On Saturday morning I made Vegan Thumbprint Cookies. They turned out just perfect—sweet and salty and cute, with a spot of pink icing in the middle and lots of cheery sprinkles everywhere else. Buntin, our temperamental tortie, assisted me in the kitchen as she usually …
Yesterday morning I got up early and made a batch of Vegan Cherry Almond Cookies before dawn. It was very cozy. As I worked, Buntin sat nearby on the counter, tenderly licking the butter wrapper. The dough was so pretty, rose-petal pink. “Buntin, can you …
Saturday was the most beautiful and glorious day of all the year so far. It was dazzling. Everything was so green and seemed to shimmer with life, to tremble with it. Spring had truly arrived. Finally!
Rob and I began the day with a trip to Lowe’s, which is how we begin most Saturdays. The garden center was gorgeous in the spring light, full of brilliant, eye-popping colors. We chose Boston ferns, pentas, and petunias for the pots in and around our Vine House, and while Rob was picking out some coconests I started texting pictures of the rose displays to Bunny (my sister).
Lowe’s had the most beautiful roses that day; they were called Parfuma roses (‘First Crush’ . . . ‘Summer Romance’), and I had never seen the like. Oh, the flowers were so fluffy and perfume-y, with extravagant stacks of petals in luscious shades of pink. I kept taking pictures at different angles and texting them to Bunny, and Bunny texted back, “You should get one!”
“You should!” I replied, because Bunny is a genius with roses, and I hatched a plan to get her one for her birthday.
Rob and I bought so many plants at Lowe’s that we had to drop them off at home before we could continue with the rest of our errands.
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| Pink pentas |
Our next stop was Tallahassee Nurseries, where we bought 40 strips of sod. Then we went on to Native Nurseries, where we bought 30 stepping stones embossed with dragonfly, bee, and butterfly designs.
The sod and stepping stones were for a big project we’ve been dreaming about for over a year now. See, there’s a grass path leading from our driveway to the pebble path that takes you to the breezeway, and for the last five years this path has been a total wreck. The grass died in the horrible drought of 2011, and unruly weeds of all kinds promptly took its place. We wanted to re-sod this area, then make a path of stepping stones through it to protect the precious new turf from being trampled. The stepping stones would curve from the driveway to the pebble path, about 60 feet.
When we finally got home with all our purchases, we got right to work on the sodding project. We started digging out the crab grass and other weeds in our target area. Poor old Bernie, my stray-cat friend, came out of the garage, where he’s residing now, and sat nearby in the sun.
“He looks like a drowned rat,” Rob observed cheerfully.
“No, he doesn’t!” I said.
We dug out all the weeds, worked up the soil, and laid our sod and stepping stones, play-fighting all the while about who was doing better work. (I was. Clearly.)
When we finished, we ran the sprinkler on the new grass and stood there admiring it for a while, the sun and the water droplets making sparkles and rainbows. Then Bernie gave the stepping stones a trial run. He trotted over all 30 as he hurried back to the garage to enjoy the Savory Salmon Feast I was serving up on Rob’s weight bench.
I tidied up the garage, then got Bernie settled down for bed. By the time he had curled up on his cozy couch by the worktable, night was gathering. As I headed back to the house (I got to use the new stepping stones again), the frogs were singing in our little goldfish pond and the satsuma blossoms were glowing in the dark.
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| Purple coneflower blooming by the Vine House. I can’t show any pictures of the new sod because it doesn’t look good yet. I’ll have to wait until it starts really growing. |
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| Mrs. B.R. Cant rose |
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| Plumbago and coreopsis |
On Friday night it rained over 4 inches. It was a spectacular storm that started in the late afternoon and continued until just before dawn. Rob and I popped popcorn and watched Justified as the lightning flashed and the thunder roared, and I was so …
February was another busy month for home-improvement projects around here. Rob and I were hard at work every weekend. We started fixing up the bathroom in the main house, planted lots of plants, and even did a little Easter decorating. We spent the beginning of …
I wanted to tell you about a favorite place of mine, Tallahassee’s most famous tourist attraction, Wakulla Springs State Park. The park is home to one of the world’s biggest freshwater springs, thousands of acres of woods, and an elegant Spanish-style lodge built in 1937 (with stucco walls and a red tile roof).
My family has been visiting Wakulla Springs for half a century now, since I was a baby. We go at least once a year, and we were just there with Dad a few weeks ago, on Christmas Eve.
Over the years our visits have become kind of like pilgrimages to a holy place—there’s something ritualistic about them. Of course, Wakulla Springs is changing; the limpkins are gone and the water’s much darker now than it used to be. But the charm of the park is its “sameness,” the way it seems frozen in time, and I think we come back again and again to remind ourselves of all that’s best in Tallahassee, of what’s beautiful and essential, of what we want to hold onto.
On our Christmas Eve visit we took a river boat tour, walked a trail strewn with golden leaves, and ate lunch (complete with fried green tomatoes) in the lodge’s Edward Ball Dining Room. At the end of the day, in a cozy corner of the lobby, we opened our Christmas presents. We were sunk deep in some comfortable leather chairs under the cypress ceiling, which is a work of art, brightly painted with tropical birds and flowers and graceful Spanish galleons.
Before we went home, Sophie and Jake played an intense game of checkers at one of the lobby’s old marble checkerboard tables. The lodge is resplendent with marble, especially Tennessee marble, known for its distinctive pinkish-gray color. There’s a marble staircase leading up to the 27 guest rooms, and the old-fashioned soda fountain (across the lobby from the dining room) has a 70-foot marble counter.
I’ve never gotten to spend the night at the lodge, but my sister Kris has. According to Kris, the rooms are TV-free, furnished tastefully with homey, well-worn antiques. Kris’s dream is to spend the night on New Year’s Eve, when the lodge offers packages that include a moonlight boat ride, a band and dancing in the lobby, champagne at midnight, and desserts after that.
Kris has got to be Wakulla Springs’ biggest fan. In summer she and Sophie and Jake go swimming at the park almost every weekend, and have picnics on the white sand beach under the cypress trees. The kids snorkel and jump off the big, scary diving tower, and then they go to the soda fountain for ice cream cones and Cokes.
Sophie and Jake’s visits to Wakulla Springs are a little different than mine and Kris’s were when we were children. Back then we didn’t even know swimming was an option. We always went to the springs wearing our good shoes and church dresses, and we’d ride on the boat and then we’d go home. (Our parents were kind of formal.)
But Kris and I loved Wakulla Springs anyway. We loved the boat rides. I still do. On Christmas Eve we saw alligators, anhingas, ibises, herons, coots, moorhens, and merganzers in the morning mist. Our guide called to the animals, summoning them in the old chanting style that the boatmen at Wakulla Springs have used for generations.
Dad, silver haired, sat in the chilly breeze, in his familiar denim jacket, saying, “Did you all know some of these old cypresses were here when Columbus landed?”
“Ah,” I said, nodding and trying and failing to look wise. “That’s so amazing.”
Jake and I were sitting together, and he had his Kindle with him. He started showing me a video he made last summer with his GoPro; it was of himself jumping off the top of the diving tower.
“Oh, that’s awesome,” I said. (I’ve never had the courage to jump off the tower.) “Let me see it again.”
“I’m really glad I got the GoPro,” Jake sighed as we watched a second time. (He’s 12.) “I think it was a good investment.”
“It sure helps you remember the summer in winter,” I agreed.
“I like remembering,” Jake sighed again. (He was buttering me up now, trying to please an old lady.) “I just like it so much.”
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| Jake posing in front of the lodge in 2007 |
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| Interior of the lobby, 1995 |
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| Bunny and Sophie playing checkers in the lobby, 2013 |
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| The painted ceiling, 2015 |
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| Ceiling detail |
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| Dining room, 2015 |
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| The swimming area, 2010. Photo by Kris Kimel |
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| Sophie and Jake jumping off the diving tower, 2011. Photo by Kris Kimel |
Last weekend Rob and I painted the trim in the back bedroom. The trim in there had always bothered me because half of it was painted and the other half was bare wood. Plus, the bare wood part wasn’t even stained or varnished and wasn’t even completely bare; bits of old white paint were stuck around all the nails.
Last Saturday my sister Bunny, Dad, and I went to the Tallahassee Camellia Society’s annual show. It was held in Eyster Auditorium at the Doyle Conner Agricultural Complex. The auditorium was full of tables covered with row after row of red, pink, and white blooms …
Last week we got our sunroom and kitchen floors refinished. Both really needed it. The sunroom floor had water damage and most of the old finish had peeled off, and the kitchen floor was painted dark green. Both floors are wood (pine), and we had them sanded and varnished.
Rob happened to be out of town while the work was being done, but I was at home. I camped out in the “Little House” with all 12 cats until the varnish was dry and the fumes had cleared.
The Little House is a small building in our backyard that looks like a child’s playhouse. We use it as an office now, but in the old days it served as a kitchen.
The cats were really well behaved in the Little House, though it had to be hard on them to be confined to such a small space for five solid days. There was no growling or hissing or discontented meowing—not even any scratching at the door. It was because I pulled out the hide-a-bed, which they love, and they were too busy snuggling to cause any trouble.
Every night after work during my confinement in the Little House, I’d sit on the hide-a-bed too, surrounded by cats. I was making felt Christmas ornaments and calling cute, rotund Leroy “Mr. Roundandham,” which is Rob’s new name for him. Seated on the hide-a-bed, I stitched up four little felt trees decorated with seed beads, bugle beads, sequins, fancy buttons, and gold rickrack. My progress was somewhat slower than it might have been because I kept losing my sewing supplies under the covers or under a cat.
The new floors look awesome by the way. When Rob saw the kitchen, he said, “This one looks like a beautiful rollerskating rink or basketball court. It’s just so smooth and perfect.”
The sunroom floor is just as nice. Thank you, McIver Floor Sanding and Installation!
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| Sunroom! |
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| Kitchen! |
