Other little things from last week.

Hubby and I went looking through antique shops. I was particulary interested in finding a drop down or secretary desk, but so far the ones I like are a little out of my price range. I did get a couple of small things though.

I loved this little dish.

So cute and a little shabby since some of it's gold plating has been worn away, but that's why I liked it so much.

I've been wanting a small dish to put beside the sink for the baskets and stoppers, and this was just perfect.

I love old linens and these dainty little handkerchiefs were just adorable.

And this linen kitchen towel was calling my name.

Coffee on one side,

and tea on the other.

I was also able to enjoy these little beauties everytime I've washed dishes. I think I may see if I can get sunflowers to grow down that whole side next year. What a sight that would be while washing up.

This is one up close. Isn't it perfect?

When you do manage to get a picture of one without a bee on it, there's sure to be one on the way - as was this little fellow to the left.

Or maybe an inchworm, like the one near the top of the center of the flower on the right.

This is the first year we've planted the large yellow sunflowers and we've enjoyed them so much I can't imagine not planting them in the future. We didn't have to plant the orange, Mexican sunflowers again this year. We had plenty of volunteers from the ones that went to seed last year.

A little of what's going on around here.

So this is part of what's been happening here recently.

Okay - so this has been in the works all summer, but I love seeing the veggies grow up over the deck. Most of this is beans, but there are some cucumbers to the left.

 

And lots more tomatoes.

We've been able to use our own for a large part of what we've canned this year.

T.Lynn just loves helping out with the food mill.

All these tomatoes (and this is my really large stock pot),

cooked down into this much tomato paste.

These little 7oz baby bowls were perfect for holding the standard 6ozs of tomato paste once you left the proper head-room for freezing. Don't worry, the paste is red, but the bowls are blue and green so it makes it look weird.

This bushel of peaches we picked up were far from ripe, but since the grower had recently had a death in the family I didn't get picky. We laid them out on some tea towels and covered them with a couple more until they ripened. It took about a week. You can see them in the back of the photo of T.Lynn. That was my biggest problem. For a week we either ate on tray tables in the living room, or took shifts eating at the table. To say the least, it was a little interesting.

But when all was said and done, 16 more quarts of peaches made it into the cupboards. And everything was finished up just before my grandmother got really sick and then passed. It allowed me to go visit her without worrying about everything I still had left to do. I know I shouldn't worry about something like that when this sort of thing happens, but it's to easy to obsess over everything you think you should be doing - especially when it comes to putting up food for your family. After buying food in bulk, or even if you have a large surplus from your garden, it's not easy to walk away when you know that preserving it will feed your kids the rest of the year. I'm thankful the canning was done and I felt free to spend time with her.

The girls have been at my mother's since my grandmother's funeral a week ago Saturday. It's been a nice long vacation for them, but for me? Well......

The garden doesn't seem to know that the girls aren't here, and that hubby and I can't eat nearly as much produce by ourselves. Too bad gardens don't come equipped with a pause button.  What's pictured, with the exception of two of the tomatoes, came in on just one day. I added it to the other 2 dozen tomatoes and 6 or 7 cucumbers we already had, and we are eating what we can. On top of that, 8 cantaloupe have ripened  this past week, plus I've cut okra every other day, and pulled beans off almost every day. I haven't pulled many of the peppers though. There are a lot of them that I've left on the plants because they'll last better that way. The plant will slow down it's prouduction, but in the case of the black hugarians, that won't be too bad. BTW - the red peppers on the table are black hungarians. If you leave them on the plant they, like any pepper, will turn red. So, while the girls have been gone I've been tending the gardens, foisting extra produce off on the neighbors, and when all else fails and you just can't let it go to waste...

...you can it, or blanch and freeze it, even though all your little helpers are unavailable.

Sometime in the next few days I'll share a bit more of what I did this week, but this post is already long, and to be honest, I kind of want to kick back and relax for a little bit before the girls come back tomorrow evening. 

Life long learning.

When people ask me what subjects I feel are the most important to teach my kids, I tell them none of them are. And just for the record, I get some pretty funny looks with that response. Don't worry, I do teach my kids all kinds of subjects, I just don't feel they are the most important things to focus on. My goal is not to teach about every single ancient civilization, or that all of my children become capable of accurately reproducing the periodic table. I don't care where you go to school, you will not remember everything you're taught. Shoot, I don't even remember everything I teach. I'm constantly having to review, or look up new things, or research topics. Since there's a bit of a gap between my older two girls, and my younger three, I'm always going back over stuff I've not only learned myself, once upon a time, but also that I've already taught the older two. Then there's all the bits of new information I'm unearthing during any research I'm undertaking. And we won't even get into the things that just catch my eye and cause me to look up everything I can find on it. Sigh - there's just not enough time. Suffice it to say, I feel this quote.

"Who dares to teach must never cease to learn." ~ John Cotton Dana.

My ultimate, educational goals for my children have always been the same.
1) That they learn to read WELL, and that they enjoy reading.
It doesn't matter to me whether they master it at 4, or not until they are 15, I just want them to be able, not only to read, but to fully comprehend what they've read. And I want them to love reading. Whether or not you can read is almost immaterial if you won't. I recently bought the book Endangered Minds, and the author, Jane M. Healy, talks about the rather huge problem of aliteracy in younger generations. I don't want this for my own children.

2) That they love to learn.
I want them to be interested in things; fascinated with life and God's creation. I want them to wonder how and why things work. I want them to marvel at everything from the workings of a beehive to the ancient wonders of the world. I want them to see and experience things, and then have a thirst for finding out what they can about it. I dislike seeing people totally wrapped up in themselves, and/or day-to-day nosensical garbage; people who don't ever have anything better to talk about that who's currently a favorite to win American Idol, or any other "reality" show. I definately don't want my children turning out like that. I want to be able to have marvelous, enriching, challenging conversations with them for the rest of their lives.

3) I want them to know how to think.
Yes, how to think. Not what to think, although I'm rather partial to some of my own ideas, but how to come to a decision about something on their own. I want them to be able to listen to one side of an argument and then find out the other possibilities, weigh out the options/opinions/etc. and think it through on their own. I want them to be able to figure problems on their own, and not drudgingly. I want them to find it a challenge that they willingly embark on.

4) I want them to know how to find information.
And not just by clicking on a search engine on the internet. I want them to be able to use the library, research texts, periodcals and anything else available to them in order to find out about the world around them. My children are very much at home in the library. When we lived in a much larger city, the girls adored wandering through a very large library. Ri has been with my step-father to visit, and make use of the library at the State University he taught at (...seven stories of books Mama!), and though the library near our house is very small, the girls have learned how to use the feature that allows them to order (from other libraries) nearly any book they want and have it shipped to the branch we frequent. And they use that feature often. We don't even have to go to the library to order it. They have everything set up online so they can check the available titles at our own branch, and order anything that isn't already there, then the local branch calls us when the book(s) arrive. It does cut out a few extra trips.

5) I want them efficient at basic math.
This may seem like a 'no-duh' type thing, but...well, lets just suffice it to say, I want my children to be able to count back change. I also want them to know their multiplication tables, not cringe at fractions, and how to at least figure rough percentages in their head. Come on, everyone should be able to figure out what a 10-15% tip would be without whipping out their cell phone and using the tip calculator. I didn't even know cell phones had tips calculators - well, not until about a year or so ago. Now I use it as a game. Give me a number and lets see if you can input the info, and have the phone give you the answer before I can come up with an amount that's less than $1 off what the phone says. I don't quibble down to the penny (or even a quarter) with a tip anyway, so I figure in round numbers when I tip. That's certainly close enough for government work, and the poor waitress/waiter that deals with our (usually) large table deserves the extra change. So, while the girls are welcome to go as far in math as they want (Kay hated math and only took basic and practical math courses, while Ri wanted to take advanced math courses), I just want them very good at what I feel to be ordinary, everyday math.

"The only purpose of education is to teach a student how to live his life--by developing his mind and equipping him to deal with reality.  The training he needs is theoretical, i.e., conceptual.  He has to be taught to think, to understand, to integrate, to prove.  He has to be taught the essentials of the knowledge discovered in the past--and he has to be equipped to acquire futher knowledge by his own effort." ~Ayn Rand

So yes, we teach reading, writing, arithmetic, physical science, geography, history, anatomy, agriculture, etc. We learn about nouns, pronouns, fractions, polygons, ancient civilizations, longitude and latitude, types of clouds, past presidents and kings, and Laura Ingalls Wilder. But first and foremost, we read, we challenge them to think, we encourage them to imagine, and we get excited about ideas, inventions, flowers, storms, finger paintings and lizzards we find in the garage.

Two Thumbs up for Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds

In my post about gardening and pantry organization, I mentioned having little success with the Amish Paste tomatoes I grew this year. After the post, I decided to e-mail Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, which is where I purchased them, and let them know of the problems I had. I wasn't looking for a refund, or anything else really, but I figured that any company with integrity may want to know if one of their products was not producing up to par. Since they specialize in heirloom seed I felt they would definately want to know that the seed I had may have been mixed, either due to cross-pollination, or perhaps in packaging. After sending them an e-mail briefly describing the problems I had with the Amish Paste, and assuring them the other seeds I had ordered from them had produced beautifully, I received a very nice reply. They asked more specific details with regard to the unusually shaped tomatoes and asked if I knew the lot # of the seed I'd planted (I had kept the packet). Then they told me they would replace the pack of seeds, even offering me the opportunity to choose another variety if I didn't want to try the Amish Paste tomatoes again. I rarely have need to return anything, and even more seldom complain about a product, but most of the time the response is a little lukewarm at best. I was greatly relieved that they wanted more information about the problem. For a company offering the service they do, it would have been a little disheartening to have received a generic reply to my e-mail.

I look forward to continuing doing business with them. Plus, you really should try their purple calabash tomatoes. They are outstanding.

90 Years is a long time.

A long time to live, laugh, love, grieve, work, and then live, laugh, love, grieve, and work some more.

My grandmother passed away in the early hours this morning. Along the 90 year path she traveled, she enjoyed the three brothers her father and mother had given her, and then numerous half-brothers, and one half-sister which came along quite a bit later. She had five handsome sons, and her list of grand-children, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren is seemingly endless. But as with any life, it comes with it's share of heartache. Her mother died when she was only 8. Several of her half-brothers died in infancy. The youngest of her brothers by her mother was killed in Vietnam, and another of her full-brothers passed away when I was in my teens. Several more of her half-brothers have also passed away in the last few years. Her older brother, and a couple of her half-siblings are the only siblings to have survived her. She has out-lived nearly all of her childhood friends and stood by one of her sons as he buried one of his daughters (her 2nd grandchild), who was only 36 at the time. But far and away the worst grief she ever expirenced was the death of one of her own children. Her oldest son died of pneumonia when he was only three. At the time, my uncle was around 18 months old and she was about to give birth to my dad. I can't even fathom what that time must have been like for her.

My grandmother was an extremely hard worker. Because of my grandfather's alcoholism, and my grandparent's subsequent divorce, care of my father and his brothers fell squarely on her shoulders. She worked third shift for years and years because it paid fifty cents more an hour, and she needed every penny she could get in order to provide for her and her sons. Her independence helped her greatly when she was younger, and had to support her children on her own, but it did make it difficult for her to adjust when she became frail and really needed help from others.

She started working in textile mills in 1934, at the ripe old age of 14. She had decided she was grown, moved out of her grandmother's house (where she had lived much of her life after her mother's death), and got a job. She passed for older than her true age, and they weren't too particular about labor laws in those days. The person in charge of hiring didn't ask her age, so she didn't tell. Later, when a supervisor suspected and did ask, she was just told not to spread that information around too much. She retired in 1985 after working for 51 years.

Some of my fondest childhood memories are from family dinners spent at my grandmother's little duplex. There were always way more of us than there ever should have been in such a small place, but we enjoyed every minute. It had to be freezing outside to keep us from spilling out onto either the front or back porch. She had a magnificent, climbing, yellow rose growing up a trellis that formed a living screen for the front porch and there was a lovely weeping willow in the front yard. She always had a vegetable garden in the back half of her half of the yard, and we'd play games on the concrete steps leading down from her back porch. There was a tall hedge between her and the church next door that was overrun with honeysuckle, from which we would drink nectar each summer. She had an old vanity in her bedroom where she would let us sit and play dress-up. Okay, maybe all of us grandchildren didn't share in that experience. I'm pretty sure my brothers didn't. My cousins, all of which were girls until I was 13, and I would spend the night and take turns brushing each others' hair. We'd laugh and joke, I'm sure being quite silly, and grandma would get all cracked-up. We'd have her laughing so hard she couldn't breathe. It was hilarious.

My grandmother loved flowers. Two of her favorites were yellow roses and African violets. They are certainly the two I associate with her. She had that gorgeous rose outside her house, and she always seemed to have some of the most beautiful African violets inside. I was determined to get an arrangement for her with African violets in them and was extremely dissapointed to find that they apparently aren't very popular this time of year. With hubby's help, I finally found a small shop that had a few still in bloom and after picking up a planter and some filler plants, I made my own African violet arrangement.

I think she would have loved it.

She would have liked the purple monkey behind it too, but we probably won't take that to the funeral home.