Sunday, April 24, 2011

Happy Easter to All!

Easter Morning - 2011
Home-made Easter baskets with
White Chocolate-covered Pretzels
Is Easter Day as glorious outside at your house today as it is in HPNC?  I certainly hope so.  It's actually a tad on the warm side (83 degrees as I write this) for April, but who's complaining?  Not I.  The world has thrown off the winter doldrums and come alive again!

Since we didn't have company this Holiday (read that:  Missy M couldn't get away for a visit), we have been busy yardening, as Mr. T calls our work in the yard and garden.  He's extremely glad to report that he can now get his car all the way to the end of the driveway.  Woo hoo!  Now, that may not sound like a lot to you, but what that means is the three-and-a-half pallets of mulch-bags is now down to just 1 1/2.  Progress...one wagon-load at a time!  He's been making walking paths in the back yard, by laying mulch over newspaper and landscape-fabric...and his work looks fine and dandy.  Those last bags are destined for path-making in the way-back to help give definition to the garden, orchard, and berry patches.  (We'll hope for some cooler, cloudy days to get back on that task, though...:)

Also, that pallet of bags of garden soil = gone!!  We've been creating flower beds in the front, on the side, in the back, and in the way-back...and we've gone through nearly 50 2-cubic ft. bags in the process.

I've planted annuals (vinca, petunias, marigolds, lobelia, and lantana in the sunny spots and hanging baskets on the deck; impatiens and coleus in the shady ones, along with Boston ferns in hanging baskets on the front porch) and divided some perennials (iris, daylilies, and sedum) to populate all the new beds, so things are really looking colorful around here.  We've moved the palms and the ferns from their winter refuge on the plasticized/screen porch to the deck, in preparation for moving them to their summer quarters.  I repotted the lemon tree...which looks so happy to be released from wintering in the too-dark window in our bedroom to its sunny spot on the deck.


Another basket of lettuce from the garden...
and an onion
 And, the garden?  With all that rain we had last week...and now all this warm weather we are having this weekend...it is really starting to produce.  We may have to start eating lettuce-salads for breakfast just to keep up with Bibb, Grand Rapids, and Black-seeded Simpson leaves (see photo, left)!  The strawberry patch is loaded with flowers and the beginnings of berries...so much so that I've got the whole thing covered in bird-proof netting.  Ditto the (new) blueberry and blackberry bushes.  The potato-plants...which I really was worrying about...have jumped out of the ground and are looking hale and hearty; we've "hilled" them with bags of leaves.  The carrots and the spinach are finally showing signs of growing, after just sitting there doing nothing for weeks. 

I planted several of my herbs (basil, dill, oregano, sage, lemon balm, and parsley) in two beds and several pots for the porches, to add to the rosemary, lavender, and mint I'd already potted up.  And, I seeded a couple of pots with chives, since my old potting didn't survive.  I even took a chance and planted 5 tomatoes on Thursday (gasp!  before May 1st???); I really want that first tomato sandwich of the season, don't I?

It's been a good week in the garden, but a difficult week for Mom.  She had one of those good news/bad news visits with her ophthalmologist last week. Good news:  you don't have macular degeneration, because your vision has cleared up remarkably well since you were here 3 months ago.  Bad news: your vision problems were caused by a stroke in your eye...and we can't predict if/whether it will reoccur.  That was hard for her to hear...and even harder to move beyond, since reading and watching her sports on TV are important elements in her day.  While I can take refuge in my garden to help me cope with the concerns of the day, she is much more limited in where she can go and what she can do.  Sigh.

So, for Easter, instead of the usual chocolate bunnies in their Easter baskets, I made white chocolate-covered strawberries...along with white chocolate-dipped pretzel sticks for N/M/E and Mr. T's baskets (photo, above/right).   Then, I printed up coupons for what I thought they wanted/needed the most:  an uninterrupted nap for Mr. T, and a ride in the countryside with a picnic lunch for Mom. 

We'll wait until the late afternoon when it is cooler on the deck to have our Easter dinner:  grilled ham steaks, Hawaiian sweet potatoes, deviled eggs on garden lettuce with carrots and celery, and biscuits.  I hope you've had a special day with those who are special in your life, too.

We continue to be thankful for our many blessings...for each beautiful new day that dawns...for the strength to face life's storms...and for learning to dance in the rain.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

A Day to Remember

Edith Frances Keaton,
first and only daughter of
Margaret and Jimmy
Lucy Margaret Stewart had honey-colored hair and violet eyes. She'd been born a few years before the turn of the last century, on a hot Haywood County August night, the first and only daughter of a "grass widow" artist and her second husband, a mechanical genius four years her junior.  There would be two younger brothers added to the family, but Margaret would remain the apple of her father's eye for the remainder of her too-short life.  Her own mother died when Margaret was barely a teenager, an event that probably encouraged an independent and self-reliant streak.  Encouraged by her step-mother, who had enjoyed being a teacher in the Big City before her late-in-life marriage, Margaret not only set her sights on being a teacher, too; she also was determined to attend the brand new West Tennessee State Normal (Teachers) College [the forerunner of the University of Memphis] at Buntyn Station on the outskirts of Memphis.

John Shirley Keaton, who'd been called Shirl by his family in Dyer, also arrived at Normal in the birth-year of the college with the goal of being a teacher...like several cousins on his mother's side of the family.  He was a few years older than most of the other students, but he'd had to earn enough money to attend school.  Although working for his father driving cattle across Missouri to Kansas City filled his bank account and kept him fit, he knew there had to be an easier...and cleaner...way to earn your living. Friends on campus decided he looked just like a handsome actor of the day and changed his nickname to Jimmy...which he kept for the rest of his life.


Baby dress of pongee -
made by Margaret for Edith
 Margaret did graduate and got to teach, in rural Hardeman County.  She was also a talented seamstress, who was known to be able to look at a new fashion (dress, skirt, blouse) and be able to make an almost carbon copy...no pattern needed. 

Jimmy graduated and taught in Ridgeley; he also played semi-pro baseball for a time, traveling by train across the South.  The War to End All Wars drew the US into the conflict in 1918, and Jimmy joined the Army...not once, but twice!  His service was interrupted when he went home to help after his father died of a stroke while working in the garden [...and now we know why I am constantly being warned not to work in my own garden in "the heat of the day"].  After his discharge, and against stiff odds (Margaret's father objected and refused to attend the wedding ceremony...supposedly because he considered it too soon after Jimmy's father's death), they married in 1919. 


Close up of the embroidery on the baby dress




To this union, a baby girl arrived on April 14 of the following year.  Ninety-one years ago today.  They named her Edith Frances, in honor of both her grandmothers...Ada Judith and Frances Florentine...although her birth certificate would record it as Francis.  She, too, would be the first and only daughter...and the apple of her daddy's eye.  She would lose her mother at an even earlier age, when Margaret died of complications of her third pregnancy, an event that still brings tears to Edith's eyes when she speaks of it.

After Margaret's death, Edith and her baby brother Edward moved to the family farm, where they lived for several years in their grandfather's home...along with a cousin who'd also lost his mother.  She and Edward went to live in their father's house in Henning just as Edith was starting her teenage years...a difficult time and a difficult transition.  Still she made new friends...now counted as "life-long" friends...and they all graduated from Ripley High.

Edith tried out college life in several locations (Knoxville, Martin, and finally Memphis) and graduated with a permanent teacher's certificate...a rare document that would technically allow her to teach in Tennessee, if she so desired, even at her age.  She taught in a one-room schoolhouse in Lauderdale County before getting a "regular" classroom in Hardeman County.  But, she decided that teaching might not be her path after all.

Against her father's objections, Edith followed a cousin's lead to Nashville to work in what was then called The Welfare Department.  There, she and a friend rented an apartment that they affectionately called The Dump.  There, the two of them, along with the cousin and two other friends, indulged their love of travel by driving all the way across the country to California...the first of many miles that she has traveled in her lifetime.  And, most importantly for me, she met and fell in love with my father in Nashville.

Of course, I've made their love story sound very simple...and it was anything but.  Still, they married (eventually) and had three children:  me...the first and only daughter; a baby boy who died at birth; and my brother.  We have an older half-brother, but it would be decades before we could finally include him in our family.  Momma (for I get to call her that...at this point in the story) worked as a child welfare worker, specializing in adoptions...at a time when most women were not employed outside of their homes. She retired from the Welfare Department...known as the Department of Human Services by then...(for the final time) the year after our daughter was born, when she became known as Nana...and a couple of years before my father tried out retirement for the first time (it didn't take...:).  They had just celebrated their 38th wedding anniversary when Daddy died from complications of open-heart surgery.  Not wanting to live by herself, she cast her lot with us, and then the travels really began.


Happy Birthday, N/M/E!!!
 Nana/Momma/Edith has lived her life to the fullest and has many memories to cherish.  She has travelled to all fifty states as well as the District of Columbia.  She has been to our neighboring countries of Canada and Mexico, as well as the Bahamas and several islands in the Caribbean.  She has been to England, France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands.  Not bad for a girl from Hardeman County, she says.

Now in the 10th decade of her life, she is the last one of her generation on several branches of our family tree, but even younger generations are fond of Aunt Edith.  She has friends from all over, and she receives several cards and letters each week from addresses in TN, OH, GA, AZ, HI, KY, and MO...to name a few.

Just like the Jimmy Stewart movie, it's been a wonderful life!  And, today is a day to remember...and to celebrate both that wonderful life...and the wonderful woman who has lived it.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

A Cause for Pause

Dear Ones,

Forgive me for such a pitifully-poor post today.  No pretty pictures.  Just words. 

I'm pausing from my usual posting because I'm neck-deep in receipts, papers, files, year-end statements, and the general mountain of documentation required to file one's taxes.  An annual event for us all, I know...but that doesn't make it any funner. As Brother J said:  "I'd rather be having a root canal."

Because I once long, long ago...in a land far, far away called Mississippi...worked for the IRS (a great story for another time...:), I draw the chore of  "preparing taxes" every April for our somewhat complicated Fed. and NC joint returns (one sole proprietorship, two home offices, etc.), N/M/E's very simple return, and Missy M's fairly straight-forward filings (albeit with a different state return).  This used to require a couple of weeks of gathering, organizing, completing worksheets, calculating, and transferring the final figures to file the final forms.  Whew!  However, for the past ten years or so, I have used TurboTax...and couldn't be happier.  Happy as one can be at tax time, let's say.

Momma always said that Daddy would wait to start their taxes on his birthday (April 11th...yesterday, as it so happens) and work frantically through her birthday (April 14th) so he could finish by the deadline of April 15th.  Every year of their marriage.  Drove her crazy.  He would have loved this year, 'cause he would have had 3 more whole days to work with!

Me?  I understand that totally.  Since they usually had a balance to pay (probably because of Daddy's "extra" electrician jobs he did...or maybe because of the laundrimat...who knows?), he didn't want to have to deal with the bad news until the last minute...and he certainly wasn't going to write that check a minute earlier than he had to!  He was a do-it-yourself person, so he hated to turn it over to someone else to do...although there were years he did just that.  And, he always got a lot of energy and motivation when he was pushed by a deadline.  I'm so like him...in those, and so many more ways.

Anyway, it's the last minute.  We'll probably have to pay a balance, at least on our Federal taxes, although it appears that NC might just owe us again this year.  [It would be nice if we could just ask NC to pay the USA for us, wouldn't it?  Nah.  That's way too logical.]

Yesterday, being the date of what would have been Daddy's 88th birthday, I commemorated the occasion by getting the last TurboTax Home & Business software package at Office Depot and installing it while I was gathering the documentation.  By suppertime, I'd finished and e-filed both Mom's and Missy M's returns, and had started on the Business portion of ours.  A couple more days, and I should be ready to send it through cyberspace...hooray!!!

Before I get back to the taxes, though, I thought I'd report on Mom.  She had a good weekend while Brother J was here from Nashville. They took a drive around town and stopped to visit AW.  Of course, all that activity left Mom exhausted, but at least she got to see all the dogwoods in bloom in HPNC, which she just loved seeing.  We'll celebrate her 91st birthday quietly on Thursday, when I'll make her favorite:  strawberry cake.  We have two doctor visits scheduled for later on this week, so we are hoping that the weather cooperates.

OK...back to work.  Now, where did I file that receipt for printer ink cartridges from last June...?

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

A Question of Two Eggs

Colors of Spring:
Gold finch in the pink dogwood
 Make up your mind, already!  Is it Winter...or Spring...or Summer?  Hard to tell around here.  We've had a couple of 80+ degree-days lately, complete with high winds and followed by strong storms...and now back to the 50's with a chance of light frost tonight.

Some of you remember our pink dogwood (photo, left) in the front...and how beautiful it bloomed last year, just in time for Nana's 90th birthday party in mid-April. Well, because of the unseasonably warm days we've had, it's bloomed already, way ahead of the azaleas. 

 Since we've returned to chilly nights, I made what is possibly our last pot of beef-vegetable soup (AKA: "clean out the refrigerator" soup...:) of the season for supper tonight.  No worries:  the pot is full to the brim, so I'm sure I'll have some to tuck into the freezer...just in case.

And when I checked the now almost empty fridge (I told you it was "clean out the refrigerator" soup, didn't I?), I found just two eggs in the egg-keeper.  Hmmmm.  Now, should I make a skillet of cornbread to go with that soup?  Or, should I make a chocolate cake?  Decisions, decisions.  You'll just have to wait 'til the end of the post to see what I decided.  (No cheating by clicking ahead...:)

Let's see.  A recap of our weekend sounds like a broken record: yard and garden work, or yardening, as Mr. T calls it.  With sunny weather and warm temps, we packed Saturday and Sunday with as many chores on our list as possible.  While I was at the Kathryn Clay Edwards Library in Greensboro for Master Gardener volunteer duties at the Earth Day Celebration (I helped wee ones...and some seniors, too...plant Patty Pan squash seeds in pre-moistened peat pots...what fun!...:), Mr. T channeled his inner Paul Bunyan by cutting down a cedar tree in the back yard.  He also built a flower bed at the end of the driveway with landscape timbers as well as distributed about 50 bags of mulch (from those pallets that were delivered months ago when we built our garden shed, remember?)

When I got home, we cut down three more trees (two more cedars and a sickly tulip poplar) in the front yard.  Why are you cutting down trees, you ask?  Well, these are some we'd identified as needing to go to open up our landscape to some sun light for the other plants (especially those in the front yard, which were blocking both the sun from our one magnolia tree...and the path to our front door).  And, we've waited the recommended year after our move before we did anything rash.  (You know, as in:  "wait at least a year before you make any drastic changes to your new home, inside or out...")

Never fear!  As you know, we rarely throw anything away...we just repurpose it.  So, those tree trunks (minus the limbs) are now outlining a new path and patio area in the natural area of our front yard, created using all those bags of mulch.  Since they are cedar, they will last for years.  And, now the front of our house looks much more open and welcoming to visitors.

Removing that cedar in the back opened up the right side of our back yard, too.  We moved our swing and the tiny brick patio in front of it all the way to the corner, where we can enjoy the azaleas (which are just about to bloom...any day now).  We also created a mulched path to the new swing location...and it's a whole different place!
Last of the King Alfred Daffodils


Today, after a night of wind, rain, and hail, I picked the last of the King Alfred Daffodils (photo, right) in the Way Back and the Blue Star Hyacinths (oh my golly gosh...these do have such a fabulous fragrance...:) from around the mailbox and beside the garden shed, so that I could give the bulbs a good dose of Bulb Booster while the ground is moist.  I hope the bulbs will grow big and fat...so they can put on a similar display next year.

And, I weeded the strawberry patch...so I could cover the tender plants yet again with row covers.  Tonight is supposed to be clear and cold...mid-30's...so a frost is certainly possible.  There are worlds of white flowers on the plants, and I want to try to save all those potential tasty berries.  Yum!

So, with all that work, you just know the answer to the question of two eggs, don't you?  Whoever heard of cornbread being a reward?  Not me.


The Answer of the Question of Two Eggs:
Deep Dark Chocolate Cake, of course!

I got out my Hershey's Make It Chocolate Cookbook (c. 1987) and made the "Deep Dark Chocolate Cake" with "One Bowl Buttercream Icing."  This is sooooo easy and soooooooooooo good.  And, if you look at the cocoa tin you will see that cocoa has antioxidants.  That makes it health food, right?  Tee hee. The key is the boiling water you add at the end of mixing the batter.  Plus, I also ice the cake while it is still warm, to seal in the moisture.

Nana/Momma/Edith, who is still having good days and bad days...and sometimes all in the same day, like today...gave me that cookbook, all those many years ago.  Surely she won't mind having crackers with her soup...so that we can finish our meal with chocolate cake?  Surely...

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