Archive for February, 2012

Even in the South spring can come too early. Here are a few of the flowers that have been popping up since mid-February.

DAFFODILS

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze….
~William Wordsworth~

The question of how long to keep food in the pantry, in the refrigerator or fresh has changed as our packaging and preservation develops over time. Simplicity of “old school” made it pretty easy to remember when to get rid of things. Many canned their own food or did their own meat preservation but things have changed. So how long can you keep luncheon meats in the refrigerator? Can you refreeze if, oops, because we decided to go out to dinner instead? What about the packaging date?

I think everyone is pretty sure that extra care is needed with handling meat, poultry or seafood. For example, never stuff a turkey the night before it is to be roasted and when storing after dinner separate the stuffing into its own dish. But what about refreezing? Here is a basic rule of thumb; if you have frozen foods in the refrigerator (where it should be thawed) if it can be refrozen IF still has ice crystals on it (no longer than 1-2 days). Meats are a bit different. Once they have been thawed they should not be refrozen.

You know that “sold by” date? That is to let us know that within a reasonable time period food stuffs will still be edible. Some things like yeast, unbaked breads, etc break down over time. So best to use by fresh date. Same with dairy products.

Usually the fresh or refrigerated food stuffs are pretty easy to store and I know when they are past a good eatability time. But the pantry easily can be neglected. Like Baking Soda is only good for about 18 months, or bread crumbs really should only hang around for a maximum of 6 months. Canned foods doesn’t mean safe forever. Most have a date that they are only good for a year if unopened. The only way I can remember this is to write the date of purchase on the bottom of the container so I know how far into storage time I am.

I got off on this because I wanted to freeze unused dry products like flour, sugar, corn meal and other baking goods. I thought I could just freeze them and bring them out when I needed them. I was wrong. Even in the freezer they have a shelf life. And when I can use them they need to be brought to room temp then they are ready for use. I did not see if I could refreeze them anywhere online so I am going to take the exact amount I need only not the entire container.

And the storage bins in our new tech refrigerators have a purpose. It is important to group fresh vegetables according to their storage requirements.

Once I got the hang of it I found my food lasts a lot longer. I find that I do not over shop for things that will need to be thrown away. The beauty of our society is that we can always get fresh foods within minutes at the store. Some people are turning to home food preservation. Old world canning and drying of fruits and vegetables. There is nothing like opening a jar of home canned peaches or green beans. But the rules have changed some here too. It is not so much rocket science as technology advances we learn better ways to home can and preserve food stuffs. 

There are plenty of good source materials online that can be a good guideline. Even as I get older I have to readjust to the advanced understanding to keep my edibles well, edible!

I also found I have gone back to the simplicity of fresh foods or unprocessed. All the more reason to be careful how to keep them. Foods loaded with preservatives and chemicals seem to have a longer shelf. But! Even they can not be kept forever.

While walking through a meadow that I take frequently for my daily exercise I noticed that there are tiny little white flowers beginning to bloom creating a light carpet of white.

They are not all out yet in full bloom but it reminded on another time and place. A forest walked in years ago, Hallerbos. Just down the road and over in another commune in Belgium.

The Hallerbos in the spring were carpeted with Blue bells. I tried to find my personal pictures but they are on digital so I am had to find a website to show you.

The Hallerbos (Dutch for Forest of Halle) is a public forest in Belgium, mostly situated in the municipality of Halle, in Flemish Brabant. It is located about 15 Kms south of Brussels.The forest is a beautiful place for a walk at any time of the year, but for a few weeks in spring, it is something very special. Hallerbos, also known as The Blue Forest, is carpeted with a sea of blue flowers. The Common Bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) is a spring-flowering bulbous perennial plant with flowers shaped like tiny bells. They thrive under the beech trees of the Hallerbos in late April.

The pictures of Hallerbos are copyrighted so you have to click on the paragraph above to see these beautiful flowers. Enjoy!

the fat rope of tea
from the pot
to my mug
and the icicles all in a row
bulbs sit on the windowsill
waiting for spring
and I find an envelope
with pressed bluebells
from that day
you tucked them behind my ear
and ran your fingers through my hair
and when I got home
I pressed them in a dusty cookbook
letting them hold their fragile beauty longer
than the other sprigs it grew with
lucky them
I saved them
so I wouldn’t forget
that you could be sweet
when you wanted
and even now they still haven’t lost their scent

By TheArchitect, Madison WI

The house had a large living room. It opened into the dining room on the left and my mother’s bedroom on the right. The dining room had a bay window with a window seat. Underneath it was a drawer. In the drawer were sewing materials that we kept for making clothes, quilts or whatever home made things my mother and us girls could think up. Above the drawer on the bay window seat my mother would put some house plants. Those plants were just lovely. But the pad that they sat on was my place to hide things.

One of the things I would hide there were my paper dolls. I haven’t thought about paper dolls for quite some time. About fifteen years ago my youngest sister reminded me how I loved to cut out the paper dolls. And I did. I loved the clean lines and I loved my paper dolls. She bought me some paper dolls at that time for old times sake. I still have the set, I just can’t part with them.

I got to thinking about some of the paper dolls I have had. One was the Betsy McCall series It was cute enough, I did cut them out to play with but I really liked the fancy paper dolls like movies stars or the bridal paper dolls.

Elizabeth Taylor, American Movie Star

And sometimes I would just cut the models out of a Montgomery Ward or the Sears catalog. These little cut outs made good neighbors to the “real” paper dolls. Then I would tear out the pages and fold them into different pieces for furniture like a couch or a table and chair so my little people would have a home.

Montgomery Ward catalog

As a child I never thought twice about when and how they were first made. It never entered my mind that these two-dimensional toys had a history. But I was curious when I learned that the celebrity paper dolls were quite impressive, A doll portraying the renowned ballerina Marie Taglioni, published in the 1830s. In 1840, a boxed set was done of another ballerina, Fanny Elssler, as well as of Queen Victoria.

Of course, my idea at the time was that a celebrity was someone like Elizabeth Taylor. Queen Victoria never entered into my childhood consciousness. Or the Barbie series were sought after. The Barbie products were just rolling out when I was a child. Barbie was launched in March 1959 so by the 1960s she was the hottest girl toy around.

Paper dolls were more than a personal toy for me, they are an era gone by. But I still love the memories of playing with them. You can still get paper dolls however, back then you could find them anywhere. You didn’t have to special order them on Ebay. Nowadays they are a collector’s item.

War, Uh. What is it good for

Absolutely nothing~

Edwin Starr, “War”

I am an historian. Both for a hobby and as my educational focus. Anyone who has a passion knows that you can get so lost in it that, suddenly you surface to get a breath. Today I need to look up, take a breather, and take time to digest my latest paradigm shift.

I have been following politics more closely for the past few years. I think about that every time I pass a gas station hoping that this time I do not have to fill up as the gas keeps rising in price. I subconsciously am aware of conflict in the world.

I thought about how war has affected me personally. My country, the United States, signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Okay so here is a perspective.

Up to and through this signing the United States was in the conflict known as the Revolutionary War (1775-1783). Taking up the first seven years of this country’s birth of 236 years ago.

From 1776 to 2012 is only 236 years. Wow, what a perspective. I recently got into studying Western Civilization from the time man actually inhabited Europe. Like, Neanderthal humans. So how long is 236 years and how are we affected politically today? And how have I been affected by war?

Only 29 years after the Revolutionary War here comes the War of 1812 (1812-1815). Here we go again another conflict with the British Empire. That worked in the Americans favor so there was a period of peace for 31 years. Ha! Lasted two more years than the last conflict. Here comes the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), a conflict in the wake of Texas annexation. Okay still, that sounds like a long time ago but clearly not a drop in the bucket compared to European settlement.

But it isn’t until the next war that it starts to gets personal because this is where I start to place my family history with war. I trace my family back to crossing the Atlantic. A mere 236 years ago. But when my great-great-grandfather enters the picture it doesn’t feel like ancient times. More like it is touchable. He was born 1842, died 1928. Born four years before the Mexican-American War and he will be old enough to become a soldier in the next war.

The Civil War (1861-1865) was the time period that I start feeling my family’s involvement in the military. He was in this conflict, survived the Andersonville Internment Camp, and you see lived to the ripe old age of 86. And after that war he saw the Spanish-American War (1898), between Spain and the United States over the ongoing Cuban War of Independence. He would have also heard the Declaration of War sounded in 1914 as the world went to war internationally in World War I (1914-1918). He died before the United States was impacted by the Great Depression and while two more generations were living through this time he would have known of the birth of my father in 1919. Just one year after the Great War was over. My dad (and mom) and many of my now living relatives still remember the Great Depression. So when we are now in conflict over the economy, war, and chaos they know about that stuff.

My dad was old enough to be called under the draft to served in World War II (1939-1945), he was at the famous Battle of the Bulge. I don’t think he served in the Korean War (1950-1953) but this is the period my husband and I were born into. We entered a relative period of prosperity and peace in our country. A world we were born into and thought was pretty normal. I wouldn’t be interested until the 1960s about war, that would be with social changes and the Vietnam War (1955-1975) conflict. Even though this conflict went on for 20 years I just getting old enough to feel its affect when my husband was called up to serve in that mess. We struggled again as a nation, but as we entered into the 1980s “at home” things started settling down again.

We would be able to raise our children in relative peace for 15 years until the Middle East broke loose. That has been happening up to the present with Desert Storm (1990 – 1991), Enduring Freedom ( 2001 – present), and Iraqi Freedom (2003 – 2011).

This overview of the United States and the conflicts it has been involved with helps me to appreciate the cry for peace again. So yeah, as a young nation the country has a record of very little peaceful times. Of the 236 years as a country there have been 165 years of war. Only about 71 years or, one generation has seen no war. And that was not all at one time.

I think about this when we have political debates over reduction of military costs. Or influencing another country. It helps me get perspective regarding the reality of war. Not just in the United States, a place I call home, but throughout the entire world. I was getting emotional about all the war in the Media but in my recent reading of Holland, the History of the Netherlands (by Thomas Coffey Grattan) I get that war has always been a part of civilization no matter where we live.

But when my emotions get in the way then I can not think clearly to make good political decisions. I am not giving in or giving out. I am just trying to understand. Understand it all in perspective of the personal affect it has on me, my family and my loved ones. I want to get behind something because I have conviction not because I am taken away by emotional chaos. Been there, done that and yes, I did get the tee shirt.

Seriously, War, what is it good for?

It was just under fifty degrees, overcast and the possibility of rain. I wanted to go for a walk but it is tax time and I wanted to get the papers prepared so I could take them to the CPA. The idea of needing to discipline myself led me to being antsy. My little dog picked right up on my mood. She watched for cues. Cues that she could read so she would know “we are ready to go!”. But I never gave her those cues because I wanted to take care of business first.

Finally. I had all my ducks in a row. The business was in order and I was ready to head out to the tax lady then, off for a walk. I was edgy, I wanted my walk, but the threat of rain was causing me to get tense. Then I thought, “oh hell, a little rain never hurt us before. I will just wear rain boots and a slicker”. So off I we went but, first turn in my taxes. I drove up to the tax lady. Dang! She wasn’t open yet so I decided to just go for the walk and rethink my priorities for this day.

My little dog wanted her walk too, she couldn’t sit still in the car. Finally we got to the forest, in sync we jumped out of the car and started out on the wooded path. This is the best part of our walk. The sudden burst of excitement to sights, smells and sounds. It was still overcast but already shaping up to be one of my better walks. We came out into the meadow, rounded the path and weaved back into a second meadow then down the trail to the peninsula. Finally all the knots were worked out my back and I was feeling pretty good. We came to the river rambling by quiet and gentle. Just then the clouds broke and a memory flooded over me.

Back in the 1960s as a pre-teen. I was antsy just like today. Couldn’t have been more that ten years old. I wandered out the back door rounded the block and started walking. I have always loved walking and I knew exactly where I would head. Back behind the Boise Cascade Lumber Mill. I skirted around the huge piles of logs as I saw the Yakima River come into sight. Ah, now this is what I needed. A walk by the river. I loved to do that then and I love to walk the Coosa River now. And for those of you who wonder yes, I did get in trouble with my mom for disappearing by myself.

Solitude has always been something I have enjoyed. Not curled up with a book or checking into a motel for quiet time but the kind of solitude that comes from a brisk walk in the woods as the oxygen courses through my bloodstream, clearing my head, and relaxing my muscles. Oh sure, there is the occasional walker I pass. We nod, pass a few pleasantries then, I move on. Mostly it is the birdsong or a croaking frog I commune with. If I stop moving long enough it gets quiet enough to hear a deer moving in the brush. Of course once I move or my dog goes on alert the deer does what it does best. Choses flight over fight as it prances lightly away.

I don’t know why I have always loved these walks. It really doesn’t matter. I have always found a place like this to walk, by myself, in no need of conversation. Except the conversation of the wind, the smell of the air and companionship of a dog. The solitude from humans is not really solitude like most people think about it. I am not lonely or scared. I don’t need to escape to regroup from life nor am I thinking deep thoughts or trying to discover purpose in the universe. I just want to be out there. Out there in the open, having my quiet time.

I have been this way since I was a child. I don’t “need” someone to go with me, I just want to ramble. Rambling on doesn’t have the same security it did back in the 1960s. Times of changed, I have grown older and aging has set in. I can’t afford to get hurt or lost now. Now I am product of the times, I carry a Smartphone with a App that lets my husband know where I am just in case he needs to find me. Most of the time he is secure in the fact he knows where I am at and when I will return. All he has to do is check his “Find Friends” App and he can track my movement. It adds a certain amount of security nowadays so I can forget about external things and just listen to the river as it slowly rolls along, gently slapping the bank. Ah, I do the river.

The river flows quiet and swift

It twists and turns as the waters drift

It branches and breaks__

its fingers entwine

(From the The River Flows by Kailey Jennings )