Hail, Heather!

Well, Heather my sister,

Remember, in Bangladesh (and then in the half-dozen other places we grew up), when the sky would begin to darken, and you'd say, with your eyes half-full of hope and half-full of a wild light, "I think it's going to hail!"

Well, I wish you would have been here, sister mine, for I just witnessed the most impressive hail storm known to my own memory. Of course, the one in Bangladesh would have been even more dramatic with its tennis size balls, but I can't remember it well, if at all. I'm sitting in the sunroom, looking out on the garden, which seems to be covered in snow--but it's not. Thunder still rumbles across the hills and lightning stitches the white sky, though the storm seems to be retreating.

I was out in the garden for the first time in a while (we've had days upon days of rain and it's all mud and too wet to fool with the soil, though it's a good time to weed), and I was enjoying some quiet time whipping a bed into shape. I didn't even mind being scratched by a rose bramble, nor the fact that my shoes were deep in mud. . .

Ah! Did I say the storm was retreating? I think that was the eye, the calm before the next onslaught. Thunder just crashed so near and loudly I can feel it reverberating in my chest.

Anyway--I sensed the sky was darkening, and I heard low grumbles, but I was so engrossed I just ignored it until rain started to fall, and by the time I was settled on the porch, the drops were so huge I began to wonder if they were actually rain or not.

Inside, Bea and her friend, E, were still fast asleep, and they slept through the racket of grape-sized ice hitting the metal roof of the sunroom and ricocheting off the windowsills. Our table outside was covered in piles of ice balls; it swept down the driveway among all our mud and debris. I so wish you had been here to sit down and have tea with while we watched it all. It was such a good show.

Can you spy the yellow cat? She scrambled like a crazy thing until she finally reached the calm of the old truck's underside, where she slunk until the storm was over.

Can you see her hind legs and tail? She may be there, still. . . .

Flooding downtown; ankle-deep water; the creek is about to foam over its banks. Glad to live on a hill!

Wish you were here,

Kimby

Heather Letter Six: In Which I Fudge Hans Christian Andersen

Dear Heather,

In the spirit of roses I thought I'd read "The Elf in the Rose" to Merry tonight. Also, it was one of the shorter tales in the bulky Hans Christian Andersen book. Merry is seduced by the PreRaphalite artwork and the excitement of a new cache of fairytales (she's given Laura I. Wilder a break--we always seem to peter out after the first two chapters of "The First Four Years").

Anyway, I should have known to read ahead and do a little detective work before plunging blindly into a Hans Christian Andersen with a six year old, right before bedtime. Here's a brief synopsis of the story, as told by the elf, who keeps flitting nervously from flower to leaf to counterpane, etc. I'll give you scene sketches:

Two lovers in a garden, passionately embracing.

The lover is murdered by the woman's brother. Evil fiend brother cuts off lover's head and buries man's body (head separately) under a linden tree. [I leave out decapitation part. Yuk.]

["I don't like this one very much," I say. "Go on, go on!" Merry says. "I LIKE it."]

Elf murmurs in sleeping woman's ear where to find her lover. Evil fiend brother enters and exits: very mean, very despicable.

Night falls: woman slips out, unearths body and head of lover. Wants to carry body home, but settles for the head. Plants head in pot and covers with jasmine plant.

[My version: Woman cuts off piece of lover's hair and buries that in the jasmine plant.]

Evil brother unsympathetic. [Big surprise there.]
Woman waters jasmine with her tears, grows ever paler; jasmine grows ever better; woman dies.
All elves and spirits jab evil brother to death with spears.

[My version: The woman cried and cried on the jasmine plant. The evil brother went away and was never heard from again. One day the jasmine plant sprouted the lover. They got married and lived happily ever after. The end." "That was short!" Merry protests. "Can we read another one?"]

I'm not usually a proponent of censorship, but REALLY. Before bedtime? I think not. I told Merry, happy to find a less gory alternative, that we would read "The Princess and the Pea" tomorrow. That and "Thumbelina" are more our speed, I think.

Wish you were here too--but be glad for the option of air-conditioning!

xoxoxoxo
Kimby

A Virtual Strawberry for Aunty Heather

PS. (PreScript, in this case): Please take another look at the letters below--I added pictures!

Dear Heather,

If you were here today you and the kids could have helped me pick the thousands of strawberries that ripened in our short absence. I planted these strawberries in a very grumpy manner last year and then pinched the blossoms to encourage a good crop this year. Seems to have worked. We've been grazing on our strawberries for a couple weeks, but suddenly they're mostly ripe and ready to eat or make into freezer jam.

A close look and you see they are pesticide-free and organic--a few bug holes in some, an ant traveling the red, bumpy surface--but the bad parts we just cut out or throw on the compost pile. I often eyeball the location of holes and try to eat around them, hoping I'm not ingesting ants or other little critters.

The girls ate a wealth of the berries on their yogurt after dinner tonight.
Merry,

Elspeth,

and Sadly-Not-Beatrix. She has to be content with her fist and numnums.

Prior to sleeping, the girls and Martin are, at this very moment, singing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas," followed by "O Christmas Tree." Very odd.

Wish you were here and could help us eat the bounty,

xoxoxoxo
Kimby

Heather Letter: Five and 1/2

Dear Heather,

As the wise woman once said, Tempted to travel? Travel with children. This will cure all temptation.

Nuff said about that.

Honestly not so bad at all--we even went for a hike on the way back: Nelson-Kennedy Ledges State Park, where glaciers once thrust up huge wedges of rock, forming natural trenches now covered in maples, beeches, deep green ferns, and graffiti.

The house was stifling at arrival, but the fans are running and things are cooling off. We piled out of the car and inspected our garden first. The roses are absolutely stunning. Something is eating my basil and my leaf vegetables to shreds. The grass has sprouted everywhere. Honeysuckle breeze filters in the windows; the broad, handsome wood trim smells full and hot, shut away from the night breeze for too many days.

The climbing roses especially are brilliant, ravishing, embarrassing.

Surely your two-year old is not as wild as ours'.

Wish you were here and we could eat big congratulatory bowls of ice-cream together,

xoxoxoxo
Kimby

Heather Letter Five: In Which it Continues Hot, and We Are Not Amish

Dear Heather,

It is so hot here today that I am having trouble forming thoughts coherent enough to report on paper. Here are a few, though:

1. After watching the laundry flap on long, neat lines, and seeing approximately ten horse and buggies and a Grandma plowing a garden by hand tiller with a little boy in suspenders, Merry wants to be a little Amish girl. Barring that, she wants to become an Amish Mommy when she grows up. We were sorry to tell her that she may be out of luck since she was born to us and our Blue Subaru, but there are many principles we can adopt from the Amish. Neatness of yard and farm eludes us, I'm afraid, but simplicity, laundry on a pulley system, and slow-cooked food may be three we can hope for.

Later in Grandpa's back yard, Merry and Elspeth put their faces close to the hose, sipping in water and spitting it out at each other with many giggles and nose-scrunches. I think we must have been sisters like that, running around soggy and laughing together. They remind me so much of us.

2. One of my favorite memories of being with you (just us) is driving around Lancaster, following long roads past white and green farms and high crops that rippled like water. We'd get to another road and you'd pause, hands on the steering wheel, and ask, "Which way now?" We stopped briefly in the gravel driveway of a church; there wasn't a soul about except us, and farmland rolled in every direction.

2. Today I sat with Beatrix on my lap, reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (I too want to make my own cheese!), and kept an eye on Grandpa. Beatrix fell asleep with her mouth on my breast, and Grandpa twitched and scratched in his sleep. It was quiet. I thought: here I am with two completely dependent beings. Beatrix is not important merely because she is a seed, bursting with potential to become a contributing member of society. Grandpa is not a worthwhile part of the world merely because he once produced, worked, and spoke with a strong voice. Both baby and old man, at opposite ends of their lives and both vulnerable, are vitally important simply because they are people, and the spirit of God lives and moves and breathes in them. It is a good lesson for me to remember, I who often measures my worth (and other's worth) by what I do and how much I accomplish.

I do think the heat will break tomorrow. I love you.

Wish you were here with us even in the sweat,

xoxoxoxo
Kimby

Heather Letter Four: In Which a Storm Brews

Dear Heather,

Jesus could have had a whole lot on this earth. He could have gathered his posse around him. . .This from the sermon given by the sweet, earnest youth pastor at the Southern Baptist church we attended this morning. Another memorable bit of wisdom: "Happy wife, Happy Life." Pass that on to Luke for me.

Heather, as I write this, the maple outside the window (the one with the clothesline attached) bent double in a furious wind. Everyone but Grandpa and I had just gone out for a walk but returned almost right away--Martin checked the radar and observed that though nothing threatening shows there, it looks tornadic outside.

Merry's screaming in anticipation on the porch. She's a lot like you--thrilled and terrified witless at the same time by bad weather and natural disasters.

Well, we will just eat our chocolate cream and banana cream (yum, you'd love it) pies and hope the windows don't get blown out.

If you never hear from us again, we've been lifted by the wind to Oz.

Wish you were here,
xoxoxoxoxo
Kimby

Heather Letter Three: In Which I Am a Finn

Dear Heather,

"Young lady, were you born in Finland?" this bearded, wild-eyed fellow asked me today in Fairport Harbor at the Finnish museum. He pointed to my "conservative hair style" (I had it twisted back like a Mennonite girl at our school in Kenya used to wear hers', mainly because I had just showered, brushed it in the car, and it was wet). He squinted his eyes shut in concentration as he talked, and quickly connected me to my Finnish relatives in the room: Aunt Elaine, the lady showing the slides of Finland, and Cousin Jim, who looks like his brother.

The Finnish museum is pretty impressive, Heather--and they serve nisu (heavy on the cardamom--Luke would love it) and coffee to you while you sit at little tables. There are startling blue walls as accents, color of the Finnish cross-thing on the flag, and you can find our Greatgreatgrandmother Lempi's family photos under "Sironen" on the wall next to matted photos of other Fairport Harbor families. In the gift store there are various mugs, T-shirts, and other objects inscribed with "SISU" (I looked for a bumper sticker but was unlucky)--the good Finnish vigor, determination, and vim that have ignited our Tikkanen ancestors (those tough women with thick arms and fixed looks in their eyes) for generations. In fact today over lunch at the Lighthouse Grille Aunt Elaine told me how Greatgrandmother Muma Tikka chased a neighbor out of her house with a broom. That neighbor had just suggested that they use the Tikka's house as a selling place for bootlegged liquor. "Actually, she was a very mild mannered woman," Aunt Elaine said. Mild-mannered or not, she didn't stand for anything--Nana told Mommy how Muma Tikka chased her husband, Bapa, around the barn with a broom when he came home drunk one day--I observed that her broom must have been a great deal more impressive than mine, but Mommy pointed out that it was force of character behind the broom that counted.

Oh, also, I took a photo: it was Greatgreatgrandmother's husband who missed the Titanic and had to take a different ship across to America. . .and so here we all are, alive today.

Just down the street is the old lighthouse you and I climbed up into a long time ago. Martin took the girls up while I fed Beatrix and looked past the industrial yards to the beautiful lake.

This afternoon I found out more about Grandma Irene, how she worked the night shift at a factory for 20 years or more while she brought up six kids at the same time.

Nana bashed out a hole in the wall of their house to make an archway while her father was away and when Bapa came back he congratulated her on her work.

So there's a few more pieces of family history for you. Our heritage.

So, SISU to you, sister--

Wish you were here,

xoxoxoxo
Kimby

Heather Letter Two: In Which We Drive

Dear Heather,

A three hour trip is not a three hour trip with three children, as I am sure you know.

A few of our friends have minivans and DvD players. Elspeth and Merry can easily touch, tickle, and swat Beatrix in the back seat of our snazzy blue Subaru (it's the girl sandwich), and a while ago our CD player broke, so we've been listening either to the radio or a motley collection of tapes. We've got Chopin, the Mamas and the Papas, Cole Porter, Wee Sing, Marvin Gaye, and in honor of you and I and to get Martin's goat, Roger Whittaker.

Since the radio didn't have too much to offer (fundraising time for Pittsburgh's NPR--YAWN--and guilt-inducing, even though we don't even listen to Pittsburgh's station except when driving that way once in a cow's moon), we started on tapes, and then Martin expressed a desire for something less grand than Handel's Water Music, we popped out the tape and popped in Al Greene. And that's when nothing happened. So we had NO sounds except the soundtrack of our own lives for the remaining trip, and since Beatrix had stopped wailing and Elspeth and Merry were finishing off the big bag of pretzels, it was fairly smooth sailing. We arrived a little late for dinner, but arrived here at Grandpa's nonetheless.

It's super hot here (Martin almost passed out after finishing the hill grass this morning prior departure), and I think, though you would probably dispute it, that humid steaminess is worse than dry heat (you say, there in the desert, grass! we say, too much grass; you say humidity! we plug in our dehumidifier). . .but the house is fairly cool because Grandma Irene has the fans going. Remember the little white lamp in the shape of the pitcher and basin with the silvery pull chain that used to stand in between our beds when we were little girls staying at this house? Well, it's still here, in the other bedroom now. The rhubarb in the backyard grows ever bigger and more ruffly.

Wish you were here too,

xoxoxoxo
Kimby

Dear Heather (First in a Series)

Dear Heather,

Rather hot here. I closed off the house this morning and kept it fairly cool all day. It's up in the 90s or so again tomorrow. Whew.

I hear you're terribly busy there. I surely do wish you lived next door; I could shout out my kitchen window at your children, and you could watch my children for two minutes or so while I run out to close the deer fence at the end of the day. Those rascals have been nibbling our fruit trees.

We finally broke down and did the decent thing and mowed today. The grass was actually about Martin's hip height. Have you all read Eliot Coleman's Four Season Harvest? It's our gardening bible--Martin's always bringing him up (Eliot Coleman says THIS is a good alternative to potting soil, Eliot Coleman says NOT to work the soil too deeply, etc., etc.). Anyway I think you'd get a kick out of his ideal vision of harvesting fresh greens all winter. Well, Eliot Coleman recommends, among other things, a certain kind of European scythe--and we, being fed up with gas prices around here, and with noise, and with our grass--almost ordered one. We watched a video on YouTube with the soundtrack of Bob Dillon singing "How Many Roads"--with a girl with braids and a long skirt scything a field around a tractor (at the beginning the scythe is on fire and she's swooping it through the air). She ends the video by planting her feet firmly on the tractor roof and pivoting the scythe on her palm and then across the screen you see: HUMAN ENERGY. So we were actually pretty excited, by the field going down so cleanly, and her movement (like poetry, swinging back and forth), and her amazing scythe tricks.

But before we ordered it we had to bite the bullet and actually mow with what we had. And after mowing with these loud, gas guzzling machines, we both thought, we're insane to sell our riding mower at this point in our lives. Maybe we'll take up scything when the kids are teenagers. We thought about boarding goats but that went the way of the duck idea (if we can't take care of our laundry and our children and our garden, we're not ready for livestock). I told Mommy I wish we could just put the girls out to pasture. Think of what a money saver that would be.

I think we'll take the scythe money and buy a food dehydrator, which I'm so excited about. I tried drying apples on window screens last fall but it was such a nuisance and not terribly clean, either. The dehydrator has stackable shelves that you can load up with tomato slices and apples and strawberries and what-not. Get ready for your dried tomato Christmas now. It's coming.

So I don't know what's wrong with all my family, that they live so far away. Wish you were "popping over" distance. I actually felt like buying a ticket to Flagstaff and arriving there with Beatrix to keep you company, but then I decided since I can't do that I'd try to write you daily letters. I hope I can keep up with them--we're off to see Grandpa tomorrow.

We've harvested two good sized portions of strawberries from our garden and my beans are actually coming up. I'm always amazed when planting seeds actually results in plants. Your garden is beautiful! I love the bright poppies.

PS. Ask Josiah if he recognizes the binocs below--Elspeth took them with her hiking. Very intrepid.
Wish you were here,
xoxoxo
Kimby