August, Late in the Afternoon...

I went for a walk about 5 or so this evening, and shadows were lengthening.  I tried in vain to capture the beauty with photos, but the digitized version provided just a dim copy of what my eyes could see.  

Sunlight glittered from cottonwood leaves as though they were mirrored liquid.  Dragonflies swooped and soared across the road in front of me, catching motes of light and reflecting sunbeam-filtered prisms from their wings.  The light itself seemed living and moving, ahead of me, around me.  The air was heavy with a scent of lush green from an August during which heavy rain and leaf-crushing hail have fallen.  Yes, I found joy in this walk.  

Sand Hill Plum Jelly

My grandmother canned food from necessity rather than for pleasure, and to my knowledge she never in her lifetime took a photo of anything she canned.  She just fed it to us, with love, and we were humbled by the knowledge of the sheer hard work behind every stockpot full of bacon seasoned green beans, bowl of stewed apples, or cut glass dish of pickled beets.  

 I have a confession.

I don't generally believe that canning one's own produce is worth the trouble.  As a Kansas farm wife of 45 years, that's quite a dark reveal.

Home canning doesn't work well with my personality; I am germ-phobic on one hand but carefree on the other, as I seldom measure ingredients when I cook.  I am intimidated by the dire warnings of disastrous outcomes if I should fail to follow every direction perfectly.

Also, I'm sorry, but home canning makes a horrific mess.  Again, I have a personality conflict with the whole procedure.  I like fresh produce as much as the next person, but when it comes to "laying it by," a little voice in my head whispers that I can buy a can of green beans in the store for 89 cents, so why would I spend an entire day picking, stemming, boiling, and worrying about whether I have done things safely...or not?

I like to freeze things.  I even freeze tomatoes, if you can believe that.  Heath officials and extension agents do not generally issue frightening warnings about home frozen food.  But that's another blog post.

An exception to all the angst I've just described is jelly, specifically Sand Hill (or wild) plum jelly.  For the reward of a shelf full of jewel-toned, tart and sweet deliciousness made from fruit that grows wild across the country road from my house, I will wash, boil, strain, juice, read, reread, and read again the tiny print of the directions on the Sure Jell box.  I will gladly dirty most of the pots and pans I own, and deal with sugar spills and sticky countertops.  It's worth it, even though I treat the whole process more as an art project than as a way of laying by food for the winter.  And although I do my very best to process the jelly exactly according to direction, I am comforted that it would be a foolish bacterium that would even attempt to survive in something that is at once highly acidic and yet sweet as jelly made with the very sour juice of a wild plum.

At Thanksgiving this year I will fill crystal jelly dishes with this jelly and in response to my mother-in-law's query will reply modestly and matter of factly, "Oh yes, of course this is homemade. I put it up last summer.  Filled the pantry. The Sand Hill plums were beautiful this year."

Note:  These plums may be wild plums rather than Sand Hill plums--a Google search tells me that in our area of Kansas wild plum dominates, while the Sand Hill plum predominates in Western Kansas.  But we have always called them Sand Hill plums! 

Comforts

 I sat under the big elm tree in our yard for awhile late this afternoon, and although the temperature was over 90 degrees, I felt pretty comfortable.  Locusts sang, dragonflies swooped, and the late afternoon sunlight transformed ordinary scenes  into backlit beauty.  

I needed a day of rest today and was granted grace to accept the need and partake of the peace of a day alone, without noise of TV or the distraction of projects.  It was a good decision, because this afternoon I'm feeling rejuvenated and ready for the rest of the week.  Grateful. 

Perspective

I've had a summer cold for nine...count them, NINE days.  I ran a fever.  I was miserable.  I huddled in bed too sick to read or watch TV and just prayed to feel better soon...and I do.  I really do.  It is a blessing to have a sickness that is of short duration.  Due to my journey with my mother through her Alzheimer's,  I know enough about chronic diseases to recognize that I am blessed.

I walked around the yard this morning and snapped the images below with my old iPhone 5.  Nothing like a brief illness to help one see the world with fresh eyes.

Perspective is important.  In the middle of even a brief illness, it seems as though we'll never feel better again.  We have to remind ourselves "This too shall pass."  My mom used to say that all the time.

It's good to feel better.

This photo is taken in a direct line with those below--I just walked straight ahead to get the closeups (no, I didn't trip over those pots of flowers).  

All details of the same scene--left,: light filtering through the red leaf plum formed rainbow rays; middle: plum leaf detail; right:  closeup of a spider web; this is one of those photos that can be viewed two ways; the strands can look either concave or convex.

June, 2019

This rambling rose blooms in our west yard every June.  It's been here for years and no one remembers planting it.  

I spent most of this month painting our kitchen cupboards.  To say this was an overly ambitious undertaking for my skill level is to understate things.  My only explanation for how the project ended well is that the Lord helped me.

We had rain, rain, and more rain this month, so that for the first time we can recall since John and I were married 45 years ago, he has been unable to get our soybeans into the ground by this date.  It finally stopped raining last Monday and my farmer went into action, aided by our son.  Our soybeans are being planted late, but they are finally getting a chance to grow.  The corn planted in May was washed away by rain and we did manage to get it replanted a couple of weeks ago in between rains.

Our community celebrated the Fourth of July early, completing lots of fun activities for kids and adults alike this past Saturday and Sunday.  Fun times!

I'm liking the lighter colored cupboards, and am relieved that the apple border is gone (although my grandkids were sad to see it go).

This guy was my right hand man during the cupboard project.  

When your 91-year-old grandma asks you to be on the float that she has spent 6 months crafting all by herself, you get onto that float.  Our adult son and daughter plus three of our grandchildren rode this float in the 4th of July parade.  It was over 90 degrees out but everyone seemed to have a great time.  

Grandkid dogpile. There are four children in this photo. 

We will close with a photo of a 65-year-old woman standing on a kitchen counter, removing a wallpaper border (as I said, the Lord definitely helped me--in retrospect I can see that flip-flops might not have been the wisest choice of footwear here):  

 All's well that ends well!  

Garage Sale Day

Our small community stages a community garage sale day once and occasionally, twice, a year.  For those who have zest for flea market finds, it is a golden day.  The excitement begins the night before as early shoppers begin driving through town.  Early this morning my daughter texted that her sale had already sold several large items that she was feeling relieved that she would not have to carry back into the house at the end of the day.  

I do not enjoy garage sales, or really, shopping in any form.  I don't even like a girls' day of shopping for new shoes and treasures found at sale prices; I prefer to nurture my friendships while seated in comfortable chairs, sipping coffee.  But, in order to support both the sellers and shoppers in my family on this day, I have prepared lunch.  This is a tradition begun by my mother-in-law who always had lunch ready us all each garage sale day (and every other special occasion and holiday in between).

My menu isn't original.  We are having Rachael Ray's sloppy joes, (which I unwisely increased by multiplying each ingredient by 5 or so, but all's well because I now have a batch to put into the freezer), Taste of Home's Slow Cooked Bean Medley (to which, not able to leave healthy enough alone, I added 12 ounces of minced, cooked and drained bacon), watermelon, chips, and boughten potato salad.  Yes, boughten potato salad.  Several family members who will not be named here prefer boughten to homemade potato salad.  And it isn't because my mother-in-law's potato salad isn't the best thing you've ever put into your mouth, it's just an odd preference that is easier to accommodate than making potato salad from scratch...

I did make my no wheat, no peanut, no chocolate, no dairy, no bake cookies.  Yes, we have allergies.  And yes, one of us is even allergic to chocolate if you can imagine that.  I've included that recipe below.

It is nearly time to pack all this food up and head to my daughter's house to follow tradition by feeding anyone who stops in and looks hungry around lunchtime today...here is that recipe for the allergen free cookies.  They are surprisingly yummy!

Bring the following ingredients to a boil, stirring until smooth.  Boil for 1 minute.  

1/2 cup Earth Balance soy free margarine 

2 cups sugar

1/2 cup rice milk

Remove milk mixture from heat and stir in the following:  

1/2 cup sunflower nut butter

3 cups quick oats

1.5 teaspoons vanilla

A few drops of almond flavoring (go easy here, but this adds a little more flavor)

1/4 teaspoon salt

Drop onto wax paper, let cool until set before you try to remove them.