CHERRY LEMONADE DAYS....

I remember those endless, warm summers when we'd make cherry Koolaid, poured over ice, and drop a few cherries on top. My mother called it Cherry Lemonade...

She grew a few wild roses, pale pink ones that eventually were smothered by tree roots over the years.

There was tea. On those warm summer days. On the old blue and white Mikado china, and grapevine cups, steaming with amber.

Bees hummed around Caraway Seed cake, thick cream, and the sugar bowl.  They were always hopeful. Usually, drunken flies landed on the Cherry lemonade, spilled over on the table.

One, or both of our cats wandered by the porch, sleepily looking for a place to flop.
 

My mother hummed tuneless tunes. Her favourite was "Let me call you Sweetheart"...

She told me how my dad liked to sing it to her, years ago. Long ago. In the summertime. She missed him. She never said as such, but I knew. 

After seed cake, the koolaid and tea, we'd pick sweet peas. They grew like ivy, all over the side of the house. So tall. I'd get a chair to stand on, and pick handfuls for the old white pitcher. I still have that pitcher. It waits, yearly, for sweet peas...

"I heard a red-winged blackbird singing down where the river sleeps in the reeds: that was morning, 

 and at noontime a hummingbird flashed on the jewel-weeds...

...clouds blew up, and in the evening a yellow sunset struck through the rain, then blue night, 

and the day was ended that will never come again..."

                                                                                  - Sara Teasdale ( A June Day)

My world hummed with the heat.  Ants marched back and forth, stealing crumbs of seed cake.

Trees rustled. The sprinkler sprinkled.  Sweet peas and nasturtiums bloomed at the side of the old porch steps, where my mother sat with her tea. 

We'd slurp frozen Koolaid popsicles, mixed with cherry jello, a melting frozen treat on a stick. Bare feet on hot pavement. End of day.

It was summer. Every summer...

Photographs 2026

ISHBELL's SHORTBREAD ...

She was my mother's best friend. For always and forever. She was a talented artist. She had a family. She laughed and believed in the goodness of people. She loved my mother, and my mother counted her as her best friend. My mother fondly called her "Ishbell". She knew my dad. After he was gone, she told me how "Davy" as one in a million, about his generosity and kindness. I only knew him for a short while. Ishbell made him come alive.

My mother was godmother to her daughter, Marie, who became one of my best friends, my "god sister". To this day, Marie and I share a unique bond with each other, a friendship that has lasted through thick and thin. Ishbell gave my mother her the recipe for shortbread one year. Mum made it every year, squishing the tops with silver dragees, then  filling up the glass cookie jar with the  sugar showered rounds. I used to sneak them at midnight knocking off the silver dragees into the sink, pretending  they were marbles... 

                                         

 ISHBELL's SHORTBREAD ( updated with plant butter)

1 pound plant butter (you can use butter), 1 cup brown sugar, 3 3/4 cups flour ( maybe a tad more to get the right consistency of dough) 

"Christmas is the day that holds all time together..." -Alexander Smith

Beat the softened plant butter with the brown sugar till combined like pudding.

Add the flour and combine like pastry.

My mother and Ishbell were  so good for each other. So good for us.  She spent many Christmas evenings at our house, by the fire, listening to me dutifully scraping away at carols on the violin, then playing the same ones on the piano. "Wonderful, dear," she'd say encouragingly, no matter how I sounded. 

Combine dough well, and press into an ungreased, lined, cookie sheet. I used foil, because I ran out of parchment paper. Works just as well. 

Bake at 325 for about 12 minutes, for the first half of baking.

Score the hot shortbread into rectangles, or squares. Place back into oven and bake till brown and baked through. About another 8 or 9 minutes. I just keep an eye on it and lift up a piece to see if it's baked through.

It was always exciting when Ishbell and her family came over. She told stories with my mother, sipped sherry, and munched on fruitcake and shortbread. 

Lovely, sweet lady. I can still see her,in later years, long after mum was gone, surrounded by paintings, drawings, sketches, cards, and wonder. She  was full of wonder and grace. She still called me "dear". I can still hear her soft voice saying "Wonderful, dear..". But she was the dear one, for always and ever....

       "At Christmas, all roads lead home..." -Marjorie Holmes

Photographs 2025   "Ishbell's Shortbread" For Marie.......

                                                  
                                   

          ( "Ishbell" with her daughter.)     Mum walking on Government Stret, Victoria B.C. 1940's

FRUITCAKE WEATHER....

"Snowflakes swirl down gently in the deep blue haze beyond the window. The outside world is a dream. Inside, the fireplace is brightly lit, and the Yule log with orange and crimson sparks. There's a steaming mug in your hands, warming your fingers. There's a friend seated across from you in a cozy chair, warming your heart. There is Mystery unfolding...." -Vera Nazarian

"Poetry is a fireplace in summer or a fan in winter..." -Robert Hass

"I think people who come into my home feel comfortable and welcome and loved....." -Julia Roberts

                          "I light candles every single night in my home..." -Evangeline Lily

"There was a fire in the fireplace and peace in my heart......

                                             and everything was quiet.." -Veronica Roth

"Arrives the snow ....the whited air  hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven..." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

"You're lying on the floor  ( in front of the  fire), with all the lights off and listening to the silence of the snow falling outside. For that one instance in time, everything is good..." -Francesca Zappia

"Imagine a morning in late November. A coming of winter morning more than twenty years ago. Consider the kitchen of a spreading old house in a country town. A great black stove is its main feature; but there is also a big round table and a fireplace with two rocking chairs placed in front of it. Just today the fireplace commenced its seasonal roar. A woman with shorn white hair is standing at the kitchen window. She is wearing tennis shoes and a shapeless gray sweater over a summery calico dress. She is small and sprightly, like a bantam hen; but, due to a long youthful illness, her shoulders are pitifully hunched. Her face is remarkable—not unlike Lincoln’s, craggy like that, and tinted by sun and wind; but it is delicate, too, finely boned, and her eyes are sherry-colored and timid. “Oh my,” she exclaims, her breath smoking the windowpane, “it’s fruitcake weather!" -Truman Capote ( my mother's favourite expression for  this time of year!)

"In the soft quiet of the days before Christmas , we find warmth not from a fireplace, but in the close embrace of loved ones. The true magic of the season lies in simple acts of kindness, shared laughter, and the heart's gentle whisper that the best gifts are not under the tree, but in the moments we create together..."

                                                                                                                   -Michail St. Fountoulakis

Photographs Mt. Washington Range, Campbell River, B.C.  2024