Words for Wednesday: Mother’s Day thoughts

With Mother’s Day approaching, I’m sharing some adapted reflections I wrote years ago in the first year of Mama’s Empty Nest.

I first became a mother 45 minutes before midnight the night before Mother’s Day. What a wonderful gift I received when our first child was born on Mother’s Day that May.  

I soon realized that if I aspired to be a good mother to my newly born offspring and those to come later, I certainly had good role models – my own mother and my mother-in-law – and both were born in the same month as Mother’s Day.

My husband’s mother was the first born in May and when her birthday passed by recently, I thought of her even though she’s been gone for such a long time. 

She influenced my life in a wonderful way. Often when I remember her I wonder, “Did I tell her enough how much I appreciated her?  Did she realize how much she meant to me?”

She welcomed me into her life with open arms.   I can’t remember one time when we had words of disagreement.  She only offered me approval and affection and always seemed genuinely glad to see me, hug me tightly and kiss my cheek.

She was my mother-in-law.   When I hear others criticize or complain about their mothers-in-law, I cringe.  I honestly never had those kinds of opinions about the mother of my husband.  She never gave me reason to.

She didn’t interfere with our lives or decisions in any negative way.  She didn’t offer advice unless we asked for it.  She was a thoughtful, quiet, and unassuming lady who treated me with great kindness.  And I think she loved me like a daughter.

When we visited my husband’s parents, my elderly mother-in-law was excited.  She stocked her pantry with food she knew we liked, and she loved to cook breakfast for us each day. 

She treated us to our favorite things and enjoyed visiting other relatives with us.   She cried when we arrived for a visit, and she would weep again when we departed.

She greeted the arrival of her grandchildren with great love and pride, taking picture after picture of them (sometimes inadvertently cutting their parents’ heads out of the frame with her camera aim).  But she never cut me out of her life.   We chatted long-distance by phone often and she eagerly wanted to hear the latest escapades of our lives.

She never forgot a birthday or our anniversary and she was extremely generous.  One of the loveliest gifts she ever bestowed on me was a ring.  Her ring.  It doesn’t hold much monetary value but soars in sentimental worth.

Set in a simple gold band is an opal, a gem I’ve always loved.  Purchased by my father-in-law for my husband’s mother shortly after their marriage, the ring adorned her finger for over 55 years.

Once I remarked how lovely it was and apparently, she never forgot that.  During one visit, she surprised me by confiding she wanted me to have her ring.   And shortly after my father-in-law passed away, my dear mother by marriage, presented the ring to me.  I have treasured it ever since.

But more than that worn ring, I treasured her.   How could I not love the hands that lovingly held and nurtured my beloved one?  How could I not respect and honor the mother who guided that little boy to become the outstanding man he became, who took him to Sunday School and church to learn more about the God he serves?

Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote: “Men are what their mothers made them.”  To not love my mother-in-law seemed equal to not loving my husband.   She treated me as a much-loved member of her family, the daughter she never had since she was the mother of all sons.  And I loved her back.

The last time I spoke with her before she passed away, we talked briefly on the phone.  Even though she was very ill, her concern was for us.  “How are the kiddies?”  she asked.  And I related the latest news of her grandchildren.  The last thing she asked me that day was “When are you coming home?”

“We’ll come see you soon,” I assured her.  But it was too late.  The next day she went home to be with the Lord.

To this day, a quarter of a century later, when I catch a faint scent of Chantilly perfume wafting by me, I always think of my mother-in-law as it was her favorite cologne.  

Almost 15 years after her passing, I became a mother-in-law myself and I fervently hoped to follow in my own sweet mother-in-law’s footsteps. She lovingly demonstrated with her words and deeds what a blessing a mother-in-law can and should be.   Those are the lessons she taught me.

“We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.” ~ Goethe

I lost my own mother just a few months after my mother-in-law died 25 years ago. If she were still alive for her May birthday, she’d be over 100 years old. I imagine my mother was an ultimate surprise when she was born to my grandparents after 19 years of marriage and no children. She surely was the apple of their eye as their only child.

She certainly was the apple of mine.  Washington Irving said it well when he wrote: “A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.”

I loved and admired my mother so much, it’s difficult to express in words.  I watched her with awe and respect, especially in her last year of life as she bravely and without complaint battled the cancer that was taking her body captive.

Mom was one of the strongest, most determined people I’ve ever met; she had a feisty spirit, and she was fun (ask any of her grandchildren!). She loved God, her family, and her home.  She was happiest when she was whipping up goodies in the kitchen and watching her loved ones enjoy her home cooking.

Crafts, sewing projects, quilting, crocheting – all right up her alley.  Any ideas to enhance her home or anything she could make with her own hands to give as a gift caught her attention – just one of the ways she demonstrated her love.  She especially enjoyed planting flowers in her garden and watching her six grandchildren flower as well.

When I was a squirrelly teenager, my mother suffered through menopause.  The combination wasn’t exactly compatible, so we butted heads often.  Sometimes, she just made me so mad, I would stomp up the stairs to my room and cry my eyes out.  And I know I made her just as angry.  But not once, did we ever stop loving one another.

As an adult, I realized first-hand the stresses my mom endured.  But I sadly recall wounding my mom one time during my teenage years.  After yet another ridiculous battle of words I waged with her, I had shouted, “You don’t love me and you never did!”

I’ve never forgotten the look of horror on her face as she recoiled from my venomous words.  She seemed to wilt as she slowly sat down, and tears quietly streamed down her cheeks.

I don’t believe I have ever regretted words more than those ugly ones I flung at her that day.   The power to reduce my mother to tears did not give me satisfaction, instead it made me realize what a spoiled brat I was, and I never hurled hurtful words like that to my mother again.

But through those trying years, Mom never stopped encouraging me, giving me good advice when I needed it and always loving the not so lovable me.  She urged me to be the first person in our family to attend college.

Without admonition, she expected me to try my hardest at whatever I endeavored.  I remember many late summer nights, swaying gently back and forth side by side on the front porch swing, having conversations with Mom about boyfriends, what college life would be like, and dreaming about my future.

Later, I would make my mother cry again.  When I married my true love and we loaded our belongings into a U-Haul trailer to move half-way across the country, my mother wept.  And every time we visited my parents from our home away from home, she would once again cry each time we said goodbye.

My mom was always my rock.  She was the one I turned to for help, to vent, to rail against the injustices of my world because I knew she was always on my side.  And she always knew what to say to pick me up, dust me off, and send me back on my way.

She provided the strong arms of comfort into which I collapsed with hysterical tears in an airport ladies room after sending my military husband off to a foreign land for a year’s tour of duty.   Pregnant with our first child and saying goodbye to my husband, who would miss the birth of that child, was the most heart-wrenching task I had ever endured.

And it was Mom who held me tight, rocked me in her arms even while she cried with me, and whispered in my ear, “You’ve got to think about this new little life you’re carrying inside of you.  You’ve got to be strong for the baby.”

I didn’t want to be strong.   But I learned to be.  And that’s one of the lessons I learned from my mother who portrayed strength every day, even as she lay dying all those years later.

I still miss my mother terribly and as I read back over these words I wrote years ago, tears still spring to my eyes.  

But I can almost hear her whisper, “You’ve got to think about your own family, your children, (and now, your grandchildren).   You’ve got to love them and stay strong for them.  That’s what a good mother does.”

Happy Mother’s Day in heaven, Mom and Mom-in-law.  Give Jesus a hug for me.

“I miss thee, my Mother!  Thy image is still the deepest impressed on my heart.” ~Eliza Cook

©mamasemptynest.wordpress.com 2024

Tuesday Tour: country friendship

For some folks, it might be a novelty. For us, it’s a quite accessible place to frequent.

I’m talking about an Amish market. Not too far from our neck of the woods is an Amish community.

When we drive in that vicinity, we’ll pass horse-drawn buggies on the road, see beautiful Amish farms, and can mosey into an Amish-run country market for homemade baked goods, jams, jellies, and other goodies put-up in glass jars, and Amish-made items and crafts as well.

That’s why I wasn’t terribly disappointed when we stopped at Dutch Country Market in Middlebury, Indiana on our road trip last summer (2023) and found it was already closed for the day. We can easily visit an Amish market at home.

We arrived there to view the garden designed to resemble a quilt on the Quilt Gardens Along the Heritage Trail driving tour in Elkhart County, Indiana.

Dutch Country Market, located at 11351 County Road 16, is a large family-run specialty grocery store where visitors can shop for locally made jam & jelly, apple butter, peanut butter spread, pickles, peaches, beets, and even salsa. And of course, homemade baked goods.

Got a hankering for sweets? The Lehman family’s market has fudge, 15 different flavors of salt-water taffy, and locally produced maple syrup.

But one of the store’s main attractions is their fresh home-made noodles and you can watch the process as the store owners’ daughters roll out the dough and make noodles in front of your eyes.

Not only is the noodle making noteworthy in this market but customers can watch bees in their 30-year-old hive producing pure natural honey through an observation window in the store. Eleven flavors of the spun honey made right there is available for purchase.  

A variety of locally made Amish household goods including hand-woven rugs, lotions, soaps, and other crafts are also offered at this market.

Of course, we couldn’t browse in the store since we arrived after closing hours, but we were amazed at the gigantic quilt garden on the market’s premises surrounded by peaceful countryside.

Papa is pictured in the photo below just to show how expansive it was.

And we were grateful because the owners had erected a wooden platform upon which visitors could ascend to view the entire garden at once and also snap photos of it.

The garden theme was Friendship Bouquet with three blue squares of Blue Aloha Ageratums and three dark pink diamonds of Easy Wave Bubble Gum Petunias forming the flower bouquet design and orange Variegated Zinnias as the bouquet stem.

The pink border of the “quilt pattern” used Bronze Leaf Pink Begonias and the fourth yellow “quilt block” was Easy Wave Yellow Petunias. Both sides of the garden are pictured below.

The 2024 quilt garden design at Dutch Country Market will be “Peace and Plenty” and should be just as beautiful to view.

The new theme to be featured at this Amish market sounds perfect since Amish folks are generally known as living in peace and harmony in their communities.

“A heart at peace gives life to the body.” ~ thought to be an Amish proverb

©mamasemptynest.wordpress.com 2024

Words for Wednesday: piano legacy

There’s a vacant spot in our empty nest living room right now and a story to accompany that unoccupied space.

For the last 24 years, a spinet piano sat against the inside wall of that room and lots of music was played on that instrument over those years and even before.

Papa and I purchased that Wurlitzer piano back in the mid-1980’s and it survived four moves as we traipsed across the country for different places to live.

We bought the piano because I missed having one to play during our early married life and once we began having children of our own, we thought they might want to take piano lessons.

Having a piano in the home was something I grew up with. As a young child, I watched my two older sisters take lessons on our family Baldwin Acrosonic piano bought in the 1950’s. The photo below shows one of my sisters playing that piano in 1956.

My turn began when I was in fourth grade and I continued lessons from two different teachers until my senior year of high school.

Playing the piano was always a favorite pastime of mine.  For hours, I would plunk myself down on the piano bench and play anything that struck my fancy from popular music to classical to hymns.

Sometimes I would make a list of songs to play and give my parents a “concert.” And always my family gathered around our piano in my parents’ home and sang Christmas carols while I played them.

I played occasionally for Sunday School and church too but performing in public wasn’t my favorite thing. It just made me too nervous about making mistakes. So mostly I just played for my own and my family’s enjoyment.

I was too young then to realize the truth in this quote by German composer Robert Schumann: “When you play, never mind who listens to you.”

When Papa, our children, and I would visit my parents in their later years, they would sit in the living room and listen contentedly while I “tickled the ivories” once more for them since neither of them could play. (If you don’t understand that old phrase, it’s because the white keys on a piano were originally made from ivory.)

Our oldest daughter followed in my “handiwork” when she began piano lessons and quickly became very adept while her sister and brother chose other interests. 

After taking piano lessons for years, she often played for church and even became her high school chorus accompanist. She proved to be a much better pianist than I could ever hope to be.

And that brings me back to that empty spot in the living room. Before my mother passed away, she made it known that her wish after she and Dad were gone was that our old family piano be given to my oldest child. Mom always loved hearing her granddaughter play.

Of course, Papa and I already had had our own piano for many years. However, after Dad died and we cleared out my parents’ house in preparation to sell the property, we moved that old Acrosonic to our basement where it has sat for over a decade now.

During that time, oldest daughter married and moved to the state down south where she lives with her husband. Like me, she misses having a piano to play and is always found on the bench when they visit here as shown below.

I’ve asked her several times when she wanted the piano, but apartment living wasn’t conducive for it. Once they acquired their own house a couple years ago, it became doable.

By that time, the age and state of that old 1950’s family piano caused me to reconsider.

I decided should our daughter prefer the “newer” piano, the one she learned to play, where she developed into such a talented pianist and enjoyed playing every time she and son-in-love visited,  she could take the Wurlitzer and I would keep the old piano.

The old one has more sentimental value for me anyway since that’s the instrument on which I learned to play. She agreed as long as I was okay with her taking the good one.

Just last weekend, she and her hubby arrived in a rented cargo van to take possession of the piano and move it to its new home – their house.

Thanks to our other ingenious nearby son-in-love who devised an easy way to move the piano from our living room into the van, the transfer was accomplished without anyone straining their muscles and backs.

For now, the living room looks quite large without that piano taking up space. My quandary is whether I want the old piano moved upstairs from the basement or just leave it there and go downstairs when I feel the urge to play.

Time will tell. I’m just pleased that our oldest daughter now possesses her own piano and will get many more years of enjoyment from it. She has an entire box of her own music books and sheet music to provide many hours of playing.

Passing on the pianos is a kind of legacy, passed from one generation to another, and even though there’s an empty space in my living room, my heart is full.

“The piano keys are black and white but they sound like a million colors in your mind.” — Maria Cristina Mena, author

©mamasemptynest.wordpress.com 2024

Tuesday Tour: food, quilts, and sunshine

I’m really not a ‘foodie’ but instead refer to myself as one of those people who eat to live rather than live to eat.

However, I do truly appreciate good old homestyle cooking – the kind of food I was raised on provided by my mother. She was a very good cook and baker but never made gourmet meals.

Two months ago, my husband and I (we two empty nesters) took a weekend trip to the state next door to visit our son and his family and meet our brand-new grandchild.

On the way, we ventured via a scenic route through a part of that state where a concentration of Amish and Mennonites families live. Papa wanted to visit a spacious garden center there to search for a particular kind of seeds and an inoculant for his gardening experiment.

We also stopped for lunch in the vicinity at a large restaurant offering a sumptuous all-you-can-eat buffet meal with homestyle food provided by Amish and Mennonites cooks and waitstaff.  

Afterwards, we browsed the gift shop and attached bakery where yes, even after a very full stomach, we succumbed to purchasing some yummy baked goods. Honestly, we did buy them to share with all our family for the weekend!

The restaurant reminded me of Das Dutchman Essenhaus Inn and Conference Center at 240 US Route 20 in Middlebury, Indiana, which was one of the sites we visited on our driving tour of Elkhart County’s Quilt Gardens Along the Heritage Trail last summer.

After a bit of internet research, I discovered the restaurant we dined at on our recent road trip belongs to a restaurant chain that includes Das Dutchman Essenhaus Inn.

When we arrived that warm summer day in 2023 at Das Dutchman Essenhaus, the first thing we spied wasn’t the quilt garden but a quilt-designed mural.

Double Wedding Ring, the quilt pattern, was very familiar. My good cook mother was also an amazing quilt maker, and she made Double Wedding Ring quilts for several people.

After viewing the mural, we discovered that Das Dutchman Essenhaus is a large complex with not just an inn and conference center but also boasts Indiana’s largest family-style restaurant.  A bakery and various Essenhaus Village Shops including a quilt shop are located on the premises too.

In keeping with the Amish and Mennonite faith, everything is also closed on Sundays.

Das Dutchman Essenhaus first opened as an Amish-style restaurant in 1971 and has expanded into a very busy place. Visitors can take carriage rides, rent bicycles and either ride or walk along the nearby Pumpkinvine Nature Trail.

We didn’t arrive there to take part in any of those activities though. We were in search of the quilt garden, which we easily located in an expansive green space.

The quilt pattern, Solar Wheel, was vibrant in color. The orange sun was depicted with Antigua Orange Marigolds and its yellow rays with Zahara Yellow Zinnias.  Green Leaf White Begonias formed the white pattern; Dwarf Red Salvias were the red design; and Denim Shock Wave Petunias flourished as the bluish-purple border.  

We enjoyed a short walk to the garden in the sunshine of a pleasant summer day and noticed a picturesque white gazebo on the grounds which begged me to take its photo.

But due to an abundance of visitors at the complex and our need to complete our driving tour with seven more gardens to find before sunset, we didn’t stay long.

This year (2024), Das Dutchman Essenhaus’ quilt garden theme is Blazing Star Garden. I’m sure it will be just as spectacular as last year’s.

“Just living is not enough. One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.” ~ Hans Christian Anderson

©mamasemptynest.wordpress.com 2024

Words for Wednesday: Sunday afternoon surprise

Road trips.  Sunday drives. If you’ve been a follower of this empty nester blog, you’ll know for certain that the two of us love to travel by car.

I recently read this quote somewhere: “Sometimes all you need is a great friend and a full tank of gas.”

I agree with that sentiment but would amend it to needing my spouse along with that full tank of gas. He does most of the driving on our adventures while I survey the scenery from my passenger front seat.

Being retired has its definite advantages. We usually can just pick up and go whenever we want with little time restrictions. And that’s what we did one recent Sunday afternoon.

That day was a pleasant one for a change – sunshine, warmer weather, NO RAIN. We came home from church and as sometimes happens, we just felt the need to go somewhere. When you’re retired, you can get a tad weary of being at home a lot.

So, we jumped in our vehicle, ascertained we had a full tank of gas, and headed down the highway. Where should we go?

We discussed that but had no destination in mind. Just take a Sunday drive which we haven’t done much because well…gas prices tell that story.

The afternoon was ours for the taking. No schedule. Nothing needing our immediate attention. No babysitting our nearest grandchild. We were free for the entire rest of the day and evening.

We drove through some familiar areas in another county and then ventured farther where we hadn’t been in many years. Let’s just take this road. Let’s see where we end up. Let’s check this out.

On we traveled. But little did we expect to find a surprising sight. We came to a T intersection on a country road and our eyes popped wide open because there was a waterfall directly in front of us. A gorgeous waterfall not where we expected to see one.

But you know, the RAIN…we’ve had so much of it across our state this spring. And even though we were out of our own county, we saw signs of an abundance of rainfall everywhere.

However, we never envisaged a rushing, gushing waterfall right there in front of our eyes. We never even knew one existed in that county and I imagine it’s not normally so full of cascading water.

Oh, it was so pretty crashing down over the rocky cliff in that very wooded area. And the roar of it (okay, not even remotely comparable to huge waterfalls like Niagara Falls) was just so exciting to hear, somehow making me happy.

I didn’t think to grab my camera before we left the empty nest, but I did have my cell, so I snapped a few photos.

From there we traveled into a small city that I haven’t visited in almost 50 years. A few aspects seemed familiar but most of the town did not. Changes, progress maybe, but also some signs of deterioration and disuse.

But then I spied some church buildings that begged to be photographed. Old churches, time worn, but still lovely in their own ways.

Ethnic churches. Some no longer used for services. Some still hanging on.

And this one, with its beautiful entryway.

I captured a couple photos, we drove on, and took the long way home. A pleasurable Sunday drive along the scenic route provided surprises along the way.

Road trip adventures. I’ll never get tired of them.

“Always take the scenic route, you never know what adventures you will find.” ~ Anonymous

©mamasemptynest.wordpress.com 2024

Tuesday Tour: peaceful inspiration

Our visit today on this Tuesday Tour is a place I absolutely fell in love with! I hope someday to return there just to further experience it.

For the past few weeks, I’ve showcased the lovely quilt-designed gardens Papa and I viewed on our driving tour along Elkhart County Indiana’s Quilt Gardens Along the Heritage Trail last summer and I’ll return to those next week.

But in addition to the quilt gardens, colorful painted murals with quilt designs were also on display. We realized from our tour map that our next stop in Middlebury, Indiana wasn’t a garden but just a mural mounted on the side of a hardware store.

We decided to pause and see it and were we ever glad we did! The patriotic mural on Martin’s Ace Hardware store was very nice, but what we didn’t expect was the inspirational area beside the store.

A log cabin called “The Carpenter’s House” and another smaller one named “The Master’s Gallery” captured our attention. Of course, we had to exit our vehicle and take a look around.

The Carpenter’s House is a prayer chapel built from an Amish log cabin kit by the hardware store owners, the Martins, in 2017. Their intent was to provide a place for folks to pray and reflect on God’s Word.

The Master’s Gallery showcases original faith-inspired artwork by Canadian artist Mindi Oaten which depict all 66 books of the Bible.

Unfortunately for us, we arrived there after Martin’s Ace Hardware’s was closed for the day, so we couldn’t enter the log structures. But the public is welcome inside both structures during the adjacent store’s regular daily business hours.

However, we thoroughly enjoyed walking on the paved path, noting the chapel’s beautiful hand-crafted stained-glass windows created by a Texas artist. Peeking in the windows, we spied an altar and a cedar cross inside.

Welcoming visitors are wrap-around porches with rocking chairs and swings. Even the landscaping around the two structures invites one to walk along the water features, admire flowers planted there, and read the inspirational garden rocks.

And a flagpole from which this flag flies also garners attention. With the replica of the “appeal to heaven” flag flapping in the breeze, I couldn’t capture the best photo but the evergreen tree on the flag symbolizes a covenant.

The original flag was commissioned by General George Washington in 1776 and was flown during the American Revolutionary War. Today the flag with the motto “appeal to God” is flown with the intention of providing hope for our nation.

What blessed me most was finding that the Martin family, who still own their 35-year-hardware business, chose to create and share a place not just to express their faith in God but also to provide an inspirational place for anyone who happens by to meet with God.

This peaceful place is located adjacent to Martin’s Ace Hardware store at 103 Crystal Heights Boulevard, Middlebury, Indiana. For those interested in the Martins’ heartwarming story and to see inside the chapel and gallery, you can watch the video below made by Ace Hardware.

“Faith is about doing. You are how you act, not just how you believe.” ~ Mitch Albom

©mamasemptynest.wordpress.com 2024

Words for Wednesday: garden memories

It’s not gardening season quite yet in our little corner of the world.

But the Papa of this empty nest already planted peas because they must go in the ground early. While he’s waiting for better weather though, he’s been planning our vegetable and flower gardens. This year, my city boy turned country husband is trying something different.

In the past, he always purchased some ready to plant vegetables in our garden like tomatoes, green peppers, and maybe banana peppers. Other veggies, he plants as seeds – green beans, peas, cucumbers, zucchini, pumpkins – in the tilled-up soil of our garden.

But currently ensconced in one of our unoccupied bedrooms an experiment is taking place.

Papa planted some seeds in tiny little soil cups, placed them on a warming pad in front of the bedroom window for light, watered them regularly, and crossed his fingers they would germinate and grow.

And they have. Once they became large enough to put into bigger cups, he devised a contraption over them to hold a grow light. So now, little tomato and green pepper plants are stretching their way toward that light.

In addition, he planted seeds that will eventually produce flowers – impatiens and painted daisies. And when he plants them outside, we’ll try to keep the naughty rabbits from eating them.

He has a green thumb, thankfully, because this empty nest Mama does not. I’ve often proclaimed that my thumb must be dead brown because I kill indoor plants. That’s why he takes care of the aloe vera and African violet my sister gifted to us.

I just look at and admire them but don’t do anything to care for them. Just as I am doing with the little fledgling vegetable and flower plants growing in that bedroom. I peek at them and note their progression and then promptly leave the room.

I’m a little sad that I’m not a prolific gardener because my mother and my grandparents certainly were. I remember so very well the large garden planted every year at my parents’ home when I was a kid.

My grandparents lived with us until they passed away, and they wisely wanted to eat fresh, home-grown vegetables and fruit. So, each year tomatoes, cucumbers, peas, corn, carrots, lettuce, potatoes, onions, green and yellow beans, beets, rhubarb, dill for making pickles, and probably other veggies I’ve forgotten were planted in the garden.

Apples, grapes, strawberries, and prune plums were also grown on our property and one year we experienced an abundant crop of peaches.

My job was to help weed, pick mature and ripe produce, shell peas, and snap beans. Now, all these many decades later, those are still my tasks. Brown-thumbed people like me make good weed pullers, so I yank them out of our flower gardens regularly while Papa manages the vegetable garden weeds.

Memories of my childhood gardens remind me that sunflowers were always planted as well, but those were not the only flowers. All sorts of blooms dance around in my memory: zinnias, sweet williams, hollyhocks, iris, gladiolas, morning glories, roses, and peonies.

And those were just the ones in the garden. My mother always planted petunias, marigolds, and geraniums in other flower beds as well. She was so proud of her beautiful flowers that when Sunday afternoon visitors stopped by, she would show them her gardens.

In the back yard of my childhood home a lilac bush that had existed since my dad was young produced the most aromatic blooms surrounded by a bed of lily of the valley. Those two scents still make me smile today.

I possess sweet, fragrant memories of my childhood gardens. And some of those plants still provide those delicious aromas for me.

After traipsing around the country with our children, our family moved here to the same rural township where I grew up and built our home. We were blessed to dig up some lily of the valley and peonies from my parents’ yard and transplant them here.

Every spring, those lovely, delicate lilies of the valley remind me of my childhood. And come about late May or early June, those bountiful peony bushes burst into pretty-in-pink color and delicious fragrance.

And when they do, I remember.

“The garden is a mirror of the heart.” ~ Unknown

©mamasemptynest.wordpress.com 2024

Tuesday Tour: fair goin’ in Goshen

Harness racing, tractor pulls, rodeos, and demolition derbies. Hot French fries, cotton candy, candy apples, funnel cakes, sno-cones, and real fresh-squeezed lemonade. Just a few aspects of a summertime fair that people enjoy.

This country gal grew up going to county and community fairs and carnivals every summer. I have a lot of fun memories from those days.

Some of them actually involved working at a couple fairs when family members owned a western wear/tack shop, and I was tapped to help sell anything from cowboy boots to horse halters inside fairground commercial buildings.

I still enjoy attending fairs but last summer on our road trip back home from our South Dakota experience, Papa and I visited a fairground where no fair was happening.

Instead, the Elkhart County 4-H Fairgrounds in Goshen, Indiana was the fifth stop on our driving tour of the 2023 Quilt Gardens on the Heritage Trail.

With our trusty driving tour map, we easily found the 384-acre fairgrounds and the quilt-designed garden named Peony Garden was easy to spot.

It was huge and in full bloom even though the gardens aren’t planted until the end of May and we were there mid-June.

Peony Garden was one of my favorites among all the quilt gardens we viewed probably because I enjoy peonies since they are exquisite and so very fragrant. But there weren’t any peonies in this garden, just in the quilt patterns.

The fairground’s garden quilt design incorporated light and dark green, dark red, pink, light pink, hot pink, purple-red, and white flowers and plants to form “peony” shapes.

Euphorbia Glitz provided the light green background. The two “peony” designs were fashioned with Cocktail Vodka Red Bronze Leaf Begonia (dark red); Super Olympia Rose Green Leaf Begonia (pink); and Cocktail Brandy Pink Bronze Leaf Begonia (light pink).

Compact Hot Pink Sunpatiens (hot pink) formed two triangles in the garden’s middle with a background of Compact White Sunpatiens (white). Two other triangles under the “peonies” were Confetti Red Hypoestes (purple-red) and  Triple Curled Parsley supplied green for two square patterns.

When fairgoers and quilt garden tourists arrive at the Elkhart County 4-H Fair this year (2024), they will be treated to a new theme, Rising Dawn, and that one would be so interesting to view.

This fair is reported to be one of the largest county fairs in the United States and is held for nine days. Over 200,000 people attend the event not just to view all the livestock and projects, including quilts, displayed by thousands of 4-H young people but also to attend grandstand events, concerts, and other entertainment.

But the fairgrounds are utilized for more than just the county fair.  With 300 permanent RV sites and 600 temporary sites, RV travel rallies are held there regularly in addition to motorcycle rallies, weddings and receptions, and other community and corporate events.

I can just imagine what lovely photos might be taken during summer weddings with the quilt garden as a background.

Peony Garden wasn’t the only interesting sight causing me to grab my camera to snap photos. While traveling to our next stop along the quilt garden trail, we spied these sights quite common in the area around Goshen.

It’s not unusual to share the road with a horse and buggy as Elkhart County is home to Amish and Mennonites.

And the horses in the pastures make a nice sight to see.

Fairs, horses, quilts, and peonies. All serve as lovely memories for this empty nest Mama.

“There is something that feels so all-American about a county fair.” ~ unknown

©mamasemptynest.wordpress.com 2024

Words for Wednesday: green thoughts

I see green.

I gaze out our home office window while I sit here at our desktop computer trying (and not succeeding) to dredge up some inspiring notion to write about in a new blog post.

I see green. Outside our country home, the landscape is turning green.

Green is a color that invokes many images and thoughts in my often cluttered mind.

I’m happy to say that all the rain – even some snow flurries, yes in April as seen in my photos below! – we’ve had lately here in our little corner of the world is enticing our dormant brown yard into becoming an oasis of greenery – finally.

Green is refreshing after months of drabness. Blacks, browns, tans, and grays.

I see green. And I smile and feel a boost in my mood.

Grass in our front yard is almost completely green. Spring flowers pushing their way up through the soil boast their green leaves.

Buds on our maple trees are beginning to transform into green. The perennial flower garden is springing back to life with signs of green.

Spring green! It signifies new life. It signifies hope. It signifies an awakening after a dull, dreary winter’s sleep.

It perks me up and causes me to look forward to days to come. Warmer weather, sunshine, and a plethora of colorful blooms here in our country home of green acres.

Green acres. We have about two and a half acres here in our little plot of land. But across the road from us are acres of woods, just commencing to sprout some greenness.

Behind our property a strip of trees and brush separate us from a farmer’s field which also may show subtle signs of green soon.

For us, life in the country is the best. Just last week, Papa and I had to venture into the suburbs on an errand.

As we navigated through heavy traffic and the hustle and bustle of busy shopping areas, we noticed much of the greenspace that used to exist is now being overrun with building construction.

Both of us thanked our lucky stars (but mostly our God) that we are blessed to live in the country.

We traded suburban life for country living 26 years ago and have never looked back. Not once.

We don’t miss suburbia one bit (no offense to you suburbanites). As retired folks now, this quiet life suits us so much better than the busy one we once had living near large cities for many years.

Thinking about life in the country and green acres brought an old TV sitcom from the 1960’s to my mind. As a kid, I used to watch Green Acres, a show starring Eddie Albert & Eva Gabor.  

Albert’s  character Oliver takes his city-loving wife (Eva’s character Lisa) from their glamourous life in New York City to reside on a broken-down farm in the country.

That sitcom’s opening musical theme has always stuck in my mind. So much so that when we were moving from our suburban Portland, Oregon home to our country one in Pennsylvania, our oldest daughter, then a teenager, and I made up silly lyrics to the Green Acres theme music for Papa and her to sing.

Believe it or not, I still have those lyrics all these years later; maybe you’ll get a little chuckle over them:  

Dad: Pennsylvania is the place to be; county livin’ is the life for me. Land spreadin’ out so far and wide. Keep the suburbs, just gimme that countryside.

Daughter: Oregon is where I’d rather stay. I get allergic smelling hay. I just adore a Mt. Hood view. Daddy, I love you, but give me Murray Avenue. (a street in our suburb)

Dad: The chores!

Daughter: The stores! (like Nordstrom)

Dad: Fresh air!

Daughter: Washington Square! (the nearest shopping mall near our former home in Oregon)

Dad: You are my daughter...

Daughter: Goodbye, city water. (For you city folks, many of us country people have well water.)

Both: Country livin’, we are there.

See how my mind rabbit trails? Especially when I try to get inspired? Anyway, I hope you enjoy my thoughts on the color green today.

“Green is the prime color of the world, and that from which its loveliness arises.”  ~ Pedro Calderon de la Barca (1600-1681), Spanish playwright

©mamasemptynest.wordpress.com 2024

Tuesday Tour: who’s holding court?

I’ve heard of a kangaroo court but never a canine court. But that’s the thought I had when we visited one site on our driving tour of the Quilt Gardens Along the Heritage Trail in Elkhart County, Indiana last June (2023).

Today’s Tuesday Tour details our fourth stop on the quilt garden tour in the city square of downtown Goshen, Indiana where the Elkhart County Courthouse is located.

Back in 1831, the town of Goshen became the Elkhart County Seat. The historic three-story red brick courthouse that exists today was originally built during the years 1868 through 1870 and renovated in the first few years of the last century (1905-08).

The courthouse is quite nice and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. But what really caught my eye, as we strolled on the sidewalk to view the quilt garden planted on the courthouse lawn, was a fountain.

Not just any fountain, this one boasted a gleaming copper-painted statue of Neptune (or was it Poseidon?) right in the middle. I’ll have to admit that whoever he was, he kind of stole the show away from Buster’s Garden, the quilt-designed garden we came to see.

And for the life of us, we couldn’t figure out what a statue of the Roman god Neptune (or Greek god Poseidon) had to do with Goshen, Indiana. A little research on my part answered the question when I found an article written by Elkhart County Historical Museum’s education curator Patrick McGuire.  

McGuire stated an immigrant from Greece named James Polezos came to America and settled in Goshen in the early 1900’s. Polezos sold candy and ice cream in his confectionary store across from the courthouse.

Because his business prospered, the businessman wanted to contribute a worthwhile project to the town and requested a fountain be placed on the courthouse’s east lawn.

When his request was granted, Polezos paid $1000 for the statue of Neptune which was made from zinc and fashioned after a French artist’s 1856 sculpture.

So there Neptune, well over 100 years old, still sits in the middle of that fountain. And across the street, a confectionary store, now named differently and owned by others, exists yet.

But even though ol’ Neptune garnered my attention, we came to see Buster’s Garden which was patterned as a dog’s face (Buster, I presume).

Since the quilt gardens are planted at the end of May and we visited in mid-June, the plants and flowers in this garden weren’t at full maturity yet.

However, we still could view the quilt pattern: green plants for the background; white for two bones on either side of Buster; black for the dog’s head and ears; blue for his eyes, cream for his face, and pink for his nose.

The plants and flowers used were: Emerald Green Dichondra (green); Super Olympia White Green Leaf Begonia (white); Black Dragon Coleus (black); Aloha Blue Ageratum (blue); Cocktail Whiskey White Bronze Leaf Begonia (cream), and Super Olympia Pink Green Leaf Begonia pink).

This year’s (2024) quilt garden theme at the Elkhart County Courthouse, 101 N. Main Street, will be “Many Beautiful Parts.”

The quilt garden proved worth seeing and of course, we never would have been astonished to find Neptune had we not stopped at the county courthouse.

The question is just who was holding court in Goshen…Neptune or Buster? I just hope Buster didn’t grow large enough to leave his garden and bite Neptune’s toes. 😉

“A house without a dog is like a garden without flowers.” ~ unknown

©mamasemptynest.wordpress.com 2024