Booky Book

 This is Jane's reading chair. That's not what I had in mind when I bought it but Jane claimed it the moment she saw it. She's usually the first one up in the morning so she reads until the rest of the house comes alive. I need to get another more recent picture because she added a lamp and a perpetual stack of books resides on the table, along with a dish (she fills with frozen fruit), scraps of paper notes she makes from her readings and an array of writing utensils. She wraps in the scarf shown in the picture until the day warms up. Oh our little Jane. A true book nerd and my dream come true :)

Here's a passage we enjoyed from The Education of Little Tree by Forrest Carter

The Education of Little Tree p. 102

When the storm is over, the new growth, tiny and light, timid-green, start edging out on the bushes and tree links. Then Nature brings April rain, It whispers down and soft and lonesome, making mists in the hollows and on the trails where you walk under the drippings from hanging branches of trees.

It is a good feeling, exciting-but sad too-in April rain. Granpa said he always got that kind of mixed-up feeling. He said it was exciting because something new was being born and it was sad, because you knowed you can't hold onto it. It will pass too quick.

April wind is soft and warm as a baby's crib. It breathes on the crab apple tree until white blossoms open out, smeared with pink. The smell is sweeter than honeysuckle and brings bees swarming over he blossoms. Mountain laurel with pink-white blooms and purple centres grow everywhere, from the hollows to the top of the mountain, alongside of the dogtooth violet that has long, pointed yellow petals with a white tooth hanging out.

Then, when April gets its warmest, all of a sudden the cold hits you. It stays cold for four or five days, This is to make the blackberries bloom and is called "blackberry winter." The black berries will not bloom without it. That's why some years there are no black berries. When it ends, that's when the dogwoods bloom out like snowballs over the mountain side in places you never suspicioned they grew; or a pine grove or stand of oak of a sudden there's a big burst of white.