Halloween Bunny Strikes Again

I’ve had several people send me carrot recipes.

You can see why….

Thanks Les for making this great photo

I’m not sure why I planted so many. I guess I was having a Scarlett O-Hara moment, feeling that  “Ah’d nevah be hungry again.”

I canned carrots. Froze carrots. I shaved carrots into all kinds of food…even brownies, until Scout and Dallas Cowboy found out and demanded no more healthy food additives for them.

Now, my latenights are busy with sneaking out and leaving carrots on folks doorsteps. BwahHaHaHa…

Beware!! The Easter Bunny is celebrating Halloween.

Canning Moonshine

by Zest-pk

Yes, even though I haven’t posted for most of the summer, I’m still laboring while others are sleeping.

Tonight the kitchen is abuzz with activity.

A three-layered metal contraption called a steamer is percolating on the stove top.  The Swedish genuis who designed it created a method to split open the cells of fruit with heat, and siphon their juicy goodness.

I’ve beaten the wicked deer to the Concords this year. 5-gallon buckets of grapes line up next to the stove, awaiting their turn in the steamer.    I drain the boiling purple juice into big half-gallon jars and listen for the lids to “Ping”, indicating they’ve sealed. It takes about an hour for each batch.

Even though it’s 2 in the  morning when I finish,  I trek the stems and collapsed grape skins outside to the compost pile.  (Fruit flies…blah)

The air is crisp from the first chilly snap of the season. Leaves litter the ground. Orion has returned to the sky after his summer vacation. The faint light of a half-moon illuminates curlicues of steam ghosting off the pot of spent grapes I carry.

It’s a night to remember. Late nights are like that…when you think no one is awake, and you have the stars and quietness all to yourself.

Just as Dandelion wine evokes images of long sunny days, each jar of grape juice, will fill my cloud-ridden winter with crisp autumn nights and the waning moon of summer. I’m really canning moon shine.

When You’re Not in Kansas Anymore, Dorothy

A Great Photo by PixieSticks23

It’s the garden’s fault.

First it was the raspberries. Millions of them, dangling like red jewels in the bushes.

Then a heat wave rolled into the valley, and like a Smucker employee, I was picking, jellying, and making cordial for days until…. well…often until morning broke the nightsky.

Then came blueberries, blackberries, peas, and the blessings kept sprouting out of the ground along with a few epiphanies.

Last night I was under the shade tree in the back yard snapping green beans. The thought came to me that this wasn’t as much fun as it used to be and I wondered why.

I have little-girl memories of sitting under the big ol’ elm, and everyone snapping  beans, slapping an occasional mosquito, and sharing their day.  Of course, we didn’t have air-conditioning, so sitting outside, hoping for a breeze to stir the baked air, was a nightly ritual.  We also put fireflies in jars, flipped june-bugs on their backs and watched them spin, and waited for the shift-change in insect hunting go from starlings to bats.

Now, I was under the tree with only the yard cat for company. Everyone else was inside, in airconditioning, watching TV, or in front of a computer.

I realized that the only reason I was sitting under the tree in the twilight was because that was how I had always snapped green beans as I grew up.  I hadn’t thought it through. I guess I thought everyone would drift outside to see what I was doing…in the heat…in the semi-darkness.

I felt kind of stupid.

Life changes. At least the bats still come out.

Why Does the Sun Spit on the Ground?

I just came in from the garden. I graveled potatoes.

That’s what my grandmother always called it when we prodded the dirt around the plants, looking for baby potatoes, but left the plants intact so they could make big spuds, too.

“C’ mon” she’d say, “Let’s pick a mess of greens to boil these with.”

She never stepped outside without a bonnet. Never. Her arms were leathery and spotted, but her face was white and smooth like baby’s skin.

Since it was a hardscrabble farm, the only lawn she had was a patch fronting the dirt road that went by the house. The rest was trails through weeds, feedlots, and pasture. We’d wander around gathering a few leaves of dock, and as much Lamb’s Quarter as we could find. We never could find a lot.

“I guess we’ll have to use dandelion greens for the rest,” she’d say. No matter how dry it was—even when there were cracks in the earth—there were dandelions.  We’d only pick the small ones.  The big ones were too bitter.

I suppose they were medicinal. I have no idea what they were supposed to do, except remind me that in hard times, you make do with what you’ve got.

So now my taters are boiling along with a few sprigs of chives. (I figured Grandma wouldn’t mind if I spruced it up a bit.) I’m sitting back, staring at my lawn, dotted with golden flowers, and wondering how many dandelions I’d need to make wine?  As Grandma always said….

“Make do with what you’ve got.”

I’ve Got My Fingers, But No Hands Today

In an effort to avoid sleepless nights from Brain Drain, I’m breaking out of my routine. Yesterday I made soup—blindfolded.

I was amazed to find  that my feet knew my kitchen even when I couldn’t see. I tried not to think about how to get from the refrigerator to the sink. I walked and stopped; and who-woulda-thought— the sink was right there! It was the same with the drawers. The stove. The utensils.

Perhaps it’s called “muscle memory.” But whatever the file in the brain is called, it has recorded all my steps to familiar places. (I wonder if I can tap into this process to find my lost keys? Maybe my feet remember where I put them.)

I was pretty smug until I started using the knife.  Even moving slowly,  it frightened me. I waited until Scout got home so he could take me to ER if I mistook a finger for a carrot.  I’m not sure which was more interesting: chopping veggies blindfolded or Scout’s on-going commentary.  Well, the soup was good, but had rather large veggies in it.

Since I was so worried about hacking off my digits yesterday, today’s experiement was: NOT USING MY RIGHT HAND.

Yes, I’m typing this hunt & peck style. And let me say: I’m thankful for spell check. Having no right hand has made me become very creative in finding “work-arounds.”  Elbows, toes, hips, and knees become important players in hefting, sweeping, and opening doors. I’m even looking forward to the next laundry day when I can actually fold with 2 hands. ( Funny how I take little things for granted.)

So here’s the sweet little secret I’ve learned so far: Like a movie, our brain knows the script and if we rest the main actors of our body (our hands and eyes), then the other characters get a chance to star.

What a wonderful creation we are…and that gives me hope.

Tommorrow?   I’ll try life without speaking.

Occasional Moments of Grace

Once again, it  struck me how such small acts of kindness carve smiles into stiff hearts.

I saw it at the nursing home the other day. A gentleman stopped by to visit a resident and played a tune on the piano for her. Pretty soon the dining room was full of folks who had wheeled their chairs down to listen to the music. The piano player obliged and played old tunes. “I want a Girl just like the Girl that married Dear Old Dad,” or “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”.  Folks may have had a blank stare on their faces, but their lips were moving as unused words came back to them.

In another instance, a friend had left her purse in a shopping cart after buying groceries at a big box store. She realized it when she arrived home and made a frantic call to the service desk. An employee volunteered to immediately go out and look for her purse. He found it.  Still sitting in the shopping cart. No one had touched a thing.

I volunteer at a cooking school for very young mothers who didn’t have the chance to finish highschool. The class is taught by 2 chefs and they show how to make a quick, nutritious, inexpensive meal, then the students take home supplies to make the dinner for their family.  Attendance varies each week because …well because there are all sorts of challenges that come up for these young ladies. The rule is: If you don’t show up, you don’t get food to take home.

But the coordinator of the program manages to scrounge enough supplies to make a small  take-home basket for the missing girls. “You know, the ones who can’t come are the ones who need help the most,” she says quietly. She’ll make sure they have at least one good meal this week.

It reminds me to be kind instead of judgemental.  To pause for a moment and share a word. To believe in people.

Because there’s hope in those  occasional moments of grace, isn’t there?

The Weird Love of Comfort Food

I realized that I hadn’t laughed today.

The more I think about it…I’m pretty sure I didn’t laugh yesterday either. Oh,  there was plenty of “Heh. Heh.” chuckles.

But there’s something definitely off-center when I can’t remember when I had a guffaw that came from the middle of my belly and erupted up my throat.

So in honor of a good laugh, I’ll tell you a story.

My grandma believed in comfort food to bind the family together.  She grew up in the depression era, so a fat chicken with home-made noodles was rich eats  for her.

Her favorite meal was a mess of quail. It was a wet, nasty April day like today when she asked my dad if he’d shoot her a quail. She said she’d been pining for one for quite a while.

“Well, sure Ma,” he said.  I was at Grandma’s when he brought  in her bird, all dressed and cleaned, with the legs cut off.

“You just shoot one?” she asked.

“Yeah, you eat it. We want burgers, don’t we, Sug?” he winked at me. I’d been raised on rabbit, squirrel, and venison, or whatever my Dad could shoot. To me, a burger was a welcome reprieve.

Grandma fried up her bird. “He’s kinda paltry lookin’” she said as she pushed him around in the skillet.

“Well, there’s not much for the  little fella to feed on. You shoulda waited til things greened up.” Dad gave me another wink.

We sat down to eat, and Grandma started wrestling the bird with her teeth. She gnawed and tugged, trying one side of her mouth, then the other. “This is a tough ol’ booger,” she mumbled and went back to chawing on a leg. Tears streamed my father’s face as his chest jiggled. I looked back and forth between him and Grandma, trying to sort it out.

When her dentures flew across the table. It was a full minute before he could get his laughter under control and tell her, “It was a crow.”

“My dawd!” Grandma scowled. “I thought the meat looked awful dark.”

Dad was laughing so hard, his voice sounded like a little girl’s as he wheezed, “April Fools.”

That was my family. Somehow the jokes communicated a trust deep enough to risk a laugh at ourselves and each other. I’ve moved away and grown serious.

I need to laugh. It lightens my heart. Maybe I’ll make some comfort food. Maybe I’ll make it with pepper-jack and call the family.

What’s Your Comfort Food?