Echoes of Children at Play

 

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The Spiral Staircase

Extraordinary Staircases from AD Features : Architectural Digest
http://www.architecturaldigest.com
Water Mill, New York staircase

More on Stairs.

I am preoccupied with stairs.

Oh elegance!

When I was a young girl with ah, so many longings, I yearned for  a splendid home of my own – a home with a sweeping spiral staircase!

As a new bride I harbored dreams of  the mansions featured in magazines like Architectural Digest – gorgeous homes of the rich and famous with circular staircases leading to enormous bed/sitting rooms, with silken draperies, libraries, and the artwork of the masters on the walls.

And my yearning for such a home was always punctuated by the impressive, inspirational, sumptuous spiral stairs.

And would you believe I finally did get what I wished for?

Have you ever seen the GEICO commercial about a guy who meets a genie and makes a wish for a million bucks.  And that’s what he gets – a million male deer?

My wish was exactly like that.  The genie appeared in the form of Bill (my singularly brilliant spouse) and he magically produced a spiral staircase for the house of my dreams.

The stairs are spiral all right, and they are

metal,

not particularly elegant,

slightly rickety,

 even dangerous

(particularly in lightning storms),

frightening to those who fear heights,

and the railing is similar to a stiff rubber hose!

Bill is a Civil Engineer who spent a lifetime building roads (not houses), but he knows all about blueprints and measurements and since he is a highway man, getting from one point to another.  The point is, his design plan worked.

We do have a lovely, much beloved, mostly one level, mostly comfortable, unpretentious home.  Bill designed it – drew out the plans and everything.  AND THERE IS A UTILITY ROOM IN THE BASEMENT.

Evidently, the most utilitarian way down to the utility room was to install a pre-fabricated metal set of winding scares stairs.

AND YES, BILL MADE MY WISH COME TRUE AND I DO HAVE THAT SPIRAL STAIRCASE!

It is not a million bucks, and certainly not a mansion, but who can complain with a literal wish coming true?

Eeeeeeek!!!!!!

 

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The Inside Scoop on Country Living

Photo from en.wikipedia.org

I have been living in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia for 26 years now and I am a self proclaimed “local”, but still considered a visitor by genuine old timers. It seems like eons ago I  traded citified  high heeled shoes (that don’t work on gravel drives) for  more sensible Wellies or flats that keep you from falling over.

OF COURSE you never have to ask for Dor’s sage words of wisdom.  Here’s the scoop and the straight talk about country living.

MAKE FRIENDS WITH WILDLIFE!

Wild things “where the deer and the antelope play” make up a big part of country life but please forgive them their sins.

Deer are hungry.

And anything you plant in the ground (flowers, food, maybe even plastic plants) will send out signals in deer language.

Have you ever heard deer talking?  They oink to each other and they don’t know it but I know they are saying,

“Come and Get It Guys!!  SALAD HERE!”

But you have to love deer for their great beauty and grace.  And after all, they were here first.

• Exception #1:  Do not try to make friends with Virginia Black Bears.  They are beautiful but somehow not to be trusted with your life.  AVOID VIRGINIA BLACK BEARS.
• Exception #2:  If you see a sick skunk, do not try to cover it with a blanket to reduce chills and fever.  Dor tried this once.  Fortunately the shivering skunk dragged itself away, but I learned later it might have been rabid!  I hope it was only the flu, but please – AVOID SICK SKUNKS!
• Exception #3:  Buy or borrow a “Have a Heart Trap.”  This comes in handy for humanely evicting critters that get into your attic like flying squirrels and possums.

This is just a cute squirrel…not a flying squirrel. I have never seen a flying squirrel but my neighbors had them in their attic.

 

PLANT A VEGETABLE GARDEN BUT MAKE IT BIG

We planted a garden right away but were laughed at.

“Need some help harvesting?” said Julie and Peggy between rude guffaws!

I guess one cucumber and one tomato plant was considered small potatoes around here.

It wasn’t much of a salad for the deer either.

YOU WILL SOMETIMES MISS THE NECESSITIES OF LIFE

Plan on losing POWER, WATER, HEAT, AIR-CONDITIONING and don’t expect to FLUSH TOILETS EITHER!  These things usually disappear without warning at the most inopportune times.

WHACK AWAY AT THOSE WEEDS!

You will undoubtedly own five to ten weed whackers over five to ten years.  WEEDS ARE KILLERS OF MECHANICAL OBJECTS.  And weeds will always win.  Be vigilant. Enormous weeds will soon take over without your constant murderous intention.  Wear gloves for manual attacks or risk bleeding fingers and bug bites.  And be prepared.  You will definitely lose the war.

THERE ARE GOOD BEES AND BAD BEES

Have a plan for dealing with wasps and hornets who build TERRORIST CAMPS in the ground or in great hives almost anywhere you don’t think of.  We found one enormous hive in the fender of our pickup truck.  We moved the truck and the critters kept returning to the empty parking space.

Evidently wasps are not particularly bright.

Now there is a terrorist camp in the ground next to our front door!  Beware visitors.

Bill has a diabolical plan for dealing with the threat.  He ran a hose into the hole and turned the water on.  We are waiting to see if they evacuate and move to a more idyllic location.  I will let you know how this works out.

WORRISOME WEATHER

We have had flooding rains.

Once we had an earthquake that registered as a mild thump with some rattling dishes.

We experienced a Derecho (a type of storm I never even heard of) with wicked winds.

Tornadoes are rare but not unheard of.

Drought is a distinct possibility.

Deep snow does happen.

Hot, muggy, mid-summer weather is punctuated by severe thunder storms. (Dor hides in a closet.  She used to blame the dog.)

However, we were told and still believe this is Brigadoon and it only rains at night.

Don’t get me wrong.

I LOVE COUNTRY LIFE,

the birds singing

and starry skies,

seeing a doe nursing twin fawns,

herds of turkeys,

  Mama Bear and two cubs wandering by our living room windows.

I love the open space

and the silence,

the comfort of knowing we are almost self sufficient,

the warmth of a wood stove and being stocked up for the winter,

and occasionally I even love the challenge of survival

in a place that is not always benevolent.

I still stand in my kitchen and look out at the Blue Ridge Mountains and then I look again at the inside of our house.  It is a welcome nest Bill and I have created and it is all we had ever hoped it would be, complete with all the memories.

Are you still contemplating the serenity of country life?

Ahhhh –  call me if you have questions!

Shenandoah Sunrise

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Such is Life in the Country

My friend, Debbie at The Mountain Kitchen  just wrote a great story about a water pump problem at their house.  There are  emotions that come with sudden water loss and she tells a mesmerizing tale.  At the end her post brought back memories of an incident at our house that still makes me laugh.  Country living does have its challenges.

It was a summer weekend when we lost our water.  Isn’t it always?  And to make things worse, our son and family (with three young grandgirls) were visiting and we couldn’t even call a plumber until Monday!

We had lived here long enough to know that several things happen when there is no water :

• There is nothing to drink.
• Cooking becomes problematical.
• Washing up from cooking becomes problematical.
• There is nothing to wash bodies with.
• Sanitation becomes problematical.
• The toilets will not flush.

There are also steps that can be taken to survive the above crisis:

• Buy bottled water.
• Bring in water from the pool to flush toilets.
• Eat out.
• Use sanitary wipes to wash bodies.
• Go to a motel.

But we were facing surviving the weekend (or longer) with a total of seven bodies in the house.

The visiting family had two choices:

• You will not hurt our feelings if you pack up and go home now, or
• You can stick it out.

prepforshtf.com
Water Storage and Procurement

Oddly enough, they decided to stick it out.

• We trucked buckets of water in from the pool for three bathrooms.
• We rented a motel room about 2 miles down the road (for showers only).
• We bought tons of bottled water.
• We bought tons of paper plates, plastic glasses, and utensils.
• Don’t ask me what we did for meals!
• And we stuck it out until Monday.

On Monday morning I drove to town to get more drinking water and Bill called our Farmer’s Co-Op for help.

And when I got home, 30 minutes later,  the water was on!

“What was it?” I asked Bill.

“It was a switch,” he answered with a wry grin.

“A switch!?  But we did check the breaker box!”

“Yep, it was only a switch.”

Evidently the man from our farmer’s cooperative came out right away.  The first (and only) thing he did was to inspect the breaker boxes.  He noticed there was another little box across the room.  We forgot about that one!  It was an emergency box that was installed for a new generator.

And the Co-op Man found it and flipped  the switch that was plainly marked, WATER!

Such is life in the country .

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Country Living for Beginners

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “All About Me.”

Explain why you chose your blog’s title and what it means to you.

There was another blog first.  It was a memoir for family and close friends and became the beginning of my growing love for the blogging process.  Technicolor Daydreams has now been converted to a self published hard copy book created as a gift for the special people in my life.

I thought I was through blogging, but there was more to come.

Since the old self seemed to be adequately recorded in that first blog, I began to stretch and strike different poses (much like clicking around for the perfect selfie).

And a new blog was born!

Virginia Views is the second-story canvas now used to portray a city girl’s transference to country living.  High heels on a gravel driveway, a horse in the pool, and finding puff balls  and paw paws  in the wild, are the types of stories that still make me chuckle and I hope will bring smiles to anyone interested in the vagaries of country living.

Being mostly mixed up, I originally planned this new blog enterprise to be named Country Living for Beginners.  But I misread the form and a great title became the URL address instead – https://countryliving4beginners.wordpress.com .

VIRGINIA VIEWS turned out to be the all encompassing title of the new blog and I still love it.

My friend Cindy of Photos from the Loony Bin, helped with that title, and the “views” part allows me to wander from poetry to photography to worded essays and stories, however the mood shall strike.

Of course there are always lurking recollections of  hilarious adjustments to the surprises of living “out in the county” but like an emerging butterfly, Virginia Views morphed into an eclectic introspective interpretation of life in general.

The birth and growth of a blog is a terrifically exciting process with grandiose dreams of endless material to share.

Virginia Views now features over 600 posts and even when I think there is no more to say and “nothing new under the sun”, a new story emerges. Just telling you about it is the inspiration to begin again.

Uh oh!  Watch out WordPress!  There may be more to come.

~ Dor

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Country Critters in the Commonwealth

Free Donkey-Desktop-Wallpaper Image

Living in a rural part of the Commonwealth of Virginia means I am bound to meet unexpected creatures.  The last few weeks have featured a donkey and a Mama Bear and her twin cubs.

A LONESOME DONKEY

Country Living Tip:  Even a donkey has to learn to love himself.

My neighbors have a cattle company.  Sometimes we see big herds of cows roaming their pastures and sometimes not.

But there is a comical looking donkey who is almost always in evidence and is always totally alone in a big empty pasture.  He paces up and down a long fence line hoping to join a herd of cows or a few cows, or even just one cow.

He seems desperately lonely.

When there happen to be cows in the pasture adjoining his, you can sense his happiness.   If the cows lie down near his fence, he will lie down on his side too and he spends time “talking” to newcomers through the fence until they tire of him and go off to chew grass.

I want to stop and tell him it is o.k. to be alone and that he can learn to love himself and enjoy his own company.

I have even stopped to visit but he is elusive – too busy concentrating  and wearing out a path along the fence line.  Maybe he there to guard the herd.  Or maybe he is too aggressive with the “girls” to share the same pasture but I wish he had some friends.

More on Guard Donkeys From Agri-Facts:  Many donkeys dislike and are aggressive towards dogs, coyotes and foxes and provide indirect protection for domestic animals. Donkeys have exceptional hearing, keen noses and excellent vision. They use these senses to detect intruders and bray, bare their teeth, chase, and attempt to kick and bite dogs and coyotes. Some donkeys will also chase deer, bears, strange livestock, humans and other intruders in a similar fashion.  

MAMA BEAR AND HER CUBS

“SOMEONE HAS BEEN SLEEPING IN MY BED!”

Country Living Tip:  Keep aromatic refuse under cover and  inside your house!

The Three Bears Story
Illustration by Arthur Rackham
Wikipedia

The mother bear and her twin cubs who delighted us with their presence last week, have not visibly returned.  But we noticed they broke down part of our pasture fence.  I was surprised that bears can climb through a board fence just like humans do, but they evidently feel no pain as they encounter obstacles.

I hope Mama and her cubs don’t plan to check out the interior of our house though!  If they do, Plan #1 is to barricade myself in the bathroom with the cell phone permanently set to dial 911.  Can anyone help with ideas for Plan #2?

A True Local Bear Story and more advice:  “If you think you have seen a bear, you have.”

Friends of ours had fish for dinner one night and made the mistake of leaving the remains outside in the garbage.  A passing bear thought he smelled something nourishing.  He tipped over the garbage can and hit the jackpot.

“Surely there is more  fish where that came from!” he thought.

And our friends were stranded inside all night, with the bear banging on walls and trying to break in. Talk about sleep deprivation!

Daylight brought the animal control people out to their house to set up a bear sized “Have a Heart” trap with a whole canned ham for bait.  But the bear had given up and left, so he missed all that yummy ham.

Maybe it was his wife and kids who passed by our place though.  They reminded me of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

From Wikipedia:  The Story of the Three Bears is one of the most popular fairy tales in the English language that was first recorded in narrative form by British author and poet Robert Southey and first published in a volume of his writings in 1827.

 

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Look for the Silver Lining

Our days here in Virginia have lately been filled with drizzling rain, dipping temps and cloudy skies.  I wonder why the darkening clouds are still  amazing or why a changing sky captures the imagination.  It is surely unlikely there is a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow,  but today I looked for and found a silver lining!

 

“Look for the Silver Lining” is a popular song with music by Jerome Kern and lyrics by B.G. DeSylva. It was written in 1919 for the unsuccessful musical Zip, Goes a Million. In 1920 it was published and reused in the musical, Sally, whence it was popularized by Marilyn Miller. Among others, the song was later covered several times by Judy Garland, whose version also became, and remains, well-known.  From Wikipedia.com .

 

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Making Progress

Some things make me sad.  This was once a prosperous dairy in a rural part of my county.  Now it stands as a monument to  simpler times and natural spaces.  But, “that’s progress,” or is it?

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Five Photos, Five Stories: Sit There Where You Can Hear the World

This is Photo Story #4 for the Five Photos, Five Stories challenge.  The rules are to post a photo a day for five consecutive days and attach a story to the photo.  It can be fiction or non-fiction, a poem or a short paragraph.  Oh yes,  and each day nominate another blogger for the challenge.  Today I nominate Ana of Celebrating Sunshine, who has a blog that shines with a truly happy outlook on life. 

Beyond my home there is a forest glen

where hoof prints and purple shadows

 line a path of dappled shade and sun

deep with a woodland reverie.

Come upon a rustic bench for resting

a place where you can think unfurled.

Sit there,

where you can hear the world.

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Five Photos, Five Stories: Caravan for Chicks

This is Photo Story #2 for the Five Photos, Five Stories challenge.  The rules are to post a photo a day for five consecutive days and attach a story to the photo.  It can be fiction or non-fiction, a poem or a short paragraph.  Oh yes,  and each day nominate another blogger for the challenge.  Today I nominate Dianna of These Days of Mine.  This should be fun!

 

I was saving this photo for something

I just didn’t know for what.

It looks like a gypsy caravan in

the midst of a mystery plot

 But it’s only a home place for chickens!

And I smile as I drive alongside

at the clucking mass of hens pecking

with a horse and goats grazing nearby.

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