Another Homey Weekend

The coreopsis is blooming.

So are the irises.

Here are a few things I did this weekend:

Ate cherry jelly beans for breakfast

Planted five Dixie wood ferns

Planted 12 Clemson Spineless okra

Transplanted a bunch of purple coneflowers to the bed by the barn

Picked a big basket of cabbages

Brushed the cats (so relaxing)

Popped popcorn on the stove

Read on the screen porch at night in the lamplight (Delta Wedding for the millionth time)

That’s just a partial list of my activities, and it doesn’t capture at all how delightful everything was. I never feel that I do a good job of describing how great it is just to be here at home all weekend, to prowl around this old place for two entire days in a row. But I find it so exciting. I always feel like I’m on the verge of some great discovery, and I guess that’s due to the oldness of the house–all it’s been witness to.

The other day Rob and I met a man who knew our house. He called it “the old Pittman place.” I had never heard that name before. Rob and I have owned this house for almost eight years, but it’s still so mysterious to me. It’s so much fun to wander around the big old rooms, exploring. I’ll be “cleaning,” but looking for ghosts at the same time. And sometimes when I’m digging holes in the yard, for ferns and such, I’ll find a bit of old china that’s been buried for years and years. Sometimes the little fragment is plain, and sometimes it’s decorated with faded flowers or painted curlicues.

The most beautiful and magical things happen here in Quincy. Not this weekend but last weekend, we were coming home from Winn-Dixie and we saw an Easter procession. At night, in the darkness. There were Roman soldiers, and there was Jesus, with his gentle face, dressed in a long robe. At the back there were women in ordinary modern clothes, walking with candles and singing. They were coming out of the old Eastern Cemetery, heading down the sidewalk to St. Thomas the Apostle, Quincy’s only Catholic church. I thought the procession was so beautiful and surprising; I kept watching out the car window for as long as I could see it.

And now for some irrelevant cat pictures:

The great June Baxter. She’s very smart and more like a monkey than a cat.

My dear Carl. I call him “Treasure” just to make Rob mad.