Monday Morning

If you ever get a chance to build a house, try to face your kitchen windows east. Sunshine splashing around my breakfast is a better kick-start than caffeine, even on a Monday morning.

A Short Century

This is one of my two favorite grandmothers. She lived all her life in south Texas, where she taught me to play Spite 'N Malice and Canasta, and taught me to make candy: toffee, divinity, fudge, pralines. She taught me that fresh strawberries were extra good if you held them by their green tops and dipped them in a bowl of sugar before you ate them, and that I shouldn't watch soap operas, even though she did. Her Sunday-after-church dinners were a southern feast: ham and okra gumbo, black-eyed peas, mustard greens, cornbread and the best cobbler I've ever eaten, made from wild, thorny Texas dewberries.

Besides cooking, she liked to sit and visit. As a child, I would lie after supper on her thick living room carpet, eyes closed and ears open, listening to stories that bobbed and rebounded through the air above me. Avoiding bedtime banishment, I pretended to be asleep until I actually was asleep, wrapped in the comfortable conversation of aunts and great aunts and adult cousins who knew and loved each other well.

My grandmother was born in October of 1910. October the tenth --- 10-10-10. The rhythm of her birthday numbers underscored what I already knew: she was one-of-a-kind and very special. Through her, 10-10-10 leapt out of the history books and became real--playing cards and eating cobbler with me in my very present daily existence.

Decades later, I still think of my grandmother every time the month and date and year align, and even when they almost align, as they did twice last week. The time I spent with that 10-10-10 grandmother seems not so far away, and yet I can almost touch the next 10-10-10.....October 10, 2010.

How can a century be so short?

Corn, Corn, Corn

My sister-in-law is passionate about sweet corn, especially when it is fresh off the stalk. But she lives in the midst of the Dallas/Fort Worth concrete metroplex. When she sees cornrows, they look like this:

Web photo                                                                                             

Not like this:

An old retired farmer was selling sweet corn, still in the husks, out of the back of his pickup last week. His son had picked it that morning. On a whim, I scooped a dozen ears into his empty WalMart bag as he held it out. Not wanting to drive the ten miles home and back for a box, I buzzed into the post office and thumped my bag of corn up on the counter. "How much is it going to cost me for a box and priority postage to Texas?" Not as much as you would think. "Here--pack these around your corn," the postal clerk offered as she lifted a stack of free farm newspapers from behind the counter. Promising to return, I took the box and drove six blocks to the vet: "Do you have an extra ice pack?" The vet usually has leftover ice packs from pharmaceutical shipments. "How many do you want?" asked the receptionist. I told her one, to chill my sweet corn on its ride south; she gave me two. "Oh, and if you're going to the post office right away," she added, "would you mind mailing this box for me?" Another six blocks to the dollar store for a birthday card, and then I was back at the post office with my package and the vet's package. Two days later, my sister-in-law shucked and ate fresh, juicy sweet corn in her Fort Worth kitchen.

I love the way things work in small towns. Happy birthday, Miss Wusan!

Cinderella

Thank you to the princess who did my sweeping for me.

Visitors

Sophie doesn’t live here.

Rachel doesn't live here either, but when they're both here at the same time, I get to see a fresh subject through a fresh photographer's eyes. Thanks for the photos, Rachel. Nice.

Summer's Last Fling

Four families gathered last weekend for a final stab at summer.

We've gone round the seasons with these particular friends for nearly twenty years.

Fall's coming again. Don't blink.

This garden has everything:

Sunflowers drying to attract birds when the rest of it is covered in snow.

A tall spike of lettuce seeds drying behind the gate, to be harvested and planted next spring.

Blue jeans drying on the hot fence (electricity turned off, please).

And three kinds of tomatoes – not drying at all.

Inevitable

You may not get a funnel cake.

You might not ride the rides.

But if you go to the State Fair with this family, you WILL see the draft horses!

The Spaghetti Handshake/Sick Princess

For all of you big sisters, or aunts or uncles, or moms and dads who are not familiar with the Spaghetti Handshake, heads up. It goes like this:

You ask your young friend if he knows the Spaghetti Handshake. Of course he doesn't, so you take both of his little hands in yours, and then waggle them up and down as fast as you possibly can. His arms and shoulders feel like limp spaghetti, so he breaks out laughing, which causes you to break out laughing, because the whole thing is so entirely silly.

We learned the Spaghetti Handshake from crazy Mr. Yonker when the girls were all knee high. I used to think that only little kids could be repeatedly amused by the Spaghetti Handshake, but last weekend proved me Wrong-O!

This childhood game lives on, but another one--Sick Princess--seems to have passed away. Sick Princess rules require two underlings to bear the Princess in her sedan chair (a large cardboard box), wherever the bossy monarch directs.

As the servants' arms begin to tire, rebellion creeps in. They slam the flaps closed on the cardboard box sedan chair, and begin rolling the chair very rapidly, end over end through the yard. The Royal Passenger screams her displeasure to no avail; the servants keep rolling the box until she is ready to throw up.

Then the sisters all clamor to be the next Princess.

HIPY PAPY BTHUTHDTH THUTHDA BTHUTHDY

      "You ought to write 'A Happy Birthday' on it."

      "That was want I wanted to ask you," said Pooh. "Because my spelling is Wobbly. Would you write 'A Happy Birthday' on it for me?"

      Owl licked the end of his pencil, and wondered how to spell "birthday."

      "Can you read, Pooh?" he asked a little anxiously. "There's a notice about knocking and ringing outside my door, which Christopher Robin wrote. Could you read it?"

      "Christopher Robin told me what it said, and then I could."

      "Well, I'll tell you what this says, and then you'll be able to."

      So Owl wrote......and this is what he wrote:

      HIPY PAPY BTHUTHDTH THUTHDA BTHUTHDY

Enough

"Enough is as good as a feast"
--Mary Poppins


Deep down, I believe this. But sometimes I forget and slip into the ubiquitous American "more is always better" mode.



Rachel has recently been counting her blessings, fourteen at a time, on her blog. Periodically I comment, noting some particular item or incident that I am thankful for.





Today I add: Thank you, Lord, for enough.

Tall Grass Prairie

Kyle and Natalie's dad works on our farm.

Kyle is a chip off the ol' block.......

Natalie is a spitfire.

They're both good help for moving cattle.

Look at that grass behind Kyle. The platter is just about licked clean. Because our pastures are small and bovine appetites large, our cattle leapfrog around the county all summer, following the grass like ancient nomads. Only these nomads periodically have to thumb a ride with a friendly trucker.

Here they have been herded into a portable corral to await the arrival of their limo.

Cattle are naturally claustrophobic. The gaping mouth of a dark stock trailer, just to the right of this photo, isn't too appealing. Merrill's job is to tap that red calf on the noggin and redirect his thinking.

Erica's job is to count cows and calves as they offload into fresh grass. Then Kyle's job is to stand in the gate opening until we return with the next load.

Natalie's job is to be a spitfire. Lookin' good, Natalie.

Natalie's other job is to keep from getting lost in the tall grass.

I think she may be better at the spitfire job.

It's What's for Dinner

Nebraska's European roots go back to people who chipped shovels into frozen ground to bury their dead. Lacking trees, they lived in homes built from sod that oozed and slid into mud when it rained. Hail, blizzards, drought, floods, tornadoes, dust, grasshoppers, Indians.....only the strong survived, and the rest either died or turned tail and ran back to the East where there were doctors, and real glass in the windows.

Before Nebraskans had even settled enough to quit living by the rifle, BEEF was the protein of choice. It was probably as tough and stringy as the people who ate it.

I grew up in Texas. We like beef there, too, but I lived in the city, where people brazenly served chicken at social functions, or even fish or shrimp, without apology. On my first trip to Nebraska, just after John and I were engaged, his aunt and uncle took us out for a formal dinner. It was a chance to get to know me and to help us celebrate. When I said to the waiter, "I'll have the salmon," the table fell silent. "We're a little land-locked here," John's uncle muttered. I was too new to know the rules.

The same rules mean that no self-respecting seed corn dealer would serve fish or chicken at an August appreciation dinner. John's been attending these dinners for over thirty years, frequently with me at his side. No poultry or fish for thirty years. Maaaaaaybe pork, especially if the host happens to also raise hogs. But mostly.....beef.

Usually the beef is prepared by a caterer, and served alongside canned green beans, mashed potatoes, and corn. Last week's gathering was a bit more innovative, a poster child for Nebraska's love of beef.

Impale the USDA Choice on a pitchfork, and drop it into a vat of boiling tallow. If you try this at home, do not simply grab a fork out of the barn! Spend the extra few dollars to buy an implement solely dedicated to this purpose.

Four minutes later:

I hit my fat quota with the steak alone, so I passed on the sides: fried biscuits, fried onions, fried potatoes. Instead, I watched the grain elevator turn colors behind the small-town talk of farmers and friends.

Homemade Pita Pockets

If you read my post from a couple of days ago, you know that Audrey the Birthday Chef made homemade pitas as part of her celebratory meal. She found the recipe at Tammy's Recipes: http://www.tammysrecipes.com/ That links is to Tammy's main page. If you want to cut to the pita recipe, try: http://www.tammysrecipes.com/homemade_pita_pocket_bread.

Audrey's note: she cut back the cooking time to 3 minutes, from Tammy's 4-5 minutes, in order to keep the pitas pliable.

Rachel said in her blog that she had substituted whole wheat flour for half of the white that is called for, and apparently they turned out just fine.

Bon appetit!

The Last Pass

We moved cows today. It took eight and a half hours. After that, there was still hay to cut and beans to irrigate, a cow tank to fill, an O-ring to replace, trailers to unhitch, electric fence to set up.

Erica is making the day's last pass over the alfalfa. These bones are tired.

Birthday Chef

How does this girl celebrate a birthday?

Knead a little, whisk a little, stir, strain, puree, chop, mix, pare, blend, chill, marinate, preheat, season, bake, zest, and grill.

Menu for a Sunny Summer Birthday

Lamb Gyros with Tzatziki Sauce

in Homemade Pita Pockets

Fresh Pineapple and Blueberry Salad

Fresh Squeezed Lemonade

Citrus Cheesecake