Comments on: Working With Your Hands: Connecting With the Past

By: Marjorie

Marjorie — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 15:43:12 +0000

Here are some sweet vignettes about Laura-Jane’s very own grandma, Connie, who still wishes to be part of nature. Connie carries cups of water in the basket of her walker to the house plants in the interior halls of her nursing home(s). But she loves watering them so much, she doesn’t wish to stop until she gets tired. I remember the wet floor underneath the plant at the entrance of a couple of different nursing homes.
I especially remember the potted plant on top of the piano at Cokely Manor! Eeek, the poor wet piano, underneath the plant pot!
And she added a bit of “compost” (her tea bag, if not more organic stuff!) to the flowers in the table centers.
You might think this Connie (she’ll be 100 on March 4th, 2009) is ’starting to lose it’. Ok maybe a bit. But more than that, she is enthusiastically remaining part of the circle of life.
And yes, these nursing homes have lovely courtyard gardens, which Connie knows are watered and tended already, so she doesn’t try and water them with her teacups (or does she!?!?!)

By: Polly

Polly — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 20:41:42 +0000

Milking my cows. We have 2 jerseys that we milk just for our family, and I love the barn when it’s quiet — watching the cats play, hearing the cow munch hay, seeing the chickens scratch. I lean my head against the warm cow and it’s very restorative. I know that my grandmas and many generations before them did the same thing.

By: kazari

kazari — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 04:50:29 +0000

Cooking. Cooking from scratch, and cooking for others. I love the feeling of abundance and capability that comes from cooking a big meal from scratch, for friends.
My grandmother used to cook Christmas lunch for 40 people, a full proper hot English traditional Christmas lunch (roast, all the trimmings, pudding, brandy sauce). But she did it on a farm in the Australian outback, in the heat of summer – with a only a woodfired oven and a coolgardie safe – no fridge.
I have no idea how. But I think of her often, when I taking on a cooking project and bite off more than I think I can chew.