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Homesteading: Coping With the Harvest
Canning, wasps, boiling-water-bath 20190800106f, Homesteading, nearly finished! 6 minutes. It was time to cope with nature’s summer bounty. Time to scrub the rest of the big pots, go out to the barn, (actually a big commercial-type tent) and find the jars, give them a first wash in the sink, then put them through the dishwasher, boil them for half an hour in the boiling-water-bath, to sterilize them, and sharpen the knives. It was time for preserving everything in sight, and some that wasn’t: time for canning, freezing, and maybe drying. Usually I buy and process the fruit when it’s a [...]
Looking Good
Musings, 20190909 00110 Looking your best is not a question of vanity. It is not a question of showing off your most gorgeous clothes , or saying how much they cost. It is not evidence of what good taste you have, how closely you follow the latest fashion or how new your clothes are. When you look as if you have paid attention to your appearance it puts people who see you, at ease. It is like a compliment to them, as if you are saying: “I think you are worth taking trouble for.” If you arrive looking like something [...]
Homesteading: The Annual August Ratatouille Marathon
Ratatouille, vegetables, canning, farm stands, farm stores, NYS, canning, preserving, freezing, country life! 20190908 00106e, Still Homesteading. 13 minutes. The next item on the agenda was our Annual August Ratatouille Marathon, started years ago when Hilary insisted we should spend a day together working on the sauce. The marathon starts long before the day when we make the sauce. It starts with finding and getting the fixings, the veggies. Normally, my summer veggies and fruit are available locally, but the year of hurricane Irene it didn’t work out that way. Usually the fixings for the ratatouille came from a local [...]
Enjoy the Now
Musings, Empty Nest, Seniors, Young Parents. 20190906 00108 1 minute Suddenly we find the children are grown up and ready to graduate - where did the years go? We aren't twenty-year-olds any more. Somehow we've become the "older generation." And then marriages - and we are grandparents. How did that happen? The moral of this story is: enjoy the now. It will be gone and buried under so many suceeding nows that, before you know it, you'll be looking in the mirror and saying, "Who is that I'm looking at? Where did the years go? I'm old!" When that day [...]
Just the Right Words
Court case, Boarding School. 20190906 00107 6 minutes It isn’t often that I come up with exactly the right answer to a question. Two or three times in my life I have done so, in spades - and I've never forgotten them! The first time was when I had been sent to my headmistress for some grave infringement of the school rules. During her discussion of my disobedience/infraction she said: "... so Sonia, what do you think rules are made for?" I pulled myself up to my mighty 4' 6" and replied: "To be broken." she obviously wasn't used to [...]