © 1969 by Dwarf Music; renewed 1997 by Dwarf Music

So guess who wrote that? Bob Dylan. It's been put to music by Bob, and also by Suzzy and Maggie Roche in the album "A Nod To Bob: An Artists' Tribute To Bob Dylan On His Sixtieth Birthday." Look it up on ITunes. It's great.

I've got more to write about clotheslines, but I'll save it for another time.

The Trumpet Vine

"The Trumpet Vine" is a song I have always loved written by Kate Wolf. And when my dad built a trellis for me at my back door, I planted a trumpet vine. It did not take off the first year, or the second year. It was seven years before it thrived. But now it is very healthy, has thick vines, and must be trimmed back several times during the summer.



When I moved to this house, the backyard left a lot to be desired. It was surrounded by a rusty chainlink fence, but there was an old sweetgum tree in the middle of the yard, and I saw potential. One of the first things I did (with the help of my woodworker son) was build a picket fence with a gate to the back door.

I asked my dad to build a trellis over the gate, thinking that it would be nice to pass under it each day as I went out.

This is my dad on his 85th birthday (see trellis in the background).

I have since built a deck and planted lots of old-fashioned perennials and have a little herb garden.

Right now it is January, and all the plants are dormant and there is snow on the ground, but this song has been on my mind this week so I wanted to write about it.

Here are the words to "The Trumpet Vine" written by Kate Wolf. As of this writing, I am still trying to figure how to download music.

The trumpet vine grew in the kitchen window

And bloomed bright orange on the wall.

You sat in the morning light, holding a guitar

As the first summer rain began to fall.

And like the gentle raindrops, your words fell in the air

Making things so clear as we quietly sat there.

It reminded me of other times you had come before

And brought a song or just walked in through the kitchen door.

Now it seems the truest words I ever heard from you

Were said at kitchen tables we have known.

'Cause somehow in that warm room, with coffee on the stove

Our hearts were really most at home

Sitting at a table looking hard at you

Catching up on stories of the things we'd tried to do

It seems we really said the most when we didn't talk at all

Let the songs speak for us like the sunlight on the wall.

Now as we come and go, in sunshine and in rain

Some years are seen more clearly than the rest

And if it weren't for kitchen songs and mornings spent with friends

We all might lose the things we love the best.

I can see you sitting there beneath the trumpet vine

The sunlight through the window in the kitchen in my mind.

You came when you were needed, I could not ask for more

Than to turn to find you walking through the kitchen door.

What Oprah and I Know For Sure

I received an ad in the mail for The Oprah Magazine - only $12 for 12 issues, including a free O Tote Bag! Oprah added a note in the ad listing her all-time top 10 what she knows for sure. I thought I'd share them with you as they rang a bell with me:

1. What you put out comes back all the time, no matter what.



2. You define your own life. Don't let other people write your script.



3. Whatever someone did to you in the past has no power over the present. Only you give it power.



4. When people show you who they are, believe them the first time. (A lesson from Maya Angelou.)



5. Worrying is wasted time. Use the same energy for doing something about whatever worries you.



6. What you believe has more power than what you dream, wish or hope for. You become what you believe.



7. If the only prayer you ever say is "thank you," that will be enough. (From the German theologian and humanist Meister Eckhart.)



8. The happiness you feel is in direct proportion to the love you give.



9. Failure is a signpost to turn you in another direction.



10. If you make a choice that goes against what everyone else thinks, the world will not fall apart.

Happy New Year!