sloggy's Xanga

Unpacking the Baggage

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:33:07 GMT

Well I've been reading the same Max Lucado book about Psalm 23 this week. It's been so busy that the week whizzed by as I've been reading a section or two each day. I find myself thinking about it all day as I go about my day which typically starts with prayer with hubby for our assorted offspring and their offspring, each other and then I pray by myself, read a bit of Max, get up get dressed, go downstairs, wash dishes, pick up clutter, talk to Song and or son about their days, plans, needs and what I just read, feed fish, water plants, shake the doormat, sweep or vacuum, clean a toilet, make breakfast, lunch and supper or make somebody else do it, wash more dishes, put away some clean dishes, make a few phone calls, listen and try to be encouraging, bring in firewood or make somebody else do it, feed animals or make somebody else do it, start fires in one or the other stove and feed the fire periodically or make somebody else do it, wash dirty clothes, dry, fold, put away or make somebody else do it, clean off dirty surfaces ranging from toilets to doorknobs and incuding cars, fill bird feeders, feed chickens or make Song do it, collect eggs or make Song do it, water chickens or make Song do it, teach Algebra II to Song, help with her other subjects, help Son with college classes and problems of life he can't figure out what to do about such as 20 questions he has to ask inmates at the county jail tomorrow which have to line up with the theories of why some folks do deviant behavior and just what is deviant behavior anyway?, cheer him on as he demonstrates new song he learned on guitar this week, help hims figure out how to solve an embarrassing problem and cheer for him when he does it successfully, teach two preschoolers about God making babies, animals and them and sing with them, hop around the room with them and encourage them to crawl back anf roth under the table on Wednesday nighta as well as make them sit in chars and politely cooperate with the directions I have for them
This week I also made bread, moved the furniture in my bedroom all except my bed, tried unsuccessfully to fix one of the vacuum cleaners, cleaned out the other one, vacuumed my bedroom and hallway and upstairs bathroom, brought in plants from the upstairs porch, made bread two loaves and a pizza, Song helped with the pizza, visited the buildings we are trying to renovate with hubby and helped the building inspector tour the site and answered questions he had with hubby and the contractor and then on to the building department to pay fees and chit chat and ask questions and listen to huby and nod head while he talked with the contractor in the parking lot and then on to have a little date of pie and soup and coffee in a small eatery downtown as we sighed in relief over getting through the red tape on one of the two houses we want to renovate and being given the green light on it!! Moved the cedar chest out of our bedroom and down the stairs with Song and a set of drawers up the stairs with her. Tried unsuccessfully to instal printer software for our new printer on the old deskstop computer so hubby can use it to print a copy of excel spreadsheet he has to turn in on Monday!!! Some of windows xp has been accidentally been uninstalled and the old computer won't let me reinstall it without an Internet connection which it no longer has because the modem died last summer or a code that I no longer have drat!!!! Answered questions about when am I going hunting and no I am not going on Sunday morning because I am teaching the Sunday school kids in the opening part this week and next, Answer questions about the market scene of our church reenactment of Christ's birth and agree to do the prop gathering and set up of props this year because the two who have been doing it quit. Vacuum the basement and furniture down there too on the half where we hauled in a big heavy replacement bookcase to put where we had a cheap Sauder entertainment center,

So the long involved not too interesting description of my days is here to show anybody who might find themselves feeling envious of my good life that it isn't always so great! I've had people be somewhat envious sometimes of the good life I have but not of the everyday process I go through.

The part in Max's book that I read yesterday morning was about envy and jealousy. Of course he makes the point that both are bad for us. I found myself thinking that the difference between admiration that motivates us to make some improvements in our lives and those other two E and J choices is just what you do about your noticing somebody looks a bit better than you to you! If you notice somebody else is better at making friends and you start to study them and try to do some of the things they do. That's a function of admiration or if you just glare at them and complain about them that's a function of envy.

Then is occurred to me that we tend to envy the end result not the process. What I mean is we admire the spotless home,the well behaved children, the strong marriage, the well stocked cupboard,the nice looking home, the bank account with lots of money in it. But we are looking right past the process which is what we need to take a long hard look at. The spotless home is that way because the folks that live there keep it and make it clean and orderly. They wipe their feet, they take off their shoes, they vacuum every day, they don't let the dishes sit on the counter, they don't eat at home, they limit their possessions etc. If I am unwilling to do likewise then I should not be surprised or depressed about my messy house. But if I am then that's a result of envy.

I don't want to do what it requires to have what I want I just want it! I want what I want with no effort on my part. That's the baggage of envy or jealousy. I don't want to put the effort into it. I just want it to appear in my life.

Life doesn't work that way. There is a bit of undeserved good stuff that happens to us but to a large extent you get what you aim at. If you want a good marriage you have to marry carefully and then work like the dickens to grow a better relationship. If you want children who grow up into great people that you can enjoy admitting you are related to then you have to say no to some thing that can gobble your time and attention and you have to work on doing some growing up yourself. If you want money in your bank account then you have to find ways to earn money and find ways to not spend it all. If you want these kinds of things but not enough to work at them like crazy then you probably won't end up with them. Not much that's worth having in your life happens by fallout.

It's really pretty interesting to ponder this idea.

We tend to think that God forgives and gives grace to the humble and that takes care of it. But we also tend to believe that old adage, "You made your bed now don't complain about lying in it." They seem to contradict each other. But do they?

I think they don't. God forgives and gives grace. That means that anybody can stop kicking themselves for being stupid, wasteful, immoral, ingnorant, even downright evil and then ask God to help them make different choices now and they start to roll up their sleeves and get going on a better life. Now that may not yield the quality of life they would have had if they had not been stupid, wasteful, immoral, ignorant or evil before that day. It will mean that they will have a better life than they would have it they kept being stupid, wasteful, immoral, ignorant and evil.

The idea of being wise or being stupid is doing what is right. Knowing what is right is not so difficult but the rub comes in when we kinow what is right and we do what we think is wrong. Admitedly all of us do this sometimes. But when our lives get really rotten is when we look at somebody making good choices which leads to a pretty good life and we starte badmouthing them or tossing things in their path to make it more difficult for them.

Just to make any envious folks out there who think I can't relate to them or they can't relate to me feel better. I want to admit I was married for ten years before I put a garden in without getting in an argument about it with hubby. I remember thinking that it was quite an accomplishment when that happened!! I believe that is when I felt hopeful about my marriage. And there were times when I struggled as a mother too. I found a letter as I was cleaning out my bedroom last night which I had written to a good friend who moved away saying that I finally was beginning to feel not so cross-eyed because they baby, my youngest had slept through two nights in a row!!!According to the date on the letter she was over a year old at that point.

Fall is ending

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:12:59 GMT

Fall is leading into winter. Today there was a skiff of ice on a pot which has filled up with water on the porch outside the bedroom and the ground had a layer of white. It snowed on and off yesterday most of the day mixed with hail. We have a fire in the woodstove every day now or are uncomfortable. We let the chickens out to peck around in the woods and the garden this week one day and watched the ducks waddle around the yard and then down to the creek which they were really excited about.

The landscape now is mostly grey and brown. The leaves are down and I find myself noticing how interesting the shapes of the trees are and trying to imagine the view when it turns all white and everything I can see now is coated and covered. It's time to gather up the remains of fall and summer and stash them. Song and I have been doing some cleaning and hubby brought in some furniture from the shop which happens to be white and will make the house brighter during the darker days of winter.

I'm getting to the end of my enthusiasm for canning and freezing and have been thinking about how to make room for venison in the freezer. Although it has been so busy which leaves not much time for deer hunting and quotas are low and rules are strict about what you can get and where and how so we are wondering if we will have any venison for the freezer this year besides the one we are currently enjoying. We might get a pig instead! As soon as the young hens start to lay I plan to butcher some chickens and I'll probably can that meat.

It feels amazing to me that the two grandbabies are born and have settled into their families quite well now. My father in law is still in critical care and is inching his way towards recovery so we are still getting and giving daily reports on his up and down health. I talked to a friend this week who poured out his story of his own mother who is a diabetic and has been in and out of hospitals for his whole life. He talked about watching her have a medical crisis when he was six years old and how that has flavored his life. I found myself thinking that it can be a bridge between people when they share something like a family member who is weathering storm after storm after storm. God uses these kinds of things which we would not ask Him for in many many ways. I can see a little of how He works them together to make a good fabric.

I'm reading a book about the Bible's Psalm 23 written by Max Lucado. I like it a bunch as I have most other things I've read that he has written.One of the best parts in it so far is his description of how people make their lives more difficult than they need to be by changing God into a geni you pull out and demand things of when you want something, a sleepy Grandpa who is not much use to you because he's usually asleep but he doesn't make anything hard or painful either becasue he's asleelp and hard to wake up for much besides a period hug or two or into a very busy executive Dad who is mostly at the office, on the way to the office and only has a little time for us on Sunday when he takes a few hours off from his hectic schedule of running the world and will listen to us for a few minutes. It both made me chuckle and made me sad. I see people all around me who have those concepts of God and who live less of life than they would if they could push those ideas aside and see a loving powerful personal God who is not baffled by yesterday, today or tomorrow because He's already there and has infinite understanding but still loves each of us and has what is best for us in mind all the time.

Max also talks about all the baggage we insist on taking through life that we don't need at all. It reminds me of a passage from one of Corrie Ten Boom's books. He says we need very little but we take along an immense amount of things like fear, shame, pride, lust, sorrow because we don't trust God enough to hand those things to him and let Him give us what he wants us to carry and concetrate on. Good writing and good stuf to ponder. So that's what I'm doing. It's making me rather absent minded but that's a good balance for the task oriented mind set I've been in of late. Time to get ready for winter and in some ways it's already here.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 20:48:34 GMT

My thoughts are swirling like the autumn leaves outside! I spent most of last week with one of my center daughters who delivered a baby girl on Friday afternoon. It was delightful to hold a newborn twig for our family tree in my arms on Saturday! Posie held up well and is doing a great job of mothering and wifeing too. She observed that her baby appeared to be the most beautiful baby she had ever seen in her life but admitted that she might be a bit prejudiced!

Another of the center daughters is due to deliver her little gal next month and is showing signs of early labor which I am joining her in praying will hold off a bit so that there is more time for God to finish up making the lungs and the liver on the baby before delivery. We love babies around here and since this little one's older brother was a preemie we know lockbox can mother a preemie but are asking God for a full term one this time although we know God doesn't take orders from us so we will bow to whatever He decides. She is trying to lie down and sit down and drink lots of fluids to stave off birth for a bit while the doctors watch her and monitor things.

Meanwhile, my father in law was at death's door yesterday so hubby was fielding calls about his Dad's and mom's struggle in that area. He seemed to turn a corner yesterday afternoon and is continueing to improve today. So we are thanking God for that miracle today and asking him to help the crew at that hospital to hang in there! Whew!

In the meantime Song and I managed to can and freeze most of the two and a half bushels of tomatoes we had sitting here waiting for attention. I have a few more on the table to make into another batch of salsa. It sure is nice to have a couple of extra hands helping to get the larders full! The tomatoes would have turned to mush and been tossed to the chickens if I were trying to get them processed by myself!

Song and hubby also worked on felling and cutting up another tree this week while I was busy with daughter's labor so we are that much closer to having our winter's wood cut! I feel relieved and grateful to see those chunks of firewood piling up. We've got a bit more to cut before we can settle back into our easy chairs though. Some of what is cut up will need to be split and stacked too.

Son is busy working on midterm papers and so I'm trying to be really inspiring but keep myself from being too involved too as he labors over this comparative piece of writing. It's a tough balance.

It's hard as a parent in this and many sitiuations to figure out how invoved to be so that I am helpful and yet not get too involved and start to carry the load for him. I would love to just write the paper for him or at least decide on the topic and set up the outline. But that would not really help him in the long run so I have been trying to be a good listener and let him bounce ideas off me.

It was like that as I spent time along side my daughter and son in law this week during her labor. How much do I say and how much do I keep my thoughts between God and me?

It was also like that yesterday as I watched and listened to my hubby agonize over his Dad's medical crisis. We prayed and talked and prayed and talked. The hard part for him is wanting to be there and lesson his mother's pain and his father's suffering as well as longing to come along side his younger brother and shoulder some of the burden he carries when there is a stressful time at home. I can understand some of that because I've experienced my parents' health crises. But at the same time I can't understand because this is not my mother,father or brother and no two people go through the same thing the same way. So again the struggle is to keep my mouth shut more than it's open and keep holding my hubby and his family up to God knowing that He is much wiser than me and knows and loves them all more than I can.

It's hard to let God be God in my life and in the lives of those around me. But it sure beats the alternative!

Wednesday, October 07, 2009

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:58:59 GMT

"Rain rain go away. Come again some other day! " goes the childhood rhyme I have playing in my head. Our chickens are so tired of their wet henyard they hardly poked their heads out of the henhouse yesterday!! Today it is not raining yet and I've been enjoying this overcast day.It has rained so much lately that the creek is roaring below the house. I'm ready for a bit of a break so that I can enjoy the outside and more easily get a bit of the outside work done.

The leaves have turned to the road into a series of giant bouquets. The chickadees are busily emptying the bird feeder and stashing the seeds in all the little nooks and crannys they can find in our woods. I feel like the chickadees. There is a vague uneasiness that comes to me about this time of year. I want to store up and shore up before the winter storms come with their swirling gusts of snow to bury us in our valley.

It's interesting that the Bible tells us not to worry about tomorrow because God takes care of the birds and not to concentrate on building bigger bigger and barns but it also tells us to be like the ant and to get ready for the future by storing up as the ants do and not being lazy. So there is supposed to be a balance in our lives. We should not be like Ebeneezer Scrooge in the famous Christmas tale storing up for the sake of storing up. Then again we need to take care of our families and take care of our possessions. It's quite a balancing act sometimes.

When I am copying the ants I like to freeze and can in the fall. Song and I froze a couple of bushels of corn last week. Yesterday I was busy cleaning and organizing our very dirty messy basement. It's a good fallish thing to do now that it's cold enough to need a fire in the woodstove! I was putting the peaches, peach jam, and cans of kidney beans I bought on sale on the pantry shelves.It's part of basement organizing that is lots of fun to do. Then I was pulling down cobwebs, tossing out trash, putting things back in the right places and sweeping up dirt. It's always amazing to me how dirty and disorganized the basement gets in the summer when I am not down there very much! It feels good to have cleaned up some of that dirt, organized a bit. Now I can see how much produce is lined up waiting for winter in the pantry on the shelves and is filling the freezer.

Next I need to take a load of stuff to the second hand store and a load to the dump and a load to the burning pile. I sorted things acccording to put away, give away and throw away as I made my way across the room.

I brought my pots of impatiens in the house along with plants my biologist daughter left here when she moved. It's too cold for these to be outside now but the flowers will keep blooming in the house till Christmas with some tender loving care. I still have an herb garden to bring in too. I noticed my Rosemary I was given for Christmas has been happy out in the yard. I used a sprig of it on a pork roast last week!

We went on a breathtakingly beautiful hayride this past Sunday evening and were given pumpkins by Son's employer who hosts a fall picnic and hayride through his hilly farm for his employees and their families. So now we have four pumpkins to decorate our porch with instead of the pots of flowers I had there all summer. I'm slow to make the shift from summer to fall but I'm getting there!

Commonalities of Pregnancies and Algebra II

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:31:54 GMT

Patience is always pointed out as a virtue no matter where you turn. It's not really a very sought after virtue though. Lots of joking about those who foolishly sought after patience is bantered back and forth when people get together and start to poke fun at each other! Like the story about the lady who asked for prayer that God would give her patience and while she was asking her house was flooding and she got home and found lots of opportunity for patience! or The story about my friend who was ordered to bed with her difficult pregnancy who said," I know what God is trying to teach me! He's trying to teach me patience and I wish He'd hurry up!"

I've often been told that I must be a very patient person to have had six children and to have home schooled them. When the kids were little and people said that to me. I would laugh and say,"No I'm not a very patient person. I use all of mine every day!"

This week I found myself pondering patience and standing back and thinking about how and why I've been discouraged from developing a patient attitude and patient habits. And really, we are encouraged to hurry up all the time! Don't wait for anything. Make it happen now!!!!!

One of the things that brought this whole topic to mind is that right now I'm watching and encouraging three of my daughters as they weather pregnancies. Another is that I'm teaching my youngest Algebra II.

Pregnancy is something I know a bit about, since I did give birth to six of my own offspring. So, I can speak with some degree of authority in that realm. Although, doing something six times is really not that much experience! I'm definitely still learning about pregnancy and birth. It's really interesting to have a chance to sit in on a conference with my daughter's midwife and to listen to the other two who are doing their pregnancies farther away and are doing lots of reading and researching as they progress through the nine months of preparation. It seems that there are always things to learn and ways to make a birth experience and rearing of a newborn better or worse.

Algebra II is something I am no expert on. I am as much of a novice as Song and we are both learning from the computer program we are using. It is really fun to do this though, partly because, I can see how much more patience I have than I had when I approached the subject with my oldest child. Now I am better able to sit there and not push the information down Song's throat. I can wait for her to digest the material and spit back the answer in her own time. She is slow to respond sometimes and trying to hurry learning often resulted,in the past, in a frustrated and stunted learner, when I got too impatient. Now I can sit, wait, keep my mouth shut and my thoughts to myself and she stays cheerful more often and the wheels turn in her head a bit easier than they would if I were shoving and pushing her through the material. I am more patient with my own dullness and slowness in the area of higher math too and have learned to look at it as if I'm breaking a secret code or learning a foreign language.

Patience is definitely a gift from God and it's fun to see it being given to me! Maybe a lot of what I'm seeing is the result of time with God. Time passing by coupled with more and more experience with others and with myself have shown me the value of patience. So now I am pursuing it a bit more vigorously. And I find myself more cheerful more often during more difficult situations which makes me feel pleased. It's a nice cycle.

Just Go Among Them

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:01:28 GMT

I just came back in from the henhouse. Song pulled the partition out between our young chicks with their broody hen mamas and the origianl flock. I filled the youngsters feeder, shook down some feed in the circular feeder hanging in the center of the old henhouse for the laying hens and watched for a while. Our hens are part pet part farm animals. Song and I both like to watch them. The new hens are a real rainbow of colors because I got Aracauna chicks this spring which makes them interesting to watch but the other interesting thing to see is how they observe their pecking order. The young hens are skittish because they know they are the lowly newcomers and don't deserve to eat. The older hens often will stride over to a young hen and peck her for no reason but just to get a rise out her. It works too! The young hen will jump straight up and out of the way. Often the old hen will just take a mouthful or two of feed and then stride off.

Obviously she wasn't hungry. She just wanted to let the youngster know she is above her in rank. Most of the older hens aren't doing much of this pecking they are just ingnoring the young hens and that half of the henhouse and the long low feeder Song moved out of the newer half of the henhouse which holds feed for the youngsters. And so far none of the young hens have ventured through the old henhouse and out the hole in the wall to the outside yard. I'm finding myself wondering how and when they will begin to venture out that far and what kind of fighting will ensue. Sometimes there can be quite a bit of fight and flee when the young ones get inquisitive! I've seen this all before of course but it's still interesting. I stand ready to intervene if the old hens or rooster get too aggressive. After all the time and money we've used to get this new flock going I'm not willing to let the old flock peck the new flock to death. It can happen too. Which is why I had Song wait till this week to mix the two batches of birds. This week we are done with wearing out the road to our nearby towns for a bit and have returned from visits downstate. So we can keep an eye on the chicks and hens and rooster. We're taking turns going out to see how they are doing. So far so good.

It reminds me of people.

God doesn't say "Feed my sheep. Feed my lambs." lightly. It takes more than food in a dish to feed God's flock. It takes the kind of thing we are doing with these chickens. Lots of prayerful supervision, encouragement, a bit of entertainment, reassurance, sometimes some patching up the wounded, and at the very least carefully checking for injuries. It's ok for a little friendly jostling for positons. But when it turns into serious fights it's time for some intervention and it's time for the more mature folks who are able to use some self control to be present.

I notice with the chickens that they settle down and behave better if Song or I go out into the henhouse. Even if we don't actually do anything but just stand around in there. Sometimes a frightened chicken or chick who is getting picked on will come running over and stand right by us and the bully will back away a fade into the flock.

When I'm dealing with people I notice the same thing.

One of the most effective things in our kid's club or Sunday school is just to have more adults and older children scattered in among the kids as they sit in a big group. The volunteers don't have to do anything other than just sit with the children to cut down on the poking, hair pulling, pinching, making faces at each other that kids do to establish their pecking order. Of course some silent prayer helps a bunch too! Since that seems to help to spread God's spirit among the group!

We were talking about that this weekend at my daughter's house. Sometimes when another adult walks in the room the kids sit up straighter and take notice. A calm seems to descend from above. Nothing has to be said. It's just comforting to everybody to have another adult walk in the room and stand there with love in his heart for those kids.

It's a good thing to keep in mind when we feel like we don't, can't and won't make much of a difference. All you really have to do is go and stand there with love in your heart and you have made a difference. The atmosphere in the room can change allmost instantly.

I remember when Hubby and I were a young married couple and we were sitting in our house praying for our neighbors who we knew were having a terrible time but we didn't know what to do to help them. An older couple came over to our home for a visit and said, "What are you doing?" When we told them. They said,"That's nice. Now why don't you go over there and be the answer to your prayers for them?" to which we answered that we couldn't do that. They asked why. We answered that we didn't know what to do or say to them. The older couple said, "Oh you don't need to do or say anything at all. Just go." So we did. And when we got there we found lots of little things we could do like washing their dishes and we spent a couple of hours listening and then we came home. We still didn't know what to say to them. But we knew we had managed to do what God wanted us to do.

I've thought of that incident many many times. It was good lesson that I hope I don't ever forget and which I try to share with others. I guess another way of saying it is that when I get empty of myself and full of God I can go make a difference in other people's lives. All I really have to do is listen, go and listen. And sometimes there is something to do that God whispers to me when I go.

Oh and I'm reading a book again by Florence Littauer called Making the Tough Times Count here are three links to a site about her.

Grandmotherly Ponderings

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:07:38 GMT

Yesterday I wound my way Eastward alone. I dashed to the houses we've been spending so much time on to drop off two gallons of water, stopped to pay a bill and then headed to my daughter and son in law's apartment to take one more step closer to greeting a new grandbaby this fall. I was invited to sit in on the home visit of daughter's midwife. It was really interesting, informative and a bit awkward too.

I took along a five gallon bucket Posie has been saying she needed two batches of herbs, some receiving blankets, some flannel and a couple of packs of baby items. One was stuff I saved from my babies which I used for Posie including a little sweater bunting and hat my mother made for her which I used for my last four babies and still looks really nice and a couple of hats I made for my babies which are still usuable, the t shirt the hospital gave me when Posie was born, and a sweater set my sister sent to me when I was expecting Posie to be born.

The second bundle was stuff I had saved which my mother used for her babies including a pink silk quilted blanket, two woven wool blankets and several hand sewn white baby gowns which either my Dad's aunt made or my grandma made and a little silk coat and hat that was bought by somebody for my mother and I also used it for some of my babies. It was fun to look through these things which Posie didn't remember seeing and reminisce a bit. She took a few of the things I used for her to maybe use for her own little one.

After the midwife visit we did a lot of talking and then did a bit of shopping and headed back to the apartment to make a fantastic supper of hummous with raw veggies followed by stir fry with chicken,carrots,celery, green beans, summer squash, purple cabbage and mushrooms topped with chopped green onion and sauced with sesame seed oil, soy sauce, garlic paste and ginger paste. It was really pretty and tasted great. We decided that we were a great team of cooks and would enjoy being able to do more of that in the near future!

It really won't be long now and I'll be over there cooking for her and her hubby as she enjoys the adjustment to motherhood!

In the meantime I better get some more in the freezer. I still need to freeze corn and can tomatoes and salsa!!!

This next week hubby and I hope to cut some firewood since we don't have our winter wood supply up either. Time is slipping past and it's definitely time to get ready for winter around here. The nights are quite cool, the leaves are turning and dropping. I got a couple of small pullet eggs this week which shows my hens are done with their moult and it won't be long till the new hens kick in and start to lay also. I should have lots of eggs for Christmas baking!!!

Blackberry Picking!

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 17:01:16 GMT

Blackberry picking is always a favorite end of summer treat. It's time now and I find myself enjoying the dickens out of it once again. It brings back memories of the first time as a new bride, picking with my little girls in back packs and front packs, hitting the patch with a friend who told me she was pregnant, and then there was the year a friend tried to make a blackberry pie for me as a special favor. I valiantly tried to eat it, with a smile on my face. She watched and commented,"You don't like blackberry pie do you?" I admitted I didn't and she chided me and asked me why I didn't say so. I confessed that I didn't want to spoil her happiness by telling her I didn't like blackberry pie when she had announced so triumphantly that she had made this wonderful pie just for me!!! But no I really detest blackberry pie and was having a hard time trying to swallow bites of it. She laughed and took the pie away.

I like raw blackberries or frozen blackberries but I don't like the flavor when they are cooked. They really change considerably. So I pick berries and chuckle over the many memories I have of blackberry season which is a special quiet activity I enjoy as summer ends and fall begins.

I've got a ring of blackberry bushes around our clearing in the woods so there is good picking for a couple of weeks.

Time to head out there and talk to God while I enjoy the bounty He has provided!

Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 19:56:29 GMT

The calm descended after our double birthday celebration which actually followed close on the heels of two others and I'm finding myself today wandering around putting away and picking up and pondering.

Yesterday I read the rest of a Max Lucado book I'd had by my bedside for a couple of years. I started reading it right before I went to help after my oldest gave birth to her secondborn. It was a good bit of literature and I found myself chewing on it a lot yesterday and today. It's really a collection of short pieces Lucado wrote on a variety of topics. The afterward tells that he wrote each piece after his wife and kids went to bed at night in a closet he converted into his writing studio. I particularly was suprised by a bit he wrote about candles argueing with him about being lit and taken out of the storage closet.

Last night Hubby and I dashed off to work on the two houses we have been busy with lately. He was working on the little one and I was working on the red one. Funny to be toiling away nearby each other but separately.

We started off having a sort of two person picnic on the swing seat in the backyard. I packed water and apples and roast beef sandwiches. He stopped in a gas station on the way and bought some corn chips. We sat on the swing and chomped down our sandwiches, swillied our water and crunched our chips and decided to save our apples till later.

I worked on ripping up more flooring, pulling up nails, sweeping up mess and dumping it in the dummpster. Took a little break and cleaned out some trash from the garage and just outside it where the previous owners had a pile of trash. Then I tore out the two carpeted stairs in the living room and the carpet,flooring under them and put most of that in the dumpster. Hubby was working on jacking up the little house and shoveling out under the wall and adding sound supports to the east wall.

For the most part we worked in silence. It was in some ways comforting once again. It comforts us because we are making measurable progress at something that will not have to be done again. It's not like laundry which never stays done for long, food that you cook and it's eaten in an instant and has to be replaced with more food or like cleaning this house where we live and get the house dirty again immediately. After we work at the houses we pack up and go home to this house and the progress we make stays made. So we go home tired but smiling.

It's also interesting to go over there to a city and see neighbors who we are developing some realationship with again. It sort of feels like we are leaing a double life. By day we are country dwellers and by night we are transformed into city folks. We giggle about that sometimes!

Yesterday it was warmer there than here and I enjoyed that and marveled at it. The little porch off the back collects and holds the sun's warmth this time of year while our barn shaped house in the woods is cold this time of year.

I found more information about the family that lived in the two houses last night and brought home a handful of some relative's writings to read through after I got home. I think it's the reporter in me that surfaces every once in a while making me want to investigate more than just what the subfloor is made of and instead look into what kind of folks lived,played, cried and prayed behind these walls during more than 50 years!

A Little of This and That and End of the Summer Soup

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 19:13:30 GMT

I wondered for a few years, if a small electric coffee grinder would be useful for grinding whole grains in the small amounts that I need to bake a batch of pancakes,biscuits, bread, or cookies. I picked one up at a second hand store for $1.50 and have been grinding away since and adding a bit of whole wheat to this and soy to that without the loud racket of grinding with the blender!! Just a small bright spot in my homelife but it makes me smile every time I look at the little coffee grinder sitting on my kitchen counter!

Today I hung up a small bird feeder I found on the back porch of the red house we are renovating. It's a really nice addition to the underside of the bird feeder I had already in the window. It's top is a small pop bottle and the bottom is a little red screw on dish. I hung it from the under sides of the other feeder with a bent up coat hanger.It put a stop to the bickering at the feeder. Now the bigger birds, mostly grossbeaks, are feeding on top and the smaller goldfinches and chicadees are perching underneath on the little feeder which is just right for them. Ta dah!! Birdie heaven!!

Last night I was avakened by a lound squealing and whistling from the woods below and to the east of our house. It was making it's way towards our clearing. I knew from experience that it was a family of raccoons out foraging. They must have found something exciting at the neighbors home and then took it into the woods to chomp on it and celebrate. They were on the way to our henhouse to have some dessert I think. Hubby woke up and grabbed his gun when he heard me say raccoons and I snapped on the light but he went back to bed when I said they were in the woods not in the henhouse. I woke up Song and told her to come with me to shut the ducks up in the henhouse and to shut up the chickens more securely too! Then after tromping around in the dark trailing curious cats and kittens we slipped back inside to sleep a couple of more hours till daylight. Now it's raining hard and the wind is blowing. It never fails to interest me that birds empty the feeder at a record fast rate and the raccoons come to feast all night just before a storm hits. God tells them to stock up before the storm. I seen the human weather report be wrong a lot but I've never seen the birds and raccoons be wrong yet.

I heard a good heartwarming side to the housing foreclosure epidemic recently. A family farm passed out of the family in the area a bit north of here. It was resold again and the farmhouse was somewhat messed up. Then the house and only 10 acres of the original farmland was being auctioned off in a foreclosure by a bank locally. A grandson of the last of the family to own the farmhouse heard about it. He bid on the place and the bank rejected his bid of $30,000 as too low. Then he learned that they had decided not to take any of the offers and to reauction the place. He rebid and this time he lowered his bid a few thousand dollars. But this time the bank too it!! So the young fella has purchased the family farm at a reasonable price and the whole clan is rejoicing that the farm is back in the family again.

Incidentally the gal that told me that joyous family story was sharing the story over a cup of hot choclate after having shared some of her excess garden produce. She offered the rest of her green beans to Song and I if we would come and pick them so we did. Then she threw in cucumbers, beets, red potatoes and summer squash for good measure. Song and I have been busily freezing beans since. We now have several quarts of beans in the freezer. Sunday we had my great grandmother's green bean soup for lunch.

Here's the recipe:
Green Bean Soup
Snap a quart of beans into bite sized pieces and drop into three cups of boiling water
Dice five potatoes and add to the boiling water
Dice five strips of bacon
Move the pan of potatoes and beans to the back of the stove and turn the heat to low under the pan. Cover and Let it simmer.
Fry the bacon in a small frying pan over medium heat.
Remove the bacon from the pan.
Add six cups of whole milk to the pan of potatoes and beans.
Stir occasionally as the mild heats on low to medium heat.
Chop a handful of chives and add them to the top along with the bacon. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Serve with crackers or bread and butter. Top each bowlful with a dab of butter if you wish.

This was a soup my Dad always made this time of year. So when I was picking the beans I was telling Song about that and mentally getting ready to make a pot of it. My Dad was raised mostly, by his grandmother on her farm where he watched her make do with and stretch what she had to fill hungry stomachs!