Screech Hollow

[IrishEyes]

NOVEMBER 19 , 2922

FIRST SNOW FALL AT OUR HOUSE ... In one of the Flower Beds . click for Bigger

[Woodlands Bleu]

Good Morning Bev.....That is very pretty and for certain you will get a lot more. Down here has been cold kind of. The dogs love it. Thank you for posting that fun picture....
carolyn

[IrishEyes]

Good Morning Bev.....That is very pretty and for certain you will get a lot more. Down here has been cold kind of. The dogs love it. Thank you for posting that fun picture....
carolyn

You are welcome Carolyn .. I Bet the Dogs do love the cooler weather .. Most important.How are You? I will continue to pray,
Bev

[Woodlands Bleu]

Thank you! I am doing better each day. i must have patience though, this takes time. Your prayers help a ton. I am finding lots of things to make me smile. People can be kind (also they can be not so). I get to meet Feronia this week!
Carolyn

[IrishEyes]

Love, Hugs and Prayers.
Bev

[IrishEyes]

FRIDAY DECEMBER 2, 2022

Hugs Bev

[Woodlands Bleu]

A spontaneous poem (I have not written in a while) for you.....

In the Merry Month of December, leaves are falling down,
color everywhere flying a song to be heard in the sound.

The cardinal is eating the seed, not knowing of the misdeeds of the
puppy on the ground.

The leaves are leaves of hope and kindness waiting to be seen,
watch and see, what may be, it comes from Heaven abound.
carolyn

[IrishEyes]

Thanks Carolyn.... that was lovely!

[Woodlands Bleu]

Thank you Bev and Judy for your thoughts and prayers....I am healing well and will continue to be careful.

I wish you all a wonderful Christmas season with joy and love......

Stars shining in the sky,
look up and imagine the songs flying high.

Christmas has magic, even a sleigh,
a flying sleigh, no way?

Why not, if you believe it can be seen,
even with a Red Nosed Reindeer in the lead.....
Following an eagle.
carolyn

[JudyB]

What lovely poems and images, carolyn - thank you so much for sharing them here.


Here's the image that Charlie made for our holiday card this year (clicks bigger):

As you might have guessed, there's a bit of a back story about the old chord organ on the porch serving as a bandstand. My mother learned how to play piano as a child, and missed having one after she married my Dad and they moved to Maine. At some point, my parents bought a chord organ - you didn't need to know chords to play - you could just push the right button with the left hand while playing the melody with the right hand. Mom did know how to play with both hands (though I don't know how well she played), but this was a lot cheaper than a piano, and perhaps she figured that my brother and I might play it occasionally if it wasn't too complicated. He was never interested - but I loved it. I never got very good, but I did enjoy it. Mom died when I was in my late 20s, Dad remarried a year or two later and moved in with his new wife, my brother married and settled into the family place with his wife. There were renovations, and older stuff moved to the attic. My brother and I were close - but I wasn't there often enough to notice when the organ disappeared (and wouldn't have taken it then even if I had noticed - I had a guitar, and that was a lot more portable). Jump forward 40+ years - my brother died, his wife moved to a smaller place, and his son inherited the house - and basically said I could take any of the old stuff before it was cleaned out. I was in the attic removing boxes of stuff I should have thrown out decades ago (electric bills from my time in Boston??). Anyway, it was in a corner, and falling apart a bit, but I thought that maybe I could take it apart and clean the contacts and patch the wood - and maybe it would work. And Charlie, ever supportive, lugged the thing down the narrow attic stairs, and we brought it home. We agreed it would sit on the porch for a while - we were pretty sure that some mice had been living there, and weren't sure if they were all out, so wanted to give them a chance to relocate somewhere other than our living room.

Turns out that fixing it wasn't as easy as I'd hoped - I was thinking there would be screws on the bottom or something, but things were glued, and it did make noise when I plugged it in and pushed a key, but not exactly anything musical. So it stayed on a sheltered corner of the porch as I focused on other things. And we started feeding the chipmunks who lived on the edge of our lawn - and they started coming up on the porch to see if we had peanuts - and we started putting peanuts on the porch. And when we saw one of the chipmunks up on the organ, we put some peanuts there. And eventually Charlie got a whole lot of pictures of chipmunks in various poses on the old chord organ - and made the initial photo collage.

Being Charlie, he wrote a song for them - the Peanut Day Rag (link to his website for words, music, and the original collage). And when we were discussing ideas for a holiday card, we decided to go with the chipmunk band.

The chipmunks aren't coming around as much these days (he wrote Jay Bird Song for the new visitors - there are pictures at the link, as well as an MP3 file for that song) - but we did get to see two of this year's offspring soon after they left their nest/den for the first time - I'd never seen young chipmunks before, and they were very cute half-size versions of the adult with them.

Anyway, a very long story covering a lot of years.

Getting back to the present...

20221218_005.jpg (10.51 KiB) Viewed 645 times

Wishing everyone a happy holiday season, and all the best in the coming year!

[Woodlands Bleu]

Thank you Judy for your fantastic card, story and songs (Charlie thank you).....that was enjoyable. My mom's stuff was mostly given away by my step mom after my Dad died. Much of it was sad when I found out but then again, he had foresight and gave me a bunch of wonderful things prior to that time. And stuff is stuff, it accumulates. Actually the best thing we did when moving to Texas was clear out lots of family things. I did not bring my accordion which I played along with piano (piano kind of so so but accordion much better). I remember a box of mohair sweaters and I am allergic to it, so they did not come.

Then when we got here ice skates went in the storage closet and there they stay. We had wonderful times skating on the frozen lake in NJ, not too many of those here?

I remember also taking my golden retriever Brandi for long walks in NJ in deep snow, it even made the newspaper as most people chose to stay home. It was such fun.

At any rate, enjoy your Christmas season, we'll be busy with family for some time starting soon and that is perfect.
Smiles of joy of ice skating on a frozen lake,
carolyn

[IrishEyes]

WOW! Thanks you so much Carolyn and Judy I hope to get back here soon..... I am very busy here at home and posting on the nest threads.. In the mean time.. I wish you both a Happy Christmas and all the best in the New Year. to you and yours !

[IrishEyes]

I received this today from by great nephew.
Mike and LISA Their two boys
Cl for bigger,

[JudyB]

Carolyn, I have a lovely image of you skating across a frozen lake playing your accordion while other skaters swirl around you!

And Bev - they both look so cute and comfortable with Santa - and what a huge chair! Even Santa looks tiny in it! If the weather continues to cooperate, we're planning to see my great nephew and his family on Monday.

I realized I didn't include the link to our full online holiday card - it's https://www.judybmaine.com/misc/xmas2022.htm. It includes a picture of us from this spring - I think maybe my hair is no longer dark brown.

[IrishEyes]

Thank You so much Judy ! My family loved your card.
My hair is no longer Black ..It is Salt and Pepper now
Have a wonderful Christmas Judy and Carolyn.. : to both.