HIGH BUTTON SHOE
The farm update
The Tilda CollectionsHigh Button ShoeGood morning!I think I may have to take April off my very short list of favorite months which includes only April, May and June. After I suffer, complaining to anyone who will listen, through the winter months merely to get me to spring, April in the last few years has not lived up to my long awaited expectations. Knowing, of course, that when we didn't have a severe winter, and didn't have snow when we normally would have snow (NOT a white Christmas or first several days of January), we would pay for that, we have. October 12 we were dumped on by almost a foot of snow, and April 12 we had the same malady. I presume it may be safe to have the snow tires taken off the truck now, in May. One would hope so. The weather, however, has not been behind my lack of writing you. As you might imagine, I have been imprisoned in closets and basements, throwing out, burning, keeping, sorting, organizing boxes upon boxes of 'stuff'. It is becoming quite apparent to me, that I apparently have never thrown anything away in 20 years. All of Ronnie's 'encouragement' to be better organized that fell on deaf ears, is now facing me square in the face. He refrains from saying "I told you so", but I know he thinks it! Thankfully, while April has been less than springlike, May is the start of GARAGE sales. Obviously I have been to too many of them in the past! But organizations are MORE than willing to take my treasures off my hands to sell themselves in their sales, so I do have places to donate to. Todays efforts are concentrated on the bedroom closet that hasn't held clothes for perhaps 15 years, but rather was literally stacked up with boxes of fabric. IF you are a crafter (actually I HATE that word..) perhaps you have a closet that resembles mine, and know what I mean. I am going thru the boxes, with full intention of giving most of it away.Yesterday, after days of taking chairs, antique youth & high chairs, crocks, treenware, and such to the farmhouse, the living room looked pretty empty. I celebrated that fact by vacuuming places that haven't been seen in a while. Today it is all back to boxes of things to go elsewhere. But for a few hours, it was clean and bare. And hopefully by todays end will be again (I can only hope!) , along with a clean closet. I adhere to my original thoughts on organizing that I mentioned last year. Organizing is often just moving something from one place to another. One clean spot. Another messed up spot. Martha Stewart, I am not!The farmhouse, has begun the transformation from shop to house in great fashion. Gone are the things that made it such a great shop. In its place, the furniture is beginning to shape the individual rooms once again. We are still met with the challenges faced when moving into an old house. Replacing door openings with old doors that needed to be 'refitted' pales in comparison to old kitchen drain fields that are full of roots and caved in dirt that needs to be redug and replaced. Putting in wiring and pipes for a washer and dryer thru cement walls, as this house never had those before. The new septic. Filling in the smallest crevices that rodents can squeeze thru, along with cold winds. Screens on windows that haven't had screens in years. Of course, all that expertise falls on Ronnie, while I continue to weed out a lifetime of collecting. You may remember the farmhouse has only ONE closet, and Ronnie has claimed that. My closet will be an antique cupboard that will be moving with us. This leaves us with the perplexing ponderence of "where to put the broom?Where to put the waste basket?" We are finding many of these "where to put.....?"There is no definite date set yet for the final move. It is an ongoing thing. This weekend, we plan to move the bakers cupboard, harvest table and 7 chairs, the crock cupboard, and the round old table you often saw pictures of by the fireplace to the house. To any of you who have ever moved, and especially to you who move more than once, I have only the utmost admiration of your skills.I was thinking the other day about my biggest flower/herb garden. Son Steve's wife, Cheryl (like our daughter) brought plants from their home they are leaving after 20 years and moving up here to build their new house on the farm. She put them in my garden while their acreage is all torn up with basement excavation. My garden needs work! I still have only the 9 old bricks laid of my winding path thru the wild garden full of perennials, and 291 left to go. I rationalized that if I were to lay even 10 bricks a day, and why can't I manage that (???), I could have this lovely path made in a month. Of course, that means time stolen from the closet.Update on the gourds planted in my numb-skull thinking of last summer. AFTER I rescued what the deer didn't eat in one nights tromping and munching every other gourd (after leaving them alone all spring summer and early fall!!), and put them in the enclosed bittersweet gardens, I was quite delighted to see that they made it thru the winter drying laying out in the snow. I retrieved them and got them up off the ground to finish drying and have a really nice assortment of gourds. However, this summer I do NOT plan to plant gourds OR pumpkins! 'Farming' on top of everything else just takes way too much time and effort. And my frustrations with the rabbits and deer only add to that.Ranting Raven was released yesterday, while I was working at all the above mentioned and did not write you about it. We can be found at www.rantingraven.com/Exhibit95.php . While there, please also check out the dolls of Miss Elspeth of PineBerryLane. www.rantingraven.com/Exhibit165.phpAlso check her website, www.pineberrylane.comWhile I am so disappointed that I cannot make the trip, either to exhibit or merely to go, I want to tell you about a show in Kentucky on May 12th, held by DruAnn and Mike called 'A Gathering at the Cabin', in Centertown, at Cinnamon Creek Cabin. The best of the best will be showing there, including Michigan's own Jane Wallace and Cheryl Jones. Having met some of the Kentucky and Tennessee folk when we did the show at Primitive Homeplace in September, the roster of exhibitors is MOST impressive and I believe it will be a great primitive show. I will try to give you a link to this webpage...but occasionally that doesn't work. http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?p=999&uid=4308302&gid=9209301 Right now it isn't showing up for me, saying the page cannot be displayed. Don't you hate that??http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?p=6&uid=4308302 here is another link and it does the same thing... must be picture trail is down right now, but try again later....We continue to put items from my collections and some of the shop on the website under the tilda collections. Updates can be found on www.highbuttonshoe.net/farmupdate.htm and you can see the changes in the farmhouse as we get new photographs on www.highbuttonshoe.net/farm.htmAlso I might remind you that we have folk art and needfuls in the Gallery! These will be changing soon as we take off some things and replace them with others. check it out!I have yet to get to the swamps! But may have to venture down to a closer one to rejuvenate my spirit. The frogs are singing loudly and the birds flit everywhere in search of nest materials and their constant songs of spring joy fill the air. I need to spend more time sitting with coffee just taking it in. Spring will quickly go into summer. Sand hill cranes swoop over the barn and hay fields, shrieking their pre-historic calls. The turkeys are in our yards several times each day and patrol the hayfields with their magnificent shows of mating feathers in full strut. My tansy is growing everywhere, inspite of a foot of snow on it for 2 weeks after it was already several inches tall. Sweet Annie will soon be sprouting in its invasive take over of one garden. May has the promise of being a good month. FULL, to be sure, but good just the same.Follow along with us, as we make a life change of downsizing and this move into the old farmhouse where Ronnie was born. My heart smiles each day with the blessing of being able to live there. It is everything I could have ever hoped for. A broom closet would have been nice..... but I will figure something out!!Thanks for asking to be a part of the farm.In fond regard, Tildakeeper of the pastun-organized to be surelover of spring & happy soul