Stillmeadow and Sugarbridge

Gladys Taber has been one of my favorite authors for a few years now. Soon after finding her books, I discovered Barbara Webster's Creatures and Contentments-Ruminations of Living in the Country, and fell in love with her, too. These were both authors who I felt kindred to, and who I wished were still alive so I could meet them and have the chance to know them personally. They both wrote about their lives in the countryside; the four seasons; beloved pets and friendship; family, nature, marriage, books. All the things I blog about and know that, if they were alive today, they would be blogging about, too.

I was overjoyed when I discovered that these two favorite authors actually knew each other, were friends, and had compiled a year's worth of letters written to one another in a book! Gladys Taber wrote from her home in Connecticut, 'Stillmeadow,' and Barbara from her home in Pennsylvania, 'Sugarbridge.' Barbara's husband Ed made the illustrations. All three signed the copy that I now treasure, and am reading daily. 

If you click on that last picture, you will get a taste of how these women correspond. Doesn't it sound like a blog entry one of us may have written? 

Here are some beautiful lines from the January letters of 'Stillmeadow and Sugarbridge,' which I hope you will add to your collection and love the way I do:

Barbara:

"Coming back from a ride, and looking down over the brow of the hill, at the small white Pennsylvania farmhouse, which has stood there almost two hundred years, wrapped in its blanket of pines, I am content, and know I could live nowhere else."

Gladys: 

"Do you ever have a moment that is absolutely exquisite? Such moments are rare, they are like holding a pink pearl in your palm. Happiness, I think, is being able to live those moments when they come. I had one going out in the moonlight at bedtime, with three cockers and the Irish taking a last look-around. There was a pale winter mist over the meadows, and the sky was a clear dark wider meadow blossoming with stars. The air was quiet and cold and smelled of woodsmoke. The front lantern shone on the sugar maples, the boughs were very dark, and montionless. I held the moment in my hand."

A few times people have asked me what kinds of books I like to read. I never really know simple way to answer that, since they don't fall into a particular category. I find myself explaining, "I like books by people living in the country, telling about their everyday lives, who revel in the changing seasons, and are honest in their reflections and dreams." 

Other favorite authors of mine whose thoughts and memories I would love to share with you are Hal Borland and Rachel Peden. But more about them some other snowy day....

...wishing you all a rejuvinating weekend with many simple delights, 

xo country girl

p.s. thank you for all of your kind words....i appreciate them, and you, very very much.