Buffalo Checks Are In, Steampunk Is Out this fall.
I've never been a fan of Buffalo Checks. I believe a buffalo checked garment will be oh, so Last Year in winter of 2017.
While I was looking at photos from past years' garden shows, I realized that we're no longer seeing much steampunk, either. Steampunk started up about 10 years ago. Steampunk Magazine closed down after 9 issues.
What is Steampunk? Nineteenth century science fiction.
I need to see what else is In or Out.
Thursday
Goodbye, Ike
Ike the Cat is gone. No poems to make us sadder than we need be, no requiem, no photo.
He's
been in a decline: thinning fur, taking longer to eat, losing weight,
not quite his old self. He began to hide:in the tractor shop, up high on
a stack of boxes refusing to answer my calls. Then one day he hid
behind the freezer, reluctant to answer me. It got worse. Lane found him
in the engine compartment of the Kubota RTV.
When I finally
called him up at noon in hopes of finding him in time for his 3pm
appointment, he appeared from behind the roses as if he'd just now heard
me. I went to the mule barn and went inside. He came in under the big
door we'd left cracked just room for him.
As soon as he was inside, he went over behind the air compressor and generator to find a place to hide. He came out when I brought food and water. I think he had stopped drinking water, his water bowl had stopped being sucked down quickly the way it used to.
As soon as he was inside, he went over behind the air compressor and generator to find a place to hide. He came out when I brought food and water. I think he had stopped drinking water, his water bowl had stopped being sucked down quickly the way it used to.
Sometimes he caught a mouse or two, or a squirrel. The last rat I saw him with, he let the dog take it away from him.
We'll miss him. He was a good kitty.
Monday
From Soup to Nuts
When I start with storytelling, ideas just tumble out. Mr. Horvich's story of his first job, at Jewel Tea was a springboard for all kinds of memories, prompting me to return to Charms blog and indulge myself with stories from the farm.
I was immediately reminded of brother Hoyt's first job at A&P in Rome, GA, before I was even born. Most of what I knew about that was what I read in Hoyt's memoir. Since I wasn't there for all of this story, facts may be somewhat rearranged. Hoyt worked at A&P, went off to WWII, and his plane was shot down in the Pacific. He came home with lumbar fractures, recovered, went back to the Army Air Corps, married Evelyn and went to work for Best Foods in Atlanta after the War. They eventually moved to Chicago, where after many years, he retired, some kind of Vice President.
I told all that to get to the part about Hellmann's Mayo. Best Foods had name changes and product changes but Hellmann's persists. After the war, Hoyt was selling Best Foods products: Mayonnaise, Nucoa margarine, Shinola shoe polish and salad dressing are the ones I remember. Sometimes at Christmas every family got a box of mayonnaise and salad dressing. I can't remember if shoe polish was included.
The most elegant item my playhouse ever boasted was a poster featuring Hellmann's. Hoyt came by to visit and gave me the lithographed posterboard. It was titled "From Soup to Nuts" and had recipes, only one of which we ever tried, the part about nuts.
It was a simple recipe: take raw shelled peanuts, roll them in Hellmann's Mayonnaise and roast them in the oven at 350 degrees until the papery husks start to pop and the nuts are brown. They come out roasted and greasy. (The recipe didn't mention the greasy part, it just said to drain them on brown paper.) Back then we didn't buy paper towels, but we did have Kraft paper grocery bags, made locally from local pine trees.
We didn't grow peanuts. Our neighbor to the east, Mr. Dock Moates, grew a little patch of peanuts when he plated the rest of his vegetable garden. He grew popcorn, too.
I can't recall any of the other recipes on my poster, which featured that pretty Blue Ribbon of Excellence and lots of yellow in the background. The Touch Quilt I worked on today has a blue background with a yellow umbrella applique in progress and lots of ribbons.
We used mayonnaise in making sandwiches and as salad dressing for chicken and potato salads and Pear Salad, my favorite. I used to wish for company because Mama always made Pear Salad but never just for regular dinner.
People in the Mill village put mayonnaise in their cornbread. I can't remember about prices in those days, but I suspect it was a cheaper way of putting in egg and shortening. Mama didn't put egg in her cornbread. Ruth did. We used lard, lots of lard. When soybeans grew on our land, we never thought of them as something to eat, at least I didn't. They were a soft market commodity just as wheat and cotton were.
Uncle Carl, Grandpa Billy and Daddy Mack, in the 1930s. A lot of food grew on their farms.
I did think of wheat as something to eat. Freshly ground whole wheat flour does not keep for very long. When Daddy took wheat to Stiver's Mill in Rome, he used to bring home what Mama called graham flour. Biscuits were brown speckled as long as the flour lasted without turning rancid. We didn't consider how much healthier whole wheat was, just that they were tasty.
I was just reading that Best Foods uses soybean oil in their mayonnaise. I wonder what oil they used in the 1940s? Was it soybean then, too? Did they change to corn oil when the company was bought out by CPC? Does anybody besides me think about various oils used in cooking?
I was immediately reminded of brother Hoyt's first job at A&P in Rome, GA, before I was even born. Most of what I knew about that was what I read in Hoyt's memoir. Since I wasn't there for all of this story, facts may be somewhat rearranged. Hoyt worked at A&P, went off to WWII, and his plane was shot down in the Pacific. He came home with lumbar fractures, recovered, went back to the Army Air Corps, married Evelyn and went to work for Best Foods in Atlanta after the War. They eventually moved to Chicago, where after many years, he retired, some kind of Vice President.
I told all that to get to the part about Hellmann's Mayo. Best Foods had name changes and product changes but Hellmann's persists. After the war, Hoyt was selling Best Foods products: Mayonnaise, Nucoa margarine, Shinola shoe polish and salad dressing are the ones I remember. Sometimes at Christmas every family got a box of mayonnaise and salad dressing. I can't remember if shoe polish was included.
The most elegant item my playhouse ever boasted was a poster featuring Hellmann's. Hoyt came by to visit and gave me the lithographed posterboard. It was titled "From Soup to Nuts" and had recipes, only one of which we ever tried, the part about nuts.
It was a simple recipe: take raw shelled peanuts, roll them in Hellmann's Mayonnaise and roast them in the oven at 350 degrees until the papery husks start to pop and the nuts are brown. They come out roasted and greasy. (The recipe didn't mention the greasy part, it just said to drain them on brown paper.) Back then we didn't buy paper towels, but we did have Kraft paper grocery bags, made locally from local pine trees.
We didn't grow peanuts. Our neighbor to the east, Mr. Dock Moates, grew a little patch of peanuts when he plated the rest of his vegetable garden. He grew popcorn, too.
I can't recall any of the other recipes on my poster, which featured that pretty Blue Ribbon of Excellence and lots of yellow in the background. The Touch Quilt I worked on today has a blue background with a yellow umbrella applique in progress and lots of ribbons.
We used mayonnaise in making sandwiches and as salad dressing for chicken and potato salads and Pear Salad, my favorite. I used to wish for company because Mama always made Pear Salad but never just for regular dinner.
People in the Mill village put mayonnaise in their cornbread. I can't remember about prices in those days, but I suspect it was a cheaper way of putting in egg and shortening. Mama didn't put egg in her cornbread. Ruth did. We used lard, lots of lard. When soybeans grew on our land, we never thought of them as something to eat, at least I didn't. They were a soft market commodity just as wheat and cotton were.
I did think of wheat as something to eat. Freshly ground whole wheat flour does not keep for very long. When Daddy took wheat to Stiver's Mill in Rome, he used to bring home what Mama called graham flour. Biscuits were brown speckled as long as the flour lasted without turning rancid. We didn't consider how much healthier whole wheat was, just that they were tasty.
I was just reading that Best Foods uses soybean oil in their mayonnaise. I wonder what oil they used in the 1940s? Was it soybean then, too? Did they change to corn oil when the company was bought out by CPC? Does anybody besides me think about various oils used in cooking?
Sunday
Playhouse
I usually find the best things while looking for something else, or as somebody else said, You don't find anything good unless you're looking for something.
When I found Michael Horvich's blog --I forget what I was searching for maybe touch quilts for alzheimer's patients-- it grabbed my interest. He made no quilts but he took exquisite care of his partner, Gregory. Reading memories of Michael's early life began to remind me of my own.
Since Charms for an Easy Life has never found a real voice, it might work as a kind of childhood memoir. The only thing I know to do is to jump right in at no particular place for no reason for being there.
The playhouse was one of those things where a structure is used to fill the need of the moment. It was a shed build onto the side of what we called the washhouse. The washhouse held a big wooden churn on a structure that allowed it to be turned with an iron handle, once a feature of the family dairy decades earlier. The Churn fell into disuse but was never discarded. Hanging above it on a nail was a fox skin that Brother Mack tacked up there years before. The main feature was the washing machine and two zinc washtubs. We had no electricity until later . The washing machine had a gasoline motor which was kick-started like a motorcycle.
The shed room was used for showering until electricity came to the countryside and we had running water. The shed was divided into two small rooms, one windowless and plastered half way up with cement. There was a 30 gallon barrel on the roof. Early in the day, a gasoline engine a quarter mile away in the pasture pulled a pump to pump water from a well to fill the barrel. After the sun shone on it all day, there was warm water for showers for the family.
I can hardly remember ever having a shower, too small to reach the spigot that fed the shower head. I think I bathed in a little oval enamel tub in the house, filled with hot water from the reservoir on the wood stove. The coming of electricity was the end of the wood stove, the bathhouse and the kerosene refrigerator.
When the bathhouse was in use no more, Daddy Mack cut a window in the dark side of the shed and I had a two room playhouse, a real playhouse with a roof and windows and a door. The small window in what had been the dressing room was hinged to swing up and open and was high on the wall so nobody could peek at the girls inside back in bathhouse days. No matter the esthetics, it was a place to play with dolls and such. Even on cold days, I could open the door which faced east and play in the warmth of late morning sun, out of the chill north wind.
Mrs. Miller who lived up across the railroad almost half a mile away was my good friend. If Mama watched, I could walk down the lane, cross the highway, go up and over the railroad and on to Mrs. Miller's house. She and I shared the same birthday. She took great interest in my playhouse. Mr. Miller worked at the Company Store in the mill village where I went to school.
Among my treasures from Mrs. Miller was one of the first plastic boxes I ever saw, I think it may have held margarine, which was not something that we bought, as we had real butter enough for our family and to sell to Mama's milk customers who came to the house to buy glass gallon jugs full of fresh whole milk. Mama had some customers who asked her to skim some of the thick cream off the top, which she was glad to do because it went into the churn for even more butter. I guess they didn't know about whipping cream for fruit salad and ambrosia.
Mrs. Miller fashioned orange crates into a little bench and a tiny cabinet for the playhouse. My 'stove' was the warming top off the old wood stove, which I could pretend had two ovens. Two andirons left from the days when wood was burned in fireplaces in the house were outside the door, my 'horses.' Wood fireplaces were fitted with grates that held coal from Alabama mines. One of my chores when I was older was to bring in buckets of coal from the pile beside the old lily pool where dump trucks with Alabama tags unloaded several tons of coal at the onset of winter.
Childish imaginations turned bits and pieces of cast off items like empty deodorant jars and lids from peanut butter glasses into household items. We had dolls and tea sets and Mama's old high heels and hats for dress up.
One of my favorite things for playhouse 'cooking' was bran left from sifting cornmeal that was water ground at a grist mill a few miles away, down on Euharlee creek. Bran was usually scattered to the chickens but I could have a little jar of it to play with, cleaner than mud pies.
We turned scraps of fabric and grubby discarded hair ribbons into doll clothes. Imagine how we delighted in having something as exotic as a clean medicine dropper and bottle that once held eye drops, or a cigar box.
 |
| Third Grade |
When I found Michael Horvich's blog --I forget what I was searching for maybe touch quilts for alzheimer's patients-- it grabbed my interest. He made no quilts but he took exquisite care of his partner, Gregory. Reading memories of Michael's early life began to remind me of my own.
Since Charms for an Easy Life has never found a real voice, it might work as a kind of childhood memoir. The only thing I know to do is to jump right in at no particular place for no reason for being there.
 |
| Washhouse is at far right. Picture taken about 5 years before I was born. |
The playhouse was one of those things where a structure is used to fill the need of the moment. It was a shed build onto the side of what we called the washhouse. The washhouse held a big wooden churn on a structure that allowed it to be turned with an iron handle, once a feature of the family dairy decades earlier. The Churn fell into disuse but was never discarded. Hanging above it on a nail was a fox skin that Brother Mack tacked up there years before. The main feature was the washing machine and two zinc washtubs. We had no electricity until later . The washing machine had a gasoline motor which was kick-started like a motorcycle.
The shed room was used for showering until electricity came to the countryside and we had running water. The shed was divided into two small rooms, one windowless and plastered half way up with cement. There was a 30 gallon barrel on the roof. Early in the day, a gasoline engine a quarter mile away in the pasture pulled a pump to pump water from a well to fill the barrel. After the sun shone on it all day, there was warm water for showers for the family.
I can hardly remember ever having a shower, too small to reach the spigot that fed the shower head. I think I bathed in a little oval enamel tub in the house, filled with hot water from the reservoir on the wood stove. The coming of electricity was the end of the wood stove, the bathhouse and the kerosene refrigerator.
When the bathhouse was in use no more, Daddy Mack cut a window in the dark side of the shed and I had a two room playhouse, a real playhouse with a roof and windows and a door. The small window in what had been the dressing room was hinged to swing up and open and was high on the wall so nobody could peek at the girls inside back in bathhouse days. No matter the esthetics, it was a place to play with dolls and such. Even on cold days, I could open the door which faced east and play in the warmth of late morning sun, out of the chill north wind.
Mrs. Miller who lived up across the railroad almost half a mile away was my good friend. If Mama watched, I could walk down the lane, cross the highway, go up and over the railroad and on to Mrs. Miller's house. She and I shared the same birthday. She took great interest in my playhouse. Mr. Miller worked at the Company Store in the mill village where I went to school.
Among my treasures from Mrs. Miller was one of the first plastic boxes I ever saw, I think it may have held margarine, which was not something that we bought, as we had real butter enough for our family and to sell to Mama's milk customers who came to the house to buy glass gallon jugs full of fresh whole milk. Mama had some customers who asked her to skim some of the thick cream off the top, which she was glad to do because it went into the churn for even more butter. I guess they didn't know about whipping cream for fruit salad and ambrosia.
Mrs. Miller fashioned orange crates into a little bench and a tiny cabinet for the playhouse. My 'stove' was the warming top off the old wood stove, which I could pretend had two ovens. Two andirons left from the days when wood was burned in fireplaces in the house were outside the door, my 'horses.' Wood fireplaces were fitted with grates that held coal from Alabama mines. One of my chores when I was older was to bring in buckets of coal from the pile beside the old lily pool where dump trucks with Alabama tags unloaded several tons of coal at the onset of winter.
Childish imaginations turned bits and pieces of cast off items like empty deodorant jars and lids from peanut butter glasses into household items. We had dolls and tea sets and Mama's old high heels and hats for dress up.
One of my favorite things for playhouse 'cooking' was bran left from sifting cornmeal that was water ground at a grist mill a few miles away, down on Euharlee creek. Bran was usually scattered to the chickens but I could have a little jar of it to play with, cleaner than mud pies.
We turned scraps of fabric and grubby discarded hair ribbons into doll clothes. Imagine how we delighted in having something as exotic as a clean medicine dropper and bottle that once held eye drops, or a cigar box.
Wednesday
Hyacinths
We so enjoyed the Fisher Peanut butter. Now it's time to enjoy food for the soul as Mama used to call it.
These pics were quickly snapped when I went to get the cat out of the greenhouse so I could close the doors tightly against thunderstorms that are crossing the Chattahoochee as I type.
Hyacinths in the outdoors are blooming before stems are out of the ground, indicating a lack of winter cold.
I had an email from Sally's Mom who said she followed my instructions for pre-chilling and planting hyacinths in pots of soil with good results.
I failed to follow my own instructions closely enough for Hippeastrum. No Amaryllis are blooming in the greenhouse, just a plethora of green foliage. I'm not sure where I went wrong but maybe buds will appear sometime this month or the next. If not, they're all going into the ground outside to start over for bloom cycles next spring.
Hyacinths in the outdoors are blooming before stems are out of the ground, indicating a lack of winter cold.
I had an email from Sally's Mom who said she followed my instructions for pre-chilling and planting hyacinths in pots of soil with good results.
I failed to follow my own instructions closely enough for Hippeastrum. No Amaryllis are blooming in the greenhouse, just a plethora of green foliage. I'm not sure where I went wrong but maybe buds will appear sometime this month or the next. If not, they're all going into the ground outside to start over for bloom cycles next spring.
Sunday
Peanut Butter
It's Peanut Butter Day!
There were jars of Fisher Peanut butter on the Foyer table at our Church this morning for everyone, brought by Miss Kathy, who works for San Filippo and Sons company. What a treat! Peanut Butter made from peanuts grown locally.
There were jars of Fisher Peanut butter on the Foyer table at our Church this morning for everyone, brought by Miss Kathy, who works for San Filippo and Sons company. What a treat! Peanut Butter made from peanuts grown locally.
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