A cow named Bossy.

I am not sure her name was Bossy, but I think it was and that is what counts.  She was brown, but back in those days most of the milk cows were.  I want to say she was a Guernsey, but you are not going to catch me lying at this stage of the game.  She was brown.  A soft brown.  We had several cows when we left the Ailmore place, along with the horses dad used for plowing. We also had Star, the Shetland from hell that no one could ride.  You would have thought he was a sweetheart if you just looked at him, but try to get on his back and that was not happening.  He is the one that left the scar on my brothers face.  But back to the cow.

 The reason I am telling you about Bossy is because that cow knew how to give milk.  But the best part of the milk was the cream.  We had a separator which separated the milk from the cream (hence the name separator).  We would toast a piece of bread and then put cream on it and sprinkle it with cinnamon and sugar and put it under the broiler for just a few seconds.  That was heaven!  The cream was so thick it stayed standing on the toast.  I go to the store now and buy "heavy whipping cream" and it pours out of the carton.  I have not even seen cream like we used to eat.

The same cream was churned into butter.  The butter was bright yellow when it was rinsed and put in the refrigerator.  It was also very delicious.  After Bossy died in cowbirth, (the baby also died) we were without a cow and thus without butter.  The neighbor girls lived with their father right next door.  Their mother had passed many years before and he raised the girls  alone.  They also had a cow and made butter.  With no cow we had to resort to eating margarine.  Now in those days margarine was white.  I think it was actually lard, but it came with a little yellow dye button that you could work into the white mass so it looked like butter.  We used to trade margarine for butter because the neighbor girls did not like butter. 

Another thing was they made doughnuts every Saturday morning.  Their father was diabetic, but he sure liked those doughnuts and he thought if he only ate them once a week he would be alright.  Another daughter came from Plevna to visit them every Sunday so they managed to eat all the doughnuts.  None for me!

One time mother had fried up a bunch of small carp that she had seined and Dorothy got a bone caught in her throat.  Mother had picked the meat off, but apparently missed a small bone.  As she was choking one of us ran next door and told Mr. Reinke.  He had experience at such things, you know.  He grabbed a piece of bread from the cupboard (in case we didn't have any and of course we didn't).  He made Dorothy eat the bread, which dislodged the bone and sent it into her stomach where the acids would dissolve it.  He was a hero!

Mostly Mr. Reinke just did handy man work around town and then did his chores when he came home.  We could here him singing songs in German while he did his chores.  Since he sang in German, my dad was sure he was a Nazi, but we never knew that for sure.  I just thought he was a very nice man to save my sisters life. 

I was always envious of their "outhouse" because it had a concrete floor and a lid on the potty part.  Ours had a floor that was pretty well shot and a bench with 2 holes.  I never understood that part, because we never went in there with anyone.  I just could not picture that!  Thiers also had a door and a latch from the inside for privacy.  Ours had a door at one time, but not by the time we inherited it.

The point of this entry when I started it was about cream.  The point I wanted to make was, back in those days we ate thick cream.  We used real butter.  We ate potatoes, and bacon, and gravy and we were all skinny.  When I married my first husband I stood 5'1" and weighed 92 pounds.  I am convinced that all the additives in our food are still in our bodies.  I have given up trying to read the ingredient list on anything I pull off the shelf or out of the freezer.

And I am sure I will never live long enough to ever be able to toast a piece of bread and pile cream on it with cinnamon and sugar.  Sure would like to see old Bossy again, but those days are long gone.  I would not eat a Carp now if I was starving.  I am beginning to look forward to the day when I can once more run barefooted down Strong Street see all my family and friends.  Seems like that list gets
shorter every day.

(After thought) I do need to tell you, that when the separator quit working at one point and mother strained the milk it was not the same.  She would leave it set and the cream would raise to the top.  I could not stand the bits of cream that were floating in the milk  to touch my lips.  I would try to pick them all out with my finger, but it was an exercise in futility.  I could eat straight cream, but not swallow a fleck.  I was so happy when we had to buy milk from town because it was homogenized.

Inside my head is a scary place.

Some times I wake up in the middle of the night and just wonder what is going on anyway.  You should know that in the middle of the night I come up with some brilliant ideas.  I even amaze myself at the simple solutions I find to the world problems.  I have written several best seller books in the wee wee hours and blog ideas are so easy at 2:30 in the morning.  My mind is clear and alert and my fingers itch to start typing, but I control myself.  I know if I start my day at 2:30 AM I am going to be dozing off at 1:30 PM and I will be headed for bed about 6 which is not acceptable to the real world.

And isn't it then amazing that when I do click on the writing page, my mind is just as blank as that sheet of paper.  What happened to all the things I came up with when I should have been sleeping?  Now I know that I am supposed to jot down notes when I wake up like that, but I have tried that.  The next morning I read something I have written and wonder what in the hell I was smoking.  "Rodeo, mules, ostrich, breakfast."  I am sure in my sleep induced stupor that made good sense, but in the clear light of morning, it is sheer jibberish.  I even tried the voice activated tape recorder, but by the time I had a brilliant thought, the batteries were dead.  So I have come to this conclusion:  My batteries may be dead.

If I could be the witty, animated person that I am in the middle of the night in the cold hard light of day, I would be a millionaire and everything I wrote would fly off the shelves.  I have come to one conclusion;  there is someone else living in my head along with me.  I know this because I can be talking to someone and looking them right in the eye and listen as they reply, but my mind has gone off to what I need to get at the store, or something that needs done across town.  This scares me.  Today I was reading the Bible reading at church and at the same time I was trimming the tree by the goose house.  Planned every cut, ended the reading, went and set down and baked banana bread in my head.

Before you laugh, I want to tell you that it is scary being me.  I just wonder if any one else has this problem.  You can tell me, because I won't remember it when I blink my eyes.  

A place for every plant and every plant in its place.

Living with Grandma Haas and Great Grandma Hatfield was definitely challenging.  They had a place for everything and everything was in it's place, especially in the summer.  All year long the little house plants set in there place in the house where ever it was they belonged.  The Oleandars lived in the basement and were not watered from fall until they were brought out in the spring.  Always surprised me that they survived.  One was white and one was pink.  They had the sweetest aroma rather like vanilla only sweeter.  Maybe with a tinge of almond.  What ever.  It was hard to believe that they were deadly poison.  But I digress.

When Spring arrived which was usually late April in Kansas, the basement door was opened and the Oleandars were drug up the steps by what ever hapless  cousin was around.  It was usually cousin Carl.  He was the farmer boy and lived just outside of Plevna so he was handy.  And Aunt Lola usually came and picked up the laundry to take it home and wash and return.  We did not go through the clothes back then like we do now.  Now I wear something a day and throw it in the hamper.  Back then the same outfit was good for a week.  Back to the house plants.

The Oleandars were placed on either side of the steps in the front of the house.  We never used that door.  It was the front door and that was its job.  We used the side door which opened into the dining room for most of our comings and goings.  The only exception was when one of us needed to make a trip to the "outhouse" or the trash needed carried to the burning barrel.  Then we used the back door.  The trash was kept in a wooden hamper by the back door and there was a damn good chance that there was a mouse in it when I dumped it so I would carry it very carefully, slowly to the barrel.  I would gently place the edge on top of the barrel and then quickly push it over and wait for the mouse and the trash to empty and then grab it and run for the house.

After the Oleandars were in place the other house plants were carried out one by one and the first was placed by the front sidewalk and then each next one got a little closer to the house until all of them were setting outside and then I could begin watering.  And I watered them every day because the Kansas sun is very hot and dry.  This ritual continued until Grandma Hatfield saw signs  of  an  early frost.  Then the whole process was reversed.  I often wondered what happened to the Oleandars when Grandma Haas passed and Great Grandma moved to Coldwater.  Sadly there is no one to ask.

I have a few houseplants but they are all big.  I do move them out to the patio in the Spring, but sometimes I have to carry them all back in, because Colorado weather can not be trusted.  Oh, and spiders build homes in the stems so that sucks.  But mostly I got to have green stuff around me for one reason or another.  I have a pink Oleandar if anyone wants to come by for tea.