A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

I picked up a recording of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn from the Fremont Public Library and started listening to it in my car this morning.  I haven't read this book in almost 30 years, and I remember details from this book better than I remember things in the book I finished yesterday or the newspaper I read this morning.  They are odd details, like going to the store to buy a paper collar or the story of the blue baby that survives because it is born in a hospital.  I don't remember reading this book more than once, I also don't remember it as being a particular favorite but these details have stuck with me.  

It could be because I was a girl who loved the library and wanted to read through all of the books in alphabetical order.  It could be that I was Francie's age when I read the book.  It could also be that Betty Smith was very good at describing the details that make a place or shape a life.  The soup bone with scraps of meat attached to it that with some tired vegetables makes a rich and nourishing soup flecked with meat, the bowl of nasturtiums on the librarian's desk, or the immaculate linen and threadbare tuxedo jacket on Johnny Nolan.

I am not sure, but it is a bit magical while driving on the Illinois Tollway to hear something that reminds me of being 14.

Rose ATC

I finished and mailed my rose artist trading card last week.  It is now on its way to its new home in New Zealand.  I used some wool felt picked up at a quilting show, DMC color variations stranded cotton and Mill Hill beads to make my rose.  I modeled it on some of the wild roses that I have seen.

Cherries for Cherie finished

I finished a small crewel piece the other day.  Barbara Jackson of Tristan Brooks Designs taught this small piece for the Lake Michigan Sampler Guild.  I enjoyed stitching it, although it took a while to fill in the sheep with all those French knots.

Barbara finished hers as a small case that could be folded in half.  I am thinking about making mine into a small pouch instead.

Late summer means tomatoes

On the last Sunday in August, Sandhill Organics lets share holders pick their own tomatoes.  Walking the fields and picking out my own fruit reminds me of all of the weekends we spent picking fruit in the orchards and vineyards around our home in Tempe, Arizona, when I was a child.  It is also an opportunity to spend some time on the farm that provides my produce year after year.  This year, I went by myself and brought back a bushel of heirloom tomatoes and large red slicers.

In addition to fruit and vegetables, there are more animals on the farm than there have been in the past.  I spent some time watching the chickens.  It always amazes me how many different colors and types of feathers there are on the different types of domestic chickens.  I watched the pigs too.  It was a hot day and this pig looked like it was having a wonderful time trying to keep cool.

We have been eating tomato salad, home made salsa, and BLTs for the past week and a half and no one is bored.