Water Fun

What is summer without a little bit of water fun?  Lorene, Lynette and chased after Zane for an afternoon at the water park.  He doesn't like following the rules.  This silly slide is a lot more fun when you slide down on your tummy or climb back up again. 

Zane is brave enough to go down the slide alone. Lynette is at the bottom to catch him. 

We had to get a new pool for this year and ended up getting a 20 footer.  We didn't realize how much bigger it was than our 15 footer of last year until we put it up.  It seems to be a heavier quality, so hopefully it will last  now, until the kids are gone. 

Zane is just a little fish.  He goes everywhere in that little life jacket of his.  Of course, it means he thinks he's safe in the water, so he really has to be watched in case he gets away from us.

Aaron is just crazy.  I got lucky and got him mid-jump.

Lynette was throwing him the ball to catch.  He missed.

My brother gets too carried away with fireworks and he gave what he couldn't use to Nathan.  I was NOT impressed.

Then Nathan and Lynette got the bright idea to make a slip-and-slide from tarps.  We have three 4x18' tarps staked out with tent stakes.

You may not think this is a very exciting photo, but to me it is.  Lynette and Nathan haven't cooperated on a project for years.

Zane was much more interested playing with the hose. 

It worked best if someone helped Zane slide. 

That's my boy!

and my girl!

and my other boy!

They really had a nice time, and they put everything away when they were done, too.  Every time.

The Canning Season Begins

Zucchini Relish

One of the best ways I like to use up zucchini is to make sweet relish.  Mine tastes more like bread and butter pickles.  We eat it all the time.  I usually never have to worry about it running out, but I cut it pretty fine this year and we used our last jar a couple weeks ago.  

Zucchini should never be let grow until baseball bat size.  It really isn't very useful.  If I do use those really big ones for relish or to grate and freeze for bread and cake, I cut out the middle where the seeds are.  It is too soft.  Even with the size I cut out a little of the middle since I had enough without. 

I use my second Osterizer to grind it up.  When my first one wore out, I bought a second one, the same style since I had so many accessories.  These are getting over 20 years old now. 

I forgot I don't want to peel it for relish. So I only peeled the first one. 

 Grind the zucchini to make 10 cups. 

I used the food processor to chop the onions, 4 cups.  If you grind the onion, wear goggles. 

Add 3 Tablespoons canning salt, stir and refrigerate over night.  In the morning, drain, and rinse very well. 

Grind a green and red pepper for color. (I used some frozen from last year, and I don't always use it. 

Add: 2 1/2 cups vinegar, 4 cups sugar, 1 teaspoon each dry mustard and tumeric, 2 teaspoons mustard seed, and 1/2 teaspoon black pepper. 

Bring to a boil and boil 3 minutes. 

Sterilize the lids in boiling water.  Fill jars to 1/4" from the top, wipe tops of jars, screw on lids tightly but don't force them, and process in hot water bath for 15 minutes. 

I notice Grandma Appleman's recipe says to just "seal" them which in the olden days meant to put the lids on, turn them upside done for a few minutes, and then let them sit after turning them right side up.  Most vegetables have less acid in them as they used to, thus the extended processing time.  Better safe than sorry, anyway. 

Pickled Beets

Have your husband pick as many beets as you want.

Wash beets leaving the tails intact and cut the stems to one inch.  By doing this you have less loss of color. 

Boil in big canner until you can poke a fork in. 

Dump them in cold water and just slip the skins off.

Cleaned and ready.

Chop into bite-sized pieces, (on the slightly bigger size.) 

Fill jars.

Make brine in these proportions:

1 cup water

1 cup vinegar

1 cup sugar

I made a four cup brine for 5 quarts and 2 pints and had a pint leftover.  I'll put it in the fridge and save for the next batch.  I have a few more to do.  

Pour in brine to 1/2" from the top.  Wash tops of jars and put on lids. Process 30 minutes in hot water bath canner. 

This was also my Grandma's recipe, too, I see. 

I also use this brine to put over chunked up cucumbers.  But I don't remember right off hand what I do for processing time. 

You may also notice that I don't use a hot water bath canner.  This is a steam canner that I bought about 20 years ago for $42 dollars.  It has been worth every penny.  There isn't as much danger of breaking jars in the canner, I don't have to deal with as much boiling water either. 

Those Good Old Days...

NOT!!

Any of you people that think they would like to go back to the good old days better think twice or three times.  At least in the part of automatic washers.  I actually remember my grandma washing clothes in her wringer washer.  Thought it was the neatest thing, too.  I wish I had one of those right now.  But, if it was broken like my nice 2 year old front loader is now, it wouldn't do me any good.  I wish I had anything right now that would wash clothes right in my house, besides me.

Now, I have been keeping up on my laundry, so we have clothes to wear for a few days, in any case.  I don't let everything get all dirty at once, since everyone has different amounts of underwear anyway and it wouldn't come out even.  That is all well and good, except in the case of needing to wash de-tasseling clothes every day no matter what.  Even if my 15 year old daughter had a spare set, it would mean needing to wash every OTHER day, and my washer broke Friday, after any possibility of calling a repairman, with the very muddy de-tasseling clothes and very muddy Jim's jeans in it, which means no way of washing for at least three days, and longer if parts have to be ordered.

When I went down to check on my machine that fateful afternoon, it was humming away with the electronic board off.  Hmmm, funny, so I opened the door and let a flood of VERY muddy water onto the laundry room floor.  (It didn't drain any water at all.) I had company, (just my dad, thank goodness), so, I screeched and hollered, and dropped towels, and yelled at Lynette to get her dad.  (Who decided he could finish the front yard mowing before he came in.-- It wasn't that bad, :)  He had one more round.) So, we drained the water out of through the external drain, mopped the floor, listened to the machine, and pronounced it "very sick, call the repairman on Monday".  Ugh, Lynette did find an extra set of clothes to wear de-tasseling, and in doing so, found these were cooler, and she doesn't want to wear anything else in these 100 degree days of walking in middy, humid cornfields.  So, I took a trip to the laundromat.  Do they even call them that anymore?  I haven't been in one for about 10 years. And they don't take money, they take tokens.  And you have to remember to bring your soap, and you have to read this whole thing on the front to figure out how to work it.  It took me longer to go to Walgreen's and buy the soap I forgot, haul the laundry into the building and read the instructions, than it did to wash the clothes!!. I tried not to think how I must look fumbling around the machines with about 20 college students in there, merrily chatting as they folded and sorted clothes. I got done however, with leftover tokens.No exact amounts here, you have to put dollars into the token machine, and the washers are not even dollars. It costs $1.75 to wash a load the size of three towels, and $2.75 to wash in the machine the approximates the size of a normal family washer.  Thankfully, I remembered in time that my dryer still worked at home.

That gets me all down to what happened this evening.  I was faced with a set of muddy clothes to wash with  no washer.  It's either scavenge up the money and go to the laundromat, or wash them out at home.  I didn't want to go anywhere.  It's hot out there; I'm too tired to drive; I will probably have to go tomorrow anyway.  I put those clothes into soapy water in the bathtub and started agitating them around with a wooden spoon.  It looked like I was making mud soup.  You should see the state of my bathtub!!  Then it is rinsing time.  It takes a lot of water to rinse out a pair of Zumba pants, a button down shirt, a tank top, shorts, underwear, and socks, until the water is reasonably clean, considering how dirty the things are going to get tomorrow.  Washing clothes by hand might be 'green' in the sense of not using electricity, but it sure isn't 'green' in how much water I used.  Now I know why the pioneers didn't have very many clothes.

The clothes are now tumbling in the dryer, ready to be worn and washed again tomorrow.  All you people out there with working automatic washing machines had better be REALLY thankful, that's all I can say.

Scarf for Cyndie

New post on my crafting site.

Going to Gramma's

We had Zane last weekend.  Mama and Daddy both had to work and Grammy from GI was gone, so we were the gainers thereby.  It is a good thing that I can do a lot more work without complaining than I used to, since he came at the end of a very busy week.  We had two meetings here, overnight company eight days in a row, and a two day Fourth of July celebration in there, too.  That means a lot of cooking and a little paying attention to what needs picking up. Thank goodness, most people around here are capable and willing to do a little picking up themselves.  (Or else, they don't leave things lying around, as in the case of my son.) 

Anyway, it sure is fun to have Zane around.  It's like we are making up for lost time.  The only chance we have of getting to know little kids again is with these grandchildren.  They don't live with us like our own did.  Sometimes they live far away.  Therefore, we need to make the most of every opportunity.  If we want to have any influence over this little boy's life, we have to start now.  Zane especially loves being with Papa.  Papa does do all sorts of interesting things, mostly involving dirt and things with wheels. I think sometimes we want to fix the mistakes we made with our own kids, but mostly I think we know now, how fleeting those years with young children are.  They don't stay young forever, and we won't be around forever.  The more love in anyone's life, giving and receiving, the better.  No one is ever sorry they have truly loved. (I suppose someone else wrote that first, but I don't know who it was.)

My nice, more ordered than ever, life is put on hold when he is there.  Toys are all over the kitchen and living room.  I know there is no use to put them away until bedtime; they will just come out again. It isn't so bad.  No toys, no grandson.  So, I took a couple of pictures of what the house looks like when there are kids in it. 

Of course, it doesn't look too bad.  I wouldn't take pictures of what it was really like.  And I notice, that some of the stuff ISN'T toys.  I should look up a photo of what it was like when my kids were going strong.  Zane isn't here long enough or have anyone to help make a REAL mess. 

And, oh, does he love his trains. 

Here's a good one.  They made huge messes when they played but they sure had fun.  

January 1996--Lorene would be 4; Nathan, 2, and Lynette a babe in arms, and not helping with THIS mess.  

We love all our time with Zane, and then we he goes home and tells his folks, "I miss Maury and Papa"---well, it's all worthwhile.

Lynette Lea

And Other Things That Happened in June.

Actually the piano recital happened in May.  This is Lynette's first one ever.  She is doing really well in piano.  She likes it, all except the practicing. 

Did you know you can't buy skirts that are just below knee length? If you don't you must not have girls, or you don't care if they wear dresses 5 inches above their knees.  I happen to care and it takes a lot of extra time to find skirts that are long enough, or can be made long enough by letting down the hem or adding more fabric.  This skirt adapted very well to adding on.

I sewed a 1 1/2" strip to the bottom after taking the hem out. (doubled over so no new hemming.)

Pressed, but shows on the right side, it looks too much like an "add-on".

Trims were 50 % off at Hobby Lobby that week, so I pinned it on ready to sew on by hand as soon as I saw Lynette.  ( I was doing this while she was gone)

Now, she is getting all dressed up.  It took me 45 minutes to make these braided hair flowers, partly because I messed up the first time. We got the idea from a cool hair blog. 

Here's the completed outfit, with hair done and longer skirt. 

Lynette has been busy with other things, like making baby shower invitations.  She found the idea from some place where these could be ordered, but with punches and glue and a lot of patience she did 45 of them herself!!

VERY CUTE!!

My brother's family decided that Nebraska couldn't offer them what they needed anymore, namely jobs.  So, they packed up and moved to Oregon.  We visited them at my folks the weekend before they left.  We will miss them, a lot. 

I love it when Zane comes to visit.  Lorene and family stayed over night the week before these photos were taken, and since Jim and I went to bed before everyone else, Zane had to check in our room to make sure we really had.

So, THIS time when they came and we were ready to go to bed, Zane knew where we were and came right on in.  He's a bed hog and got all snuggled up in MY spot ready to read a book.  Just like Maury does, (according to Zane.)

It's Isn't the Place We Live That Makes it Home

My daughter and her family live in an apartment made of two tiny motel rooms.  In that little space they call home right now, live two parents, a two year old and a cat. A new baby is coming in Sept. The walls are crowded with the boxes and shelves that need to hold the stuff of daily living.  The kitchen's only cupboard is above the single sink.  The stove is a scary looking gas affair stuck off in what used to be a shower stall, and is blocked off from cats and kids. So, the only cooking is done with the microwave that sits on a little cupboard next to the fridge and makes the narrow space even narrower.  The bedroom is almost filled with the queen bed and toddler bed, with boxes to hold clothes and blankets.

I can't write about what it is like to live in a place like that, because it isn't my life.  I wish Lorene would because it would be interesting.  She's not a writer, and she just lives her life; she doesn't feel compelled to document it. (not like me)

So, here we come to visit. She's sitting on the front step with Zane in the pool that's on the little patch of weedy dirt between the building and the road.  It looks like the old stories I used to read about people living in the middle of New York City with NOTHING.  No space, no money, no nothing, making do with what little they have and being happy or not happy as they decide.  Just a cement stoop, broken siding, no grass, no light cover, peeling paint, odors coming through the heating vent, ugly carpet, ugly paint, old fixtures. 

The gravel drive is full of big holes that collect water when it rains, and it's been raining, a lot.

It isn't the best place and I don't think anyone would want to live there forever, but Zane doesn't care, and they make the best of it.  It is a place to be together.  And they are happy.



These photos are from a nice little "grilling hamburgers for supper" party they had with both sides of the family.

Even if you don't live in a very big place you can still have company and enjoy them.