When I was a little girl I loved to read. Every week Mom and Dad would drop me and my brothers and sister off at the public library. They would come back in two hours after the  grocery shopping had been done and pick us up. That Saturday afternoon trip to the library was the highlight of the week for me. I would wander up and down the stacks of books picking out the books that I ... << MORE >>

    Bunny and friends like to keep clean. Bunny washes his ears. Duck takes a bath in the pond. Silly Mouse combs his sleek grey fur. Poor Turtle has a dirty back and cannot scrub it  himself. His neck and legs are just too short to reach his shell on his back.
     Bunny and Silly Mouse help scrub Turtle's shell. Duck likes to watch and give advice. He says,"Scrub to the left! Scrub to the right!"
      Turtle doesn't care which ... << MORE >>

     Mouse was hungry for cheese. The best place to find cheese was in the big house, so Mouse found a hole and scampered inside. Before he could find any cheese, a big yellow cat chased Mouse around the room. Mouse found a window ledge and crawled out on it.
     "Help! Help!" he yelled as loud as he could.
     His friends Bunny, Turtle and Duck came as soon as they  heard him yell.
     "What shall we do to save Mouse?" asked Duck.
     Bunny had an idea.
     Bunny climbed on top of Turtle. Duck climbed on top of Turtle and Bunny. Duck  reached out and grabbed Mouse by the tail. Whew! Just in time, the cat almost caught Mouse. Mouse is lucky to have such good friends who came just in time to save him from the cat!




© 2011 Roberta L Howard

 

 

 

It is Turtle's birthday and Bunny is throwing his friend a party! Bunny brings a green spring pea for lunch. Duck brings a red,  ripe strawberry for dessert.  Silly Mouse makes a hat from a flower for Turtle. Turtle thinks this is the best birthday ever. He is lucky to have such good friends!

     Bunny and friends decide to take an afternoon off and go swimming. Bunny likes to float on his back in his inner tube. Duck and Turtle are at home in the water and they are happy to have their friends join them.
      Silly Mouse can't swim so he wears his life jacket and takes a ride on the back of Turtle. A yellow daisy keeps the hot sun off Silly Mouse's nose. He doesn't want to get sun burnt!

    Bunny and friends decide to have a slumber party. Buny likes to lie on his back and look  at the stars. Duck and Turtle just can't stay awake past 9:00 pm! Duck tucks his head under his wing and Turtle goes back into his shell. They both snooze the night away.  Silly Mouse is looking at the moon through his telescope and he wonders if it really is made of green cheese!

It has been raining all day! Bunny is trying hard to stay dry under a big daisy flower. Silly Mouse doesn't like getting wet either and holds a flower umbrella in front of him. Duck  just loves the water and is having fun splashing in the water puddles. For a joke, he splashes water on Bunny! Turtle doesn't care if he is wet or dry, because he carries his house on his back, and can go  inside whenever he wants!

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When I was a little girl, my sister and  I had a secret club just for the two of us. It was called the Moonlight Club. On warm summer nights, when the lightning bugs were lighting the evening sky with their friendly glowing bodies, my sister and I would secretly hide bread from supper under our shirts. We would then hide the pieces of bread in our bedroom under the bed. We could not let our Mommy  and Daddy know about this or we would get into  trouble!
     After everyone was in bed, my sister and I  would get out of bed. We would get our secret snack of bread and butter and climb out the window. We would sit on the roof of the garage that was under our window. We were very, very quiet so Mommy and Daddy would not hear us. We would eat our snack of bread and butter and look at the moon and the stars. We would whisper secrets to each other. Some of the things that we whispered about was what we wanted to be when we grew up. I wanted to be either an artist or a veterinarian. My sister wanted to be a nurse. After we ate all our snack and we started to get sleepy, we would climb back into our window, climb back into our beds and go fast asleep. Mommy and Daddy never did find out what we were doing in the middle of the night!

   When I was a kid, I hated to eat peas. They were varying shades of green and brown, rolled around on the plate, rolled off the fork and worst of all were mushy! My parents believed that all children should eat everything on their plate before leaving the table, so as to not waste any food. Peas and sauerkraut were the worst food ever and many a long evening was spent sitting at the dining room table staring at a plate of nutritious, but in our mind, unappetizing food which we refused to eat!
    So if I dislike peas so much, why then do I plant peas in my garden each spring and eagerly look forward to picking the first batch and cooking them for dinner? The simple reason is this...those mushy slime balls masquerading as peas are not related in any way to the uncommon delicacy of fresh spring peas! 
      Fresh picked peas from my home garden are the first herald of spring and the first crop to come from the garden. They represent a summer full of garden fresh vegetables, both nutritious and delicious. And since peas are the first garden crop, they represent the end of a long cold winter! When these peas are picked, shelled and cooked, they do not resemble in any way the canned peas that have been sitting in the pantry for three years!
     Another reason, I love peas fresh out of my garden, is that they remind of my grandmother. My grandmother was a stern German woman who lived through the depression and never forgot the hardships she endured. She always had a huge garden, with enough produce to supply herself, her grown children and family and all the neighbors. As a child I sat on the front step of my Grandmother's modest home and helped her shell peas. As each pea kurplunked into the bucket, her stern demeanor would loosen and occasionally she would actually smile.  After shelling the peas, she would give me a dime and I would spend it all at the ice cream truck that traversed her neighborhood every summer evening after supper.
    Eating that first batch of spring peas encompasses an untold amount of labor. First the peas are planted early in March. It seems too early to be planting anything, there is still a hint of snow in the air. Then after the peas have sprouted, they need to be weeded. A trellis of wire will need to be positioned just so, in order that the plants have proper support. Finally, the peas are harvested. A whole bucket of plump pea pods might yield enough shelled peas to serve three or four hungry people for dinner. The peas are then either steamed or cooked in a small amount of water with salt, pepper and butter. The taste is sublime, but the season for peas is fleeting. In just a about a week or two, all the peas have matured and have been harvested. It is a lot of work for several meals featuring these spring delicacies. But it is worth it for the fresh taste of spring and the memories of my grandmother.

Once in a while, one discovers an artist so unique and original that others pale in comparison. I am listening to Loreena McKennitt and her CD "the mask and mirror." Loreena McKennitt is not new on the music scene having recorded this album in 1994. She has recorded many other Cd's, the music genre is linked to celtic, and world music. In reality, her music defies classification. On this particular CD, she draws her inspiration from her world travels from Ireland to Marrakesh and from the writings of Yeats and Shakespeare. In particular, one song is a masterpiece. The song is based on her translation of a poem by the 16th century Spanish mystic and visionary St. John of the Cross. McKennitt composes a haunting sound poem that exquisitely marries the lyrics and melody of "The Dark Night of the Soul."
    On Easter morning, while I was in church, our minister mentioned  "the dark night of the soul" that we all at one time or another go through. I immediately knew what he was talking about. While not perhaps meant in the same context of Loreena McKennitt's music and lyrics, whenever I hear this music I think of God and his great mysteries. To me, that is the measure of truly great art - the ability to move us beyond the superficial and to create in us a new understanding of our own reality.
   Life circumstances lately have made me a little philosophical and Loreena McKennitt's music fits my current mood.

Love, Grandma Howard