There is a heel in every loaf.

Well, actually there are 2 heels in every loaf, but I am not sure how to spell heel.  I think this is right.  I like home baked bread. Like may not be a strong enough word for my love affair with baking.  I know I can get into the car and drive into town and find several bakeries most willing to take my money and give me a loaf of their bread, but some how that just seems so wrong. It will have all kinds of stuff in it to make it better than mine, but I gotta tell you, it always falls short of the mark.  Sure it is crusty and tasty and already baked, sometimes with an egg wash to make the crust even crustier.  Sad, because I like mine better. 

Mine is made with water, yeast, salt, sugar, oil, and flour.  That is it.  Nothing fancy and I don't have to scald, puree, or infuse anything.  I throw it all in a mixing bowl with a dough hook and 4 minutes later, the dough has climbed the hook and it is ready to be covered and let raise.  I usually make a couple double batches and set them to raise on the stove top.  When the pans are almost ready, I turn the oven to 355.  The bread bakes about 20 minutes or so.  Nothing is set in stone at my house except my naptime at 3:00 while Jeopardy is showing.

Now this little fellow decided he might like to try a piece of the heel on the first loaf out of the oven.  It was his own idea, not mine.  Something about the aroma of fresh baked bread is just more than a human can resist.  He just wasn't sure at first that eating a piece of bread was what he really wanted to do.  I did not push it because I like the heel best myself and there are only so many in a loaf.  So he took it.

And the rest is history.  He used to look for cheese puffs, or orange juice, but the aroma of fresh bread is his new mantra.  Bless his little tiny heart.

This little fellow is not real fond of meat and sweets are not his thing either.  Mostly he dines on fruit and cheese.  Kinda fun to have around.  Looks like I will be making bread for him for several more years before he figures out about junk food, but maybe not.

He does keep me on my toes and he is now trying to teach me to jump.  For the record, I am not learning that one very well.  I think it is this damned old age thing.  Not only am I not good at jumping, I don't even want to try.  It all seems pointless at this juncture.  So we shall engage in our little war of the wills until I either jump or he gives up.  

How ya' betting?

The heart of hearth and home and the back yard.

The center of the home was usually a fireplace.  This was replaced later by wood burning stoves, but let's just stick with the fireplace for now.  The focal point of the fireplace was a trivet.  Our forefathers were famous for using 3 points to hold and lift.  My husband always said "Give me a pivot high enough and a lever long enough and I can lift the world."  And I am sure many of our modern day inventions went back to that statement.

The trivet was a 3 point apparatus made of iron and usually was decorative, unless the man of the house was lazy.  It set on the hearth, which is the floor of the fireplace.  It usually had a hook that could pivot.  The "tea kettle" was filled with water and hung near the fire.  When hot water was needed the pot was swung over the fire and very quickly came to a boil.  The water was then ready for bathing, face washing, dish washing, cleaning the floor or any of the myriad of chores pioneer women did every day.

Out side in the back yard, but not that far from the house, set the 3 legged cast iron kettle, pot, cauldron, or whatever they were calling that on any given day.  This is where the real work went on.  The other was for women's work, but do not be confused here and think women had chores and men had chores.  Men had their chores, but when there was no one to help them, they became an extension of the women's chores.  I do not know how they arrived at a 3 legged kettle as opposed to 4 legged, which it seems would be more sturdy, but there never was to my knowledge a 4 legged kettle.  3 legged is what it was.  The job of the 3 legged kettle was endless.  It could be used on Monday to scald a hog that was being butchered.  Tuesday it would have a slow fire to render the fat of the hog into lard.  Oh, and the pork rinds from that lard would be snacked on and used as flavoring all winter.  Wednesday might find mother killing and cleaning chickens, ducks, turkeys or geese.  Thursday she might decide to do the laundry so water was heated for that.  Friday was usually cleaning day and we needed hot water for that.  Those are the things that were every day use of the 3 legged cast iron but usually some one would come by and want to do something and sometimes all kinds of vegetables and stuff were thrown in and we had a feast.

And when the work of the kettle was done, mother was not.  She sifted the ashes from the cleanest part of the wood that was burnt and stored them for her lye.  Soap making was an art form back in those days.  We had a metal bucket that set by the back door and any grease or oil went into it.  When it was full, mother would heat it slowly and strain it into the "soap making bucket."  When the time was right she would melt that nasty stuff.  She then slowly dripped water through the clean, light gray ashes which made lye.  This was quickly stirred into the melted, cleaned fat  using a hammer handle.  If all went well, the grease would begin to solidify and mother would pour it quickly into the soap box.  If anything was off it would "set up" on the way to the box and the hammer handle would be embeded until we shaved off enough soap to free it.  Worse yet was when mother was a little off and it did not set up.  It just set there until she threw it out.

Ever smell lye soap?  Back in the day it had a pungent odor and an off yellow color that mellowed with the ripening.  After I married for what appears to be my last time, I had time on my hands, so I tried quilting, weaving and lots of other things.  Finally I decided that I wanted to try soap making  I was pretty sure I was not going to do the ashes part so I went off in search of lye.  It was very easy to find.  It was in Safeway, right down on the bottom shelf under the drano and that sort of stuff.

(I must deviate for just a paragraph here to tell you that buying lye in any store did not last long, because the yoyo's that were cooking meth and stuff like that began using it for their process.  Safeway had already began to lock up all the cold and allergy stuff used in the process, so of course lye went by the wayside.  I can still get it through a wholesale house, but I had to put up my first born child and 3 acres of ground for every pound I wanted.)

To make a long story short, I lined a box with a tea towel, just like momma used to do.  I followed the directions to the letter and soon poured the conglomeration out into the box.  When it was the right consistency, I cut it into squares with an old iron butcher knife.  It said to wait and let it cure for 6 weeks.  So I did.  At that time I removed one of the square bars.  I thought it looked a little rough, but what the hell.  I started the shower and stepped in with my little bar.  I would give it the supreme test for sensitivity on my face.  Lord, my eye immediately began to burn like it was on fire.  I was crushed!  Not only was my labor in vain, but now I was going to be blind on top of it all.  Luckily my husband was home that day and when I went crying to him he just laughed.  Damn him!  "Yeah, soap will do that."  But he was right!  Now I make soap that looks like this:

This is soap like momma used to make only instead of used up cooking grease, I use olive oil, lard, tallow, and stuff like that.  It is smooth and creamy  with tiny bubbles.  I have found since I started making my own soap that my skin is not dry and that is because what you buy at the store is not soap, but beauty bar, bath bar and words like that.  Soap does not appear on the lable.  I used to sell this, but  now I just make it and usually give it away.  

Well, once more I got off target, but you will get used to that.  But just look around you at things in your life that have a 3 point apparatus and you will know what I mean.  If you are old, like me, you can visualize the bales of hay being lifted into the hay mow.  Or if you ever blew the motor in your old Chevy you probably used a 3 pint lift to pull the old motor out and swing the new one in to place.

So, for now, from one old lady to those of you who still remember the old days, have a good one and remember, 

You can not sprinkle showers of happiness on others without getting a few drops on yourself! 

OMG! The great Ski King is here!

I recently came across a site on facebook called Kansas Old and Interesting Places.  Being from Kansas I find the history fascinating.  So I joined the group.  While perusing last night on the site, I came across a picture of a big white house located in Toronto.  I started thinking about when Duane and I were first married, before we had any kids and I remembered that we had lived in Toronto for a few weeks.  History lesson coming up here.

I was 19 and Duane was 21 when we married.  He and 2 of his brothers were in the business of trimming trees.  Now in this day and age they would be respectable and probably have an office some where, but back in those days, the car and the pickup were the office, warehouse, job site, and bookkeeping.  The first year we were married we lived in 14 different cities around the state.  We would locate to a town, sell our service, and when all the trees were trimmed we would move on to greener pastures.  It was honest work and Duane was a very good tree trimmer.  It kind of sucked not to have any real roots, but we were in love.  What more can I say?

Back to Toronto.  We pulled into Toronto and immediately went fishing.  First we rented a room at the local hotel.  It had a big room with a couch and bed and a stove to cook on in the other room.  Arrangements were made with the owners that I would clean the halls and the bathroom in lieu of the $5 a week rent.  I would go to the local grocery and purchase food for the day, cook it and have supper ready when Duane and the brothers came home.  Now, suffice it to say, that one of the prerequisites of being a tree trimmer was you must be a good beer drinker.  The day always ended up in the bar.  I did not drink at the time, nor do I now, but he and his brothers drank enough for me.

I remember this song, (click on the blue letters to open the link. Ski King ) Seems this happened either at Toronto Lake or the Fall River Reservoir.

Toronto Lake was some good fishing, for sure.  On one day I was instructed to cook up a pot of beans and the boys would bring home some corn.  Sounded good to me, so I cooked the beans and later that evening they came in with a peck or so of corn.  Well, unbeknownst to this ignorant little girl from the big city, it was field corn.  So I shucked a few ears and threw them in the bean pot.  After due time Duane pronounced it ready.  Hmmm.  That stuff was very hard.  So we cooked it longer.  It got harder.  We cut it off the cob and boiled it some more.  Now let this be a lesson to all of you, field corn is a whole different ball game then the sweet corn I was used to.  For our supper we ate beans and corn, but the corn was picked out and tossed in the trash.

To end this tale of woe, Yates Center was nearby and I had not been feeling well.  Duane took me to the doctor, dropped me off and went to the pool hall.  The doctor examined me and pronounced that I was pregnant.  OMG!  Where is the hospital where I will have the baby?  He looked at me like I may have just fell off the turnip truck and said "Around these parts folks has their babies to home."

And that ended our life in Toronto.  I am a city girl at heart and there was no way in hell I was going to have my baby "to home."  Hutchinson would become my home for the duration of my pregnancy.  I had a mother there and she had running water and all that stuff!

But I do have my memories of Ski King and I have yet to figure out how all this connects.  If you do, please share with me!

The house where the fancy people live, whoops!

Many years ago, my oldest daughter moved to Longton, Kansas.  Her and her husband bought a 40 acre plot with a mobile home and a lake for less then I bought a car.  Longton is about as far east and south as you can go in Kansas without leaving the state.  Seems as though the population is about 102 on a good day when everyone is home.  To make a long story short, my daughter, Patty went to visit.  

There really is not much to do in a town that size except go to the auctions that pop up from time to time.  So they did.  That particular auction was for a double wide modular that set on 5 lots on the edge of Longton.  Back home places like that were selling for $50,000.  When the auctioneer asked for a bid, none were forthcoming.  So, Patty and Debbie put their little heads together, compared bank accounts and walked away owning the whole kit and kaboodle for $12,000.  

Now this place also sported a 3 or 4 car garage.  Hell, even I was tempted to throw things in a suitcase and head East!

When I finally got around to visiting Patty was using her place as a vacation home.  It was definitely a nice place to visit and the town of Longton was very quaint.  It had a restaurant and prices were very reasonable.  A lot of history on these walls.

This one gave me hope.

A stroll around town (which took about 20 minutes to cover the length and breadth of the city including the liquor store and the falling down building with a tree growing out of the roof) produced this picture of a very beautiful home just a couple blocks from Patty's house.  When I asked her who lived there, she told me, "That is where the fancy people live!  They are hardly ever home and do not come out when they are."  Sadly the house burned a couple years back.

This a house down on the other end of town. Since both houses appear to be of the same design and maybe by the same architect and builder, I asked her if that was where more "fancy people" lived and she told me "No, that is the one the druggies have moved into."  How sad because this one actually had a gazebo.

This is another house on one of the roads going into Longton.  Looks pretty deserted to me!

This is the barn setting on the end of Main Street just catty corner from the liquor store.  Not sure they still use it as a barn for horses or cattle, but who knows.  I could be wrong.  This might be a Debbie's house.

So, any way.  Elk County Reservoir is nearby and the fishing is great!

I must be about due for another vacation!  Who knows?

A chamber pot, by any other name is still gross.

Now this morning you are going to learn something you probably could have gone the rest of your life without knowing, and yet here I am.  Since I lived through the chamber pot days, you ought to at least be able to read about them!  So here we go!

Once upon a time, long, long ago,  there was a little girl who lived in a ramshackle house on Strong Street in Nickerson, Kansas.  She lived there with her mother, father, older sister, older brother and 3 younger sisters.  The house had electricity, but they never used it except to run the pump and the washing machine.  They did not want to "wear it out" nor did they want to appear "uppity."  They owned a car, but it was only used on Sundays when the went to Plevna to see great grandma Hatfield and Grandma Haas.  They were simple folks, you see.

The house had 2 bedrooms, a front room, a dining room and a kitchen/laundry/Saturday night bath room and a book case with Nancy Drew mystery's on the shelves.  Oh, and Brenda Starr.  So I guess that was also a library.  The "front" bedroom was Dad's, but he had to share with us big kids, Josephine, Jake, Donna, Mary and me. Dorothy slept with Mother in the middle (other) bedroom.  Mother needed her privacy and the only time we were allowed to sleep with her was when we were sick.

Ah, but back to the chamber pot business.  For those of you who are antique collectors you will recognize a "chamber pot" as a porcelain bucket with a handle for carrying.  Usually it was white with a lid and a line of blue around the top for decoration.  I never quite understood that whole decoration thing, but I guess it is what it is.  The main purpose (Well actually, the ONLY purpose.) of the chamber pot was to hold human excrement during the night and was immediately emptied upon the household arising.  It was called a chamber pot, because most people had a private area when one could go in and close the door and do "their business in private.  Not us!  Nope.  We did not have a chamber anywhere in that house and if we did there would no doubt be a kid in there.  It was probably about 120 feet from the back door of the house to the outhouse.  Now I do not know if you have ever been out in the wilds of Nickerson, Kansas, at night without a flashlight, but let me tell you, that is one damn scary place.

Number one, our house was probably about a block from the cemetery, and there was that business of ghosts for our little minds to deal with on dark, moonless nights.  Nights with a full moon were even worse!  And the river was not far so it was not unusually to hear a wolf, coyote or cougar howling or screaming and scaring the living shit right out of us.  That, coupled with the fact that dad had seen Gypsies camped on the outskirts of town and you know what that meant.  You see Gypsies came into towns and stole the children.  Luckily we never actually missed anyone, but that was because people like my father seen them and made the kids stay inside.

But back to the chamber pot saga!  Ours set right under the window between the kids bed and dad's bed.  After dark we were free to use the chamber pot and by morning it was full.  Now I trust I do not need to tell you what it was full of, do I?  It was usually Jake's chore to take it out to the outhouse and dispose of it, rinse the container and turn it upside down to drip dry and air out.  When Josephine eloped at the tender age of 15 or so and Jake left home, the duty fell to me.  I was smart enough to know that the sooner I got that thing the lighter my chore would be.  If I waited too long those other kids would not go outside and soon it was full to the brim.  Just try carrying one of those things without slopping it on your feet.

We left that house when I was 16 and I never ceased to be amazed that we had an "inside bathroom" in every house we lived in after that.  Not only did the houses have a commode that flushed, but there was a small sink to wash my face and look in the mirror.  And the bathtub!  My God!  That was pure bliss to sink into and soak. (It was also handy for throwing up in when I came home so drunk I could not hit the stool!  But that is another story and we probably are not going to go there!  Sorry, momma.)

Speaking of bathrooms, I probably ought to get off here and go clean mine.  Thinking back on those years always makes me appreciate what I have now.

Have a good day and thank the Lord for the little things he gives you.  You could be growing up on Strong Street in Nickerson, Kansas.

It is breeding season here on the farm, dammit!

It is inevitable.  When Spring comes and I go into the goose house and see the pile of straw in the corner, I know what will follow.  There is an egg in there.  I bring it in the house.  Next day, the same thing happens.  I have 2 hens.  Only 2, but they both lay.  I can tell by the size of the egg who did it.  Now, if them laying an egg and me stealing it was the end of it, that would be fine.  But it is not.  They have beady little eyes and they have tiny little brains, but they do not miss a damn thing.  They see me go in and even though I hide the egg I get that day, they make the connection.

If I leave the eggs, the old African Gray hen will set, because that dainty little white Emiden is sure as hell not going to spend her time in that hot goose house setting on a bunch of eggs.  If that was all that occurred it might be different, but unfortunately it is not.  Across the fence is a pile of old discarded tires and in those tires lives Mr. and Mrs. Snake and 85 of the baby snakes that never left home and have no intentions of ever doing so.  The goal of these 87 snakes is to devour the eggs under the little gray goose.  Her goal is to not let that happen.  I do not know just what my part in all of this is, but I know it is very hard on my heart!

Last night the little gray hen and her big white Emiden lover were the last to go in.  He was standing between me and his beloved to protect her.  When a goose goes into defense mode, they lower their head and shake their tail feathers.  I have never actually been attacked by one of my geese and I am pretty sure they are more afraid of me then I am afraid of them.  I have actually held and petted the little gray hen, so that big white Emiden does not scare me one bit.  Well, not much anyway.

When I open the door and see the snake on the nest and the little gray goose cowering in the corner, I immediately go into "Kill that bastard" mode.  In my heart, all I really want to do is get the hell out of there and pretend I do not know what is going on.  But primal feelings deep inside me make it imperative that I "protect the nest".  And since I am living in my lala land world most of the time, I do not carry a weapon.  So I throw a rock at it.  Snakes apparently have straight vision that goes out each side of their head, and the rock goes unseen.  Screaming does not help because I am pretty sure snakes are deaf.  So I grab what ever is handy.  In most cases it is something like a garden rake.  Ever try to get a 6 foot bull snake to curl up on a garden rake?  It is not happening.

This is an old picture that shows how the flock protects the babies.

This picture is Bret having killed one of the smaller snakes and disposing of the remains.  Now back in Kansas when I was growing up, if a farmer shot a coyote, he hung it on the fence.  I always heard that was so the coyotes would not come around lest they end up on the fence.  This particular year there were 3 big bull snakes (at least I hope like hell they were bullsnakes) in my back yard not 15 feet from my back door.  I have given up gardening because they hide under the squash leaves and scare the living bejeezus out of me.

So while you are comfy in your little town house or wherever you call home, think about this old lady out here fighting off horny geese, rabid skunks, 5 inch grasshoppers. egg eating snakes.  And there is no hope just because winter comes.  That drives the spiders and centipedes inside.  Every summer, I plan on moving into town, but then I have a second thought that beats hell out of that first thought.  So here I set, again.  My words for today are just this:

Brighten the corner where you are!

My little helper.

It is Lenten Lunch time at our church.  These occur every Wednesday at our church, First Congregational UCC.  They start at noon and they are free so come and join us at 228 West Evans.  We are an open and affirming church and all are welcome: 6- 60, blind, crippled or crazy!  Happy to meet you!

Nancy Donnelly used to until she passed away and left the chore to me.  She called it her "labour of love."  I sure miss her, but since I am the one with the big kitchen and the equipment, baking bread has fallen to me.  Last Tuesday I had whipped out my 4 batches.

I do have a little helper!

Let me see which side is my good side.

this one?

Or this one?

Some of you may not think that having a 3 year old kid helping in the kitchen is a messy thing, but just look at the benefits to that.  

1.  He is not parked in front of the television or some game system.

2.  His fingernails will get cleaned and he doesn't even know it.

3.  Soon the floor will be wet enough to mop.

4.  And the most important part of all is he is helping grandma.  This little boy loves to come to grandma's house!  And he loves to help.  And it only takes grandma 2 days or so to put things back to the chaos that was her life before this little helper arrived.  

In all fairness, most of my grandkids liked me when they were little.  Of course they grew out of it, but they still tolerate me most of the time.  It is just that the little bitty ones are so easy to amuse.  So I will enjoy this one until he reaches the age where life takes him in a different direction and then we will see what happens.  

Who knows, I may get a puppy.