Journal Notes

The top has ended up busier than I intended. May have looked better with sashing. Have attached a double border with a cream strip to rest your eyes and a navy wider border to seal the deal. It’s at the long armer now. Binding and label made and ready to attach. Just back from longarmer this afternoon, so will start in the morning. The backing will be a floral on a cream background called Montgomery Mountain Charm by Arkansas native designer Belle Brunner for Bentarex. I suspect her design to be a nostalgic nod to her home. While the pattern calls these snowballed units stars, to me they remind me of the swirling winds of my home, Oklahoma. Overall I love the rusty Oklahoma dirt colors that instantly take me home. The branches and vines of our family tree that took us from putting down roots after the September 28, 1891 Land Run homesteading in Lincoln County Oklahoma Territory to spread to our homes all over the country. Some of us live in cities, some in rural areas, some in apartments, some in houses. My childhood home was in the city of Tulsa and was filled with mixes of music, reading, playing in the streets of our neighborhood and coping with the challenges of my sisters seizure disorder and the cancer and death of our mom. My refuge was going to my grandparents farm in Carney, Oklahoma on weekends and summers. At that time I had living maternal grandparents and my paternal grandmother and aunts, uncles and cousins still living in the same community of the family homestead. We visited with all throughout my childhood and even though we would start for home early on Sunday afternoon to be prepared for school and work on Monday we would not get home until after midnight . My dad, the youngest of eight would want to stop on the way out of town with each of the family members. My sister and I would sleep in the backseat of the car with KRMG playing softly in the background. When I saw the Weather Teller light sitting atop of the National Bank in downtown Tulsa appear, I knew that I was close to home and my bed. That light was my nightlight out the window of my bedroom. I was calmed by the solid green clear weather indicator and frightened with red and flashing red alerting us to bad weather. Yes, I loved the mix of city lights and old trees of our street that arched touched at the top shading the neighborhood. I loved the honeysuckle, japonica, crepe Myrtle and double delight roses that my mother planted around our home. I loved my neighbor’s huge Magnolia tree whose branches came down to the ground and was an excellent hiding place with fragrant blossoms. At the side of our house were a row of mums that I hated. Every time my mom was hospitalized she got flowers and potted plants. All of the mums planted at the side of the house were gifts from these hospital visits. She also tried her best to raise I can’t remember the name they were a desert flower the put up a big central stalk with a white flower. The leaves were leathery and pointed. She would holler at us to avoid hitting these plants with our basketball and we tried, but they always seemed to get hit . At the farm with scarce well water, the dusty red clay mixed with the beautiful flowers of petunias and peonies, geraniums and lily’s and a trio of Mimosa trees that were excellent reading spots during the hot summers and the old willow tree right outside my granddad’s “library”, which was really an outbuilding that he outfitted with wall to wall shelves loaded with his books and his roll-top desk with every nook and cranny filled with mystery, his Underwood typewriter sitting majestically atop its own table and big overstuffed chair that was my spot. This space also held a big duffel bag holding a skeleton that a long ago physician relative had assembled in his office. At the farm there were swings in two trees in the backyard. One was a “horsey” swing that my dad made for my sister and myself when we lived in California. He grew tired of pushing us in the traditional swing so made this one that could be powered by our little feet and hands pushing and pulling to make it go. The other swing was a traditional flat seat swing that we seldom used. There was a row of Poplar and Mulberry trees behind the house right along the road that went to the Neal farm. They provided some shade and a wind break but for this little kid I loved them for the easy picking berries. Picking while barefooted yielded purple soled feet. I loved picking mulberries more than picking blackberries with the thorns, brambles and chiggers. So many things to do; from shuffleboard and croquet to fishing, and reading outside and setting up shop in the playhouse that my grandfather built for my mom and aunt when they were children. Playing the games of my mom’s childhood like “Annie Over” with a ball thrown over the play house or jacks played inside. My sister loved to stand on her head for some reason. She would take a pillow outside usually around the old clothesline poles and commence to her head stand and stay this way for what seemed like hours. My grandmother, whose name was Lillie made a solemn ceremony cutting blossoms from her peonies for church at Mother’s Day. We all wore white blossoms indicating our mother was no longer living and red if she was still living. The pastor would have us stand and be recognized by these living and dead groups. The first year after my mom passed when I went from a red blossom to a white was very poignant. My grandparents never got over my mom, their daughter passing ahead of them. Grandmother also planted red white and blue petunias each year in her flower beds at home and at the cemetery in Carney. She would drive out to the cemetery almost daily after my mom passed to care for her grave and mourn. Grandmother Lillie’s greenhouse/laundry room just off the back door of the house smelled of dirt and geraniums that she kept over the winter. The old milk house smelled of dirt and onions and potatoes that my granddad kept in the old sliding feeders over the winter. At the summer time my granddad took us all around in the late afternoon in his big Buick to see all of his work especially along the fence lines. He was proud of continuing his father’s improvement of the land and often lamented on the lack of rain noting that the rain had gone all around them. Yet there always seemed to be just enough to keep the fields mostly green. My mom would breath deeply and sigh “ahhh Lezpedeza” that was freshly mown. Even though much was manicured my granddad would leave a patch of black eyed Susan’s for us to play “loves me, loves me not”. He always ended on “loves me”every single time! And he was right, I loved him so. Grandad kept a diary for over 80 years recording weather statistics more often than human conditions or events. Yet he was a staunch protector of his Purple Martins (birds) and ruthlessly dispatched any other bird that had the audacity to try to move into his Martin house! He was equally as ruthless with gophers that tried to inhabit the cemetery as well as the pastures at home. Livestock would trip and fall in the holes and tunnels they created and injure themselves. At the cemetery, they pushed up mounds and killed off plants and trees and must be dispatched! Branches and brambles, flowers and weeds, trees and grasses, chiggers, grasshoppers and fire flies all essences of my childhood. All familiar and different yet all the same. All cultivated and cared for In life and death just like our family.