Thankful for Special Gifts

Hello again – I’m happy you returned. I wanted to tell you so much since we were together but always some interruption, then a large box came into our life. Last week we were in one of those plowing through the to-do lists, stirring the pot with a nasty mix of worries, when the doorbell rang.

A box lay against the door as the delivery agent hopped in her truck. An unexpected gift from beloved friends. We carefully opened the box to a note, “From the Farm”.

A large bouquet of natural grasses including broom corn, wheat stalks, some delicate other and one large dried Hydrangea blossom carefully huddled in anticipation of the coming praise. The bouquet spoke dramatically of the bond this friendship has over many years.

But wait, there is a smell, a rich deep earthly animal smell: a small rolled bag in the corner of the box stuffed with a ball of white wool. We drew in healthy breaths of the pheromones and imagined the low barn light, soft chawing from the belly of contented sheep laying comfortably in recently harvested straw – oh my, there is no other full memory than this, all the senses merging into this wonderful gift from the farm.

Now there is something grand to be thankful for, thank you, dear friends Sue and Ron.

To learn about the experiences that brought us to this good gift, treat yourself to a laugh and a moment of thoughtfulness about living close to the land while learning to do a business that goes national, check out the Amazon Kindle book, A Homestead Decade, How Crunchy Granola Changed My Life, cheap 2.99. Thank you and wishing you a bountiful Thanksgiving.

love, Helene

Listen to the Music of Fine Preserving

They are so pretty, those singing jars of pickles and tomato salsa, golden peach jam, apples and spicy blueberries. Each with one tiny song – a little “ping” as the heated jars cool on the counter. The sight and song is part of the reward of canning summer food for winter enjoyment.

This year we could not resist the bounty and gathered a little of this and a little of that for a steady accumulation of these pleasures, forgetting the really hard work that goes into this type of preserving food. We started with blueberries and ended with cinnamon apples.

A five-pound box of tasty Michigan blueberries called for that favorite recipe from the treasured  FinePreserving by Catherine Plagemann. Find all the little half-pint jelly jars, buy some caps and rings, sugar and spice, set it all up for a long look at the interesting art installation.

Apples are easy thanks to the hand cranked apple peeler/corer. Place the fresh apple on the spike, turn the handle and watch the long strips of peel stream into the refuse bowl. To fully enjoy apples this way, ask a three year old to join you. You will have delights to last your lifetime.

Tomatoes are the hard ones. This year the little garden could not produce tomatoes. In our frustration we went to the market and bought a half bushel of big red globes.

Tomatoes come on in a rush which is why eating while planning just what to do with them diminishes the crop before they are preserved. Oh those luscious, wet dribbles spilling out of slices on a plate with just a dash of salt, mmm wonder full, simply full of wonder.

Then the work begins, the mission: garden salsa. Drop tomatoes one at a time in boiling water then into a big bowl of ice water, peel and nibble, peel and cut, keep moving. Fill up vessels of chopped tomatoes with onions, garlic, peppers, a little celery, spices, vinegar and a bit of sugar. Keep moving. Drain. Heat in a pot. Get the jars ready (or containers for freezing when the can part of canning gets to be too much). Prepare a hot water bath for the jars. What the heck, this is a lot of work.

I am very aware that each canning season may be my last, aware that in the disbursement of goods from passing elders, the jars of their preserves are often divvied up among the living loved ones giving us real food for thought. I am aware that these small colorful memories including the immense joy of seeing amazement in young bright eyes at their first experience saving food will last a lifetime.

Ping. One by one the cooling jars one-note at us as we lay exhausted on the sofa. Yeah. It’s worth it.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you get a chance to read my memoir book about the time I learned all this stuff, A Homestead Decade, How Crunchy Granola Changed My Life, Amazon Kindle 2.99. If you like it, please write a review. Enjoy this beautiful Autumn. Love your people every day.

affectionately,

Helene

Illness of Loved One is Gateway to The Zone

       We live our busy lives, contrived or real, when one day something startling and almost crushing stops the noisy spin and like walking into a transforming mist, we are thrust into a mysterious zone. That something for me recently was the sudden illness of a beloved one. The illness has taken weeks to level out and though now life has changed, the new activities surrounding have become part of our everyday to-do lists.

       In that time summer ended quickly and now we enter the desert days of pre-fall. Ahh. The harvest has turned from the short visit of tomatoes to the snap of crisp apples. Whatever didn’t get done in preserving will have to wait until next year, we hope.

       Hope is the thing. Philosophers hang their hats on Hope, telling us in sweet words to believe and never waiver. The philosophers’ poetry is becoming more difficult to accept as our vast intricate communications show us seemingly hopeless situations.

       Exiting the illness zone for a day or two, I did manage to “put up” a few jars of pickles – sweet butter pickles and exotic dills. Shining in the spice cupboard, these glass jars are a physical symbol of hope and the anticipation of meals enhanced in future days with the gift of spiced vinegar.

       I hope you can enjoy the adventure of this year’s harvest. I’m looking for an easy, tasty, moist fall fruit bread – squash or pumpkin, apple or pear. If you have a good bread recipe to share please let me know.
       Thanks to all who have made comment in person about the stories shared in A Homestead Decade, HowCrunchy Granola Changed My Life. And thanks for your patience in the delay of this blog while we made our way through the mysterious zone. 

Love,
Helene, author of A Homestead Decade, How CrunchyGranola Changed My Life
www.chicagoroadpublishing.com     

Zombies?! Really?

       Raising our children during the days of the Crunchy Granola book we, like all parents, worked hard to prepare them to be thoughtful about their directions, kind to others, and hopefully companion their lives with humor and wisdom.  

        Life with these babes brought us immense joy.

       We tried to teach the kids many of the self-sufficiency things we ourselves were learning. Animals were a big part of that and if you have read our memoir of that time, A Homestead Decade, How Crunchy GranolaChanged My Life, you would see how the circle of this life also dealt with death.

Where there is a safe nest of love and affirmation children will endure their parents’ flaws. Our children grew up as strong, intelligent and healthy as any other . . . . I think.

       The youngest of our three wonders, Jessie, a graduate in English Literature from Adrian College, and award-winning writer, has just written and published an e-book, Zombie Shorts. What?! Not a manual on solar energy, not a sociological research project, but a book of short stories about ….. zombies?!

Artwork by Dennis Preston

       I have to admit some of the stories are intriguing, mostly funny, using bits and pieces of Jessie’s life and education. My favorite stories are “Roxy Zombie”, a fast food worker who contemplates some difficult issues, for a zombie. In “That ol’ Boy” a character named Bunny, (because he once made a fantastic leap on a barroom bet) lived as a hoarder collecting vast amounts of unusual things including a valuable body part of an historic Lord in England during the Black Death, and the Lord, now a ghastly looking revenant, wanted the body part back. Then there is Merula Must Die, a well-told horror story, set in Ancient Rome,

There are also little pieces in this book like a letter and resume of a Zombie hunter and plenty of one-liners: “Zombies prefer the golfer to the game,” and “Zombies support gun control.”

       I hope the Zombie Shorts book goes well for Jessie and becomes a launching for future books, maybe not just about zombies.

Thanks always for stopping by and sharing this blog with your friends. I hope you get a chance to read, A Homestead Decade, How Crunchy Granola Changed My Life and I really hope you get a chance to enjoy Zombie Shorts by Jessie Pilly both on Amazon.com.

With summer delights, 

Helene

World Cup 2014 Brings Soccer Memories

        So, are you enjoying the World Cup 2014? The Cup has really become a giant in the Sports Mania that occupies so much of our Global pleasures. During the last part of our homestead decade, when we were deeply involved with a reality check about our future, our young son decided he wanted to play soccer. We had zero knowledge of the game and no resources in our rural area for implementing the game. But undeterred, our son put out a call to the community that anyone interested in playing soccer should meet at one of the school fields. We thought a couple of kids would show up, he would find another game to thrill him and we could all sit back and wait for soccer to come to our American sensibilities. 

Tagline in newspaper read "Guy Ellis shows form in 5-day soccer camp.

        Then one day, before the designated date, the phone began to ring, parents asking us more about the meeting that our 9-year-old had arranged. Will there be teams?  Who are the coaches? Is there a handbook of rules available for parents? What?! We were suddenly frustrated with an additional agenda item to our daily dilemmas. We, the parents were useless. It seemed as if thousands of kids and parents showed up at this “pick-up” soccer game. While adults struggled with what-are-we-doing-here, the kids organized three or four teams, cardboard boxes at each end of the field as goals, and began to race the ball back and forth across the playground.

       The kids loved the freedom to play, but lacked future organization. The success was the recognition that international “football” was indeed in America’s future. A summer youth program received a grant to bring in two professional soccer players from Belize to teach our little cubs. As it turned out, one of the Belize coaches was called to another awakening community while at that time a friend from Sweden was visiting us who happened to be a professional player in Sweden. He volunteered to spend the week with these eager children to teach this very popular world game. What a time. What a great time.

       Off sides is a common piece of soccer language, which makes me think, sadly of the other popular global occupation – war – what’s it good for, nothing. Somewhere youngsters like our son were thinking of their own interesting thing to do – tell stories through film. Guy Nattiv and Erez Tadmor are top film makers that you may have never heard of. They produced a short film (5+minutes) titled Off Sides, that you can view  on You Tube, (www.youtube.com, type - short film, Off Sides). It will take your breath away.

Thanks for stopping. Cherish our human goodness.

Love, Helene

Linotype Dreamin, OMG

       Have you ever seen a Linotype machine?  It’s a big cast iron frame with letter and symbol keys on three  levels. A cup of melting steel on the top of the machine drops hot metal down to a magical place where letters keyed in by the operator form words, then sentences, that ultimately become ideas or comments on ideas. It seems now like a medieval device sitting in the dark furnace rooms under the control of Linotype masters.

        I started my writing life proofreading the pages for newspapers in Detroit that were formed by the great word-makers. It seems as if I am confessing how very aged I have become. But really the Linotype monsters lived like giant healthy dinosaurs until suddenly sometime in the last quarter of the last century (about the time of our Crunchy Granola life) a cosmic swirl created another way to type, copy and print at the same time: the computer for the masses.

       By 1977 the Linotype submitted to sleek little machines with names like Vic-20 and Mackintosh. Yes there was a lot in between, the Remington and Selectric and other typing machines, but these, though very useful tools, were merely transitional. The computer has truly changed everything as we surf the cyber seas to even more adventurous devices – tablets and mobile phones that themselves will merge into even more and different means for our communication. With respect to electronic devices, the times really are a-changin.

       This is all very hard to explain to the children who have never even thought about the production of typed words. And why would I even try? The children have other things on their minds, they are too busy changing the words to fit their own little tiny micro micros – omg  lol. We certainly have come a long way. It is interesting to still be young enough to observe the journey. I can’t wait to see what is next.

       Well, I’m going to make a peanut butter honey sandwich, would you like one?

       Thanks as always for stopping by. Please check out A Homestead Decade, How Crunchy Granola Changed My Life, $2.99 Amazon Kindle (wow talk about changes). If you like it, we’d appreciate a review and thank you for sharing it with friends.

Love,

Helene 

Making Bread with Leon Russell

       I love bread. Not the aerated super processed bread, but those odd shaped loaves that come to the specialty shops and have names like Pugilese, Italian Rustic, Pecan Walnut Whole Wheat, Jerusalem Bakery pita. I love to think about bread and its development in world cultures from our very beginnings. 

       I love the way bread smells when it is baking and the special comfort such thinking brings. I love making bread, but that pleasure is happening less as the years go by for me, especially when I can buy luscious stone oven baked goods prepared by master bakers.

       Sometimes I buy too much bread and need to be creative about remaining crusts or suffer the guilt of having to discard the pieces overtaken by another fuzzy culture.

Stale homemade bread makes fine French Toast – in a wide dish mix egg, milk, a little sugar, a little vanilla (my grandmother’s secret). Mix well, dip bread slices so both sides are coated, place the bread in a hot skillet, fry on both sides. Serve with butter and 100% Maple Syrup. This gift is one of the great pleasures of life.

       Or you could dry the remaining hunks of older bread for a couple of great uses  -

Bread crumbs for coating – cut the bread into cubes, air dry for a day or two on a dish, then process the cubes in a food grinder for a few seconds, bag the fine crumbs to coat meat or vegetables or top a homemade macaroni and cheese

Dressing (any time of year) - tear the bread slices to dry for a day or two, mix the dried bread with a boiled broth (vegetables or meat or purchased) celery, onion pieces, season with your favorite herbs – salt, pepper, oregano, basil, celery salt. Add an egg, mix well and bake in the oven until a nice crust forms. Dressing makes a tasty carbo with an easy sauce.

Or share excess bread with the creatures outside (good for this beastly winter we’ve had – pun intended).

        One of my best memories of making bread is preparing the warm water, yeast, sugar, oil, flour and as I began the gentle body kneading motions of roll, push, tuck and roll again, Leon Russell came on the music box with the lovely A Song for You.

       Thanks for coming by, I love to see you here. Thanks to those who have commented so happily about my book, A Homestead Decade, How Crunchy Granola Changed My Life. Maybe you could jot a review to Amazon or share your feelings with a friend about the book.

      Wait, what’s that? I see something out the kitchen window – Sand Hill Cranes! Spring is coming! I see it on the colors of their grand wings.

Love,helene 

Poetry to Sustain Us

"Hold On" winter on Lake Michigan by Joel Ellis www.joelellisart.com 

Oh this long, loooong , winter! Even the seed catalogs feel like a fantasy. The wonder is if Spring will actually come. In the middle of a mournful groan over yet another blowing pile of snow in temperatures nudging 0, we received an e-mail from dear friends Ron and Sue, dairy farmers in this cold northland. I’d like to share their gift with you –

Feeling crusted

Check books busted

Don't like the trends

A way to get through

Thoughts of old friends                                           

  

Winter's too long 

Not so strong

don't belong

Need a good song

Before it all ends

Thoughts of old friends

Deal with the mess

Cope with the stress

Need to confess

Life would be less

       Without

Thoughts of old friends

Altogether now: Think Spring!!!!

Thanks you two, our thoughts of old friends do sustain us every day.

Thanks to everyone for stopping by, please take a look at tales of snow (and summer) in our memoir, A Homestead Decade, How Crunchy Granola Changed My Life, Amazon.com Kindle e-books, cheap $2.99.

Love,

Helene 

Snow, Ice, Wind A Triple Whammy Winter

        Ah the winter storms. This year we are hit with a triple whammy – ice over Christmas break that left thousands without the soothing light of the season (not to mention unable to flush toilets or make a pot of coffee). We got a short seemingly 10-minute break, enough time to hear the panic on the news and head to the stores to stock up before the snow came, 20” in our strip of mid-Michigan.  Then the surge from up north, quaintly called a Polar Vortex with arm loads of sub-zero temperatures carried on 30-mile-an-hour winds. Yes, this is quite a winter.

       We have had our share of testy winters especially back in the Crunchy Granola days. I remember one of the first in our naivety, much like today’s blizzard, except then as newbies to the country life we did not know about preparing for such events. We did not “put up” buckets of water, or make sure we had batteries for the flashlights, or even baby aspirin for a sick child. In a desperate moment staring at our long sloping driveway, Joel strapped on his cross country skis and headed for the two mile trek to town. What he found that time was the Sheriff breaking into the small grocery store for other families who were also caught unprepared.  

        That was also the winter our good farm neighbors gave us milk from the cows and eggs from their chickens. We got the message.

        In future winter storms, we took advantage of the skills that helped us to survive. Still, an especially difficult winter like this one gave us memories that we’d rather not have. A vision of our children still haunts me. They stood with worried faces at the big glass window staring out at us as Joel and I trudged through deep snow with our ecstatic dog to cut more wood.

        I remember canyons of snow roads and weeks of school closings. The worst however, came later in those years, those were the ice storms, Nature’s fantasy dreams that danced with the wind to terrorize little country folk with massive tree branches crashing on the roof and porches. One ice storm so badly bashed at our little house that we had to get whatever saws were in the house to cut our way out. And of course there was no power. We had not mastered the homesteaders “off-the-grid” goal, submitting ourselves to the mercy of community electric services.

        The 2013/2014 unusual series of winter storms has served as a reminder of our dependence on each other, though I must admit seriously asking Joel if we are witnessing a new ice age.

Thanks for stopping by. I look forward to lots of visits with you in 2014. For a humorous and sometimes thoughtful read, checkout A Homestead Decade, HowCrunchy Granola Changed My Life, Amazon Kindle, cheap $2.99.

Wishing you a bountiful new year,

Love, Helene