I have finally posted another picture! The above shows two pieces of my family's China, the moss Rose pattern from Japan. The woman in the picture is my great-grandmother, the one who began collecting the pieces for the set I have now.I'm more concerned with preserving the family traditions than my parents, so I was thrilled to get the china set (which has plates, salad plates, a serving platter, serving bowls, and some--I think--dessert plates, along with a set of cups & saucers as pictured above.)
It always amazes me that my great-grandmother, who was a farmer's wife in rural Missouri, was interested in collecting Japanese china to pass along to the women of the family who were to come after her. She died when I was 4 or 5, but I still remember her clearly, and going to her house and playing with the scary jack-in-the-box she always got out with the basket of toys when I came. I remember how her house smelled, what the chair looked like that she always sat in when she watched me play, and how much fun it was go to "Toy Weaver's" house. (Since she always seemed to have new toys to play with, I just assumed that was part of her identity.)
On a completely different note, along with the (finally!) warmer weather today, I went ahead and planted some flowers and weeded my little wildflower patch. And mixed in with the pansies I picked up was a miniature African violet, so now I also have an (unexpected) indoor plant along with my sun-loving annuals & perennials. I got some sunny coreopsis, a few pansies, some dianthus, a few snap dragons, a mini-columbine, bellis, and a couple of ground huggers I'd never heard of that add a nice contrast of white and fuschia to the yellow and red of the other flowers. Some day I may get it together enough to take a pic of those, too!
Keeping a flower garden is refreshing to me because it's a chance to nurture beauty in a world that is often ugly and unkind. I learned how to garden, initially, from my grandmother, who kept a vegetable garden every summer and had an apple and a walnut tree in her yard. I remember watching her hull walnuts and getting stains all over her hands, and helping her snap green beans from the garden. We made dill pickles together from the cucumbers and dill she grew and had home-grown tomatoes that we made our own ketchup out of. She did keep flowers (though inside in their own pots) and lovingly tended blooming cactus and yucca, as well.
Anyway, with spring comes renewal, and I love watching the earth wake from her yearly slumber and come back to life in the greens and beautiful colors of the plants reborn this time of year. I'm grateful for the end of winter and happy to be moving forward into spring. (Though what's up with moving daylight savings time ahead so early this year? I think we should stop doing it all together since we're no longer an agrarian society!)
More pics to come soon, I hope :)
Thanks for reading!
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