Jeanette

This is my neighbor, Jeanette. She's 91, and has lived in the same house for 72 years. Last year she fell ill and spent the whole year living with her family. She missed her home, and managed to convince her children to let her move back. They won't let her stay over the winter, and so as soon as it gets cold, she'll be leaving again. That year she was gone, I realized how much I love her, and how much it means to me to have such a good friend living so close.


I can talk about anything with her. She has a wicked sense of humor, and is nothing like what I expected a lady in her 90's to be. She isn't stuck in the past. She isn't old fashioned. She doesn't complain about anything. I keep wishing that there was some way I could make her my age, so that we could raise our kids together, and she could show me the millions of things she knows about this place. She and her husband subsisted off of their land for most of their lives. She is a fantastic gardener, and did everything from making her own cheese to knitting her own underwear. I knew you were wondering if there was going to be something about knitting. During our last visit we talked about how women were treated when she was young. She said that there were three things a women was supposed to know, before she could be considered for marriage; how to make soup, how to spin wool and flax, and how to make babies. Well, women didn't really have to know how to make babies, they just needed to be able to do it, repeatedly. I was confused about the "making soup" until another friend later explained that "making soup" just means cooking in general. I do know how to spin, "make soup" and make babies, but I'd rather not have to wash the babies diapers in a stone trough, a half mile from my house, in February. Jeanette had to do this for all three of her kids. She also had to take over the farm during the war. When I gave birth to my son, she warned me against leaving him in a basket at the edge of the field. Apparently, vipers are attracted to the smell of milk on the baby's breath. Just after warning me about this, she gave a little laugh and said she guessed I wouldn't have to worry about this, as I wouldn't be plowing the field with a newborn at my side. This is true, but I did like to work in the garden with him, and it's always good to know what snakes do and don't like. FYI, they don't mind dogs, but hate cats.


This is a photo of her picking the bugs off of a cabbage. She didn't plant much this year, but she's hoping to come back sometime in March, so that she can begin planting. I'm glad that she'll be in a nice warm house during the coldest months. She still heats her own house with firewood, and that last year she was here, I was a little worried about her. Still, I'll miss her at Christmas. I'll miss the little trail of woodsmoke on the horizon and her socks drying on the line. There's always a good bit of repair knitting, a new toe, or a band of ribbing to make them longer. Each one is a little sculpture. Actually, she knit the cardigan in these pictures. She doesn't knit anymore, but she'll tell you that she's knit over twenty sweaters for adults, and many more for children. Sometimes I day dream about what it would look like if you took every thing that a person created in their whole life, and lined them up. Everything from their children, to the macaroni necklaces from kindergarten, to each muffin and pancake. I'll bet the line of things she's made in her life would stretch a very long way into the distance.