Time For Tea

When you are raised in a culture of hot tea-drinkers, from the time you are old enough to enjoy a  milked-down version in your baby bottle, through infancy and youth and young adulthood, continuing throughout your life into senior days, you rarely pay any attention to your daily habits until someone points them out.

The first thing that most English people do when people stop by the house, is to put the kettle on. Tea mostly, or coffee if you prefer, it's embedded in our DNA.
We were watching re-runs of Downton Abbey today, I couldn't help but smile as I watched the offer of "tea ?" being suggested at every twist and turn. 

When a visitor drops by, when good news is received, after bad news is received, when a helping hand is needed, or a little encouragement is welcomed.

 

Tea drinking in many cultures is the centuries-old tradition and universal language of civility, and social nurturing, a little more partaking these days would be a good thing.

"THE CUP FOR ME.

"Let others sing the praise of wine,

Let others deem its joys divine,

Its fleeting bliss shall ne'er be mine,

Give me a cup of tea!

The cup that soothes each aching pain,

Restores the sick to health again,

Steals not from heart, steals not from brain,

A friend when others flee.

"When sorrow frowns, what power can cheer,

Or chase away the falling tear

Without the vile effects of beer,

Like Pekoe or Bohea?

What makes the old man young and strong,

Like Hyson, Congou, or Souchong,

Which leave the burthen of his song

A welcome cup of tea.

"Then hail the grave Celestial band,

With planning mind, and planting hand,

And let us bless that golden land

So far across the sea;

Whose hills and vales give fertile birth

To that fair shrub of priceless worth,

Which yields each son of mother earth

A fragrant cup of tea."

Growing

The triplet fawns are growing like little weeds.
Their spots are disappearing, and momma dear tries her best to run away, but they still insist on trying to feed, chasing her down the field.
Armadillos have moved into Middle Tennessee.....ooh joy.

August Days

 " The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color. Often at night there is lightning, but it quivers all alone. "

~Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

 

  

Summer Days

Long summer days, lend hope to ticking off some of those ' to-do ' chores around the place.

Summer flowers are hanging limp on the vine, several of the perennials have already stopped blooming for the season, and others are just arriving.

We'll be pulling, and weeding, and digging and tending, until the first frost arrives.

I spent the day at my daughter's hobby farm yesterday, she's having a clean-out, seems we always accumulate too much stuff !
We are open to suggestions :)

The donkeys followed us as we drove up on the hill, hoping we were carrying vanilla wafers, they will do anything for a handful.
Inside the barn,  the swallows' nests are filled with babies. Such a sweet sight, watching those little yellow beaks appearing over the nests, when their parents were within earshot.

Nature never fails to renew my spirit.

Being Close

Tom-Tilly has taken over Oliver's basket.

I think she can still smell his scent on the willow and it brings her comfort.

She's now the Alpha cat, Bless her.