HIGH BUTTON SHOE

August 1, 2005

Good morning! What a beautiful morning here in northern Michigan. Already quite warm, but not that drated beasty hot we have suffered, like most of you, I suspect, for the past several weeks. After Ronnie left this morning, I had my coffee on the front porch as I generally do, and watched the birds have breakfast. While the herb/ pumpkin & sunflowers garden was still bathed in shade, I went and weeded for a while. I love this garden so much, I don't even mind weeding it. Odd what a little effort puts into a garden. Or more to the point, a LOT of effort. That is not my usual method of gardening. Always gung-ho in late spring, I lose focus and enthusiasm for it very soon and my garden always ends up being just a tangle of weeds and dead plants. I always think, well next year! However, the next garden ends up looking like all the rest of the previous years. NOT this year. I took lots of pictures of it, so when the winter snow has covered it up with layers of cold white, I will still be able to enjoy how nice it is now.

The pale lumina pumpkins are coming right along, and the big sunflowers wave in the breeze on long stems. The tomato plants are beginning to show fruit to harvest, but not nearly fast enough for the old farmer who resides here, who eats them as fast as they ripen. He sits on the porch with a salt shaker and eats them. One of the joys of summer. Last night we planted some starter pots of sweet peas on the hillside overlooking the garden. We already have some plants there, but eventually I would like to see that whole hillside in full color of summer sweet peas. Again, it just takes effort to do it. The farmer is better at this than me.

With this slight cooling we have experienced for the past week, I have found some energy again and have been busy creating fall things. I will give you a link later in the letter. What I SHOULD be doing is cleaning house! My resolve of January to clean at least one thing each day that normally would not be a routine cleaning chore is a distant memory. Since May, I have found it difficult, it seems, to even get the dishes done. I am the resident dish washer, and a very poor one at that. Can't remember the last time I waxed the kitchen floor. And it has been way too hot to run the vacuum cleaner. I did it this past week in the coolness of the 70 degrees verses the 90's, and was not surprised when the clear cylinder on the front of it (no bag) showed so much dirt. I surely don't know what I am doing with my days. They seem very full, but house cleaning apparently isn't one of the time consuming things. With the rains we have been getting once a week or so, the grass has changed from brittle dead brown back to green. So I mow grass a lot. One of my favorite things to do. And I still spend too much time on that porch!

My junking trip with BrunieMae (www.saltboxfarm.com) has been put on hold. Maybe even until next year. Drats! For those of you who can go, the yard sale is at www.greenoakantiques.com this Sunday! What a fun day when we did this last year.

However,BrunieMae is running away with some other friends to Ohio in mid August. I surely do NOT know how she will ever get there without my driving skills (??) And here I had been practicing running my luggage with the wheels around the back yard, making turns and everything, learning how to keep the wheels on the ground, verses in the air, which it seems is my preferred method of pulling. That tends to give your luggage a "seasoned" traveler look! Bruns and SadieRose (Robbi) of the Old Granary are meeting up with the famed Miss Permelia (http://www.thecinnamonstick.com) of the Cinnamon Stick in Penn. for a fun few days in southern Ohio. I can't make the trip with them, and I am salivating at the mouth, to meet THE Miss Permelia, who in the past year or so, has convinced me we must be long lost sisters, or at least kindred souls who were fated to find each other. This woman is pure joy. Perhaps because we are all in the same business as one another, we attract to each other, but we all enjoy each other so much. I am very blessed to have such great friends!

We got a new cell phone yesterday. I know! What were we thinking?? You know of course, they have to be programmed. Doesn't everything now? Thinking perhaps we would have to rely on our kids once again to bail us out for the drated 'programming' ordeal, we instead tried it ourselves first.

Once again, glasses over contact lens, sweating palms, focused stare at the manual, the two of us (which leaves the duo one person short to begin with, as this is NOT what I do best!) and rather than finding myself on the phone with a person who does NOT speak English as a first language (AND probably isn't even IN this country) to guide us thru the process, we opted to activate the service on the computer instead. Probably was a wise move on our part, as it gave us time to find what they were asking for, and to calm our nerves which were jittery as best. Probably the worst part was selecting the ringer sound. Remembering back to my brother and me last fall on a difficult day after his wife had died, his kids kept trying to reach us in town on the phone they gave us, but it didn't ring, it played music. We heard the music, of course, but couldn't figure out where it was coming from. Good Grief!! After several hours in town, we finally figured out on the way home, that it was the phone. Some people only limp into progress, some people never make it at all. I am in that latter category! Anyway, I am not giving out the phone number. That way nobody can call me. Because I probably won't know how to answer it and I surely won't know how to find the voice mail! This is the 'emergency' phone.

I am still going to rely on my "smoke" signals if I have a problem on the road.

Having confessed to you all my problems with technology, I DO want to tell you Beulah showed me how to upload my pictures to Ranting Raven and Crow soup and I will be doing that now in the future. YES! And for the most part, all the pictures you see now are taken and edited etc, by ME. I had a bad spell with the digital camera this past week again. Considering a good whack against a brick wall, I instead, got out the drated manual and kept working with it until I resolved the problem. So, there is hope, after all.

Many of the pictures you see on the website are available as a greeting card. After a slow beginning in this venture, I am finally getting the hang of it, and have some really nice cards to sell. Several of the pictures don't say they are cards, but you can check with me on the ones that do.... they are NOT all listed under the cards icon. You have to look around.

Ranting Raven will come out some time today. We are at http://www.rantingraven.com/Exhibit95.php. You can find those offerings now also at http://www.highbuttonshoe.net/itemson.htm and several pictures of the new fall items also on the link on the homepage for fall items. http://www.highbuttonshoe.net/newfall.htm For the most part, these things are one of a kind. They are drawn freehand, no pattern, so no two will be alike.

Be sure to check out goodest friend, Miss Elspeth, (Pineberry Lane) www.pineberrylane.com too. She has been taking some time off, but perhaps will be back this month with some goodies.

We have sold our standing hay fields to a farmer who needs hay, and at this moment, the tractor is in the field directly behind my house raking hay. Not only does the sounds of both the tractor and the rake bring back such pleasant memories of baling hay (there really ARE some good memories of hay baling!), but the aroma of the hay being turned and seeing the windrows makes my heart absolutely smile. Summers on a farm are full of breath taking sights. Except of course, for the occasion snake! I trekked thru the cut hay field this morning, barefooted as usual, to pick a weed I had recently spotted that intrigued me.. (not Ron), and kept a vigil eye out for any snakes that might be there. I only too well remember the downside of hay bales with a snake sticking out of them, or worse yet HALF a snake which always left me wondering where the other half WAS?? Ouuuu. Not good!

Okay, about time for my mid morning coffee on the porch. Too much time there, I know! But these days will pass quickly and winter will be upon us once again, so I spend as much time with a cup of coffee on the porch as I can. God gave us memories so we could have roses in December.

Check out our fall items when you get a chance. I surely appreciate all of you who support us with your love of primitives. Miss Permelia calls them plain and simple. Which of course they are. And to those of you who write me, thank you. I always love hearing from you.

Oh, for those of you in this neck of the woods, remember our show on August 13 in Lake City. Click on Turkey Tales Antique Sale on the home page of the website and it will give you the information. The guy who makes the signs has GREAT SIGNS!

in fond regard,

Miss Clotilda