Chickadee Garden

Goodbye Blossoms, it was nice to know you

2012-02-10T12:25:00.000-06:00

The tulip magnolia outside my kitchen window. The unseasonably warm weather of the past couple of weeks has prompted the tree to break bud. See that pink? The blossom to come -- only it won't. Not this year. Tonight the temperature is supposed to drop down to 22 degrees, tomorrow night down to 15 or even lower. When the buds are that far along, they will freeze, turn black and fall off.

The hellebores (lenten roses) are in full bloom. I think they may be fine -- I know they grow these up north with no problem. We have more of a problem keeping them on life support through our hot humid, yet drought-like, summers.

Some of the daffodils in my front yard, along the front walk. I've picked some to bring in. They may be ok through the cold. They are tough troopers. They'll lie down through the freeze, but perhaps will perk back up once it warms up more next week.

More daffodils along my side border (near the tulip magnolia). they are between the driveway and the house, so perhaps the residual heat of brick and asphalt may help them. At least a cold snap in February will not last as long as one in January -- just a few days, not a week or more. And our ground temperature is probably relatively warm, since we have not had an sustained sub-freezing cold yet this winter.

But, farewell magnolia blossoms. Better luck next year.

Eggs Again!

2012-02-07T19:18:00.001-06:00

Pomegranite

I am so happy my girls have started laying again! I have had a little flock of 4-6 ameracaunas for the past 6 years. I only have 3 left now, 2 of whom are six years old and one being two years old. Egg laying is somewhat seasonal, being related to hours of daylight. Although my chickens used to lay year round when they were younger, the number of eggs would decrease during the dark of the winter. As the chickens have aged, their laying has decreased even during the summer (when they were young I would get 30+ eggs a week from 4 hens, this past summer I got around 15 a week at peak laying from the 4 old hens).

Gwynno and Esther

This past fall they started molting in November and quit laying altogether, but two weeks ago they started back up -- not many, but it's nice to have my own fresh eggs again.

You can't tell in the photo very well, but my eggs are blue and green. One of our projects this spring will be to rebuild the coop and fence off an area for the chickens so they don't rampage over the whole back yard. And hopefully I'll be able to find a couple of pullets to add to the flock. I really don't want to start with chicks again, as they are a bit of work and we go on vacation right in the middle of prime chick time.

Linking to Masterpiece Monday

Salad Table

2012-02-05T13:40:00.004-06:00

My husband built me a salad table for Christmas. It is essentially a shallow planting box (4 inch depth) on legs that could theoretically be moved to different areas of the yard -- a warm sunny location in the winter and early spring, a shady location in the heat of the summer. It is specifically for growing shallow rooted salad greens, like lettuce, radishes, pak choi, etc., giving them the optimal conditions they need and letting them run their course through the spring and summer, while freeing up space in the garden proper for the summer vegetables, like tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and cukes.

I purchased a "garden quilt" (row cover fabric) from Gardener's Supply that is supposed to protect down to 25 degrees. So with this in mind, I went on and planted the salad table a good 4 or 5 weeks earlier than I would dream of planting in the open garden. Although we have very pleasant, moderate temperatures in February and March, our last frost date isn't until April 15, and we actually get our biggest snow (ok, don't laugh -- I'm talking 1 to 6 inches, but still . . .) and ice storms in February and even March. Even without snow or ice, our temps can be in the 70's one day and plunge down below freezing the next. So it takes a while for the soil in the garden proper to warm sufficiently to germinate and sustain seedlings.

We placed the salad table on the south side of the house, by our big kitchen window. I have the seeds planted and tucked in under their blankie (which, garden cat Ophelia thinks makes a nice little bed for her, too :-( -- I may have to rig up some anti-kitty pokey things). It gives her a nice view of the bird feeders, as well as comings and goings in the kitchen and on the street. Our other cat, Belle, prefers the view from the window sill inside.

I believe the garden quilt can serve as a shade cloth also when things really heat up. I am finding that shade cloth is an important key to growing salad greens through the summer here in the Memphis area.

Linking to Show off Your Cottage Monday; Masterpiece Monday; Home and Garden Thursday; Farmgirl Friday

Early Memphis History

2012-02-03T16:39:00.000-06:00

I am writing this post in order to have a spot where I can find all this info that I have collected over the years in one spot, and not have to retrace my steps all over the place.

The internet is really useful in researching little tidbits of history that one runs into here and there. Memphis has so many stories that most people don't know much about. Hundreds of years ago, long before the Spanish and French explorers, there was a thriving city of the Mound-builders. They had trade routes that extended as far as the South West and into Mexico. DeSoto passed through on his exploration of the Mississippi River, and the French had a trading fort here in the 1700's.

In the early 1800's Andrew Jackson, Isaac Winchester, and John Overton came out from Nashville and laid out the plans for the city of Memphis, to be named for the great Egyptian city on the Nile. The city was established in 1819. After the Civil War the city was one of the fastest growing cities in the nation, and wealthy, too. Memphis had a Mardi Gras tradition second only to New Orleans. One Mardi Gras, the large fountain at Court Square (which still is there) was filled with champaign.

By the 1870's about half the population were newcomers from the country and immigrants from Europe. But a series of yellow fever epidemics in the late 1870's-1880's decimated the population. In the epidemics about half the population died, and of the remaining half, half of them were sick. Hardest hit were the European immigrants, which gave Memphis a long-standing reputation of being unhealthy and a bad place to live. From that point, most of Memphis's growth came from migration from the surrounding rural areas, and the primary story of Memphis became one of black and white.

There are a couple of very interesting stories from the early days of Memphis that were seldom (or ever) mentioned when I was growing up. Only in the past 10 or 15 years have there been any newspaper articles or other write ups of these matters: the story of Frances Wright and Nashoba, and the story of the story of the first mayor of Memphis, and his wife.

This is a picture of Frances Wright (Fanny, as she was known), who founded the intentional community of Nashoba Plantation in what is now Germantown, Tennessee, based on the principles of racial and sexual equality. It lasted from 1825 through about 1830 (longer than the more well known New Harmony Community founded by Robert Owen, which inspired her), when the remaining inhabitants were resettled in the independent Black republic of Haiti. Fanny Wright's grand idea was to eliminate slavery by purchasing slaves, having them learn self supporting skills at Nashoba, working and earning money to finance the purchase of more slaves, freeing them, and repatriating them to Haiti and Liberia. She also advocated full equality of men and women and free universal public education. Fanny was a prolific writer, her works being read and commented on by Thomas Jefferson and later by Walt Whitman. She was a good friend of General Lafayette, accompanying him on his trip to the U.S. to visit Thomas Jefferson. Fanny herself had left Nashoba after falling ill with Malaria.

Now, when I was growing up, although there was a historic marker way north in the county that stated succinctly something about the existence of the "Nashoba Commune, which was a failure", there were no displays of artifacts, no archeological digs (the house itself burned in the 1970's, having been rental property for years and years with no indication or designation as to its history), and no reference to it any school class that I was in. During the past 10 years I have seen a little bit more written about it, as there was an effort to get a historic marker for placement in Germantown (the existing marker is not on the site at all), which was denied by the state of Tennessee supposedly because of the marker in the north part of the county. From the time of Nashoba Plantation, up through my childhood, Fanny Wright was vilified as advocating "free love" and "race mixing".

This is a sketch of Nashoba Plantation from Frances Trollope's book "Domestic Manners of the Americans", published in 1832. Tollope was a good friend of Wright's, and visited and stayed with her in Nashoba in 1827 while she was traveling in the United States.

In the research to obtain the elusive historic marker, there was the tantalizing comment that Frances Wright was pretty much ostracized by the Memphis gentry (such as it was), except for the wife of Mayor Winchester, who was her only friend. Marcus Winchester had sold Fanny some of the land that would become Nashoba. I embarked on an internet search to try to find out more about the wife of Marcus Brutus Winchester, Fanny Wright's only friend in Memphis, who would ride out 15 miles in the country to visit. I remembered an article I had read in our local bar association newsletter some years ago that made reference to Marcus Winchester bringing home a wife from New Orleans, who was shunned by Memphis society and I started from there.

Marcus was the son of Isaac Winchester, one of the "founders" of Memphis. Previous to the Memphis land deal with Andrew Jackson and John Overton, Isaac had already been involved in laying out and establishing the city of Cairo, Illinois. Isaac actually named the city Ca Ira -- for the rallying cry of the French Revolution, but it was later morphed into "Cairo". Isaac was not only a supporter of the French Revolution, but he also named his children after populist heroes: the siblings of Marcus Brutus Winchester included Brutus, Selina, Lucilius, Almire, Napoleon, and Valerius Publicola.

Marcus Winchester

Marcus Brutus Winchester took over Isaac's business and real estate interests in the Memphis area and was a wealthy and respected merchant. In 1823 he made a trip down to New Orleans and returned to Memphis with a wife: Marie Louise Amirante Loiselle, sometimes referred to as "Mary". Memphis society was shocked. Not because she was French, but because she was a "woman of color". Interracial marriages had only just been made illegal in Memphis in 1822. It is said that he met Marie Loiselle while on a business trip to St. Louis, where she was the beautiful daughter of a "mullatto" fur trader. She had been educated in France and was well read, fluent in French, and of impeccable deportment. They fell in love and returned by riverboat -- going down to New Orleans for the marriage ceremony. Winchester was elected as the first mayor of Memphis, serving one term from 1827 to 1829, ultimately becoming less popular because of his and his wife's association with Nashoba Plantation and Frances Wright. Frances' sister Camille had a house in town, next door to that of the Winchesters. The Winchesters' house stood about where the Pyramid (soon to be a Bass Pro Shop)now stands in downtown Memphis, overlooking the river.

Marcus served as Post Master for Memphis for many years, but ultimately in 1837 the city of Memphis passed an ordinance prohibiting "the keeping of colored wives within the city limits". The Winchester family then moved to a tract of land outside the city limits known as Muskogee Camp. Marie died two years later in 1839. Marcus and Marie had 8 children: Laura, Robert (named after New Harmony Utopian community founder Robert Dale Owen), Frances (named after Nashoba founder Frances Wright), Louis, Selima, Loiselle, Valeria, and Lisia. The Memphis 1830 census lists the Winchester children as "non-white". By the 1840 census, after Marie's death and after Marcus remarried, the Winchester offspring are listed as "white", and apparently successfully crossed the "color line".

Many descendants of Marcus and Marie Winchester still live in the Memphis area, some quite prominent, including Memphis City Council Member Bill Boyd, and attorney Lee Winchester. I read comments by some descendants that say they were told growing up, that Marie Winchester was Native American, never Black. I remember research being done when I was an Anthropology student and on into Law School, indicating it was statistically unlikely for all of the "white" people claiming Native American heritage in the south in the 1960's-90's to in fact be descended from Native Americans, because the population was just not here. That in fact, in many cases Black heritage was far more likely (given the population numbers) and had probably been euphamized in to Native heritage, which in the south was far more acceptable to the white community in the 60's-90's than black heritage. This is born out by my personal experience as an adoption attorney and dealing with white birth mothers in the 1980's, also noticed and commented on by area adoption social workers, where the white birth mothers of biracial children would allege that the birth father of the child they wanted to place was Hispanic, never African American, despite the fact that the Hispanic population of Memphis in the 1970's, '80's, and 90's was minuscule.

Sources: "Notable Black Memphians", Miriam DeCosta-Willis, 2008; "Memphis in Black and White", Beverly Bord, 2003; "Hellhound on His Tail", Hampton Sides, 2010; Commercial Appeal May 26, 2009; "American Plague", Molly Crosby, 2007; "Marcus and Davy", Memphis Daily News May 13, 2011; Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture; www.memphishistory.net; memphishistory.com; findagrave.com; ancestry.com

February Calendar

2012-02-02T15:41:00.001-06:00

I am participating in the 366 Calendar Challenge on Kate Crane's The Katherine Wheel. I prepared my February pages over the course of the past week.

I chose a Chinese theme because 1. I'm just not that fond of Valentine's Day; 2. I tend to think of Chinese New Year in February (although I know it was in late January this year); and 3. I had a Chinese newspaper I had brought home from our monthly Altered Book Club the other month, as well as some other Chinese themed bits and pieces -- a postcard from the Memphis Kadampa Study Group, some panels from a tea box, some asian themed napkins or tissue somethings or another.

left side

right side

Here are my January pages all filled in.

I am not by nature much of a journaler, so I wondered if I could sustain this for a month -- but I found it to be no problem at all. In fact, I enjoyed each evening reflecting on ONE thing that made the day special or significant (or even ordinary): missing Borders when I go to Barnes and Noble; an exceptionally windy day -- or an exceptionally warm day (72 degrees in January? really?; a bluebird couple at my feeders one morning. I enjoy the "compactness" of this project. It reminds me of making inchies (little one inch by one inch collages or art).

linked also to Sunday Showcase

January Garden

2012-02-01T11:08:00.000-06:00

Here are some shots of things in and from my vegetable garden, growing in January! With a bit more foresight, a bit more planning, and a bit more mindfulness and care during the ups and downs of the temperatures during a mid south winter, I think I could have loads of fresh parsley, chard, kale, broccoli, beets, carrots, and lettuce, not to mention sprouts grown inside of course.

sorrel

The problem with growing a garden through the winter here is twofold. First, plants put on growth not just as a response to warm temperatures, but also as a response to day length -- hours of daylight. So having a good winter garden depends on planting the seeds or setting out plants at a time when they can still get enough day length to put on good growth before the day length decreases to the point where the plants just mark time until the days start lengthening again. Here in the mid south, that means planting the fall garden in September, when our daytime temperatures are often in the upper 90's, sometimes even triple digits! Those are pretty brutal conditions for a baby seed or plant to contend with, especially ones that do best in the cooler temperatures of spring in fall -- which are exactly the ones that need to be planted at that inopportune time.

stir fry greens

parsley

blueberries in bud

strawberry bed

Here was my harvest this last week of January.

I think a nice light stir fry will be on the menu tonight.

True Confessions

2012-01-30T20:26:00.000-06:00

Yes, it's time to fess up. A few weird things known only by a few of my closest friends. Maybe not even them.

#1. Last night I made baked beans with hot dogs and bacon. I make this probably once a month or so. Usually whenever we have some leftover baked beans from getting barbecue from our local 'cue shop, The Commissary, I make this. But I've also been known to open some cans of baked beans and take it from there.

I add a bunch of stuff to the beans (whether they are from The Commissary or the pantry). Onions, peppers, ketchup, mustard, molasses, barbecue sauce, chipotle raspberry sauce, brown sugar, anything and everything. Plunk those dogs on top, cover (or wrap) with slices of mostly cooked bacon, sprinkle more brown sugar on top and stick in the 375 degree oven for 40 minutes or so. A casserole of salty sweet bubbly goodness. This was my favorite dinner when I was little. The addition of blueberry muffins on the side made this a special birthday dinner when I was growing up. A kid's dream dinner. But my youngest is now 14. And the funny thing is, my kids have never really liked it. And can you get more politically incorrect than liking hot dogs AND bacon?

#2. Last summer when our neighbors across the street got ready to move to Pennsylvania and had to clean out their freezer to sell it, they offered us all of the venison and duck that was filling their freezer. Well, I had to say yes to free food! So now I have venison and duck in my freezer. Where they have been since July. I have no idea how to cook venison and duck. I can't tell what cuts they are until they are thawed. They aren't labeled (except with the names and addresses of the various hunters who gave this bounty to our neighbor, who was a pastor). It's all too overwhelming. The few attempts I have made to deal with this have ended in failure. I have found that you cannot simply use any old duck recipe to cook WILD duck. But yet I can't get rid of this stuff. Instead, as I dive into the freezer in search of chicken, ground beef, frozen malabar spinach, blueberries, green beans, etc., the ducks sit in the way, occasionally falling out in front of me, but always reproaching my failure to embrace this opportunity. Well, I have the 2 remaining whole ducks out and in the stock pot as I speak, with "wild duck gumbo" on the menu for tonight. Which will hopefully be better than my last attempt at the ducks, wherein I attempted to roast them and found out NEVER EVER roast a wild duck.

trusty red stock pot

ducks in the stock pot

cooked ducks to wrestle the meat off of

the duck meat

beginnings of wild duck gumbo

Forgot to take a picture of the finished gumbo. It was pretty good. I added the duck stock back in to the roux, onions, peppers, celery and smoked sausage you see - the stock and ducks had been cooked with garlic, onion, celery, pepper, thyme, worcester sauce,and salt. Also added in some sliced okra from the freezer, as well as the duck meat. Served it in bowls with a big scoop of brown basmati rice in the center. It was actually pretty good for dinner, and we'll have some for lunch tomorrow and some for the freezer.

#3. Also freezer related. But I will spare you pictures. I do believe a family's deepest darkest secrets may be discerned from the contents of their freezer (or at least insight into things one has difficulty with processing -- both physically and conceptually). I have a placenta in the freezer. When we had our now 14 year old at home, with good friends and midwife in attendance, I knew the house we were in was not our "forever" house and that we would likely move. Which we did within six months. So rather than plant the placenta in the garden, we kept it in the freezer to await planting in our dream acreage. Which of course we never got. We moved from one suburban subdivision to our current one -- and our yard was extremely dreary when we first moved here. It just didn't seem right to plant the placenta in a garden that I didn't intend to have the rest of my days, so in the freezer it stayed. And here it is 14 years later. With no particular plans or prospects to move (although I still hope to end up near a beach at some point). And I've kind of lost interest in the placenta (it seemed so IMPORTANT 14 years ago!), but it doesn't seem right or respectful to chunk it in the garbage. What to do what to do.

I know I'm not the only one with a placenta in the freezer, because the same neighbors who gave us the duck in their freezer also accidentally gave us the wife's placenta from her home birth a few years earlier. I returned it to them. I sure don't need two placentas in my freezer.

And that's it for this edition of "True Confessions".

The Land is Waking

2012-01-29T16:55:00.003-06:00

The Land is beginning to wake here. Our temperatures are up and down, in the upper 20's some nights, but rising to near 70 degrees several days later, rain every 3 or 4 days. In our dining room I have a plate that holds some small bud vases with twigs cut from the forsythia and pussy willow in the yard.

We will have daffodils in bloom this week I think.

Likewise, the hellebores (so close to the ground they are easy to miss).

Perennials beginning to wake up. This is the giant coneflower, that will ultimately be 7 or 8 feet tall.

Self seeded hollyhocks!

Back in the house -- success in bringing the Christmas Cactus back in to bloom.

And my 25 cent "rescue" African Violet from Lowe's last winter seems to enjoy our south facing kitchen window also.

Yes, I can definitely feel it. The pulsating life force oozing from the Land.

Linking to Cielo's House in the Roses , Boogie Board Cottage, Home and Garden Thursday

It's raining outside so the fairies came in . . .

2012-01-26T15:00:00.001-06:00

We are having a couple of very wet, sloppy days outside, but spring is hovering just beneath the earth's surface and even bursting through in a few spots. I noticed our resident fairies must have woken up and come inside to escape the rain. I found them playing in the dining room.

Linked to A Delightsome Life Home and Garden Party , Show Off Your Cottage Monday, and Masterpiece Monday

Possumhaw

2012-01-16T14:48:00.000-06:00

Remember that fabulous full moon last week? The Wolf Moon -- or in the Choctaw/Chickasaw languages of the Mississippi River valley lands -- Neshoba Moon (Neshoba or Nashoba meaning "wolf"). It was so incredibly bright, shining through the January bare branches of the trees in our front yard. If you saw the moon last week, you know this picture doesn't begin to do it justice. See the tree with the red berries on the left? That is my favorite tree in the winter time -- a possum haw, they call it here.

Ilex decidua. A deciduous holly. Haw is an old-timey word for fruit, so I guess possums may be fond of it.

I love how the red berries stand out against the bark and the green of the pines and cedars.

It's especially striking when there is snow. I bought this tree at a native plant sale and planted it when it was a 24 inch baby. Over the years I worried that it might need a pollinator (like many hollies) or that I had bought a male tree (did you know that some tree species have separate male and female trees? Hollies, and Gingkos), because it did not set any fruit for many years. This year is the heaviest berry set I have had on it.

I've noticed this winter that the trees and shrubs have held on to their berries very late in the season. Usually by mid January the birds, squirrels, raccoons and possums have left the branches very bare. I haven't had as many birds at my feeders this winter either. I wonder if it is due to our cats (although there have always been cats in the neighborhood, and this is the third winter Ophelia and Belle have lived at our house). Santa brought the cats very elegant sparkly collars with bells this Christmas, but the collar was seriously irritating Ophelia's throat so we removed hers.

Another haiku

2012-01-12T16:50:00.000-06:00

Sharp pellets of snow,
Whipping wind to make you cry.
Dog, must we go out?

okay, I guess it's really sleet if it's pellets and makes noise. But here in the south, if it's frozen and not rain and looks white we call it snow.

It is really cold!

And really windy!

And I really don't want to take the dog on a walk (but I will).

a haiku for today

2012-01-11T16:55:00.001-06:00

Walk in cold drizzle,
Browns and grays. Mist stings my face!
Drops cling to berries.

linking to Home and Garden Thursday

366 Calendar Challenge

2012-01-07T16:43:00.001-06:00

So, I figure I can do with a challenge. I decided to join in the 366 Challenge over at The Kathryn Wheel . Each month you make a calendar page for that month, with little blanks to write, draw, doodle, or whatever in each day with whatever is important for that day. I think it will be a fun way to keep track of the little things in the year, like yesterday's 69 degree high on a beautifully sunny day and today's afternoon at the fencing tournament that our 18 yr old participated in.

I think I can do 11 more as each month comes.

linking also to Masterpiece Monday

January Harvest

2012-01-05T12:13:00.000-06:00

A small harvest for January -- for beef stir fry with the last of the Christmas prime rib that I had tucked into the freezer, augmented with some additional broccoli from Costco's.

late Christmas ornament post

2012-01-03T14:50:00.000-06:00

Life got in the way of making timely posts in December (as well it should! so I make no apology). In between finishing up a bit of homeschooling, decorating, cooking, Christmas shopping, crafting, posting reminders of homeschool activities/field trips to our Unschoolers of Memphis yahoo group and Homeschoolers of Memphis Eclectic Message Board, taking the girls to see the Tennessee Shakespeare Company Southern Yuletide performance of The Gift of the Magi and Other Christmas Readings, to see A Christmas Carol at Theater Memphis, on a backstage tour of The Orpheum Theater in downtown Memphis, along with walking through The Peabody Hotel, seeing the Peabody ducks (that swim in the indoor fountain), lunch at The Little Tea Shop on Monroe (a Memphis lunch tradition, where prices remain reasonable, corn sticks rule, 40+ years of customers' drawings decorate the walls, and local lawyers and judges have "their" tables where their sweet tea is waiting for them when they get out of court), a trip to Memphis City Hall to straighten out a pension issue of my mother's (where my mild-mannered 18 year old fencing daughter said "oops, I have 2 knives in my purse" and about got cited for carrying an illegal knife -- illegal in that it was over 4 inches long!!?? -- in to City Hall -- I guess that's one of those homeschooler learning gaps: the girls aren't terribly cognizant of security checks) -- well all of that just didn't leave a lot of time for uploading pictures and composing coherent posts. So, after that summary of our busy December, here are some pics of the ornaments I made this year.

And thus concludes the Christmas Season of 2011. So many treats left unmade, so many activities left undone . . . .

New Year's Dinner

2012-01-02T19:18:00.001-06:00

Dinner for New Year's Day -- less bound to family tradition than Thanksgiving or Christmas dinners, but an opportunity to delve into cultural heritage cooking -- more "roots" or folk cuisine. I like to immerse myself in the folk essence of a place -- what makes THIS place unique or interesting. Food is one of those pathways into the essence of place. Here in the south the New Year tradition involves pork (a favored meat of farming cultures through most of the world), blackeyed peas, rice, and greens. But the way these elements can be prepared and varied and mixed up is infinite. It's a very fine line between Hoppin' John, Jambalaya, Jump-up Rice, Jolof Rice (there even appears to be a visual linguistic connection between the names). So I pull out several cookbooks to concoct my own version. These are three that I used: Desperation Dinners (the name says it all -- quick get to the point easy to use recipes, and it has one for an easy Jambalaya); Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home (great vegetarian cookbook, every recipe a winner, and it has a recipe for blackeye peas called Cajun Skillet Beans; and Kwanzaa, An African-American Celebration of Culture and Cooking, which is full of wonderful recipes of the African Diaspora lands.

So I take elements from several recipes, using both blackeye peas and dried purple hull peas from the garden, peppers and tomatoes frozen from summer harvest, lots of herbs both fresh and dried, along with onions, celery, some shrimp and some smoked sausage.

Some greens (I think it is some malabar spinach and some swiss chard) from the freezer, cooked kind of low and slow with some onion, garlic, a bit of hot sauce to finish off and a chopped hard boiled egg on top.

Plated up with the rice to catch the juices, a salad with orange slices and pomegranate and a home made roll. Yeah, it was pretty tasty.

The Great Quarter Experiment

2012-01-01T16:14:00.000-06:00

Sometime back before the beginning of 2011 I read something somewhere about someone (hmm, this may be where pinterest comes in kind of handy) who saved every quarter that came into her possession as change for a full year. At the end of the year she had over $700.00 saved. Sounded good to me, although I suspected one actually had to spend a lot of money to garner $700 in quarters in change.

I was curious as to how we would do on such an endeavor -- modified of course to accommodate our thrifty (cheap?) lifestyle, since we don't have spending situations that generate change every day. So, every week this year on each Sunday we dumped any quarters we had as change into a large jar.

Now, on New Year Day 2012 we have tallied the results: $71.00

After an initial let down that it wasn't $700, or even $100, I thought this was pretty cool -- I didn't have to "work" at it at all. I didn't have to deprive myself of anything, did not even consciously try to "save" quarters through the week -- if there were quarters at the end of the week, they went in the jar, if not -- no biggie. I started wondering how much money we would have had to have on deposit for one year (like a CD or Money Market) to earn $71 at the current interest rates offered -- about $25,000!! So not too bad, considering we "earned" that "interest" on money spent on groceries, occasionally eating out, magazine purchases, trips to Target, Hobby Lobby, etc.

Linking to Masterpiece Monday at Boogieboard Cottage

The Littlies Came Today

2011-12-26T18:45:00.000-06:00

We had Christmas again today when our oldest was able to come out with our two grandchildren.

Aydan after he looked in his Christmas stocking and opened 80 piece wooden train and tack set. He lo-o-o-ves trucks and cars and trains and anything with wheels.

And Ari looks pretty happy with her goodies, too. So does her mom.

I think they like having their pictures taken.

Looking for more, under the tree.

Our daughter wanted a picture of all three of them by the tree. We had a fun and fairly relaxed afternoon before driving them back to their home (in a not very good part of town) before it got too dark.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-24T14:35:00.000-06:00

Merry Christmas to all! Tonight we go to the Christmas Eve potluck/open house at my youngest sister's, joined by her husband's parents and siblings and their families, as well as my parents and other sister, her husband and their grown daughter who lives in London. My 18 year old will be going to a party with her boyfriend, who is here on Christmas break from attending college in Pennsylvania. Then tomorrow night we have the big Christmas Day dinner here at our house, with my parents along with the visiting sister, her husband and daughter, our 14 and 18 year olds, and the boyfriend. Monday, our oldest daughter will make it out here with the two grandchildren (4 and 2), and we will have a mid-day festive meal of some sort and the little people will see what Santa left for them here.

The 18 year old has already departed with the boyfriend and his family. The 14 year old is with my visiting sister, her husband and their daughter, along with my youngest sister's 8 year old daughter (yes, it's true -- my mother had only sisters, 2, I had only sisters, 3, I have only girls, 4, and both of my sisters with children only have girls -- our 4 yr old grandson is the only boy in the family aside from spouses!) riding the trolleys downtown, checking out the ducks in the fountain at the Peabody along with the decorations, and seeing Sun Studio if it's open. I guess since niece Katie took up residence in London, she's decided she needs to see Sun Studio.

This will be the first year our #2 daughter has not been here for Christmas, since she moved to Austin last summer and came here at Thanksgiving to move the rest of her stuff. I'm sure there will be many changes to our Christmas routine in the coming years as the girls get older and even move away and as we juggle multiple holiday events with other families and schedules. With the aging of my parents, the venue of the main holiday dinner and present opening has shifted from their house to ours.

In the meantime, the roast is (hopefully) thawed, the stockings are ready to be stuffed, the presents are wrapped, the significant portions of the house are reasonably cleaned, and following my KISS program of holiday coping I have a box of crackers, a sliced brie log, and a jar of spicy tomato jam from my pantry for the potluck tonight, so I am relaxing with a cup of chai (maybe I'll have two!), and reading some mags the rest of the afternoon. Merry Christmas to all.

Peaceful Evenings

2011-12-18T20:15:00.001-06:00

I don't care for a lot of busy-ness, especially at night, and most especially during the winter and holiday season. Above you see my idea of a pleasant winter evening's occupation indeed! A visit to the village of Cranford, with a cup of decaf coconut chai tea in a proper cup with saucer.

Almost as relaxing, is the cd I have playing while I do this post: Sting's "If on a Winter Night".

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Christmas Dining Room

2011-12-12T11:50:00.001-06:00

The Dining Room is the first room we always decorate for Christmas, because the Dining Room tree is the one on which we hang the small wooden and felt ornaments from the Advent Calendar given to us by my parents when our oldest was quite young. The box itself is cardboard, but it has held up fairly well over the past 20+ years.

This tree has ornaments that are either home-made or evoke the natural world, in either their nature (apples) or their material (natural fibers, bark, wood, etc).

It has no lights, other than 4 tiny candles (one for each child) that fit in candle holders that clip on the trees. I'd love to get some small LED candles to put on the tree, but I have yet to find any. You can see one of the candles in the picture above.

One year I saved egg shell halves, spray painted the white ones gold (kept the blue and green shells from my chickens natural), hot glued some ribbon around the shell half and filled with tiny dried roses from my garden and tiny berries and pinecones from Hobby Lobby. I gave sets as gifts, but saved a few for myself.

There's an ornament made from old silk ties and rickrack that covers the pinheads where the pins secure the ties to styrofoam ball, and a picture of my oldest when she was 4 yrs old at a "trike-a-thon", holding Abba, her stuffed yellow bear that she kept until she left home.

We even put on the natural wooden baby rattle that my two youngest played with when they were babies.

The paper bird was part of a set of 12 that I made that hung from a mobile for many years, long since dismantled and now the birds hang on the tree, alongside colored and glittered butterflies glued on to sticks that the girls made in years past, and sand dollars picked up on trips to the beach (very rare to find whole ones where we go).

This was a little wooden box with three compartments that some snowflake gift toppers came in, that I covered with paper, some chipboard letters and glitter.

A quilt that my husband's grandmother made probably some time between 1920 and 1950 serves as a tree skirt. The girls used to love to play with the woodland animals below which only came out at Christmas.

Home-made Christmas cones hang from the chandelier, along with felt elves. When the girls were young the cones held treats for New Year's Day. You can glimpse the Christmas Village on the buffet.

Why are there no pictures of the dining room table? Because it's covered house refinance papers, boxes for lights, miscellaneous garland, some mail, a hat and scarf, and other things that desperately need to be put away or otherwise dealt with.

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Christmas Kitchen

2011-12-10T11:57:00.001-06:00

We have a ridiculous accumulation of Christmas stuff -- boxes and boxes -- one whole box for the kitchen alone.

Snowglobes accumulated over the years and displayed on our big kitchen window.

Even cheapo-plastic-y kind -- they're really the best kind, received by the girls from friends and old scout troops and various Christmas events. The one on the right is the kind where you can insert a photo, but my now 18 yr old had a real thing for Rudolph when she was young and drew a Rudolph for it when she was 5 or 6. She was such a tender heart for Rudolph, sobbing at the cartoon "Why are they all so mean to him? I'll be your friend, Rudolph!".

We have 3 big picture size windows in the kitchen, and we tape all the construction paper stockings and trees and what-not that the girls made over the years to them. You can see another Rudolph drawing by Hannah, and some construction paper stockings by Loren (now 24), mostly from her girl scout Daisy and Brownie days. She went through scouts all the way through Cadets, but dropped when the meetings and activities began to conflict with her increasing soccer activities.

I've got 4 of these vintage winking Santa mugs -- they belonged to my husband's family and now sit on a shelf by the window at Christmas.

I have this candy garland strung around the kitchen peninsula, with some candy ornaments.

An overview looking over the peninsula towards the table.

Even the Sweepings are Magical

2011-12-08T15:14:00.000-06:00

If I was a better photographer, and perhaps had a better camera, or knew how to enhance a picture with the IPhoto tools, then you could see what I see: even the sweepings are more magical in December. Amongst the dog and cat hair, the dust and detritus of daily living, there are sparkles and glistenings -- bits of tinsel and glitter and leaves shed from the Christmas Tree (artificial though it is, it still sheds, and all decorated with 36 years of accumulated ornaments, glows with as much spirit as any tree from a tree lot would, imo).

We woke up yesterday to some unexpected snow accumulation. Snow (which we define as "not rain" falling from the sky) is pretty rare here in December. Most of our snow, which means usually one or two snowfalls, often with little or no accumulation, happens in January and February. Every few years we might get a snow that leaves inches on the ground. December is most often in the 50's and 60's, with lows in the 40's or maybe 30's, and pretty rainy. Prior to this snow on Wednesday it had been raining since Saturday night. Today it's finally clear and sunny (but cold!).

The snow is all gone now.

Homeschool Shakespeare

2011-12-06T19:20:00.001-06:00

Our homeschool group just finished up a series of "playshops" that I was able to organize with The Tennessee Shakespeare Company here in town. Over the course of the 5 sessions we had 27 homeschoolers ages 12-18 participate. I managed to take a few pictures through the door at the last session -- no easy task, as this session focused on Elizabethan Dance, and the participants were VERY active!

Other sessions focused on Shakespeare's text, how to feed and be fed lines so that the speech lives in you and you don't have to memorize, Elizabethan clowns and the role of the clown in Shakespeare, and Stage Combat.

Every session was highly interactive and experiential. About half the group also met about 4 times to read through Macbeth round robin style, and attended the Tennessee Shakespeare Company's production of Macbeth, which was performed in an outdoor amphitheater at a wooded park in October.

The "Playshops" were such a hit that we are planning for 10 additional sessions for January-March.

They have fit in well with how our family approaches Shakespeare -- first, as great stories and plays that are spoken and performed, and only later as literature, with analysis of character and theme. My girls started with watching the Kenneth Branagh/Emma Thompson video of Much Ado About Nothing when they were quite young -- around 9 or so. They would watch in increments, and often watch favorite scenes over and over and over. Then we would read a summary in story form, such as from "Shakespeare Stories" by Leon Garfield, or the "comic book" style books of Marcia Williams. When they were somewhat familiar with the story, we would meet with other families take turns reading from the play. In the meantime we would read historical novels that focused on Shakespeare or Elizabethan culture, like "The Shakespeare Stealer" trilogy of books. By the time my girls have become high school age, they are familiar with many of the plays, the language, and the customs of the era and have no fear of Shakespeare and are not intimidated at all.

Now that the Tennessee Shakespeare Company has established itself in our city, we make a point to find out what plays they will be performing for their fall and spring shows and focus on those plays. The kids have grown up with Shakespeare being accessible and not at all scary or "highbrow". And, honestly -- the language when spoken aloud is very similar to "country" and Appalachian speech patterns, not so very unfamiliar here in the south. TSC will be performing "The Tempest" in April, so in addition to the workshops, we will probably get a group up to do a read through of the play at some point.

Altered Book Art

2011-12-05T11:02:00.002-06:00

The theme of the round robin book I had in November for the Altered Book Club was "Women and Friendship". After getting that board book that I spoke of in my last post out of the way, and with only a couple of days left before the meeting, I was at a loss as to what to do. I was the next to the last person to have this book, so it seemed like everything that could be said already was said. I looked through some old cards I have and found the Hawaiian dancers on the right. They made me think of when a group of us friends decided we would do Tribal Belly Dance back about 15 or 16 years ago. We decided we would teach ourselves -- with videos from Fat Chance -- and then found a dance instructor who was more into folkloric middle eastern dance (rather than "cabaret") to work with us. It was mostly about having fun, dressing up in "gypsy" eclectic style clothes, wearing turbans and crazy jewelry, henna and fake tribal tattoos.

The spread came together when I found this image on the Graphic Fairy website, of this group of women friends splashing and dancing.

Some of our dance forms looked a lot like these Hawaiian dancers -- or like dancers from Minoan culture -- we did a lot of lines and circles and a multi-armed Shiva kind of form, dreaming ourselves into a mythic matri-centric culture of women birthing, nourishing the village, dancing around the village well beneath the moon, dancing for ourselves alone and for each other. We played and played, and when it was play it was fun.

I found some phrases from some magazines, "Between Friends" and "life happens", and tied the pages together with some butterflies cut from a napkin, and wrote "Between friends life happens when you dance together".

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