Last day of August....

 EMILY DICKINSON's poem about the passing of summer........

 As Imperceptibly as Grief

 The Summer lapsed away

 Too imperceptible at last to seem like perfidy.

 A Quietness distilled

 As twilight long begun

Sequestered Afternoons

The Dusk drew earlier in

 The Morning foreign shone

 A courteous, yet harrowing Grace

 A Guest that would be gone

 And thus, without a Wing

 Or service of a Keel
                                
 Our Summer made her light escape......

 Into the Beautiful.............................

Smokey 2017

Emily Dickinson (1839-1886) Only a few of her poems were poems published during her lifetime. After her death, her sister, Lavinia found Emily's  1800 poems and they were published.( This poem "As Imperceptibly as Grief" was written in 1865 and published in 1891)

Smokey 2017

 Photographs 2019 and 2017 and 2016 Summers

1863 LETTUCE SOUP

 " Lettuce may be best kept by sprinkling with cold water and placing in a tin pail closely covered.Lettuce , like other raw vegetables, when eaten will help to stimulate  flagging appetite...." -1896 Boston Cooking School Cook Book

 If there was enough lettuce left in the garden, a soup could be made with  leftovers. These days, we are much luckier. It comes in by the tons in packages, bags, mounds of lettuce piled in produce bins.

  I used a large carton of lettuce plus  two extra heads. It wilts in the broth, so don't be scared to use up what you have.If you have spinach use some of that.

Add into a large pot two containers of  veggie broth, Then  star dumping in chopped veggies.Yellow zucchini...one of my favs.

 Civil war Lettuce soup would be mainly lettuce ,sometimes in a  in a cream like sauce and rice/vermicelli with onion. I updated it with extra veggies. And left out the cream

 I added spirals of sweet potatoes. You can find them now in the produce section. They cook beautifully.The original 1863 recipe is very simple. Lettuce, Rice/vermicelli, Onions. I tried that as well, it's nice. Not a hearty soup though.

 Add beans. Any beans you wish....canned ones to make it easier. Plus pasta.Then more  lettuce. Onions if you wish. Parsley if you have it.Then cook in large pot about 45 minutes to an hour.

  In the late 1800's ladies could take cooking lessons for about 15$ for 12 weeks. They had to eat their dishes at the end of each lesson.

 Some early lessons would include how to make a fire. Boiling coffee, grinding tomatoes for soup, cutting bread into croutons, boiling potatoes properly, cooking chops and toasting bread over the fire...

 FINAL lessons would include making bread, various potatoe dishes, frying fish, egg dishes, and pudding......

 Some students would learn that a fire took more work than they thought. From crumpling up paper, sticks and wood, arranged with coal.Then after the dampers were closed.......striking  a match.

Some students learned to be careful how they applied the match. To keep all clothing free from the flame. Once fire caught on the apron, it was noticed  it was very hard to extinguish.

 When soup is ready, serve with sourdough pancakes, biscuits or bread. Leftovers can be readily frozen, if you do not add milk.

 KITCHEN HINTS:To clean grease clogs from a sink. Dump down ashes from the fire, with a ton of water.

 KITCHEN HINT: To Clean Carpets. Tear up old newspaper. Sprinkle over dirty carpet. Sweep the newspaper away. Then wipe carpet with ammonia. Supposed to bleach those colours brighter..

 Photographs 2019    

STELLAR JAYS and the CATS FROM THE HILL.....

"The reason birds can fly and we can't is simply because they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have wings...."
                                                      ― J.M. Barrie, The Little White Bird

 I have been watching for  them. Spencer has noticed them.

 Then it rained. And it poured. And after that came the familiar shriek.

 That scolding caw of the Stellar Jays. They sit on the roof and yell at me for peanuts....

 have not seen them for a couple of years. But now they're back. 

 They love the peanuts. But they eat anything. any seeds, berries, fruits, beetles, wasps, and wild bees, table scraps, small rodents if they have to, or even lizards.Anything .

Cordelia lazes on the fence in the late summer sun and watches them land.

 Usually these jays stay for the better part of a winter. Sometimes they migrate.

 There were a few yeas when the same jays stayed on. I could recognize the patriarch by his comb.

 But I haven't seen him in a while. These ones are young, I think. Young and sassy.

 I like to watch them squabble over the peanuts.

 They are organized. They take turns. Dunking peanuts into the birdbath to soften the hard shells.

 Simon likes to scamper by the Jays. He's young as well.  They shriek at him in delight.

 And then  the pounding as they   smash the shells apart. 

 Fiercely brave. Noisy and vocal. 

 I LOVE that about them. They are so smart. 

 You get to recognize each of them. And they recognize you.....

 The Stellar Jays from this part of the Island  are darker with variations in the blue.

 If this colour was a fabric, I would make a quilt of it.  Bold and bright and bluer than a winter sky....

Patience

 "In order to see birds it is necessary to become a part of the silence....."  ― Robert Lynd

Photographs 2019   Simon, Spencer, Patience and his housemate, Cordelia all have happy homes on the  hill behind us. They  visit. Almost daily.