What small precious pieces of your life would you pack if you were going to ride your horse right out of here.
Just get on your horsey, whistle your dog and move on out:
Think fast. Um –
•My knives in the leather wrap made for me by my dear friend.
•Saint Joseph a small statue I have placed on the kitchen windowsill everywhere I have lived since my mother died. It was in her kitchen too.
•The quilt I made myself. (though this is not really a token) – we will put this back with the baggage on the pack horse.
•The family greenstone pounamu.
•My mother’s rings.
•My silver bangles.
•My Pottery for the Planet drinking cup.
• The dress making scissors my son gave me years ago
•My great grandfathers pocket watch
•A small package of photos wrapped in oilskin.
Each treasure will be worn or wrapped in favorite rags and stowed in the Deadly Ponies crossover bag my daughter brought for me last birthday. Because treasures don’t have to be old to be treasures.
It is an interesting exercise right? And every time I write this list I realize how little I have. That is precious. How lightly I can travel. But what would I grab and jam into my pocket on the way out! That is the question.
Though if this were a short story I would have a big old peacock riding on the pack horse and Jude loping along beside the tiny cart carrying Tima and a few favorite hens for eggs. Where would Quacker sit?
Maybe I will write this story. Maybe there will be a dragon. Just a little one. Shall I write it for Sustainable Sunday? Some light relief?
The ice under the rain yesterday was polished.
But slowly disappearing. All the puddles were lined with molded shiny ice.
Apocalyptic.
Today more will melt. And soon I won’t have to smash ice out of water containers every morning.
And afternoon.
Maybe Wai will even leave the house today?
Oh, the relief of climbing back up and out of this vicious weather pattern.
By tomorrow I think we might see little bits of green. Photo-synthesis. But no sun yet – not for four more days.
With the warm-up, FreeBee is a new hog. He has gone from lying on his side in the straw refusing food and wishing for a painless death to standing at the gate yelling at me to hurry up with that bucket. That pig just hates cold. I know this about him now so I don’t worry.
So, what are you going to pack in your saddle bags. What would your tokens be? All food and clothing and stuff like that we will pack on the pack horse, so don’t worry about that.
Watch Quacker take a bath in the freezing farm waters!
Have a lovely day.
Celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
27 responses to “What are your tokens? Your treasures?”
What a thought provoking post. I read this, then took a walk through my apartment. My realization was that there is so little I would really feel compelled to take with me. Because I assume I cannot throw my family on the horse (and they are top priority) I would take pictures of them, my stainless steel water bottle, a few of my favorite books, a spare pair of glasses. I really have no tokens, no trinkets from the past, nothing left behind or passed down. I am not sure if that realization makes me sad or simply fulfills what I know about myself and that is that I find “things” rather unimportant in general.
I am glad to have a pack horse because I must have my hikers and my very heavy flannel shirt that doubles as a jacket. I think the story sounds wonderful for Sunday.
So good to see Wai’s grumpy man face peering out the barn door
I love my heavy flannel shirt too – I would certainly have that handy – probably tied in the bundle behind my saddle.😂 I think that because I am an immigrant I do value these bits and pieces that have followed me around the world. These treasures. But I totally understand the sentiment of things not being important.
Yes, I can see how holding those things close keeps the connection to true home alive. I did inherit an old truck of my dads when he passed in the mid 1990’s. I loved that truck although it is long gone. Also it would not fit easily on a horse I think 😉
Maybe the truck could BE your horse.
Deb, I too love that photo of Wai. It is beautifully composed with the old worn off barn boards, silver chains & dark red metal bar forming one side; (Matisse said such a bar was necessaryon one side in a painting) & in wonderful contrast, the interesting twisty curly willow on the upper other side, & best of all – dear old “grumpy faced” Wai peering out for his portrait, posed front & center. It is very special & would be great for a postcard or calendar page! Judith
Oooh yes, a calendar page would be wonderful!
You know that you can have it right? I don’t mind.
The pocket diary kept by my great grandmother describing daily life on the farm in the 1870s.
My binoculars or small telescope.
The porcelain stegosaurus I got when I was 10.
The hand drill dad gave me which may have received from his dad, etc etc.
Plus other things…
oo – that diary! yes. And I love the idea of a telescope. A small one. If we met on the road you could show me the stars!
I would take my memories, all my favourite earrings, my old felt hat, my Canadian pure wool blanket from Topsy Farms, my bread recipes and my best friend.
Oh the old felt hat!! Topsy Farms does make the most beautiful blankets – they look to be heirlooms. I often pop over (via the internet) and just look at them .
I saved for the blanket and got it last year. We are close to Amherst Island and enjoy taking the ferry over and visiting the farm. The blanket is very warm.
Saving up for something you really, really want and that is really, really good (not to mention warm) is the best! It gives it so much more value. I love that you take the ferry over, I miss the water.
What a relief it must be to see the ice thawing! Although I don’t mind the snow (briefly) I’m paranoid about ice, walking or driving in it. I’ve had a few near falls, very scary. I treasure my photo albums and photo books, but the only thing I would grab would be my cat.
Oh the cat!! Yes. She can ride on the wagon with Tima. Tima loves a good cat.
At first glance the photos portray the real misery time of the year, but then on looking longer they become quite beautiful, the barn the dark bare trees, the shiny silvery polished & molded ice. I once made a watercolor painting of such an icy puddled road passing before a beautiful old farm & its Victorian pile farmhouse, lined with gray rock fences & bare black dripping trees just outside my Kentucky home town. I called it “January Thaw.” For touches of color here& there were just a few little dark red dried berries showing in weeds along the road, otherwise all grays, blacks, white & silvery puddles. I thought it was a beautiful painting & time of year. I lived then in subtropical South Florida & sold it there (maybe to another another soul missing just such a day & place. Anyway, I always knew I couldn’t live on a sailboat & go round the world on it or ever make a speedy, spare get-away on a horse. I am too attached to my stuff & would never be able to choose just a few of the precious items collected during my long lifetime. And I would need art supplies (larger & more cumbersome than chef’s knives). I am of a different nature, more like Him Inside by the fire. I need my old wingback chair, my books & belongings & family & friends & pets close around me. Long, long ago I longed to vagabond & go off globe-trotting, but I never got away for long & always headed home, wherever that was, where my true heart belonged. My father died when I was 11 & we moved to Chicago not long after & that Robert Louis Stevenson poem came up with its sad parting from a farm “Goodbye to” old apple tree, swing, to barn loft…etc., “Goodbye, Goodbye to Everything.” I really don’t like Goodbyes. Or leaving, or Homesickness.
Definitely my knives, terracotta cooking dishes and my father’s crystal whisky glasses. When I last moved, I was distraught when I couldn’t find my plastic caganer, bought at the Barcelona Christmas Market in 1992. Fortunately it did turn up!
We cooked an Irish Stew with Soda Bread, followed by Trifle, for 26 people today. I think you would have liked it!
Poor Wai – he looks so grumpy 😉
Maybe this misery time of year is makes Wai even grumpier than usual because of his great low slung self on four very dainty trotters. And Oh! to have been in that lucky throng, Mad. How marvelous, cheery & warming!
Ha ha – I bet it does!
Heh, heh, heh, Mad! I just looked up caganer (thinking it was some esoteric kitchen gadget I’d never heard of). But no…
I have a red plastic bathtub with a little naked man sitting in it & it says on the side “I had a blast in Kentucky!” I found it for ten cents once at a farm yard sale way out in the country. I have kept it by my art sinks ever since.
Isn’t that the best! I bet it is the perfect size and just exactly right.
ROFL – I’m glad I provided some amusement. I had a more expensive pottery one, bought on the same day, which sat on the toilet cistern in my Atlanta home. Sadly it fell off and broke into a hundred pieces, whereas it’s plastic companion has stuck with me for 31 years 😉
Definitely write more about this as a story… the imagery of those first sentences was so evocative.
I can really relate…
I’ve been through the process several times… I have a few old family and personal items I hang onto that make no sense to anyone except my younger self.
Decades ago I had to prepare to evacuate for a nearby bushfire… I looked around and grabbed only my two cats and my dog.
But a couple of years ago similarly I packed the ute with so many household items plus our dog and a cat belonging to a neighour who was away, it took me days to unpack.
I think because I’ve had to “shed my skin” quite a few times over the years, these days I just want to feel settled and safe.
Shedding your skin. That is the perfect term for it.
20 years ago, I condensed my entire life down to 5 cubic metres and emigrated to Australia. 20 years later, you’re asking how I’d condense that down to maybe half a cubic metre… Assuming the Husband is coming along and can bring his own treasures: Higgins the dog, my silver ikon, my patchwork coat (for warmth, colour and to lift the heart), my sewing kit, two paintings, my mother’s pearls, my Kindle, my santoku, a few photos, my laptop, my recipe box, my blue folder of important documents, phone and laptop. So many lovely, important things left behind, but if I had to jump, this is what I’d take.
Oh – the recipe box! That is a good one. I don’t think I have seen your patchwork coat have I ?