Tasha Tudor, A Birthday Celebration!

Celebrating A Kindred Spirit

Sarah in one of the Corgyncombe Cottage gardens in her frock from Tasha Tudor's antique frock collection.

Tasha Tudor is pictured in "Drawn from New England" playing a dulcimer. Diane's mountain dulcimer is very similar to the one that Tasha hung in the library at Corgi Cottage.

This morning whilst out gathering wildflowers along Corgi Creek, I saw a little wren on the woodpile and a little Chippy Hackee (Beatrix Potter's name for a chipmunk) scampering about. One can feel a coolness in the air now and Corgi Creek was pleasantly babbling in the background. There is an apricot glow that starts in the wildflowers and the tops of the cornfields that eventually will work its way to the trees as autumn approaches.

When I came inside I smelled the cake on the table that needs frosting that will be enjoyed later at Tasha Tudor's Birthday Tea.

By this time, the corgyn were more than ready for breakfast and a necessary outing.

In the old barn, 'twas nice this cool morn to sit on the milking stand close to Carmella Lucille and feel her warmth as I did the pleasant required task of milking. The goat kiddles are so cute and friendly, they even still want to sit on our laps after breakfast. They always enjoy our version of the story of "The Three Billy Goats Gruff"... but that is a tale for another time.

All these daily things remind us of Tasha. We had so many things in common.

How grateful we are to have been her friend and kindred spirit.

The illustrations by Hugh Thomson in "The Vicar of Wakefield" written by Oliver Goldsmith, inspired Tasha to become an illustrator. Sarah made the bobbin lace bookmark in the photograph above.

"The Real Pretend" written by Joan Donaldson and illustrated by Tasha Tudor.
Sarah was Tasha's model for the illustrations of the little girl Kathy in "The Real Pretend". It is a true story about a little girl who goes round to her neighbors, taking pretend orders from the Larkins Catalog.

Tasha Tudor milking.

"Corgiville Fair" written and illustrated by Tasha Tudor.
What a delight the book is with the lovely, detailed paintings and the story where Tasha's wonderful sense of humor comes shining through. Tasha Corgi stands in front. "Corgiville Fair" is amongst the all time favorites at The Corgyncombe Library. It is some of Tasha's best work! If you haven't seen "Corgiville Fair" you are missing out!!!

Diane made the above photograph of Sarah and Tasha Corgi into a Valentine card that Tasha Tudor was delighted to receive. Tasha Corgi was named after Tasha Tudor, and Tasha Tudor was very honored and declared herself to be Tasha Corgi's Godmother. The Johnsons have had six corgyn: Tasha Corgi, Katrina Corgi, Ethlyn Maria Weaver Corgi, Emily Jane Jones Shepard Corgi, Eliakim May Corgi, and Lydia Rebecca Sly Corgi. The Johnsons are so grateful to Tasha for showing us through her illustrations how delightful corgyn can be!

Sarah down by the creek in her Tasha Tudor frock, standing near a chair that resembles Tasha's mustard chairs. In "The Real Pretend" Sarah is illustrated by Tasha sitting in a similar chair.

The cake at last year's celebration of Tasha Tudor's birthday.
The cake receipt, "Becky's Birthday Cake", is in "The Tasha Tudor Cookbook".

Charlotte enjoying the loveliness of the garden. Like Tasha's dolls, our dolls share our love of old fashioned things.

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Cream Separator and Goat's Milk

The Corgyncombe Dairy

The Corgyncombe Dairy hand crank cream separator.

Nubian Goat Carmella Lucille's milk.

The Corgyncombe Dairy has found that leaving out one of the ten disks and cranking slower than 60 rpm gives the best results.

Diane's husband turns the crank whilst Diane runs about like Beatrix Potter's Anna Maria, keeping the milk tank full, emptying the bowls, and various other tasks.

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Putting Up for Winter

Corgyncombe Cannery

Diane has been busy in the garden harvesting and in the kitchen canning. There are always more beans to pick and put up.

The fifteen pound pressure regulator weight has been set on the vent pipe. When the pressure regulator commences jiggling about, 15 pounds of pressure has been reached, and the timing starts. Above, the pressure gauge registers 15 pounds of pressure.

A good source for canning information is the "Ball Blue Book of Preserving".

Darling & Domestic Daisy with a yellowware bowl of beans, looking at "Around the Year" by Tasha Tudor.In "Around the Year" written and illustrated by Tasha Tudor, on the August pages there are illustrations of ladies putting up food for winter in the old country kitchen. The Corgyncombe Courant just loves these illustrations!!

Diane and Sarah come from a long line of women that put up for winter as summer started turning into autumn. Diane's grandmum was known far and wide as "a canning fool" as she enjoyed it so much and she canned everything in anticipation of winter!! Whenever Diane smells dill she thinks of her grandmum putting up.

Diane remembers when she was a child, husking corn and helping her grandmum and mum in the kitchen during canning season.

As Tasha Tudor wrote to Diane in a September letter:
"I must stop and attempt to put up some of the abundant pear crop in jars."
There is always more canning to be done!

Here is a link to YouTube:
"Green Beans in the Garden" by The West Ladies

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Reminiscent of a Tasha Tudor Illustration

Goats and Kiddles

The Corgyncombe Courant just loves the nubian goats and goat kids that Tasha Tudor has illustrated in her many books, prints, and cards. Looking at our goats in the barn and pasture feels like looking at a delightful Tasha Tudor illustration.

Carmella Lucille, Sweet Pea, and Daisy at pasture.

Sweet Pea

Daisy and Sweet Pea at the hay rack that Diane's husband made.

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Loveliness Aflutter!

Garden Observations

Yesterday was a beautiful day for afternoon spinning in the garden at Corgyncombe Cottage. How peaceful it was with the birds singing, the butterflies flitting and fluttering about, and Corgi Creek babbling in the background.

A sea of Echinacea.

Spinning wheel in the garden at Corgyncombe.

A Question Mark Butterfly on Lady's Mantle.

Diane's Kromski Spinning Wheel.

Butterflies in the garden remind The Corgyncombe Courant of Beatrix Potter's "The Tale of Tom Kitten". As Mother Cat Tabitha was expecting company she had dressed her three kittens up in fine clothes. More preparations needed to be completed before her guests arrived so she let her kittens go out in the garden but warned them to be careful not to soil their clothing. There is an illustration of Tom Kitten dressed in a darling blue suit and straw hat amusing himself with a butterfly as it flits about the garden.

As eveningtide approached the moon was lovely in the sky o'er the Corgyncombe gardens. The butterflies of day were replaced by the fireflies of twilight. Delightful sparkles all about the garden!!!

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Beatrix Potter's Birthday!

Corgyncombe Library Notes

Today, July 28th, is Beatrix Potter's birthday. Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) is a favorite at The Corgyncombe Library.

 

In the photograph above, Tasha Tudor's Welsh Breakfast Tea, served in a Benjamin Bunny cup, is enjoyed at afternoon tea. Benjamin Bunny is wearing a tam-o'-shanter and carrying the red spotted handkerchief that he used to gather onions in. The same scene is on the cover of Beatrix Potter's "The Tale of Benjamin Bunny". The tussie mussie on the table has bee balm in the center, surrounded by thyme, rosemary, lady's mantle, forget-me-nots, and lavender.

 

Beatrix Potter's "The Tale of Benjamin Bunny"

 

Foxglove in Diane's garden at Corgyncombe Cottage reminds one of Beatrix Potter's Jemima Puddle-duck.

 

Beatrix Flopsy Bunny enjoys Beatrix Potter's "The Story of a Fierce Bad Rabbit". Here is the link to: More photographs of Beatrix Flopsy Bunny

 

Beatrix Potter was an artist and author and a great admirer of the beautiful landscapes of Britain.

 

Diane and Sarah are admirers of Beatrix and feel a kinship with her. What fun it would have been to take tea with Beatrix and discuss bunnies, gardens, ducks, old houses, old barns, and other aspects of country life and landscapes. A cozy afternoon tea is a perfect time to give thought to Beatrix Potter! 

 

Hollyhocks and bee balm. 

 

A visitor to the Rocket reminds us of Beatrix Potter's illustration of a butterfly tasting the sugar in Mrs. Tittlemouse's larder!

 

Peter Rabbit at garden's edge.

 

Here are links to Beatrix Potter at The Corgyncombe Library:

Page 1 - Page 2 - Page 3 - Page 4 

 

Here is a link to YouTube: Introduction of "The World of Peter Rabbit and Friends, Beatrix Potter" 

Here is a link to YouTube: The Ending of "The World of Peter Rabbit and Friends, Beatrix Potter", featuring the song "Perfect Day"

 

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Independence Day Adventures!

Fishing and Frizzy's Birthday

Frizzy and Shepard fishing at Corgi Creek.

Here are the links to Frizzy's Independence Day Adventures:

 Page 1 - Page 2 - Page 3

 

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Loveliness Afloat

Corgyncombe Library NotesIn the book "Wall and Water Gardens" by Gertrude Jekyll, she begins the chapter "Water-Lilies" by writing: "It would be impossible to over-estimate the value of the cultivated Nymphaeas to our water-gardens. These grand plants enable us to compose a whole series of new pictures of plant beauty of the very highest order."

The book on the chair at water's edge is "The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady" by Edith Holden. It is open to one of the July pages featuring water lilies and a dragonfly. This is a delightful nature diary from 1906 with many lovely paintings of birds and plants.

Fossils in stone collected from the stones that will be made into a stone wall at Corgyncombe Cottage.

In "The Springs of Joy" by Tasha Tudor, there is a sweet illustration of Tasha as a young girl and her corgi delighting in the water lilies. The cover illustration of Tasha Tudor's "1 is One" contains many small creatures that you would find near or in a pond amongst the cattails, such as a duck, a red-winged blackbird, a dragonfly, a spider, a turtle, and a frog sitting on a lily pad. Water lilies are in the border surrounding the water scene.

If Tasha Tudor were to think of past mistakes or unpleasantness in her life, all that was required for her to regain her cheerfulness was to turn her mind to water lilies. They are lovely indeed!

Tasha also noted that goslings could have the same cheering affect.

This afternoon no goslings could be found but this darling little duckling crossed our path. Here it is swimming at Corgyncombe. He was having the best time swimming and scooting under water and finding food from his natural habitat.

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A Little Cottage with Gardens Round

Corgyncombe Library Notes When Diane was a little girl, she used to go over to her neighbor Ginny's to play in her playhouse. Diane decided that she had to have a playhouse of her own! She took her Daddy by the hand to see Ginny's playhouse. Diane's Daddy soon set about the task of making her a playhouse. Diane insisted that her little house must have a chimney. In the above picture Diane is pretending she is a bride. As you can see in the photograph, there is already a wash hanging on the line. 

 

Diane is pretending she is a bride.

 

Diane's playhouse had a kitchen, a nursery, and a parlour. Diane's Daddy used to come in and have lunch with her. Diane delighted in all the flowers that were around and about her cottage. The view from the kitchen window looked up the hill where there was a white picket fence with pink and red climbing roses. Behind the playhouse there was another picket fence with an arbor that also had climbing roses. Pink and white peonies grew going down the hill past her Mum's clothes line. Diane's father picked Diane a bouquet of the peonies and she told him she would someday use this bouquet when she married him. The sunflowers were on the edge of Diane's father's huge vegetable garden. When Diane was growing up her family had goats, sheep, chickens, ducks, and rabbits. The barn for the animals was across the lawn and through the lilac hedge.

 

Diane's doll Bonnie with Gertrude Jekyll's book "Children & Gardens".

 

In Gertrude Jekyll's book "Children & Gardens", the chapter "Gardens and Play-House" caught the eye of The Corgyncombe Courant. Gertrude talks about gardening around and about the playhouse. Gertrude describes quite an elaborate playhouse where the children would keep house, bake, cook, and entertain, as well as tend a garden. Besides a kitchen the playhouse she describes has a pantry and a parlour for tea parties. Gertrude gives receipts for various soups, a salad, scrambled eggs, scones, and fairy cakes. The receipts use things grown in the playhouse garden. She recommends herbs to grow in the small cottage garden to use for cooking in the playhouse kitchen. 

This reminds us of Darling and Domestic Daisy who lives at Corgyncombe Cottage and loves to bake and cook and care for her Baby Doll. 

Here is a link to: Daisy preparing for a tea party. 

Here is a link to: Daisy hosting a tea party.

In the book "Children & Gardens", Gertrude wrote: "There are thousands of little girls in England, and small boys too, who would not only delight in working the play-house but who would in after years visit it again with delight and look back on its lessons of play-work with thankfulness, both for joyful memories and for the abiding usefulness of all that it had taught them." 

At the end of the chapter Gertrude wrote: "In the play-house pantry, or better still, in the summer weather somewhere near but out-of-doors, we wash the dollies' clothes. If the sun is very hot we put on our sun-bonnets, and we pin ourselves up in bath-towels so that no splash matters, and turn up our sleeves as high as they will go, and have out that nice red pan and wash all their things. Cotton, muslin and flannel; little frocks and petticoats and shimmies, and their tiny pocket-handkerchiefs, and hang them on the line to dry." There is a sweet little photograph of two little girls wearing sunbonnets and pinned "up in bath-towels so that no splash matters" hanging up their dollies' wash.

When Diane was older she helped her father build a small greenhouse near the lilacs and peonies.

Diane has always loved gardening!

 

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