Let it snow

Yesterday was Halloween, and it was a cold, windy, snowy day in the Chicago area. In fact, it was the snowiest October 31st ever recorded here. In my neck of the woods we had about four inches of snow and a brutal wind chill. Trick or treating was not cancelled, and we had about 35 children show up. It was a much lower amount than usual, but the kids seemed to be having fun. I have 3 bags of candy left over, which doesn't help my healthy eating at all. 😉

Here are a couple of  pictures from the day. These were taken at my friend's house.

I made Cajun chicken wings for dinner, in between answering the door.

The leftover candy was dessert.... just kidding, the bags are still not opened. Haha

We just helped ourselves to what was left in the bowl.

Duncan started his day with a grooming appointment, which was bad timing on my part given the weather. He was very happy to reclaim his spot on the patio now that the tree has been removed. 

Have a good weekend friends!

A beautiful day

It is the last week of October which means Halloween is only a few days away. The holiday season is starting and mine includes an early December wedding. All our lives are chaotic now for various reasons, but I believe we will celebrate together as we have in the past. 😃

Have a wonderful week everyone!

White Lilacs in Latvia: A Summer Gazebo: Part 2

The anecdotes shared below are only a small part of this beautiful book. 

These are the memoirs of a man of Amy's father's age who sent her his memories in Lativian. Amy translated them into English and put them together into this lovely little book.

My mother's parents had a house in Cesis, Latvia, with (for my size at the time) a very large garden, maybe something like 3,000 square meters (about 3/4 acre). It was surrounded by a purple lilac hedge that was so thick you would have needed a bulldozer to break through it. 

Rising above it like a signpost in the hedge, proclaiming that this was Grandmother's garden, was a large chestnut tree, quite a sight when in bloom, lit up with hundreds of white “candles,”* as its blossoms were called.

And then there was the white lilac gazebo on one side of the garden, where we often sat. The attraction of this gazebo ("laubite," in Latvian) was not so much that it was visually prominent in the garden—except for the short time it was in bloom—but the cool shade it offered all summer long. Here, we played “Black Peter” or “Snakes and Ladders” and had our morning and afternoon tea.

But when it was in bloom, you can let your imagination loose! Spring in that garden was simply stunning, with all the fruit trees blossoming first. Then came the lilacs and the flowering cherries in the adjoining Wintergrava Park. It was like somebody had spilled a giant perfume bottle. Add nightingales on a calm night, and it was made for all the romance one can handle.

When I think of that gazebo, I remember a whole lost world. It was a child’s paradise to spend the summers in that garden.

 By the time this garden and the old house became part of my memories, it was already a well-established horn of plenty with large apple trees; rows and rows of red, white, and black currants; and gooseberries. There was also a big patch of raspberries and cherry and plum trees. Grandmother's brother, who lived across the lane, had a garden twice the size. My grandmother often expressed regret about the time they bought the land: my grandfather had fallen short of cash and could not buy an extra block of land, like Grandmother's brother had.

Early spring, with all its beautiful fruit tree blossoms, was also worrisome for the gardener, because frost was always possible at that time of year. Over the generations, the farmers had learned what to do when they noticed the signs of imminent frost: during the previous autumn, fallen leaves had been raked into mounds placed strategically around the garden. Now they could be lighted, to smolder and protect the trees from a spring freeze, creating a blanket of white smoke during the night. The mixture of smoke and fruit blossom scent produced another pleasant perfume for my memories of spring.

(I did not want to include the images from the book- but I found this photo.)

...

One of my fun pastimes was watching for things to ripen, to go looking for the very first strawberry, plum, or cherry. There were apple trees known as "Clear White," an early-ripening variety; the apples were very white and very juicy. Or when the time came to dig out the new potatoes, we cheated the plants a little, just scratching the soil away, taking a couple of tubers, then patting up the soil and letting the poor potato plant go on ripening the others. While my grandfather was alive, the garden had no shortage of manure, as he kept a horse and a couple of pigs, hens, ducks, and at one point a couple of large gray-and-white geese.* The garden, especially the field behind the house, produced bumper crops of potatoes, swedes (rutabagas), cabbages, and beetroot. In today’s terminology, it was a self-contained ecological niche, a no-waste economy in its natural simplicity. All waste—human, animal, or plant—was subject to time-proven methods of recycling. It was no wonder that the garden produced enough to meet all the family's needs plus surplus to sell. Naturally it was a very labor-intensive economy, but the quality was way ahead of today's commercial products.

I remember a trip to a swamp that had white moss. Grandfather used a garden fork to fill our wagon with it, and then we drove it back home. Grandmother and I spent the next couple of days on our hands and knees spreading the moss over the strawberry beds. It made the two long strawberry beds look white; the moss was carefully placed so that no berry would touch the soil, keeping the berries clean and the moisture in the soil. I can still see the dark green foliage and the large red berries on their white background. 
...

Cesis was very much a postcard town with a long and rich history. The oldest historic monument was the ruins of the castle of the German Livonian Order. A tower was still standing, and visitors could climb a stone staircase winding around the inside, to be rewarded with panoramic views of the town. The tower was topped with a conical red tile roof. You could see Grandmother’s farm from there.

...

To the best of my knowledge,* my grandmother died in 1956. The Cesis of my childhood has also vanished with the times. Maybe there are still some of those familiar shapes in the skyline as a reminder of my childhood. 

But I'm sure the white lilac gazebo is no longer there. 

*Sending letters to Latvia from the free world was not considered safe for those in communist Latvia in the 1950s, so those who had emigrated did not write letters until some years later. 

Thank you, Amy, for sharing these stories with us.
We love you to bits.
GJ

White Lilacs in Latvia: A Summer Gazebo: Part 1

Amy has given us permission to use excerpts from her book. Enjoy.

In the 1930s, in a garden in Latvia, we can imagine mature white lilac bushes forming a gazebo that serves as a shady place for summer activities, not only when the lilacs are in bloom, as shown here, but all summer long, under their leafy canopy. 

   It is surprising that there apparently were no all-white flower gardens in the independent Latvia that existed between World War I and World War II. Latvia is one of the Baltic states—a term that has the word "balts" (Latvian for "white") embedded in it—and there are many ways to connect the color white with this country. The garden presented here has so many white elements that we feel it belongs in this collection even though it is not an all-white garden in the more usual sense of only white blossoms.

Anyone familiar with the culture of Latvia in this brief period will know about Latvian white-work (pulled-thread embroidery on white linen); white nights; the overwhelming billows of white-blossoming fruit trees in spring; the white sands on the beach of the white sea (the Baltic Sea); the white-haired children; the national affection for the white-trunked birch; the Latvian celebratory expression "many white days" meant to wish someone "many good days in your future"; and many other happy references to the color white.

The closest we come to white gardens in this white land is to note that white lilacs and their leafy canopies were used often as the covering for a house's outdoor patio, or, (...) to create a gazebo that was at its most spectacular when the lilacs were in bloom but was used also all during the rest of the summer. 

After World War II ended, so did Latvia's independence. With Soviet occupation came exile for many to Siberia: one can imagine these dispossessed Latvians imprisoned in the deathly dark depths of freezing, starving Siberia remembering the safety, freedom, and abundance of the white homeland they had left behind (to say nothing of loved ones left behind or lost). Other Latvians migrated all over the world, many after spending several years in displaced person camps following the end of the war. The 50 years until 1991—during which Latvia was either war-torn or occupied by the communists under very harsh economic, social, and political conditions—were dark times indeed for Latvia. So the memories of these good years between the two world wars remained precious to those who survived.

To be continued...

Abscission time ( word courtesy of 1SC )

The colors of the trees in my neighborhood have been very pretty this week. In a short time they will fade and fall to the ground. Then the real work begins, raking and leaf blowing. 😊

On a completely unrelated note, I made a tasty cheese, pepper, onion, bacon and mushroom frittata the  other night. It was very good.

Have a good weekend everyone!