May you be blessed with a happy and healthy and prosperous new year!
And a Happy Epiphany! Just a little trivia, do you all know that the "Twelve Days of Christmas" refers to the liturgical period of celebration from Christmas Day to the Epiphany on January 6? Count it up - 12 days. In some countries, Epiphany is still the traditional day of gift giving. We did that in our family until just a couple years ago, and I am considering going back to it. The children enjoyed getting stockings, books, and clothes on Christmas, but their "gold, frankincense, and myrrh" on Epiphany, just as Jesus did. (As a side note, my dear paternal grandfather, God rest his soul, made the manger for me as a wedding gift, and my mother painted these magnificent manger pieces as a gift for our first Christmas! This creche is very special.) Years ago, when I only had a couple children, I went to AC Moore and got three different shapes, a half-dozen of each (what foresight!), that reminded me of a box of gold, a bottle of incense, and a jar of myrrh. I painted and decorated them luxuriously, and I attach them to the children's packages each year. It's a really fun tradition, and helps remind the children that Christmas is about Jesus. As I was wrapping this year, and was running out of Christmas paper, it occured to me that I should be using birthday paper instead! So next year, the gifts may well be under the tree with "Happy Birthday" all over them.
May you be blessed with a happy and healthy and prosperous new year!
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On this holy evening, I would like to give you two poems by GK Chesterton. I couldn't decide which to post, so I decided not to decide. The first I read once was actually written by his wife, but everyplace else attributes it to him, so I will here, too. My children memorize this one in 4th grade.
A Christmas Carol The Christ-child lay on Mary's lap, His hair was like a light. (O weary, weary were the world, But here is all aright.) The Christ-child lay on Mary's breast, His hair was like a star. (O stern and cunning are the kings, But here the true hearts are.) The Christ-child lay on Mary's heart, His hair was like a fire. (O weary, weary is the world, But here the world's desire.) The Christ-child stood at Mary's knee, His hair was like a crown, And all the flowers looked up at him. And all the stars looked down. by G.K. Chesterton This next poem is classic GKC; it takes a lot of thinking. I have had the privilege of reading The Ballad of the White Horse and The Everlasting Man, both of which are echoed in this magnificent poem. It took me a few readings to begin to "get it" but I'm a bit thick. You may "get it" faster than I did. A Child of the Snows There is heard a hymn when the panes are dim, And never before or again, When the nights are strong with a darkness long, And the dark is alive with rain. Never we know but in sleet and in snow, The place where the great fires are, That the midst of the earth is a raging mirth And the heart of the earth a star. And at night we win to the ancient inn Where the child in the frost is furled, We follow the feet where all souls meet At the inn at the end of the world. The gods lie dead where the leaves lie red, For the flame of the sun is flown, The gods lie cold where the leaves lie gold, And a Child comes forth alone. by G.K. Chesterton I will say a prayer for all those who visit my blog, that you will be blessed with faith, hope, and love this Christmas season and always. A merry and blessed Christmas to you! Well, the human beings in S.E. PA are not used to temperatures stuck in the teens and 20s almost without break for weeks in December, and apparently, neither are the wild life. Last weekend we discovered that many frogs and a few fish have been frozen solid in the shallow end of the pond. It’s a shame, I would have thought their froggy instincts would have had them burrowing in the mud I left at the bottom of the pond. But I guess one of the drawbacks of being cold-blooded is that as things get colder, the creatures get slower. One poor critter stopped moving with his nose out of the pond. (I decided it would be in poor taste to show that photo, although it just looks like a frog half out of the water. Still, knowing it’s stuck there is kind of sad.) I am not actually sure of the fate of these other creatures. Can cold-blooded animals re-animate after they thaw? Research I have read says they can. Here is a large bull frog right under the ice, and here are a frog and fish stuck in a pot. But the next day I looked again, and the fish had moved! It was completely turned around. I wondered if, since they are close to the surface, the ice might have melted enough for it to reawaken and squirm. I will keep my eyes out to see if they are still there in the spring. But I can’t imagine there is much hope for the one half-out. We could see goldfish moving under the ice at the deep end, so the rest of the wildlife are probably managing, but all the pond books say to keep an opening in the ice so that carbon monoxide doesn’t build up. Someone had suggested putting a ball or stick in the water, and by pushing it down occasionally, it would crack the surface around it, allowing in some oxygen. However, I guess that’s assuming it’s done daily! But it’s just been too darn cold and I’ve been too darn busy teaching and mommying to think to push the ball. So, it’s stuck solid. Still, I wanted to get through that ice, so I put a pot of boiling water on the pond to thaw it. The string was to pull the pot out if it sunk in. Wishful thinking on my part. It took an hour and a half and many, many kettles of boiling water poured into that pot, and directly on the ice, before I reached water. Turns out my little pond had ice three inches thick already, by the middle of December! This does not bode well for this winter. Brrrr. The next day, I asked my handsome, helpful hubby, the man with every tool in the catalog, to plug in the pond de-icer for me. So, for a day or two, we had a nice wet spot surrounded by ice. Then the de-icer died and is frozen solid into the pond, which looks rather ironic. Well, as much as I love gardening, I am not going out there every day in sub zero weather to drill a hole in 3 inch ice. The remaining wildlife will have to fend for themselves, and hopefully they will do better than the unfortunate critters at the shallow end. Then again, that anti-freeze God put in their blood may serve them well and have them hopping again at the next thaw! What an amazing world we live in. Well, as you know from my last entry, we made four jack-o-lanterns and had tons and tons of pulp and seeds left. I told you how we used the seeds; now I’ll tell you about a pumpkin pie that my 13-year old baked that was heaven on earth. She tweaked a recipe from a very old Betty Crocker cookbook and came up with perfection! First, the pulp had to be cooked down. My husband actually supervised this, as I was running around doing Mommy-things at the time. He put the pumpkin pulp in a pot and brought it to a boil, then added some salt. Then lowering the heat, he simmered for over an hour (probably longer than necessary. They watched a movie while it simmered!) Then they put all the pulp into cheese cloth and SQUEEZED! It was stringy, which could have been fixed by a little time in the blender, but we’ll try that next fall. Four pumpkins produced a great deal of pulp as you would imagine, and I’m sorry to say I did not get around to making a pumpkin soup soon enough to use the rest of the pulp, but I will be ready next year! Here’s the pie recipe. (She played with the original recipe, and as you’ll see from the parentheses, she didn’t always measure exactly!) Pastry for 9in pie pan 2 eggs 2 cups cooked pumpkin 1 cup sugar (maybe a little more!) ¼ cup flour (about – added because the pulp seemed runny) ½ tsp salt 1 tsp ground cinnamon (actually, a little more) ½ tsp ground ginger ¼ tsp ground cloves 1 1/2 cups heavy cream Heat the oven to 425 degrees. Put the pastry into the pie tin. Beat the eggs slightly with a hand beater, then beat in remaining ingredients. Place the pastry-lined pie plate on the oven rack and pour in the filling (this prevents spilling or splashing on the sides when carrying it from the table.) Bake 15 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees and bake until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean, about 45 minutes longer. Top with whipped cream. This pie was sweet and creamy, and the whipped cream made it perfect. I know it’s late for this year, but save this recipe for next year! I will be ready and buy extra pumpkins, so I’ll be set for pies and soups and seeds. If you or your children enjoy carving pumpkins, you know what you're left with - piles of gooey, slimy pumpkin innards. What do you do with them? Well, you could add them to your compost, and perhaps fight with pumpkin plant volunteers next year, or you can eat them! Both seeds and pulp make wonderful food. First, what to do with all those seeds? Four large carved pumpkins produced a whole lot of pulp and seeds. That silver bowl was already full, and two pumpkins still had their tops on in this picture. So you can imagine! So, here's what you do: 1- Convince a teenage girl to stand at the sink and go through all the pulp to separate out the seeds. Do this by telling her she can listen to her music in the kitchen if she does this for you. If you limit your child's access to contemporary music, she will jump at the chance! (Or, if not, you may have to do it yourself.) 2- Spread the wet seeds in a single layer on cookie sheets and put in the oven at 350 degrees. (Please ignore my dirty oven.) Watch them and check them in 5-10 minutes. They should be less wet but still moist and beginning to dry out. 3- Stir the seeds. They will have begun to stick to the pans. Then shake them to single layer again and generously salt them while still moist so it will stick. (This is four pumpkins' worth of seeds, so don't panic! You are unlikely to have this many!) 4- Keep cooking, stirring and shaking occasionally, until the seeds are fully dried and toasted. 5- Let cool completely before putting in a container that seals well. We have been enjoying these for weeks! Next post, what we did with all that lovely pulp! Ta daah! Done days ahead of schedule, too! For those who don't know, National Novel Writing Month challenges writers to write 50,000 words of a novel during the 30 days of November. I started on November 6, and I passed 50,000 words late last evening, validating by copying it onto their website at 11:50pm. Their computer calculated it and came to 51,263 words in 22 days. Well, I suppose to those who know me, it's not hard to imagine. My husband, the strong, silent type, seemed stunned at the number. "I don't think I could say 50,000 words in my whole LIFE!" Actually, he may be right!
It gets tough at times, when you're forcing yourself to keep going and you just start to hate it and wish you hadn't started, but there is a real satisfaction in crossing that finish line a winner. Not that the book is done, any more than last year's is! Last year's will require a great deal of research to complete, and this year's is an ongoing memoir about our family for the children and grandchildren to enjoy. But I've made great progress on both projects, and eventually they'll get done! If you have had a book idea in mind for a while but just can't get around to it, this challenge may be just what you need to get going. Check out the website, and I hope you try it next November. Well, the weather in southeastern Pennsylvania can be rather unpredictable. We can have mild winters with only a handful of days under 25 degrees and almost no snow, or we can have ridiculous snowstorms, like last year, blanketing us for months, though that is quite rare. Nonetheless, white Christmases are very unusual, so you can imagine our surprise at a white Thanksgiving! It was very nice, though. Great big flakes, enough to cover the ground but not enough to affect driving. It was gone by the middle of the afternoon, but not before Anna-Grace ran out and made this little baby snowman! So cute! Given our goofy winters, it may be the biggest she manages to make this year, or it may be the tiny prototype of some massive mommas to come, like last year. Considering last year's 70-some-odd inches of snow began with an early December snowfall, I'd say we may be in for another doozy... PS - My goodness! I know I've blogged since the 16th! I wonder if I forgot to save... well, I hope I can be forgiven. I got distracted with a commitment that was not very well thought out when I made it... National Novel Writing Month. Yep, the goal is 50,000 words in 30 days. I don't know if it's a virtue or a vice, but when I've committed to something I do it, doggone it. I am within a few thousand words, and should finish up tonight or tomorrow. It won't be a whole book, but it's a start! Here's the website for nanowrimo, as it is affectionately called, if you want to put it on your favorites and maybe try driving yourself crazy and neglecting all your other obligations next November! Happy writing! Although this past week made it into the 60s, by late October it looked like those days were gone. I figured I'd better finish the pond as soon as I could, so I celebrated All Saints Day (Nov. 1) by preparing my pond for the winter. The air was only in the low fifties, but the sun was shining bright and there was very little wind. Note to self – never again wait until November to close down the pond! I thought about what the best procedure would be that would leave me in the water for the least amount of time. I would have the girls on the side of the pond, snippers in hand, poised to cut foliage quickly as I lifted the pots out. Then I could just put them back in and run for a hot shower! But first I had to get my very chilly blood flowing by digging and planting several fairly large perennials and bushes that I had gotten for a song. After a half hour shoveling, I was as warm as I was going to be and went in to get my helpers – and found them all asleep! THEY had decided to celebrate All Saints Day by snoozing! Oh NO you don’t! Not on such a beautiful day! Not when there’s work to be done! So I roused the troops with a hearty, "Not on such a beautiful day! Come on! Up and at ‘em!" From couch and bed and living room floor I rounded them up and told them my plan. Hmmm. Enthusiasm? Not so much. But willing enough, so while they got in work clothes I went out to begin the job of clearing off the floaters. The first one out was Angela, who thought raking the floating foliage off the pond looked like fun. OK! Go ahead! Plenty of blanket algae came with it (next year I am going to be more vigilant against this foe!) When that was done, and the other girls were out (we left Mr. Ivy League to his schoolwork – he, too, had nodded off!) I warily stepped into the water, first on the shelf to clean up as much as I could before stepping in all the way. Standing on the shelf. My hands are freezing! The water froze my hands! But at last it could no longer be avoided. "OK, girls! Get your scissors! I’m going to get in and just put the pots on the side. You snip off the foliage, and I’ll put them back in." They circled the pond, and down I stepped. Ugh! My legs went numb very quickly. Once I couldn’t feel them anymore it wasn’t so bad, actually, but with my hands going in and out of the water, they really hurt. An occasional groan from me gave the girls more incentive, and they set to their tasks quickly. "What can I do?" asked Anna-Grace. We were short one set of scissors. Teresa suggested she guard the camera to make sure it didn't get wet. As they cut I removed the pump and scooped up any remaining debris that I found on the bottom, along with some excess oxygenators. Fortunately I had done most of the thinning and cleaning in August. I like leaving mud for the tadpoles and snails and tiny fish to burrow in over the winter, and then do a more thorough clean in the spring. The girls made quick work of the pots, and as I began putting them back in, Christina ran into the house to turn on a hot shower for me. I got out of the water stiffly, Anna-Grace pulled off my water-filled boots, and I ran into the house! The pump still needed to be winterized, but that would have to wait. Stepping into the shower, pulling strands of blanket algae off my wedding ring, the water felt a little cool on my shoulders but blazing hot on my hands and legs. My toes actually felt like they were burning as they slowly thawed. It took a good fifteen minutes, but I soon felt warm again. Wrapping myself up in flannel jammies and a robe (I just couldn’t get back into my clothes right away!) I went down to find that the girls had collected all the debris into the wheelbarrow for me and had re-netted the pond, and little Anna-Grace had made me a salad! Oh, what wonderful children! To think I yell at these angels sometimes! Extra hugs and kisses and a big thank you to each. Another note to self – remember to tell my children every day how wonderful they are! Autumn has given us a few more days in the 60s, and I just couldn’t let them go by. I hate the cold, and do not like being out in the wind finishing up those last garden chores. But so many little emergencies arose (not the least of which was a backed-up septic system) that I did not get out until 3pm. By then I was feeling rather down, and I’d almost talked myself out of it, but I knew I would feel even worse tomorrow if I wasted the WHOLE day today, so I went out, more out of duty than desire. So there I was, cleaning up my cutting garden, thinking very negative thoughts. "I’m too old for this. Maybe I should just let this garden go back to grass. I can’t handle all these gardens by myself. Maybe I don’t want to sell flowers any more." Not positive self-talk! Because I had made a few paths out of cardboard, and had held the cardboard down with sticks and rocks, I now faced the prospect of bending over and picking up all those small objects. Ugh. Then the solution presented itself – my two youngest daughters came into view. They’re already close to the ground! I thought. So I called them. "Girls!" They came dutifully. "Yeah, Mom?" "I need your help. Can you please pick up all these rocks and sticks in the pathways?" Christina offered an excuse. "But, I was just about to make a picnic lunch and we were going to go out to the woods to eat it." Sure, she knew Mommy would like to hear that. "Come on, you can help me. Make it a game. Why don’t you pretend you are an assembly line? Anna-Grace passes it to you and you put it in the pile." Anna liked that. "Yeah!" she giggled, and passed a rock to Christina like a robot, stomping. "Doomp, doomp, doomp" with each step, she placed the rock jerkily into Christina’s hands, then went doomp-ing back to the next, as Christina swiveled mechanically and dropped it in the pile. That got them going! Once they had done the sticks and rocks, I gave them each a section of weeds to pull. They seemed to be enjoying themselves, and I was feeling a little better. When Anna-Grace’s little friend came to play I had them both yanking. Anna-Grace grabbed a weed by the stem, her friend put her hands above hers, and together they yanked, tumbling backwards, landing on their bottoms, weed in hand, and giggling frantically. What a wonderful sound! The best in the world. In the meantime, Christina was swinging the "manual weed whacker" (I don’t know its real name) and I was digging up lamb’s quarters that I had unwisely allowed to grow 5 feet tall, just to see what would happen. Now I know. I won’t let them grow that large again! After a period of cheerful weed whacking, Christina, almost perpetually bubbly, hung her head. "I’m sorry, Mommy. I lied." I waited. "I said we were going to have a picnic, but I just thought that up on the spot." "So you could avoid helping?" She nodded. "Well, that’s not good. You need to resist that in the future. But thank you for telling me." Ah, Catholic guilt! It’s a good thing. Did I ever mention that I have the best children in the world? Soon Anna-Grace took the big shovel from me and began hopping on it to get the roots of a big weed. "Hop on it! It’s fun!" she said to her friend. The little neighbor looked at Anna-Grace, then at me, back and forth, shyly eye-ing the shovel stuck in the ground. "Hop on it!" Anna-Grace joyously commanded. I held the shovel and smiled at her. She put her hands on it and looked back at Anna-Grace. Her feet wanted to step; they moved slightly, she looked at Anna again, she bent down slightly.. "Go ahead," Anna-Grace encouraged brightly. The little angel stepped on the shovel lightly, one foot at a time. Naturally, nothing happened. "Aww," Anna-Grace moaned in cheerful disappointment, and showed her friend how to HOP on it. She tried again, with a little more gusto, and got it to go down a little – she was very pleased with herself! Anna-Grace finished it up, and out came that pesky root! Soon the little girls were finished, and running off giggling, leaving Christina and me to finish whacking down the flower bed. She stuck with me the whole way. At one point I dug out a pokeweed, whose root came out surprisingly well for being so large and bulbous. "Ah! Look at this beautiful pokeweed root! Pokeweed is a plant that is very good for you, up until it’s about 10 inches tall. After that it gets gradually worse for you, until it can make you really sick." "Like junk food!" Christina declared. Ah! I am doing something right! Christina moved over to the zinnia bed and began whacking them down, as well. I called over to her. "Christina, look what we accomplished," sweeping my hand around to display the cutting garden. She smiled wide. "Do you want to save that bed for tomorrow?" It was beginning to get a little chilly. "No, thanks." "Are you getting tired?" "No." "Well, those stalks may actually be too big to rototill over. Maybe we should pull up the big ones when you’re done." I began putting away the tools, and when I came back she had finished whacking and had begun pulling. I started at the other end. "Let’s meet in the middle," I said. "OK! First one to the middle gets a nickel!" she answered. She was really enjoying our time together. That’s one of the best things about gardening. The time that we spend together. When we both reached the middle, I gave her a hug. "Thanks for helping me, honey. Let’s leave the mess for tomorrow." We walked back to the house and, since I'm a workaholic, I immediately got to work on other things. About 20 minutes later, Christina came in. "Mom, where do you put those sticks?" "Well, some will be burned, and some need to be put in the barn, so I will have to look at them tomorrow in the daylight. And the weeds can’t go in the compost until it is turned." "oh." Her voice sounded dejected. "Why?" "Because I put all the weeds in the wheelbarrow. And in a black thing, because there were too many." "OH! Thank you Christina!" I gave her a hug. "Go get me the little Skittle container." Sometimes I gave them skittles for random acts of kindness and obedience. She shook her head. "No, thanks." "Why not?" "Because," she replied in a tender voice, "I just wanted to do something for you. You always do things for us." And she walked away. Did I mention I have the most wonderful children in the world? Just a note to my daughter in Rome, who turned 21 today! We all hope you had a joyful day with your friends. I wish we could have been with you on this special day. (Check your email and phone, Miss!) Love, Mom
PS - History lesson - what major event was breaking in the newspapers the day my first child was born??? The Berlin Wall fell!!! Look it up! November 10, 1989 (actually, it may have been the 9th, with the time difference, but still! Pretty cool!) |
AuthorWelcome to Growing Goodness! This website is dedicated to growing good things, both plants and children. It's a gardening blog with maternal overtones, as I discuss the goodness and value of plants, both wild and domestic. In the process I hope to help you pass a love of nature on to your children. Happy Gardening! Archives
August 2011
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