Happy anniversary, George and Martha

Twelfth Night in Historic Camden County

















Illustration from The Granger Collection, New York


And it's always nice to have a holiday excuse to post one of Anna's recipes, this one for Twelfth Night Cake

Fruitcake weather

I know my parents for certain and probably some readers consider the more severe winter temperatures up here (-18C this afternoon, around 0 F, and with a bitter wind) "fruitcake weather". As in, suitable only for fruitcakes like us, content in the ice and snow and it's not even December yet, for Pete's sake.

But when I think of of "fruitcake weather", I think of one of our favorite wintertime, holiday books, Truman Capote's A Christmas Memory, published in 1956 with Breakfast at Tiffany's. If you can, find the children's edition, with beautiful Rackhamesque illustrations by Beth Peck and an accompanying audio CD read by Celeste Holm, who is welcome here any afternoon for a cup of tea or coffee and a plate of fruitcake. If you prefer, you can listen to Capote himself read the story. But we prefer Ado Annie. (Much as I also prefer Capote's writings the closer he sticks to home, but that's another thought for another day.)

This is how it starts,

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!"

The person to whom she is speaking is myself. I am seven; she is sixty-something. We are cousins, very distant ones, and we have lived together -- well, as long as I can remember. Other people inhabit the house, relatives; and though they have power over us, and frequently make us cry, we are not, on the whole, too much aware of them. We are each other's best friend. She calls me Buddy, in memory of a boy who was formerly her best friend. The other Buddy died in the 1880's, when she was still a child. She is still a child.

"I knew it before I got out of bed," she says, turning away from the window with a purposeful excitement in her eyes. "The courthouse bell sounded so cold and clear. And there were no birds singing; they've gone to warmer country, yes indeed. Oh, Buddy, stop stuffing biscuit and fetch our buggy. Help me find my hat. We've thirty cakes to bake."

And if you're a fruitcake fan, and perhaps especially if you're not yet convinced by the merits of fruitcake, you might want to have a look at this recipe from Gina's Gingerbread; I think I'd use dark rum rather than Grand Marnier, and the darker the chocolate the better.

Thanksbirthday celebrations under way

Yesterday we celebrated Davy's seventh birthday and Thanksgiving. He was delighted to have turkey with all the trimmings, especially cranberry sauce, for his birthday meal, and I was happy to have a leisurely day to prepare, and a leisurely dinnertime to enjoy, our harvest feast, which included all of the usual suspects along with homemade pumpkin chiffon pie and a homemade lemon meringue pie complete with seven candles.

From the top of his new cowboy hat















to his newly refurbished mukluks (collected in time for his birthday),



















Davy, or Gray Elk as he asked me to call him last night before bed, had lots of fun, spending most of yesterday outdoors. Other presents included the Shoot-a-Loop game from Laura; a toy John Deere tractor from Daniel; "Ratatouille", gift #1 from my parents (Pecos Bill, gift #2, having been held up at the border 'til later this week); a small hatchet from his other grandparents; and the much longed for (to complete the collection read endlessly at bedtime in the bunk) Blaze and the Gray Spotted Pony.

Today, after chores are done -- and they'll take a bit longer because it's supposed to be a cold week ahead, going down to -35C tonight and not too much warmer during the day tomorrow -- we're going to hunker down in our warm house that still retains the scents of yesterday's turkey and baking. We have an ample supply of delicious leftovers, the big Grey Cup football on television for Tom that doesn't bother me as long as I have something to curl up with on the couch (and I do, since Film Club finally arrived from the library), and new toys for Davy to share with his siblings.

Happy Thanksgiving from Farm School

and O. Henry:

There is one day that is ours. There is one day when all we Americans who are not self-made go back to the old home to eat saleratus biscuits and marvel how much nearer to the porch the old pump looks than it used to. Bless the day. President Roosevelt gives it to us. We hear some talk of the Puritans, but don't just remember who they were. Bet we can lick 'em, anyhow, if they try to land again. Plymouth Rocks? Well, that sounds more familiar. Lots of us have had to come down to hens since the Turkey Trust got its work in. But somebody in Washington is leaking out advance information to 'em about these Thanksgiving proclamations.

The big city east of the cranberry bogs has made Thanksgiving Day an institution. The last Thursday in November is the only day in the year on which it recognizes the part of America lying across the ferries. It is the one day that is purely American. Yes, a day of celebration, exclusively American.

And now for the story which is to prove to you that we have traditions on this side of the ocean that are becoming older at a much rapider rate than those of England are -- thanks to our git-up and enterprise.

Stuffy Pete took his seat on the third bench to the right as you enter Union Square from the east, at the walk opposite the fountain. Every Thanksgiving Day for nine years he had taken his seat there promptly at 1 o'clock. For every time he had done so things had happened to him -- Charles Dickensy things that swelled his waistcoat above his heart, and equally on the other side.

But to-day Stuffy Pete's appearance at the annual trysting place seemed to have been rather the result of habit than of the yearly hunger which, as the philanthropists seem to think, afflicts the poor at such extended intervals.

Certainly Pete was not hungry. He had just come from a feast that had left him of his powers barely those of respiration and locomotion. His eyes were like two pale gooseberries firmly imbedded in a swollen and gravy-smeared mask of putty. His breath came in short wheezes; a senatorial roll of adipose tissue denied a fashionable set to his upturned coat collar. Buttons that had been sewed upon his clothes by kind Salvation fingers a week before flew like popcorn, strewing the earth around him. Ragged he was, with a split shirt front open to the wishbone; but the November breeze, carrying fine snowflakes, brought him only a grateful coolness. For Stuffy Pete was overcharged with the caloric produced by a super-bountiful dinner, beginning with oysters and ending with plum pudding, and including (it seemed to him) all the roast turkey and baked potatoes and chicken salad and squash pie and ice cream in the world. Wherefore he sat, gorged, and gazed upon the world with after-dinner contempt.

The meal had been an unexpected one. He was passing a red brick mansion near the beginning of Fifth Avenue, in which lived two old ladies of ancient family and a reverence for traditions. They even denied the existence of New York, and believed that Thanksgiving Day was declared solely for Washington Square. One of their traditional habits was to station a servant at the postern gate with orders to admit the first hungry wayfarer that came along after the hour of noon had struck, and banquet him to a finish. Stuffy Pete happened to pass by on his way to the park, and the seneschals gathered him in and upheld the custom of the castle.

After Stuffy Pete had gazed straight before him for ten minutes he was conscious of a desire for a more varied field of vision. With a tremendous effort he moved his head slowly to the left. And then his eyes bulged out fearfully, and his breath ceased, and the rough-shod ends of his short legs wriggled and rustled on the gravel.

For the Old Gentleman was coming across Fourth Avenue toward his bench.

Every Thanksgiving Day for nine years the Old Gentleman had come there and found Stuffy Pete on his bench. That was a thing that the Old Gentleman was trying to make a tradition of. Every Thanksgiving Day for nine years he had found Stuffy there, and had led him to a restaurant and watched him eat a big dinner. They do those things in England unconsciously. But this is a young country, and nine years is not so bad. The Old Gentleman was a staunch American patriot, and considered himself a pioneer in American tradition. In order to become picturesque we must keep on doing one thing for a long time without ever letting it get away from us. Something like collecting the weekly dimes in industrial insurance. Or cleaning the streets.

The Old Gentleman moved, straight and stately, toward the Institution that he was rearing. Truly, the annual feeding of Stuffy Pete was nothing national in its character, such as the Magna Charta or jam for breakfast was in England. But it was a step. It was almost feudal. It showed, at least, that a Custom was not impossible to New Y -- ahem! -- America.

The Old Gentleman was thin and tall and sixty. He was dressed all in black, and wore the old-fashioned kind of glasses that won't stay on your nose. His hair was whiter and thinner than it had been last year, and he seemed to make more use of his big, knobby cane with the crooked handle.

As his established benefactor came up Stuffy wheezed and shuddered like some woman's over-fat pug when a street dog bristles up at him. He would have flown, but all the skill of Santos-Dumont could not have separated him from his bench. Well had the myrmidons of the two old ladies done their work.

"Good morning," said the Old Gentleman. "I am glad to perceive that the vicissitudes of another year have spared you to move in health about the beautiful world. For that blessing alone this day of thanksgiving is well proclaimed to each of us. If you will come with me, my man, I will provide you with a dinner that should make your physical being accord with the mental."

That is what the old Gentleman said every time. Every Thanksgiving Day for nine years. The words themselves almost formed an Institution. Nothing could be compared with them except the Declaration of Independence. Always before they had been music in Stuffy's ears. But now he looked up at the Old Gentleman's face with tearful agony in his own. The fine snow almost sizzled when it fell upon his perspiring brow. But the Old Gentleman shivered a little and turned his back to the wind.

Stuffy had always wondered why the Old Gentleman spoke his speech rather sadly. He did not know that it was because he was wishing every time that he had a son to succeed him. A son who would come there after he was gone -- a son who would stand proud and strong before some subsequent Stuffy, and say: "In memory of my father." Then it would be an Institution.

But the Old Gentleman had no relatives. He lived in rented rooms in one of the decayed old family brownstone mansions in one of the quiet streets east of the park. In the winter he raised fuchsias in a little conservatory the size of a steamer trunk. In the spring he walked in the Easter parade. In the summer he lived at a farmhouse in the New Jersey hills, and sat in a wicker armchair, speaking of a butterfly, the ornithoptera amphrisius, that he hoped to find some day. In the autumn he fed Stuffy a dinner. These were the Old Gentleman's occupations.

Stuffy Pete looked up at him for a half minute, stewing and helpless in his own self-pity. The Old Gentleman's eyes were bright with the giving-pleasure. His face was getting more lined each year, but his little black necktie was in as jaunty a bow as ever, and the linen was beautiful and white, and his gray mustache was curled carefully at the ends. And then Stuffy made a noise that sounded like peas bubbling in a pot. Speech was intended; and as the Old Gentleman had heard the sounds nine times before, he rightly construed them into Stuffy's old formula of acceptance.

"Thankee, sir. I'll go with ye, and much obliged. I'm very hungry, sir."

The coma of repletion had not prevented from entering Stuffy's mind the conviction that he was the basis of an Institution. His Thanksgiving appetite was not his own; it belonged by all the sacred rights of established custom, if not, by the actual Statute of Limitations, to this kind old gentleman who bad preempted it. True, America is free; but in order to establish tradition some one must be a repetend -- a repeating decimal. The heroes are not all heroes of steel and gold. See one here that wielded only weapons of iron, badly silvered, and tin.

The Old Gentleman led his annual protégé southward to the restaurant, and to the table where the feast had always occurred. They were recognized.

"Here comes de old guy," said a waiter, "dat blows dat same bum to a meal every Thanksgiving."

The Old Gentleman sat across the table glowing like a smoked pearl at his corner-stone of future ancient Tradition. The waiters heaped the table with holiday food -- and Stuffy, with a sigh that was mistaken for hunger's expression, raised knife and fork and carved for himself a crown of imperishable bay.

No more valiant hero ever fought his way through the ranks of an enemy. Turkey, chops, soups, vegetables, pies, disappeared before him as fast as they could be served. Gorged nearly to the uttermost when he entered the restaurant, the smell of food had almost caused him to lose his honor as a gentleman, but he rallied like a true knight. He saw the look of beneficent happiness on the Old Gentleman's face -- a happier look than even the fuchsias and the ornithoptera amphrisius had ever brought to it -- and he had not the heart to see it wane.

In an hour Stuffy leaned back with a battle won. "Thankee kindly, sir," he puffed like a leaky steam pipe; "thankee kindly for a hearty meal." Then he arose heavily with glazed eyes and started toward the kitchen. A waiter turned him about like a top, and pointed him toward the door. The Old Gentleman carefully counted out $1.30 in silver change, leaving three nickels for the waiter.

They parted as they did each year at the door, the Old Gentleman going south, Stuffy north.

Around the first corner Stuffy turned, and stood for one minute. Then he seemed to puff out his rags as an owl puffs out his feathers, and fell to the sidewalk like a sunstricken horse.

When the ambulance came the young surgeon and the driver cursed softly at his weight. There was no smell of whiskey to justify a transfer to the patrol wagon, so Stuffy and his two dinners went to the hospital. There they stretched him on a bed and began to test him for strange diseases, with the hope of getting a chance at some problem with the bare steel.

And lo! an hour later another ambulance brought the Old Gentleman. And they laid him on another bed and spoke of appendicitis, for he looked good for the bill.

But pretty soon one of the young doctors met one of the young nurses whose eyes he liked, and stopped to chat with her about the cases.

"That nice old gentleman over there, now," he said, "you wouldn't think that was a case of almost starvation. Proud old family, I guess. He told me he hadn't eaten a thing for three days."

from "Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen" by O. Henry (pen name of William Sydney Porter, 1862-1910)

Semicolon's November Recipe Round Up

Sherry at Semicolon has put out a call for a Recipe Round Up she'll be hosting later this month, on Wednesday the 14th. As Sherry explains,

The November Recipe Round-up count down begins here and now! The category is Holiday Recipes, and I’m specifically looking for those special Thanksgiving and Christmas and Hannukah recipes that make your family’s celebration a little richer and those that get you all into the holiday spirit.

The date of the Round-up is Wednesday, November 14. Just post your recipe on your blog and then add the address URL of your post to the Mr. Linky below. Old posted recipes are welcome, too, as long as they fit the category. Please link back to this post so that others can know about the round-up and add their holiday favorites. Also, feel free to add links to recipes posted on other people’s blogs as well as your own. If you have a good recipe that fits the category of holiday recipes, but you don’t have a blog, email it to me or leave it in the comment of this post and I’ll post it right here for you on the day of the round up.

Look for the complete collection of holiday recipes to be posted here by 10 PM on the 14th.

As Sherry writes, Mr. Linky is already set up, so you have no excuses not to start thumbing through your favorite family recipes. Thanks, Sherry!

UPDATED to add: I read the fine blue print at the bottom of Sherry's post and learned that this month's Holiday Recipe Round Up is in fact part of the established Recipe Round Up; you can read all about it at the Recipe Round Up Information Page at Rebecca Writes. And just so you know, next month -- that would be December already -- Rebecca will be hosting a Recipe Round Up featuring "cookies and such-like". Mmmmm....

Happy Halloween!

We're heading into town -- kids in costume, of course -- after lunch for music lessons and errands (it seems I have several parcels, with any luck Cybils-related, to collect). And once all the music lessons are done, we're meeting friends for a quick non-sugary supper before the kids head out for trick or treating. I'm holding my breath because the forecast for today, including this evening, is unseasonably warm; daytime highs of around 40-50 degrees Fahrenheit, and not below freezing in the evening. Though the kids eagerly agreed with my suggestion to wear longjohns "just in case".

Now all I have to do is to keep my fingers crossed for more M&Ms than Smarties in the treat bags....

* * * *


Halloween
by Molly Capes

Bolt and bar the front door,
Draw the curtains tight,
Wise folk are in before
Moonrise tonight.

Halloween, Halloween,
Chestnuts to roast,
A gift for the fairy,
A prayer for the ghost.

Who will have their fate told
This night is known,
Whose hand is full of gold,
Who goes alone.

Halloween, Halloween,
Snapdragon blue,
A lover for me
And a fortune for you.

Stars shiver blue and green,
Moon's wide and white;
There tattered clouds between
Witches take flight.

Halloween, Halloween,
Apples a-bob,
Elves at the keyhole
And imps on the hob.

"Twelve" calls the deep bell
To the hollow night;
"Twelve" whisper steeple tops
Far out of sight.

Halloween, Halloween,
Fires burn high,
Who shall say certainly,
Who can tell truthfully
What solemn company
Pass through the sky?

From Ghosts and Goblins: Stories for Halloween, compiled by Wilhelmina Harper and illustrated by William Wiesner, originally published in 1936 with a revised edition in 1965 (and now unfortunately out of print). The acknowledgments page credits The London Evening Standard for the above poem, which would have been writtten prior to 1936.

Poetry Friday: Poems for the First and Fourth

A Happy Canada Day and Happy Independence Day to all, with some poems to mark the occasions.

Rivers of Canada
by Bliss Carman (1861-1929)

O all the little rivers that run to Hudson's Bay,
They call me and call me to follow them away.

Missinaibi, Abitibi, Little Current--where they run
Dancing and sparkling I see them in the sun.

I hear the brawling rapid, the thunder of the fall,
And when I think upon them I cannot stay at all.

At the far end of the carry, where the wilderness begins,
Set me down with my canoe-load -- and forgiveness of my sins.

O all the mighty rivers beneath the Polar Star,
They call me and call me to follow them afar.

Peace and Athabasca and Coppermine and Slave,
And Yukon and Mackenzie--the highroads of the brave.

Saskatchewan, Assiniboine, the Bow and the Qu'Appelle,
And many a prairie river whose name is like a spell.

They rumor through the twilight at the edge of the unknown,
"There's a message waiting for you, and a kingdom all your own.

"The wilderness shall feed you, her gleam shall be your guide.
Come out from desolations, our path of hope is wide."

O all the headlong rivers that hurry to the West,
They call me and lure me with the joy of their unrest.

Columbia and Fraser and Bear and Kootenay,
I love their fearless reaches where winds untarnished play--

The rush of glacial water across the pebbly bar
To polished pools of azure where the hidden boulders are.

Just there, with heaven smiling, any morning I would be,
Where all the silver rivers go racing to the sea.

O well remembered rivers that sing of long ago,
Ajourneying through summer or dreaming under snow.

Among their meadow islands through placid days they glide,
And where the peaceful orchards are diked against the tide.

Tobique and Madawaska and shining Gaspereaux,
St. Croix and Nashwaak and St. John whose haunts I used to know.

And all the pleasant rivers that seek the Fundy foam,
They call me and call me to follow them home.

Carman, Canada's unofficial poet laureate and a cousin of Canadian poet Charles G.D. Roberts, wrote this c1925.

And, for the Fourth:

I Am an American
by Elias Lieberman

I am an American
father belongs to the Sons of the Revolution;
My mother, to the Colonial Dames.
One of my ancestors pitched tea overboard in Boston Harbor;
Another stood his ground with Warren;
Another hungered with Washington at Valley Forge.
My forefathers were America in the making:
They spoke in her council halls;
They died on her battlefields;
They commanded her ships;
They cleared her forests.
Dawns reddened and paled.
Staunch hearts of mine beat fast at each new star
In the nation's flag.
Keen eyes of mine foresaw her greater glory:
The sweep of her seas,
The plenty of her plains,
The man-hives in her billion-wired cities.
Every drop of blood in me holds a heritage of patriotism.
I am proud of my past.
I am an American.

I am an American.
My father was an atom of dust,
My mother a straw in the wind,
To his serene majesty.
One of my ancestors died in the mines of Siberia;
Another was crippled for life by twenty blows of the knout;
Another was killed defending his home during the massacres.
The history of my ancestors is a trail of blood
To the palace gate of the Great White Czar.
But then the dream came
The dream of America.
In the light of the Liberty torch
The atom of dust became a man
And the straw in the wind became a woman
For the first time.
"See," said my father, pointing to the flag that fluttered near,
"That flag of stars and stripes is yours;
It is the emblem of the promised land,
It means, my son, the hope of humanity.
Live for it die for it!"
Under the open sky of my new country I swore to do so;
And every drop of blood in me will keep that vow.
I am proud of my future.

I am an American.

Elias Lieberman, an educator and poet, was born in Russia in 1883 and arrived in the U.S. at the age of seven. He and his family settled in New York City, and Lieberman graduated from City College. He worked as a teacher, at PS 62 and Bushwick High School, later becoming principal of Thomas Jefferson High School. In 1940, he was appointed Associate Superintendent of Schools, a post he held until his retirement 13 years later.

Lieberman served as an editor of the American humor magazine Puck in 1916 and was literary editor of The American Hebrew journal from 1916 to 1932. "I Am an American" is perhaps his best known work.

The round-up is over at Shaken & Stirred today. Thank you, Gwenda. Grab a glass and a swizzle stick, and enjoy a weekend a poetry, fireworks, and freedom.

Oh, and just a reminder: I do believe in either a weak moment or a brief flicker of responsibility I offered to host Poetry Friday here at Farm School next week, July 6th. So if you sometimes read this blog but haven't participated in Poetry Friday yet, I hope you'll think about sharing a favorite poem -- yours or your family's -- or even a poem you'd like to learn more about or share with your kids. Put your thinking caps on.

St. Patrick's Day: One thing leads to another, and the mist that do be on the bog

Last year's more conventional entry

This year's less conventional one, from 'Tis by Frank McCourt, which I'm rereading while awaiting the arrival via ILL of his Teacher Man:

I walk through Woodside to the library to borrow a book I looked at the last time I was there, Sean O'Casey's I Knock at the Door. It's a book about growing up poor in Dublin and I never knew you could write about things like that. It was all right for Charles Dickens to write about poor people in London but his books always end with characters discovering they're the long-lost sons of the Duke of Somerset and everyone lives happily ever after.

There is no happily ever after in Sean O'Casey. His eyes are worse than mine, so ad he can barely go to school. Still he manages to read, teaches himself to write, teaches himself Irish, writes plays for the Abbey Theatre, meets Lady Gregory and the poet Yeats, but has to leave Ireland when everyone turns against him. He would never sit in a class and let someone mock him over Jonathan Swift. He'd fight back and then walk out even if he walked into the wall with his bad eyes. He's the first Irish writer I ever read who writes about rags, dirt, hunger, babies dying. The other writers go on about farms and fairies and the mist that do be on the bog and it's a relief to discover one with bad eyes and a suffering mother.

What I'm discovering now is that one thing leads to another. When Sean O'Casey writes about Lady Gregory or Yeats I have to look them up in the Encyclopedia Britannica and that keeps me busy till the librarian starts turning the light on and off. I don't know how I could have reached the age of nineteen in Limerick ignorant of all that went on in Dublin before my time. I have to go to the Encyclopedia Britannica to learn how famous the Irish writers were, Yeats, Lady Gregory, AE and John Millington Synge who wrote plays where the people talk in a way I never heard in Limerick or anywhere else.

Here I am in a library in Queens discovering Irish literature, wondering why the schoolmaster never told us about these writers till I discover they were all Protestants, even Sean O'Casey whose father came from Limerick. No one in Limerick would want to give Protestants credit for being great Irish writers.

Happy New Year [aka the Cybils shortlists are here!]

So happy new year, happy sledding, and happy reading ahead!

We're off sledding today with friends from out of town, so in the meantime I'll point you toward the Cybils website, where the five finalists for each of the children's literature categories are being posted today. First up -- Poetry!

It was a pleasure and an honor, not to mention a lot of hair-tearing hard work, to serve on the poetry nominating panel alongside Bruce, eisha, Elaine, and Sylvia, and under the able stewardship of Susan. And we had nowhere near the number of books to consider that some of the other panelists did. I'd also like to thank my three guinea pigs in the target demographic, who devoured about as many poems as candy canes in the past month. A special thanks to Anne Boles Levy and Kelly Herold for coming up with the idea of the Cybils and organizing everything.

I'll have to figure out what we can and can't post about our choices and negotiations, and write up a post or two on the consideration process, which I believe another blogger (I don't think on the poetry panel) compared to "sweating blood".

Another bonus of the Cybils: just before Christmas, the guinea pigs and I delivered a box of chocolates and some of the lovely hardcover children's poetry books of 2006 to a surprised and delighted librarian.

Poetry Friday: Christmas Magic

When Laura was a wee babe, I discovered at our Goodwill shop the charming Random House Pictureback holiday anthology, Diane Goode's Christmas Magic: Poems and Carols. It was published in 1992 and is probably out of print but worth tracking down, especially because Diane Goode is the Diane Goode who did such a marvelous job of illustrating When I Was Young in the Mountains by Cynthia Rylant, and other delicacies. Ms. Goode also has excellent taste in children's Christmas poetry. Both of these poems can be found in Magic:

In the Week When Christmas Comes
by Eleanor Farjeon

This is the week when Christmas comes.

Let every pudding burst with plums,
And every tree bear dolls and drums,
In the week when Christmas comes.

Let every hall have boughs of green,
With berries glowing in between,
In the week when Christmas comes.

Let every doorstep have a song
Sounding the dark street along,
In the week when Christmas comes.

Let every steeple ring a bell
With a joyful tale to tell,
In the week when Christmas comes.

Let every night put forth a star
To show us where the heavens are,
In the week when Christmas comes.

Let every stable have a lamb,
Sleeping warm beside its dam,
In the week when Christmas comes.

This is the week when Christmas comes.


Under the Mistletoe
by Countee Cullen

I did not know she'd take it so,
Or else I'd never dared:
Although the bliss was worth the blow,
I did not know she'd take it so.
She stood beneath the mistletoe
So long I thought she cared;
I did not know she'd take it so,
Or else I'd never dared.

Merry Christmas to all from Farm School!

***

Liz B. at A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy has some holiday lyrics and the Christmas weekend round-up. Thanks, Liz, and have yourself a Merry Little Christmas, too!

Solstice

Our resident snowy owl flew overhead this morning not once but twice as we did chores, a sign, the kid and I thought, of the day's importance. We celebrated by helping pack food hampers and toy bags at the local Santa's Anonymous effort, and now the kids are stringing up some extra outdoor lights they found in one of our outbuildings. If it doesn't move, it has lights on it now.

Winter weather has been here for a couple of months already regardless of what the calendar says, but today is special because the daylight hours begin to lengthen, an event worthy of great merrymaking and celebration for those of us northerly types who spend a fair amount of time outdoors. Today, for example, the sun rose just before 9 am and set just after 4 pm.

I like this time of the season, when winter isn't a new flirtation, thrilling and exciting, but an old steady, cozy and comfortable. I'm used to putting on the extra layers, to driving on the ice and snow, and that first day of the first as unpleasant as it is unexpected chill is just a a memory. And winters with snow, unlike last winter when the first snow came just before spring, are an extra delight; I was reminded today by a radio commentator that this time last Christmas the temperature was around 15C/60F, thoroughly unChristmassy.

I posted this last year for the shortest day, and I'm posting it again, because the lyrics remains my favorite bit of solstice song and poetry:

Ring Out, Solstice Bells
by Jethro Tull

Now is the solstice of the year,
winter is the glad song that you hear.
Seven maids move in seven time.
Have the lads up ready in a line.

Ring out these bells.
Ring out, ring solstice bells.
Ring solstice bells.

Join together beneath the mistletoe.
by the holy oak whereon it grows.
Seven druids dance in seven time.
Sing the song the bells call, loudly chiming.

Ring out these bells.
Ring out, ring solstice bells.
Ring solstice bells.

Praise be to the distant sister sun,
joyful as the silver planets run.
Seven maids move in seven time.
Sing the song the bells call, loudly chiming.
Ring out those bells.
Ring out, ring solstice bells.
Ring solstice bells.
Ring on, ring out.
Ring on, ring out.

Added later: Somehow forgot to mention that another one of our traditions on the first winter night is to read Happy Winter, written and illustrated by Karen Gundersheimer, which really, really should not be out of print (and would you believe our library discarded its copy several years ago, though their loss is our gain). A sweet winter story accompanied by charming illustrations and a crackerjack chocolate cake recipe (favored by Laurie Colwin, blessedly still in print, no less). And it closes with Mama's winter lullaby:

Hush and quiet, close your eyes,
The moon's a night-light for the sky,
Where sprinkled stars are twingling high
And far below, the deep drifts lie
'Til Northwind spins and flurries fly.
A snowy blanket's tucked in tight
And so are you, and now good night.
A happy winter day is done.
Now close your eyes and dreams will come.

I triple-dog dare you

Just in time for Christmas, the cockles of my heart are warmed to learn that one of my favorite holiday movies has come to life:

Switch on your leg lamp and warm up the Ovaltine. The Christmas Story House and Museum will be ready for visitors starting Saturday.

Imagine being inside Ralphie Parker's 1940s home on Christmas Day. Stand on the staircase where Ralphie modeled his hated bunny suit. See the table where Ralphie's dad wanted to display his tacky leg lamp. Gaze out a back window at the shed where Black Bart hid out. ...

This past weekend saw the grand opening of The Christmas Story House. The house, used primarily for exterior shots in the 1983 filming, was renovated to look just like Ralphie's home in the movie by owner Brian Jones, a lifelong Christmas Story fan.

At the museum gift shop, you can buy a chocolate BB rifle or a replica leg lamp from Red Rider Leg Lamps, started by Jones in 2003. And, I hope, Jean Shepherd's In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash. Ho ho ho!

New and noteworthy, for holiday giving and receiving, for children of all ages

And in no particular order:

Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow by Joyce Sidman, illustrated by Beth Krommes

The Barefoot Book of Classic Poems, compiled and illustrated by Jackie Morris

D'Aulaires' Book of Trolls by Ingri and Edgar D'Aulaire, recently reprinted by New York Review of Books Children's Collection

Exploratopia: More Than 400 Kid-Friendly Experiments and Explorations for Curious Minds by Pat Murphy, Ellen Macaulay, and the staff of San Francisco's Exploratorium

Alistair Cooke's American Home Front: 1941-1942

The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within by Stephen Fry

Sheetrock and Shellac: A Thinking Person's Guide to the Art and Science of Home Improvement by David Owen

Home Schooling by Carol Windley, which did not win the Giller Prize this year

Through the Children's Gate: A Home in New York by Adam Gopnik; pair it with his previous Paris to the Moon

Climbing the Mango Trees: A Memoir of a Childhood in India by Madhur Jaffrey; two thumbs up from my mother, to whom I sent it for her birthday recently; good though not too new companion books would be the gorgeous Mangoes & Curry Leaves: Culinary Travels Through the Great Subcontinent by Alford & Duguid, and Jaffrey's own classic Invitation to Indian Cooking

Boo!

We started the morning with the usual round pumpkin-shaped pancakes, gussied up with orange paste food coloring, triangular cutouts for eyes and noses, and pumpkin sprinkles for mouths. And orange milk, of course. Then, on the way to do chores, the annual Halloween morning tradition of posting the "No Hunting" signs, since deer and moose hunting season begins tomorrow.

The kids are doing their schoolwork in costume this morning, so I have Harpo Marx, Fred Astaire, and Ginger Rogers around the kitchen table. After lunch it's off to town, in costume, for errands, music lessons, and then, finally finally finally the grand Halloween dinner and party at the spooky and horrorful house of friends, who've been pickling eyeballs and cultivating cobwebs for at least a week now in preparation .

Since you can't have a spooky and horrorful house without a jack o'lantern or two...

Mr. Macklin's Jack O'Lantern
by David McCord (1897-1997)

Mr. Macklin takes his knife
And carves the yellow pumpkin face:
Three holes bring eyes and nose to life,
The mouth has thirteen teeth in place.

Then Mr. Macklin just for fun
Transfers the corn-cob pipe from his
Wry mouth to Jack's, and everyone
Dies laughing! O what fun it is

Till Mr. Macklin draws the shade
And lights the candle in Jack's skull.
Then all the inside dark is made
As spooky and as horrorful

As Halloween, and creepy crawl
The shadows on the tool-house floor,
With Jack's face dancing on the wall.
O Mr. Macklin! where's the door?


Happy Halloween to all!

Poetry Friday: Halloween edition

A couple of spooky oldies but goodies, both from the Oxford Book of Poetry for Children, compiled by Edward Blishen and illustrated by Brian Wildsmith, 1963 (the library ditched this one at a discard sale a few years ago, and their loss is our definite gain):

Witches' Charm
by Ben Jonson

The owl is abroad, the bat and the toad,
And so is the cat-a-mountain;
The ant and the mole both sit in a hole,
And frog peeps out o' the fountain.
The dogs they do bay, and the timbrels play,
The spindle is now a-turning;
The moon it is red, and the stars are fled,
But all the sky is a-burning:
The ditch is made, and our nails the spade:
With pictures full, of wax and wood,
The livers I stick with needles quick;
There lacks but the blood to make up the flood.
quickly, dame, then bring your part in!
Spur, spur, upon little Martin!
Merrily, merrily, make him sail,
A worm in his mouth and a thorn in's tail,
Fire above, and fire below,
With a whip i' your hand to make him go!

The Hag
by Robert Herrick (1591-1614), a member of the Sons of Ben, followers and admirers of Ben Jonson

The Hag is astride,
This night for to ride;
The Devil and she together;
Through thick and through thin,
Now out and then in,
Though ne'er so foul be the weather.

A thorn or a burr
She takes for a spur,
Witha lash of a bramble she rides now;
Through brakes and through briars,
O'er ditches and mires,
She follows the Spirit that guides now.

No beast, for his food
Dares now range the wood,
But hushed in his lair he lies lurking;
While mischiefs, by these,
On land and on seas,
At noon of night are a-working.

The storm will arise
And trouble the skies;
This night, and more for the wonder,
The ghost from the tomb
Affrighted shall come,
Called out by the clap of thunder.

And for something new don't miss Gregory K.'s Halloween Poem at GottaBook!

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Costume Update: Daniel is still committed to Harpo Marx, thank goodness. Laura, however, has bounced from Shirley Temple to a scarecrow, and after watching a Fred Astaire movie last night, she and Davy (formerly the jester) have decided on Fred and Ginger. I'm not holding my breath, but then I'm not helping with costumes any more either. Less than a week out, they're all on their own!

*****

Liz B. at A Chair, A Fireplace and a Tea Cozy has the day's offerings, along with a review of The Poet Slave of Cuba: A Biography of Juan Francisco Manzano by Margarita Engle. Thanks, Liz!

Two down, one to go

Halloween planning is in full swing around here, and two out of three kids have their costumes decided upon, which means they haven't changed their minds for whopping three days in a row: Harpo Marx (Daniel), and a jester (Davy). Daniel put his outfit together with a $2 yellow clown wig and a $1.50 plastic top hat, both from the drugstore,and one of his father's jackets, and if I'm feeling generous I just might spring for a bicycle horn from the hardware store. Davy's costume, complete with hat, was discovered at the Goodwill shop for $10, and is lovely. Just needs some more jingle bells around the collar, wrists, and ankles. Laura is considering Little Red Riding Hood, but the jury's still out.

We have two pumpkins in the house, both on the small side, and will probably pick up something bigger and carveable next week. Along with a stash of candy corn and tiny Hershey bars, since we're foregoing trick-or-treating for the first time ever in favor of a party at our friends' soon-to-be very spooky house.

I had no idea that you could find noncarveable Lego pumpkins, which are rather cute.

Poetry Friday: Vegetables

This is the poem Davy is memorizing right now, and might recite at the homeschool declamation day later this month. I'll post Laura's and Daniel's selections on other Fridays.

The kids and I dug up our potatoes, all 100+ hills, on Wednesday; white ones, red ones, and a special pink-skinned Ukrainian variety for which my mother-in-law had seed potatoes. Earlier in the week, there was a frost one night cool enough to wilt all of the remaining tomatoes and tomato plants, so all that's left in the garden are some carrots and a few beets. The petunias and gazanias in the container boxes are still hanging on, though.

A happy Thanksgiving to all the Canadians!

Vegetables
by Eleanor Farjeon (1881-1965)

The country vegetables scorn
To lie about in shops,
They stand upright as they were born
In neatly-patterned crops;

And when you want your dinner you
Don't buy it from a shelf,
You find a lettuce fresh with dew
And pull it for yourself;

You pick an apronful of peas
And shell them on the spot.
You cut a cabbage, if you please,
To pop into the pot.

The folk who their potatoes buy
From sacks before they sup,
Miss half of the potato's joy,
And that's to dig it up.

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The Poetry Friday round-up is over at Kelly's Big A little a this week. Thanks, Kelly, and happy belated Friday to you, too!

And I don't think Karen at lightingthefire's perfect autumn quote and Blade of Grass poem made it into the official list so I'm adding them here.

The Magnifying Glass
by Walter de la Mare

With this round glass
I can make Magic talk --
A myriad shells show
In a scrap of chalk;

Of but an inch of moss
A forest -- flowers and trees;
A drop of water
Like hive of bees.

I lie in wait and watch
How the deft spider jets
The woven web-silk
From his spinnerets;

The tigerish claws he has!
And oh! the silly flies
The stumble into his net --
With all those eyes!

Not even the tiniest thing
But this my glass
Will make more marvellous
And itself surpass.

Yes, and with lenses like it,
Eyeing the moon,
'Twould seem you'd walk there
In an afternoon!

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Liz at A Chair, A Fireplace and A Tea Cozy has the week's Poetry Friday round-up, including news about the naming of Jack Prelutsky as the new Children's Poet Laureate, a choice I just can't get too worked up about...

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We've been very busy this past month, a different kind of busy than the usual farm and garden busy that kept us so busy at home over the summer. This busy needs us in town more often and has us relying on meetings and other people. I don't dislike it, but it takes some getting used to. Plus the kids are on a roll with school, and Davy has cracked the reading code, which is thrilling. It's been a round of music and art lessons resumed (new voice lessons for Laura, adding Daniel to art), the semiannual homeschool facilitator meeting to check our progress ("There's learning going on in this house!" he smiled at me), the start-up of homeschool gym days and homeschool support group meetings, and an organizational meeting for a new 4H baking club, so it looks as if Laura might be in two 4H clubs (the other meeting for the beef club is next week). And the calendar for the rest of the year is starting to fill up -- Christmas music recitals, the possibility of a Halloween party at a friend's house instead of the usual trick-or-treating, homeschool poetry recital, and more. Oh, and Canadian Thanksgiving is much too close (next weekend). I'll try to get back here with some more posts, updates, and links, in which I'm sorely behind...

Poetry Friday: Labo(u)r Day edition

Whither? (To a Young Girl)
by Morris Rosenfeld (1862-1923)

Say whither, whither, pretty one?
The hour is young at present!
How hushed is all the world around!
Ere dawn -- the streets hold not a sound.
O whither, whither do you run?
Sleep at this hour is pleasant.
The flowers are dreaming, dewy-wet;
The bird-nests they are silent yet.
Where to, before the rising sun
The world her light is giving?

"To earn a living."

O whither, whither, pretty child,
So late at night a-strolling?
Alone -- with darkness round you curled?
All rests! -- and sleeping is the world.
Where drives you now the wind so wild?
The midnight bells are tolling!
Day hath not warmed you with her light;
What aid can'st hope then from the night?
Night's deaf and blind! -- Oh whither, child,
Light-minded fancies weaving?

"To earn a living."

from Songs of Labor and Other Poems by Morris Rosenfeld, translated from Yiddish by Rose Pastor Stokes and Helena Frank

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On a related note, here's an interesting Essay about Triangle Fire Poetry by Janet Zandy, on the website of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. More on the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911. (psst... A shirtwaist is "A woman's blouse or bodice styled like a tailored shirt".)

More on the history of Labor Day and Labour Day. Not surprisingly, Canada claims that American carpenter Peter McGuire, credited with the establishment of Labor Day, borrowed the idea from an 1872 Toronto workingman's demonstration. Then again, there are those who credit American machinist Matthew Maguire, though his inspiration is less clear.

Autumn is a-cumin' in

Saturday evening we headed for town to help celebrate our little town on the prairie's 100th birthday. Not a great age compared to many, even in eastern Canada, but quite an achievement and a thrill for the kids especially to be a part of the occasion. There was a big dance followed by fireworks, then more dancing, and oodles of food throughout. And a chance to remember the pioneers who started it all with their hard work, and those who carry on. To whom we all say a well-deserved thank you.

Speaking of thank yous, Tom arrived home on Friday with a case of very, very ripe peaches. I've come to be very wary of this sort of gift when I'm least prepared and usually up to my armpits in some other garden preserving activity, and I've told Tom in previous years on various occasions that yes, dear, I will buy and can cases of peaches and pears -- Davy calls them "hot sugared fruit" -- but on my own schedule, dear, since that I had planned to deal this weekend with the last of the green beans, rhubarb, and a few other housekeeping projects. The peaches were well on the way to beyond ripe, so I had to do something fast. And quick and easy, to, which meant one cobbler, one pie, and peeling, chunking, and sugaring the rest for pie filling.

The leaves on the Virginia creeper have turned bright red already, harvest is in full gear in the fields around us, geese are honking and ducks gather on the dugouts and sloughs and the hunters from the U.S. are starting to circle too, our neighbor's famous end-of-summer "corn supper" is next week, and though it's still unusually warm for this time of year (we watched the fireworks at 10:30 pm in light shirts), the light definitely looks like autumn. I'll miss the carefree summer weather and schedule, my garden especially -- I'm enjoying great big blowzy bouquets right now, zinnias, cosmos, hollyhocks, cornflowers -- but there's something exciting about the change in seasons, especially this next season. Autumn usually means a withering and a decline, but as someone who always loved school (Tom and I decided to homeschool Laura in part because we wanted her to love school and learning as much as we had), this time of year to me signifies not only an ending but also a beginning, marked by kraft-paper covered books, new knee socks and art supplies, the excitement of new friends and activities. Now that the days are dramatically shorter -- it's getting dark before nine now -- even the kids are starting to show a bit of curiosity and interest in our new schedule, not as freeform and out-of-doors as it's been. Where and when will the 4H meetings be held? What will the new piano and voice teachers be like? What new books will be using? It's all part of the new adventure!