One could liken the non-stop parade of tantalizing goodies to a snowball rolling downhill, accumulating a little more snow as it picks up speed.
Hopefully you did not pick up a few more inches around your waistline from holiday treats!
Think about it … it’s not just the treats from the year-end holidays, but it all begins after Labor Day when cider and donuts are rolled out, then caramel apples and pumpkin goodies are the preferred fare. Soon you’re into the Halloween candy, sneaking a mini bar here or there – the more the merrier. You might even loosen your belt after the Thanksgiving feast, but then it’s on to Hanukkah or Christmas gatherings, finally culminating at New Year’s Eve with the charcuterie board or a fabulous array of canapés and more fattening goodies. Groan – loosen the pants, or better yet, look for sweatpants.
Christmas Present.
Yours truly is writing this post after swigging down custard eggnog and finishing off several kolackes that my friend Ann Marie dropped off for me yesterday. I was outside shoveling the drifts of snow and running the car when she pulled up in her red sleigh, er … car and handed me a festive Christmas gift bag. We chatted a few minutes in the sub-zero temps, then she hopped back into her car to continue on her journey dispensing Christmas goodies to her friends.
Inside the gift bag were treats and this cute little squirrel, a bookworm with his/her book and oversized spectacles. I took a picture …
… then set this sweet squirrel on my corner cabinet and the treats I kept for today and through the holidays.
I laughed when I got my Christmas card from Ann Marie because I think it is Ann Marie in disguise.
I borrowed again from the Avanti website as the lighting was not so good for my photo above.
Christmas Past.
I first met Ann Marie at Council Point Park and we walked together a few times before she moved to Southgate, a nearby city. Although Ann Marie makes a “drop” at all the holidays and my birthday, she usually hangs the gift bag or plate of goodies in a bag on the fence, then calls me from her car. I’m usually home and at work by that time. We had not connected in several years until this past Thanksgiving when I was returning from walking and there she was, exiting the car and ready to make that day’s drop of turkey cookies; then, as you see from her sticky note with my name on it, there would be other drops, with other friends’ names, who would similarly munch turkey cookies made with love.
Here are some Christmas treats from recent years.
Ann Marie is my holiday angel and since I don’t bake, I can’t “pay it forward” as that expression goes … that is, unless you want to count doling out goodies to my furry and feathered friends. This year I didn’t do a Christmas squirrel goodies post because I recently had similar posts for Halloween and Thanksgiving. But I have some suet and walnuts for a special treat once this weather gets a tad warmer and I can get there to visit them. I am sure during this brutal weather, the squirrels huddled together in their nests and the birds did likewise.
Fat-bottomed squirrels you make the walking world go ‘round.
Okay, so I tweaked the title of rock group Queen’s song title “Fat Bottomed Girls” just a bit.
I took a few shots of my furry friends as their behinds blossomed throughout the Fall months. Yes, they still come over to see me, begging along the path for peanuts and sunflower seeds, pretending they don’t see those piles I put in the usual places. I don’t take all the credit for that weight gain. Mother Nature helps them out with thicker fur and growing a layer of fat to insulate them when food is scarce and Winter weather is fierce. Squirrels can add 50% to their body weight in preparation for this season.
Please know that their scamper has turned into a waddle. 🙂
A little mirth at their girth … let’s have a look at my furry friends.
How to wrangle a corncob.
The black squirrels seem to remain lithe … even petite, unlike their counterparts. This squirrel dragged a corncob away from the Safe Haven Tree to the grass to gnaw on it.
So, would you agree that having skipped the butter and salt, he/she was having a healthy meal?
So, for this cutie pie, unlike many of us come January 1, 2023, there will be no atoning for food sins committed during the past four months.
Pictured above is Maryanne Schaub, who has resided at this address, sitting on the blue cushion in the left-hand corner of the deacon’s bench, for almost four decades.
As I pondered about Maryanne’s exact arrival date, (since my memory about same apparently failed me), I decided to ask Mr. Google, who, in approximately one-half second, answered my query for “Maxwell House instant coffee rag doll promotion” and I learned that promotion was in 1985. I remember that for a few coffee jar inner seals, Mom and I had ourselves a sweet rag doll in a red gingham dress and pinafore, the perfect complement to our country kitchen. I am always impressed by Google and I am not easily impressed. 🙂 I was even rewarded with a picture on picclickdotcom for my efforts. Maryanne was just a gangly teenager in those days and showing a little too much leg in my opinion.
For over a decade I admit I have been remiss in decorating for the holidays, despite the fact that red and green Rubbermaid totes downstairs are filled with Christmas décor, plus tucked in every available nook and cranny are items from various Christmas country craft shows, two ceramic trees and two miniature trees with trimmings. I used to spend every Black Friday … an entire day, creating a festive flair, then whisking it all away New Year’s Day. It’s a small house, so some regular knickknacks and doodads would be put away for safekeeping during the holidays under the couch or the bed … sometimes we’d forget about those items ‘til way into the new year.
But, there has been one constant at Christmastime and that is swapping Maryanne’s red wool cap …
… for her Santa cap (seen in the top image).
My mom thought Maryanne looked a little plain, even a bit pasty-faced, so once when we were shopping we bought her that hat and mitt set (the mitts adorn her feet).
Maryanne is pretty exclusive these days … the only doll I own, but, at the age of 66 ½, it’s highly unlikely I’d be buying any dolls, right? But, I must add that I have 52 teddy bears of assorted sizes, a collection which was started in the mid-80s, only after many years of allergy shots. You see, I was allergic to stuffed animals as an infant, so this is the one and only photo of me with a teddy bear (or two).
My affinity for those plush bruins will be a Christmas post for another year, as I want to write about my fuzzy friends as well as two treasured Christmas gifts from my mom: a ceramic Boyd’s Bear Christmas tree and a tapestry Boyd’s Bear jacket. So bear with me and hopefully, I can get that tree up and aglow in the spirit of Christmas next year.
Reflections on Christmas past.
I decided to write about dolls for this year’s holiday remembrance after some of you commented on my doll that rested on the bumper of the 1957 Monarch Lucerne (pictured below) in a Wordless Wednesday post featuring photos from a local classic car cruise and a few baby pics of me as well. Fellow blogger/car enthusiast JP identified that vintage car where a vintage me sat atop the hood and Tilda Jane gently rested on the bumper.
In several comments I mentioned Tilda Jane and decided her story would be a fun post for Christmas 2022.
Why I named my doll Tilda Jane was always a mystery to me.
With no family members to pose that question to, I resorted to asking Google. After typing “Tilda Jane” I quickly discovered the origin of my favorite doll’s name. There was a book by the same name, by a female Canadian novelist (Marshall Saunders) and the book review website Good Reads, summarizes the plot as follows: “Tilda Jane is a rambunctious orphan in search of a home, fleeing the orphanage that won’t allow her to keep her rescued dog.” This book was written in 1901 and the author was renowned for her commitment to a better life for children and animals and was famous even before fellow Canadian novelist, L.M. Montgomery, wrote her first book in the “Anne of Green Gables” series in 1908.
I found the book “Tilda Jane” online at the free reading site “The Gutenberg Project” and you can click here to read it if you’d like.
I decided to be a bit frivolous, so I splurged and I bought the book, a little homage to my once beloved doll.
My parents were avid readers and they passed that love of reading onto their only child. I had a basket of “Golden Books” memorized before I moved on to “The Bobbsey Twins” series and many animal books, some which were spun into Disney movies. Likely “Tilda Jane” was in my repertoire of books read to me, or devoured by me.
I went down a deep rabbit hole on Saturday afternoon while perusing all my digital photos. Sure I was enamored by other dolls, paper dolls (cutouts) and a Barbie doll, but Tilda Jane was special.
But what made Tilda Jane so special?
Sometimes I cradled her in my arms, or she was nestled in the crook of my arm, but a lot of the time, I dragged Tilda Jane by her feet. She had a soft and pliable, almost rubber-like, body and head, but I had a bad habit of carrying her by her feet. I may be 5’ 9” tall today, but back then I was a lot shorter of course, so that poor doll’s head was often dragging along the ground. Oh Mom warned me that carrying Tilda Jane upside down wasn’t a good idea but I was young and … well, you know how that goes.
The damage to her “skinned head” was done and my mom decided Tilda Jane would soon be headless if swift action was not taken. She sent my father to the store to buy a new doll with the intention to swap heads. Many times over the years I heard the story that instead of my father returning with a doll that resembled Tilda Jane, he brought home a yellow-tinged, hard, but somewhat pliable, plastic doll with a hard head and a ponytail molded right into the back of her head. Of course it looked nothing like Tilda Jane.
The “surgery” took place after I was in bed and sound asleep. Mom carefully lopped that molded head and neck off and sewed the neck portion to Tilda Jane’s body. Post-op, a piece of white flannel was sewn over that gaping “wound” and tacked down with many stitches.
Before-and-after photos – well, oh my gosh.
The earlier photos versus the later photo … well, you take a look for yourself. It’s probably difficult to tell at a casual glance, but Tilda Jane wasn’t winning any doll beauty contests which you see in the last photo, showing that ugly ponytail and me, with a wan look on my face from my grandfather’s cigar smoke wafting towards my nose.
BEFORE … taken the same day as the pose on the Monarch:
AFTER … note the molded head/ponytail:
Well as I understand it, the mismatched head did not diminish my love for Tilda Jane.
Mom made us matching dresses on my grandmother’s old Singer treadle sewing machine. She even knit us fuzzy cardigan sweaters that sported “pearl” buttons. Though I scoured the digital albums for pictures of those outfits, I could find none. I can remember some of those outfits vividly.
Yes, there were other dolls who at least deserve honorable mention.
Every year when the Eaton’s Christmas Catalog arrived, I was allowed to pick two items to ask Santa for. Those chosen items were divvied up between my grandparents and parents.
I got a pram or a doll bed or doll clothes, plus a new doll each Christmas. My parents and/or grandparents bought the popular dolls like Betsy Wetsy, Thumbelina and Chatty Cathy.
Betsy Wetsy drank from her bottle, then needed a diaper change as the liquid ran through her … hmm, that’s not so cute now that I think of it.
Thumbelina was a soft and life-sized baby doll, whose head would move around when a dial on her back was wound. Her head twisted and turned at odd angles and it rotated back and forth … years later I think that is kind of creepy to be honest.
Chatty Cathy had a pull ring at the back of her neck and said various phrases. Mom would tell me years later, that after listening to my best friend Linda Crosby and me both pulling our respective Chatty Cathy doll’s string within earshot, she thought she’d lose her mind. This coupled with our parakeet’s non-stop uttering of “Hi, I’m Skippy Schaub!” Poor mom.
Here’s a few more doll pics through the years; some might have been these aforementioned dolls.
(Years later I wonder why the plush tiger PJ bag in the next two photos was not problematic with my allergies – guess it was not stuffed with anything but my PJs. Apparently it was a hit on that Christmas morn.)
There was a Barbie doll too. Mom knit outfits for my Barbie and I had cardboard furniture for her, something that was all the rage for that buxom blonde in the mid-60s. I never had Barbie’s friends like Ken, Midge or Skipper, but I wasn’t hard done by – even though I was an only child, I was never spoiled.
It’s always fun to reminisce … photographs and memories are such a treasure. Thanks for steppin’ back in time with me in this holiday post.
… especially when you can see, not just one, but a mess of Great Egrets perched in one tree?
Well, this event occurred on September 15th, a mid-week trek at Lake Erie Metropark, on a hazy late Summer day. Smoke from the western wildfires had settled in and the gray haze permeated that park, with an occasional appearance by the sun. It brightened up as the day wore on. I’ll write about the rest of that day’s trek under separate cover, but the highlight for me was the abundance of Great Egrets.
Great Egrets galore.
It seemed at every twist and turn on the Cherry Island Trail or the wooden overlooks, there were Great Egrets and I knew I’d have enough shots to make a Wordless Wednesday post of those regal-looking waterfowl.
Below are just a few of them.
When I reached the car, I was weary from my long walk. Once again, I had cut across the entire park and had already walked about six miles. I sank down in the front seat, blew the A/C full blast to cool off a little, then soon was on my way.
As I rolled along the road to exit the park, in my peripheral vision, I caught a flash of white and glanced over to see dozens of Great Egrets perched in one tree. It was quite a sight to see! Unfortunately, there are signs forbidding stopping or parking on the shoulder, as I have mentioned before when I’d see a deer leisurely strolling along the road. So, without hesitation, I exited the park and re-entered again, drove all the way to park at the Marshland’s Museum, knowing I still had a bit of a hike to see those Egrets.
I parked the car, then hustled as fast as I could thinking they might take flight and, just as I arrived, I saw a pickup truck slow down, stop and a man hopped out. Grrr! Of course I was irked that I hadn’t done that. “Hey there” the man said while gesturing to the tree. “How about those birds and the reflections … it’s all God’s work you know.” I nodded in agreement and we just stood there silently admiring the pyramid of Great Egrets.
“Pleased to meet ya ma’am. I’m Jim and since I retired I visit this park every morning. I have never seen a sight like those Egrets up in a tree before, so I just had to pull over!” I told him I don’t visit all that much, maybe ten times a year, but I’d never seen such a sight either.
Well I probably should have taken my photos as soon as I got there, but, between admiring the Egrets and chit-chatting with Jim, I was busy watching them with my own eyes and not with my eye pressed up to the camera, finger on the shutter button.
Several drivers saw us, looked over, slowed down and held their phones up to snap a few shots of those Egrets. But woe was me as a motorcyclist whizzed by and, even though the road was not close to where these waterfowl gathered in the trees, the loud motor spooked them and they instantly took flight, some to the water …
… and others to the trees across the marsh. Sigh.
A few Egrets lingered in the trees, their white bodies dotting the branches.
By now, a pale sun had finally emerged for good, in between the clouds and causing stunning reflections on the still water.
A Great Blue Heron waded among the Great Egrets – no one seemed to object to his/her presence as far as I could tell.
After taking a ton of photos, I returned to the car and decided to walk that short Trapper’s Run Trail to Riley Overlook to see if any Egrets had returned there, but there were none.
It turned out to be a great day … a Great Egret kind of day.
… dear to us …will be near to us once more. Well, maybe … here’s why.
I thought long and hard about what to call this post. Even though the reference to the well-known Christmas song “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” appealed to me, I also toyed with the title “Run Rudolph Run” … except Rudy was not a doe.
So let me condense this strange encounter of the nice kind as best I can.
I finally visited Sterling State Park in 2022, a venue I have never written about, but longed to visit. But, every time I planned to take that 60-mile round-trip adventure, something always came up – construction, weather, massive algae bloom, or a holiday weekend when this state park would be swamped with campers and beach-goers, … so I put it off.
I had not visited Sterling State Park since I was a preteen, then unbelievably I went three times in three weeks. The first two trips, October 1st when I tried out the six-mile long hiking trail, then October 22nd, when I hiked the six-mile long trail again, then strolled along the one-mile long beachfront – those treks will be fodder for other posts.
I’ve mentioned in the past that after my longer weekend treks, that evening I usually take a few minutes to write out a synopsis of my walk to pair up that narrative with the photos whenever I sort them out. I wanted the name of that very long trail for my post, so I Googled around to find it. Not only did I learn the name was the Sterling Marsh Trail, but I also learned there was an asphalt path along a steep rocky cliff over Lake Erie with rocks on either side, plus a cement walkway with a railing that got you even closer to the shoreline. Since it was another beautiful day, I returned to check those walkways out.
Once there I realized I had overlooked the entryway to the walkway before since I saw a sign with directions for “dumping” so assumed it was for campers only.
Along the narrow path ….
The trail guide website had a few photos but I really had no idea where the walkway would eventually dead-end. As I walked toward the narrow path of the walkway, a deer loped past me. I chastised myself for woolgathering while “gazing out to sea” as I could have gotten a shot of that doe. But she was off in a flash, trotting down the narrow pathway away from me, the looming human.
I figured my deer friend would reach the end of the pathway and head off into a field, or one of many woodsy areas, but I was dead wrong. The doe disappeared, then reappeared moments later, facing toward me, about 25 to 30 feet away. I assumed, that she assumed, she would return the same way she got there.
But there was one problem ….
I was in her way.
And, if she chose to give me wide berth to pass me on this asphalt path, she likely would tumble down the cliff onto the big boulders and into the raging waters of Lake Erie which splashed up onto said boulders.
I quickly realized the situation and panicked just a little myself, as that five-foot pathway was wide enough for two humans, but a human and a skittish deer … um, maybe not.
She stood there, her ears perked up, eyes transfixed on me and I clearly saw the dilemma for both of us. On my left-hand side was a chain-link fence. I thought maybe I could flatten myself against the fence and grip the links to give her ample room to pass me. Except I was holding onto the camera and she was getting nervous, pacing repeatedly, backward, then forward.
Then she got the bright idea to go down the cliff, climbing onto those big boulders. I shouted “no, you can’t do that! You’ll break a leg, or your neck – please, no – I’m not going to hurt you!”
She listened, likely terrified by my shrill cry, then picked her way through the rocks, climbed back up onto the pathway and headed the other way. Whew!
After approaching me and double-backing repeatedly, she finally went into that corner and I reached the area she was hiding. No wonder she was frantic. There was a gate, with no access to the woods for it. She truly was panicked by my presence and kept charging toward the gate, thrashing her body against the metal, her tail flicking, tongue lolling – clearly agitated!
If only she knew I was no threat – what to do? I crept into an adjacent corner and gave her enough room to flee her predicament. She paused a few moments, realized she had room to make a run for it and off she went, flashing that long, white furry tail that enables us to know the White-tailed Deer breed.
But as she ran down the pathway, back to freedom, away from this hulking human who was truly humbled by her beauty and vulnerability, she turned around to look at me one more time. Was she saying “thank you – I’m sorry I thought you might harm me and I was wrong about that.”
Happily she finally trotted away, flashing her tail and kicking up her heels, leaving me better for that experience, though there were a few anxious moments on that narrow and rocky pathway with no fence – yikes!
I had a lot of photos and could have simply written a few lines for each photo to explain, but, like the Osprey post last week, I decided to tell the tale, then leave the photos for last. I think the slideshow shows the sequence of events best. Enjoy!
Linda Schaub
WALKIN', WRITIN', WIT & WHIMSY 