Ivy and Buckwheat bread

"I can do this," she muttered to herself as she limped from one end of the kitchen to the other. "I have a sprained ankle, not a broken back. Why did i say that?  Now my back hurts." She picked up two well worn notebooks and and plopped them onto the table, getting comfortable she began to turn the pages, it had been so long since she had looked at these recipes. The recipes she had saved so carefully, thinking back to the winter after her youngest had moved out when she went through the tons of recipes she had saves and put the very best ones into these left over notebooks from his High School Days.  that winter was as cold and snowy and this one was warm and rainy. Each recipe had a memory attached, a holiday or a  birthday,  a family reunion, and in later years a bake sale for school or scout fundraiser. Some she knew from memory, a record of her married life, and some she all but forgotten, and a few that were never even tried.

~~http://www.etsy.com/shop/AndSoForth

Ivy quickly found the recipe for Buckwheat Bread, she made it for most occasions that took place in the spring. The well loved and well used recipie came from her childhood neighbor,a woman most of the children feared, but not Ivy, not after she got to know her anyway."Best with buckwheat honey." Mrs Berkey would say.  Ivy fancied she could still smell the rich fragrance of butter, buckwheat and raisins baking  drifting out of Mrs Berkey's kitchen window. a kitchen window lined with tiny plants growing in egg shells, for Mrs. Berkey was a gardener. As far as Ivy knew she had no children, and after her husband died, Minna opened a nursery in her back yard. And one sunny and warm late fall day the Postman found her, she was 97, her trowel still in her hand, he said she had the most contented and peaceful smile on her face.

"Someday the memories just come flooding back, eh Mr, Chips? I wonder where Skye is today?" Ivy opened the newspaper. "Mr Chips, there's no school today! so there's no Skye either, just as well, my ankle hurts."  "I think I'll take the day off."  Ivy settled into her favorite chair and turned on the TV she was fast asleep in in minutes, she slept peacefully drifting, and sifting through her thoughts and memories, then she was jolted awake by the telephone, but before Ivy could get there it stopped ringing. "If it's important they'll call back. right Mr. Chips ?" 

Ivy had  been taking down almost all of the family photos that she had set out after Will's death. They were at first a comfort.  Then the photos became something to dust and keep straightened, just to keep herself busy, Ivy was not one to do extra housework. In time they became reminders of bitter sweetness of life, and Ivy began to taking them down, she wasn't sure why, but taking them down made her feel free. 
One of those that remained was a picture of her mother, and the house in Beans Cove, where she grew up.  Surrounded. Ivy fancied, every Sunday; by many, many relatives picnicking on the veranda and horsing around on the lawn. It was a story that suited the photo, whether it was true or not she didn't really know. Thinking up stories about the faded photo, imagining who the people were and what they were doing, was something Ivy enjoyed doing. Ivy settled back into her chair, her eyes fixed on the photos in the frame and her thoughts fixed on everything and nothing.  There were lilacs behind the house, and some rambling rosebushes, a vegetable garden, and inside lots of frilly curtains, also ivy recalled the parlor with its very pretty furniture, just the right place for a tea party with your dollies, only Grandma wasn't so sure about that.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the telephone, "Damned thing!"

~~Diamond Sunstar

Ivy shuffled over and mustering her  most polite voice said "Hello".  "Hi Mom," the voice on the other end said, " what time do you want us to pick you up for dinner on Sunday?" There was a long pause, and then "Mom, did you forget it's Mothers Day?" "Not really, I was just thinking that I will go to Beans Cove instead." she said "All by myself."