Daisy Cooke

Peanut-butter crackers Two peanut-butter crackers sat waiting on the kitchen counter as a cool, fall night, blanket of air descended.   Supper was finished, dishes done, counters wiped.   Outside the stoop in the last slivers of light, the dogs played a nightly game of tug-of-war with a long, rugged, old stropping strap, while anticipating the squeak of the screen door.   It happened.   Silhouetted by the dining hall light, she stood quietly in the doorway.   The dogs sat at attention, awaiting the signal.   With a flick of the hand, the ok signal, the dogs   launched like rockets up the steps, landing on the linoleum, toenails scraping frantically for traction to immediately round the corner to the right, and crash enthusiastically into their awaiting crates, ending in a firm, expectant sit.   The reward, a peanut-butter cracker, each.   Best part of the day.   The crate door was shut, and the canvas pulled down, adding warmth and d...

Daybook:   Do something with old, yellow pillowcases There was a separate reason for sorting every single pillowcase by color, discovering at the end, there were 2, white, yellowed pillowcases, with petite, royal blue crochet trim, firmly and precisely attached to the outer hem of each.  It could not be ripped out and re-used.  One pillowcase had a tear and a hole.  Without bleaching, neither one was acceptable. The perfect bucket for this project had sat on the backdoor stoop for months slowly filling with leaves.  The first try was dicey.  Remove the leaves, put the bucket in the bathtub, rinse, fill with hot water, add bleach, insert the pillowcase up to but not quite at the hem.   Fasten the hem to the bucket handle which rested over the side, out of the water.   The angle of the handle relative to the water was shallow, and bleach water wicked into the hem and on to the trim.  Yanking the pillowcase out of the water, over the batht...

Daybook:   Backyard.   This will take months.   Her mother was a gardener.  Her husband is a gardener.  She loves wildflowers, butterflies and birds and the smell of good dirt and manure, but not digging in the dirt. Months ago, the husband brought home what looked like 3" fused pinecones and left them on the dining room table, which is where they sat gathering dust, no explanation given.  They were hard and deep brown.  In clearing off the dining room one day, they were shifted to a cardboard box, out of the way.  Weeks later a thin, dark brown vine grew out of the box, exploring the cabinetry above.  They were alive.  She asked him, “What are these,” and he replied, “Some kind of potato.  MaryAnn gave them to me.”  ‘Rock-hard potatoes,’ she thought, 'Anything that wants to live that badly deserves water and dirt.'  She carried the 3 pinecone potatoes to the backdoor stoop to find them a home.   A larg...

  She wrote the word, "mending."   She's sewn since she was 7, and made most of her own clothes until she left home and got married.  She went to work outside the home and made the hard adjustment to the reality of having a lot less free time.   Her husband was hard on his clothes but he preferred it that way, wearing them out before moving on.  Going through the laundry she would find the jeans and t-shirts with holes, the towels with raw edges, pillowcases with tears, broken zippers, tattered work jackets, underwear with loose elastic, and they would go into a pile.  The growing pile was transferred to a larger box.  Finally, an even larger tub.  It had to end.  Dragging the overladen tub bumpity-bump from the laundry room, up the stairs to the sewing room she sorted the easy work and set aside the more complicated projects.   There was a heavy cotton remnant, printed with line drawings of farm animals.  This would ...

The heavy heat of summer left on a cool fall morning.  On a desk in the downstairs office was an open, green composition notebook and a newly sharpened Ticonderoga pencil.  On page 1 was the date and a short list of attainable goals for housecleaning, that day.  The house on Popcorn Road raised one happy eyebrow and creaked with joy.

Popcorn Road is an imaginary place out in the country about 60 miles in from the central Texas Gulf Coast.  It is far enough away from the coast that hurricanes begin to tire, and close enough to be a 1-hour drive to the beach. Popcorn Road starts outside some town along the coast, and ends in a T where it meets Wagon Road.  Wagon Road parallels the railroad that runs east-west across Texas.   A 2-story, 120-year-old farm house sits way back from the west-side corner of Popcorn and Wagon Roads.  This house has 2 large porches that run the length of the front of the house on both the 1st and 2nd floors.  The ceilings of both porches are painted sky blue.  The 2nd-floor porch was screened-in a while back to give the indoor cat some outdoor air. There is a large chicken coop behind and away from the house, and a large adjacent area is fenced off for the stray goats the family have been gifted with over the years.  Two dogs, one a large, tan Shepherd ...