Ma Has Taken Over My Body

Mom would be SO proud!  I have become a canning, pickle-making fiend this year.  Now, don't get me wrong - I've canned tomatoes in the past so am not a total novice at it.  But, for some reason, this year it seems to be an every other day affair.  PLUS the fact that I am making Mom's Open Jar Sweet/Sour pickles for the first time in my entire life.  I loved those things as a kid, and think that's about the only kind of pickles I even remember us having.  Probably because it makes a HUGE batch - 2-gallon jar full.

Those little slices having been in the brine now since last Tuesday so tomorrow step 2 begins.  The official draining and replacing with alum water (I guess for crispness according to everything I read on the web - and of course, that stuff is always true).  Mom didn't happen to tell me WHY to put alum water on the pickles after the brining, just to do it.  So, we'll see.

On another note, I went to visit a good friend today who's new baby is just about 10 days old now - and getting so cute.  I got to see her in the hospital and can't believe the change in her in just this space of time.  The first year in a baby's life certainly sees the fastest changes.  Another good friend had a little one three years ago and he came early - he was just a little better than HALF the size of this little one who weighed in at 7 lb. 9 oz.  The other little guy weighed 4 lb. 7 oz.  I think it took him two or three months to make it to this newborn's size.  :)

I guess it's officially summertime in Oklahoma because its really been hot the past couple of weeks.  Luckily, we've had a little rain here and there so that makes things better.  Last year, it rained on the 4th. of July (natch!) and that was it for at least 3 months and maybe even 4.  I know it was a looooooooooooong time before we got anymore wet stuff.

So, my egg cooker just beeped so I guess that means we'll have egg salad sandwiches for lunch.  We're actually still eating lettuce from the garden that I've put in plastic bags in the fridge, so can still have actual home-grown salads. 

Speaking of fridge, we bought us a small second refrigerator about a month ago.  My first one that we got in 1976 when we moved to Wills Point, finally bit the dust a few months ago, and, although I really thought we could make do with one, I was WRONG!!!  After years of having a second fridge to store excess opened products in, and make ahead dishes for company, I realized that one would NEVER do.  It was like a jigsaw puzzle just fitting everything in there, and when the produce began to arrive in earnest, we were crammed to the nth degree - and a new little black box came to sit in my kitchen/dining room.  And, it's about full of produce, so what would we have done without it???? 

Enough about all this I guess.  Wish you were here, Mom, to get in the middle of all this goings on.  You would be loving it.  :)

A New Venture

I can't believe it but I'm turning into my mother.  I've been canning tomatoes, putting up her refrigerator cucumber salad by the quarts, and today I actually started making her Open Jar Sweet & Sour pickles.  Basically, NOT because I WANTED to make pickles, but, I have BAGS of cucumbers in the fridge which need to be used, and this recipe starts out with A TWO GALLON JAR OF SLICED CUCUMBERS!  Now, that's the way to use up cucumbers in a hurry.  And they are so pretty in the glass jar.  Now, if only they taste something like I remember, I will be a happy little pickle maker.

So, Ma is still with me - I can't look at the cuc salad or now the S & S pickles without thinking about her, and, drat!  I have a question I need to ask her, and she's not here.  It's been almost 10 years and I STILL have questions I need to ask her.  I guess that will never go away.  I know I'll be able to ask her someday when we see each other in heaven, but I can't quite imagine making sweet and sour pickles up there.  Basically, because if we do get to eat, it will be heavenly food!  :)

The dryer calleth so perhaps I'll get back to posting again later.  Obviously, I'm not a really great blogger, but then, I'm following some folks who started off strong and kind of faded as well.  I miss them.  Their posts made my day.  :)

Later ~~~~~~

And, It Just Gets Worse

OK.  It's been ages since I've written down anything worth reading - at least by anyone other than me.  HOWEVER, our granddaughter just started blogging - again - thankfully, and got my interest kinda revved up again.

Last week was Day Camp at our church.  Day Camp is wonderful - 6 hours of non-stop activities for ages kindergarten through 6th. grades.  Then throw in about 30 teenage helpers plus a slew of adults and you have 180+ folks rambling around each day for a week.  The decorations are always great, the lessons, are great, the food is great.  It's a super time.

My part is minimal - I take pictures of about 1/4 of the kids each day for a mere 30 minute or less time frame, then edit the pictures, zap them into a pre-done slide show, and voila!  The show is presented at the end of the day - each day.  Easy, peasy!!!  This is when I know that I am getting a bit older than when I first took this on.  By Friday, I was sacked out on the couch in the foyer at church before the finale because I JUST COULDN'T keep my eyes open.  You'd think I'd been following kids around all week like my younger counterparts have been doing.  Nope!!  Just 20 pictures or so, and that was it!  Friday night I wasn't even worth being around - so totally exhausted.  So, you see, those sneaky little age increments DO make a difference - and I'm beginning to believe a bigger difference than I would have ever wanted to admit.

On Thursday, I needed our big wood cross that stands in the corner in the foyer for one of the pictures.  It was there all week with two jousting poles leaned up against.  Why you ask?  Don't ask!  Don't know!!

Anyway, Thursday morning I go to get the cross - AND - it's gone.  Sure - Monday I needed a crown that was right where I could find it on Sunday night, Monday morning it was gone.  Being used in the Bible lesson for the day.  Now, I'm not a total washout, so I figured - Aha!  That cross is probably part of the Thursday Bible Lesson.  Stands to reason.  So..... I zip through the foyer, down the hallway, and into the room where the Bible lesson is happening.  She has a cross all right, BUT not the one I was looking for.  When I asked what had happened to the one in the foyer, she told me that it HAD been standing right in front of the big pile of rocks in the entry.  So------- I go back to the foyer, looking in each class room on the way, looked in the sanctuary, back in the corner, at the pile of rocks, back in the corner, back at the rocks, AND do you believe - that cross MIRACULOUSLY appeared in FRONT of that pile of rocks in the time it took for me to look there, in the corner and then back there.   I don't know HOW IN THE WORLD I didn't see it - I had to have almost tripped over it when I made the trip down the hallway.  My excuse - it was THURSDAY!!!

BUT, the best part of the whole thing was - my good friend was coming out of the sanctuary door so I confessed my story to her.  SHE looked in the corner, looked in the other corner, looked at the rocks, looked BACK in the corner, back at the rocks then hit her forehead and said, "Well, duh!!!!"  Ha!!!  I told her, "NOW I don't feel so bad!!!"   We had a really good laugh over that whole mess - of course, blaming the entire episode on "Well, it's Thursday"!  Good thing, too.  Friday I was on the couch!!!

Now, it's a week later, I think I've recovered, and somehow caught a "nasty, summer cold".  Blegh!  Blegh!  Blegh!!  So, I will just 'blow' my way out of here, and maybe sometime in the next year or so, I'll get inspired to write something else.  Surely SOMETHING of interest will happen!

Perhaps, I'll write about our Branson Trip - only interesting to me, probably, but, one never knows, does one???

Little Red House Barn

It only took two weeks - I can't believe a couple of old folks can get something finished that fast, and, I use the term "couple" quite loosely.  I really only did enough to be able to claim that I actually helped.  I did a few helpful things like holding boards when Bill was putting up the rafters, holding boards when he was putting on the barge rafters, holding boards when he was nailing on the fence rails.  You get the picture - I'm REALLY GOOD at holding boards. 

The other stuff, I'm more of an "oral" builder - I can talk a good story but actually doing it - not so much!!  BUT, my husband seems to think that my help as "invaluable" so that works for me.  Oh, yes, and I did put the blue tape around the little windows in the feed room door so that he wouldn't slop paint all over the glass.

So, now my Pretty Girl has a place to eat and get in out of the weather.  Unfortunately, her very FIRST introduction to her new stall was - go in, find food, get bit by fire ants, come out, stomp a bit, go back in, try another mouthful, get bit some more.  Man!!! This is the pits!!!!  I mean, the bits!!!!!  Unbeknowingly, my frugal husband decided to use some mulch material he'd had piled in the back yard for bedding.  I had become the new home of a colony of fire ants, and they DID NOT appreciate a horse tromping around on their new digs.  But after a liberal dousing of bug spray - the bedding and the horse, the fire ants are no more.  Just to be on the safe side, said husband cleared out all of the mulch and substituted pine shavings that come in a nice sterile package down at C.J.'s.  Pretty Girl seems to have forgotten all about the ants because the stall is working out just fine and it almost looks like she may have slept in it last night.

So, the little red barn is all finished.  The feed room lacks a few shelves, and moving the stuff in there, but for all practical purposes, we will consider this project "a wrap"!

Whatta Week and it's only Thursday!!

As you can tell - this blog was written a couple years ago now.  I actually started it, and then never  got it posted.  I was hoping it would stay in the proper sequence seeing that I started writing it way back when, but, alas, it didn't so just bear in mind, this was written back first part of June in 2010.  

Happy Memorial Day - a little late, but still in the proper week.  Before I get started, let me just say that I am getting VERY tired of dial-up internet service. Now, I know that I should be thankful that we have any internet service at all considering the rural area we live in, BUT, we DO and we have been promised high speed internet for the past 2 1/2 years now.  YEARS, mind you, not months, Years!!!  The towers are up, the guts are being installed, but we've been hearing that for at least a year and a half, so my question is::  Where the heck is our high speed service?  Can someone -- anyone tell us when it will be available.  At least, that would give us something to go on.  Two months ago I was told by the office that stuff was being installed at that time but it would probably be 2 or 3 months yet.  THAT was 2 or 3 months ago.  WHERE IS IT????

Of course, I realize that those of you reading the above can't do a blooming thing about it, but somehow I feel better just getting that off my chest.
Now, for the "whatta week" stuff.

I started out Monday (Memorial Day) preparing for the colonoscopy on Tuesday that I have been trying to avoid for the past 10 years or so.  I finally convinced myself that having the test would probably be a good thing (smile) so there I was Monday drinking a gallon of GoLytely.  Doesn't the name just get you?  Give me a break - GoLytely.  Hardly!!!!  After the first 30 - 45 minutes of drinking that stuff, you are doing anything but going lytely.  Soooooooooo, I got the process started.  Just prior to the first siege, I thought to myself, "you know, it would probably be really smart to wear something a little protective, just in case this starts with a "bang" and getting to the bathroom is not an option at that time."  So, I went and put on one of Ma's big old panty Depends that she wore some when she was living here.  And, sure enough, about 15 minutes after THAT wise decision, the show was on the road - so to speak.  Actually, the show was in the Depends, but you get the picture.  So, after spending the next 45 minutes to an hour holed up in the restroom, drinking more GoLytely to continue the process, I decided that if I continued wearing a Depends, I could probably navigate to the kitchen and back and not have an "accident".  So, that's what I did the rest of the afternoon.  I felt like a "big old person in a diaper" but it worked.  As the flushing continued, the Depends did its job and I stayed high and dry.  What a deal.  I was sitting at the computer drinking GoLytely, and getting rid of it all at the same time.  About two glasses was all that little panty could hold, so "off with the old and on with the new".  Think I went through 5 or 6 of the things, but it sure beat the heck out of sitting in the bathroom for 4 hours.  And, that's really your only choice unless you want to have major cleanup duty when all is finished.

Believe me, the actual test was NOTHING like the warm-up.  They put me to sleep, and before I had time to wonder when they were going to get started, I was waking up in recovery - all finished.  That was definitely the easy part.  The joy of it all is I get to do it again in three years.  Yippity-do!!!

So much for that.  THAT was the beginning of my week.  Then, Wednesday, Bill went to see the folks who bought my Blaze last fall as we are selling our remaining two horses and thougtht they might be interested.  When he got there, the man told him that he'd had to put Blaze down.  He was playing with the other horse and got his leg tangled up in a corral panel.  Broke the leg and tore up ligaments and muscles and everything.  I felt so bad, and felt bad for the owner as well.  He was about in tears telling Bill about it.  He really loved that horse about as much as I did, I guess.  Sure was sad to hear that.
Here's my best picture of that pretty fella.

AND, today, we've got someone coming to get the last two horses.  Bill just doesn't trust Shadow enough to be comfortable riding her, and so if he doesn't ride, I don't either.  Much as we like both the horses, they just cost too much to keep and feed and shoe and worm and etc. when you aren't riding anymore.  I wish we'd have never gotten them when we were out of horses before, but this is the last time we'll go through this.  I can't take HAVING to get rid of them.  I really was all right selling Blaze, but I don't really want to sell Domino.  I haven't had enough riding time with him.  But, that's the way it goes sometimes.

This was my Domino.  He was really beautiful and I think we
would have done well together, but, alas, he had a foot problem
and ended up limping much of the time.  The vet said he'd probably work OK for a kid to ride but not a grownup - at least not much.  Never work for trail riding.  So, he's gone,

Now, perhaps, I'll actually get this posted!!!

Horses

Here's another blog that I started about 2 years ago, and apparently never finished.  So, read it with summer 2010 in mind.  :)

All gone!  No more horses!  No more nuzzling noses looking for treats!  No more horsey smell greeting us when we go to the barn.  No more manure to spread.  No more flies to deal with.  No more rides.  No more sore butts.  No more saddling, unsaddling, brushing, currying, shoeing, worming, feeding.  No more four-legged friends greeting you with excited whinnies when you FINALLY get there to feed them.  Yep!  The last two horses are gone.
Now that I read this, it's kinda sad.  It does look pretty empty down in the pasture when we go there to fish, but it was time.  We found them a good home - they were bought together, and I think they'll be happy where they went.  So, the barn stands empty, the grass keeps growing in the pasture, and our season of horse ownership has come to an end.  I almost wish someone had a horse or two we could board for them just to have them down there again.  :)

Other than that - it's been a hot bugger of a summer so far, and I'm prone to stay indoors most of the time if at all possible. I do get out in the garden to pick squash and peppers and lettuce, etc. but try to do that in a hurry-up-and-get-back-in-the-AC fashion.  The only time I want to really deal with the heat is fishing.  Or, swimming would be good, but haven't gone any around here.  I guess we really need to find a good swimming hole someplace close.  I had such a good time when our kids rented a houseboat on Lake Ouachita a couple years ago.  I could have stayed there the whole week with them instead of just the one day.  The water was like bath water, and I really hated to get out of it.  What a blast flying down the slide and splooshing into that beautiful, clean, deep, warm water.  Do you think I liked it???  Oh YEAH!!!!!!

Cookie's fixing to get a bath today as soon as my one piano student gets here and we finish her lesson.  They should have been here already but guess they are on the way.  In fact I hear them now so will finish this later.

And, I now realize that I never did "finish this later" so I'm just going to finish it now and post!

I'm finished!!!!!!  LOL

Togetherness!!

Bill and I will be married 37 years next Saturday.  Hard to believe, I know, but it's the truth.  We got married one week after my birthday in 1975.  And, my Dad thought we'd never last.  Actually the day that I brought Bill home to meet the folks, Daddy had gone to town to get fortified with a couple of beers before the "big meet"! 
 Guess he was really concerned with what I had brought home to the farm.

Anyway, THAT'S not what this is really about.  We were talking about the new little horse barn tonight at supper, and though he's doing the lion's share, no, make that elephant's share of the work, I did manage to get my hot little hands on a few boards, so that I can actually say, "I-eee haelped!"    Sometimes, just one other pair of hands makes all the difference, sooooo, that's where I come in!!! 

I said something tonight like, "You know, we've done a lot of projects together in the 37 years we've been married."  Some good, some not so good. BUT, the one that we always both think of when we're reminiscing about those projects is the time we brought the Franklin cast iron stove up the back stairs of the store when we were living above it.  Now, that stove was one heavy piece of work.  Bill chained it to a sled he'd built out of 2 x 4s.  Kind of a skid.  THEN, he attached a heavy wire cable to the front of the skid.  Brought the cable up the steps, over the porch floor and back down to the trailer hitch on our '75 Monte Carlo. 

AND, then the fun began.  Yours truly was driving the Monte Carlo while the big man was going to try to keep the stove upright.  No small task when you are trying to drag a stove up steep staircase.  All the while praying that the cable didn't snap, I started sloooooowwwwllllyyy, so very sllllloooooowwwwlllly pull that Franklin Stove that held 24" wood up the stairs. 

God was with us.  The cable didn't snap, the stove didn't tip over and fall on Bill, and I didn't drive the car through the south fence even though that was looking like a distinct possibility.  AND, we got the stove into the upstairs living room.  AND, then, after all that drama, we probably only used it once or twice, because it flat out cooked us out of the area.  Didn't know it could put out that much heat!!!  

Why we didn't have camcorders and digital cameras back then I don't know.  This definitely was movie worthy, but, alas, all we have are the memories and the re-tellings.  And I believe the story gets better each time.  :)

More next time.