I love where I live in New Hampshire. I have always been a “country girl” and if I can’t live in the mountains, then I’ll settle for living in the hills.
Morning in the Hills
This is one of my favorite views when I take my walks. I captured this photo in the early morning light. It always makes me think of Psalm 121 verse 1: I lift my eyes up to the hills
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord,
the maker of heaven and earth.
Early Spring
On the left, in the picture above, you’ll see the tree I call the “slingshot tree”. And in the grassy area straight ahead used to stand the little red “house” in the photo below.
One day I noticed it was gone. I have no idea what it was. Maybe just a shed. The land seems to belong to the old man who lives across the street from the field.
I had good friends in Florida, Terry and Bill, who wanted children and I know how they suffered because they just couldn’t seem to get pregnant. It is an all consuming thing and daily they were reminded of what they didn’t have, when seeing us -their friends with kids.
I dislike holidays of any kind and that includes Mother’s Day. I no longer have a mother. She began showing signs of Alzheimers at age 67 and 10 years later she died, in 2008. But that is not why I don’t like celebrating a special day that seems to label us. It’s because of the people like Terry who seem to be “left out”.
So I want to say happy Mother’s Day to every woman. Don’t let this day put a label on you as “childless” when being motherly is what it should be about.
We are born with mothering instincts and just by suffering for 9 months and then 2 days of labor, is not the only thing that makes us motherly. (I don’t even want to hear it if your labor was 15 minutes long).
I am a great “mother” to my cats who I feed and take good care of. I was a great “mother” to my old dog who lived to be 16 and became more and more of a challenge each day. I have sacrificed all my life to make other people’s lives easier – no one took care of that dog, but me. And it’s just part of us, to step in and do the things that men wouldn’t do. We make the sacrifices and have the compassion and endurance needed to make life nice for those around us. That is what makes great “mothers”.
Many men marry women who are motherly, because they want to continue all their lives to be “mothered” – loved unconditionally, catered to, and treated special. And we do it! Because the motherly way is just part of us.
My friends ended up adopting a beautiful baby girl they named “Hope”. And a few months later – Terry became pregnant !!! and they had a little boy who looks just like his dad.
If we have to celebrate another holiday, then I say….Happy Mother’s Day to ALL women.
There have been no cats in my life for so long that I had forgotten the one thing about them that is uncontrollable if they roam the outdoors.
They will catch anything smaller than them that moves.
Richie, in the picture, showed his hunting skills just after he was adopted by us by catching a mouse in my kitchen in the early morning hours. And even though he and Fontana came to live with us in the middle of winter, Richie sat at the slider each morning begging to be let free.
Once we felt that he had become accustomed to this area, we started letting him out and he immediately began catching mice and voles. We’d always know when he had something because he would bring it up to the door and meow (with the creature dangling in his jaws) and beg to come in.
Everyone who has outdoor cats know that they do this. They love to show off their prize.
We have numerous large gray squirrels and also many smaller red squirrels in my area and Richie would crouch on the porch watching them steal the birdseed. Occasionally he would make a try for one, but the snow was too deep for him to get close.
The red squirrels are quick and I told my son that he (the cat) would never be able to catch one of those.
This picture proves me wrong and I don’t know how he did it, but he had to show me.
The chipmonks are coming out of hibernation now and he has also caught a few of those. I always feel badly when he kills something, but it’s his instinct and I won’t keep him indoors because he loves being outside.
My grandfather belonged to The Grange when I was growing up in Massachusetts. Other than that, I knew very little about why there are buildings called by this name. So I thought I’d find out.
Wikipedia says that the full name of a “Grange” is the National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry. The grange hall was the meeting place for farmers and the order of the grange was an advocacy group for farmers and their needs.
Everyone was welcome to join, and even women could hold positions of importance.
The headquarters is still in Washington, D.C. even though membership is now less than it was back in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.
Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman were members of the National Grange along with Norman Rockwell. Read more about the history of the grangehere.
Antrim Grange
The Antrim Grange is a place where various meetings are held to honor community members for service and once or twice a year they have art shows there. Since the number of farmers has declined, most grange halls are used for meetings such as this now.
New England's Narrow Road 