Once a year, my mother used to take a week and go away by herself. Usually on a retreat to a monastry or convent. Though I am sure she would have gone absolutely anywhere that promised peace, quiet and no rowdy children. Someone else did the cooking and cleaning and she rested her mind and reconnected with herself. What a perfect idea for any mother.
Usually Great Aunty Del came up from Down South and took over the house. I think I told you that one year Mum came home from her wonderful retreat to find that Dad was building a wee row-boat in the downstairs kitchen. I have no idea where Aunty Del was that time. It had been a rainy week. And Dad had been unable to work on his dinghy and mind the kids at the same time, so he had maneuvered the boat through the big french doors and into the kitchen and continued to work on it in there. It was made from laminated contrasting hardwoods laid strip to strip and glued and clamped and curved at each step. Then planed and sanded. Mum came home to a kitchen floor full of pungent coiled ringlet wood-shavings, the table covered in tools so they were out of reach of little fingers and a pile of kids playing in that most wonderful of freshly scraped wood smells, no doubt shrieking like banshees and high on fumes. I cannot even sharpen a pencil now without thinking of that beautiful wee row-boat.
When I was a young Mum in my first marriage, I came home with groceries on another rainy day, in another time, to a motorbike on its stand in the hallway in various stages of dismemberment and an unknown piece of machinery from the motor on the kitchen table. It was unapologetically greasy, filthy and dismantled, sitting proudly on the pine kitchen table on a scrap of newspaper, a good once white tea towel black with oil draped over it.
My mother and I in our seperate generations, in our different period costumes, our clothes twenty years apart, her cotton dress cinched at the waist wearing stockings and court shoes and my flimsy skirt too short with bare legs and sandals, my hair abandoned to curl down my back and hers cut neatly to the nape of her neck, my mother with red lipstick, me in creamy pink, her eyes flashing green, mine pale blue – viewed in a Split Screen on the television of our memories – both sighed, shook our heads slowly, thought ah well, reached for our aprons on the hook behind the door and said honey, can you get that thing out of here, I need to start dinner then sent the children to wash their hands.
Here is the lovely milking machine sitting on the dining room table. 
Isn’t it beautiful. Not a speck of grease or bad behaviour.
Last night we ate our spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. Home made pasta made with our own eggs, spaghetti sauce from our own preserved summer tomatoes and meatballs from our own beef freshly ground yesterday morning, herbs from the window, my home made parmesan, with a wee side of pesto that I made in the summer and stored in a jar in the freezer. Well you get the picture. We all love food, and you all know the perfect uncomplicated pride of growing, preparing and eating your own food. But we had to eat this most sumptious of gentle feasts with our plates on our laps gazing at the reflections in the milking machine, because it is so lovely and it is on the dining room table. And we were not allowed to put food close to it in case of greasy fingers!
Life is so simple really when you get down to it. (laughter)
Another overcast morning is unfolding. No sunrise again. It rained all day yesterday once the temperature had risen. Today, between farm chores, we are off in search of more old recycled timber to finish the work in the barn.
Good morning.
c
The Kitchen's Garden 
110 responses to “The Things you find on the dining room Table”
Yet another lovely story to go with that lovely shiny table centrepiece!
Christine
morning Christine.. hope all is well at your house! c
Yes thank you, all is well. Looking forward to when we can travel south for our first cuddle!
christine
Who needs a table to eat all that good food. I think your milking machine is beautiful.
I think so too Beverly, what is happening on your porch i think i will drop over and see.. c
I think I know what those silver cylinders attach to…sitting here with my legs crossed…tightly! Though it is a pretty piece of machinery. Be gentle with Daisy!
I will be gentle, lets hope she is gentle with me!!
At least the milking machine would make great dinner conversation if you had guests – ha! Have a Great Weekend:)
guests are few and far between out here, but next time i have them i shall remember! c
Great story of your Dads boat, no wonder Mum needed time away. Funny, a colleague who lives on a life style block was wondering if you could get ‘domestic’ milking machines for one cow I will have to let him know
He should be able to, lots of life style blocks milk goats he just needs a bigger bucket and cow extensions. .. I think! c
Cow extensions? Okay…don’t think I wanna hear more…going back to crossing my legs!
Your dining room table houses much more interesting things than mine. Oh wait, that’s right, I don’t have a dining room in my apartment. 😉 Well, then my kitchen table still doesn’t have anything as exciting. That milking machine is seriously incredible!
I would love to have a kitchen table, my kitchen is too small, so things work out! It is a lovely machine though.. c
Lovely memories and beautiful writing, as usual! I can’t wait to see what Daisy thinks of that milking machine!
something about kicking the bucket i am sure! c
Milk machine and all, I would like to invite you to take part in the “Unplugged” Questionnaire.
Just copy the questions from my blog and paste them onto yours. Then get creative and honest, and answer the questions. Then invite 5 other bloggers to take the test too.
Good luck…
Ronnie
Thank you Ronnie, i thnk i may have already done the questionaire! i shall check over and have a look! thank you so much for thinking of me though! c
Celi, what a great post! I love the shiny milking machine….will it stay that way?
Everything is washed and sanitised every day so the inside will stay pristine!! c
If I came home to row boat building in my kitchen, I would have turned right around and walked out the door!! You know, when you talk about a homemade dinner, your’s is all around homemade from scratch!!!
Oh yes, home grown i suppose would be a better term! c
I remember the thrill of a friend’s dairy farm converting to these marvellous machines. Her family thought for sure they’d have tons of extra minutes in the day. Hah! Farming is farming and nature keeps us occupied.
One of my friends, a diehard bachelor whose mind ran on ingenuity plus, used to say he would marry again when he found a woman who would allow his motorcycle in the dining room. Well, he didn’t have to worry. The flock of cockatiels that had total freedom in his house caused him to work on his bike outside. “One of them might poo on the leather” he said. With all his intelligence, the irony never sunk in.
That is a brilliant story.. ! made me laugh aimee! c
Wonderful story of your parents – I can just see it, each scene! The milking machine is glorious. Enjoy it while you can, in its pristine state. And the meal of good things from your land – aah, I’ve had some like that too, and nothing is more satisfying.
Hi Jean! It is satisfying isn’t it! nothing like it! c
How wise your mother was to go on an annual soul and body restoring retreat. And how skinny is your new milking machine; I can understand the wish not go have it marked with greasy fingerprints.
There’s always some leftover tool laying in the kitchen, even if the work it was used for was no where near the kitchen! The kitchen table is a magnet for random stuff, especially to keep away from little hands (unless those hands are attached to a capable body which climbs up on chairs…).
Ah yes, those little hands attached to climbing bodies!! c
Boy do I remember the look of a Surge milking machine. You have fun, now, you hear.
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
I will, I think!! c