Sunday, May 3, 1998 - Pies, Muffins, and Bunny Ears

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I have now acquired a blood blister from all the dandelion digging; but the yard does look better. I planted a couple of hydrangea bushes in the flower garden on the north side of the house, and discovered another small Virginia bluebell bush blooming away like anything.

Monday afternoon Teddy and Joseph helped my brother-in-law put up a new chain-link fence between our yards. Larry helped, too, when he got home from work. The old one had been damaged when several big branches of a tree fell on it during a snow-and-ice storm a couple of years ago.

The other day Victoria was hunting all over the house for something, eyebrows up, jabbering long sentences with question marks at the end, holding her palms up, and shaking her head. None of us could figure out what she was looking for. Was it her blanket? Nope; she patted it politely and smiled, but put it back down. Her doll? No, not that, either.

I finally said, “Well, I don’t know what in the world you want!”

She looked up at me, sighed deeply, and said, “Meow meow meow meow meow!”

Oh! She was looking for her little beanbag kitten, of course! Someone promptly found it for her, and she was satisfied.

Tuesday, the elderly lady who lives next door to my mother brought me a sack full of rhubarb--and I hadn’t yet cooked the last sack full she brought. So I did it all at once, which saved time, anyway. I made a gigantic pot of rhubarb sauce, threw in a bag of frozen, mixed berries for good measure, and bought some vanilla ice cream to pour it on. Well, that tasted so good that I thought I’d expend a little more energy and make pie. So I bought three quarts of strawberries, four boxes of strawberry jello, and made the yummy pie we all call ‘Grandma Ruby’s Strawberry Pie’, because she’s the one who gave us the recipe. In the meanwhile, I boiled the rhubarb sauce again, thickened it, let it cool, then mixed it with the strawberry pie and poured it into pie shells. It made about a dozen pies. The last bowl full, I put into the refrigerator until it set up, then stirred graham-cracker-crumb topping and whipped cream into it.

Yesterday I decided I really must do something with all the apples accumulating in the refrigerator, so I made apple cream tarts and apple bars.

Today I stayed home from church with Lydia, who has a bad cold and a case of pinkeye, of all things. Bobby was coming for dinner, so, about eight o’clock, I started some Italian bread. It was just hot out of the oven when everybody came home from church. We had perch (the aroma of which overwhelmed all the other aromatic aromas), broccoli/cheese soup, Romaine/Italian chef salad, and the apple cream tarts with ice cream.

After dinner, we drove out by the wetlands, which have been renamed the ‘Wilkinson Wetlands’, in honor of the man who set the ball afloat and contributed a great deal of time and money to keep it sailing. I walked a ways down a dike, taking pictures of all sorts of sandpipers, several great egrets, and shovelers and Canada geese. In a nearby pasture, there were dozens of cattle egrets strutting about, stretching their necks out all funny, and plucking up insects right and left.

I’d just run out of film one day this week, when along came the mail lady, bringing three free rolls of film from Seattle Filmworks Company. Well, that’s just fine and dandy; but there’s a catch: I must develop the film at no other processing center but Seattle Filmworks Company, which is about 25 gazillion kilometers away, and so will take several millennia before it comes back again. Bother.

Wednesday night I typed Hannah’s 11^th-grade thesis on the Spanish Armada. It was so interesting, I quite enjoyed typing it. Since the Armada was defeated, in part, because of an extremely rare storm that hit the English Channel, the English said “God breathed.” They believed that God, in His mercy, had ‘breathed’ the winds of the storm, in order to save them. Such a storm had never before been recorded in the English Channel; seas were usually smooth and calm. The English people picked up the phrase for a victory medal: “God breathed and they were scattered.” English Protestants call the wind that blew the Armada off course “the Protestant Wind”.

Hannah concluded her dissertation with these verses:

Nahum 1:3: “The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.”

Exodus 15:6-13: “Thy right hand, O Lord, is become glorious in power: thy right hand, O Lord, hath dashed in pieces the enemy. And in the greatness of thine excellency thou hast overthrown them that rose up against thee: thou sentest forth thy wrath, which consumed them as stubble. And with the blast of thy nostrils the waters were gathered together, the floods stood upright as an heap, and the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea. The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil; my lust shall be satisfied upon them; I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them. Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them: they sank as lead in the mighty waters. Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods? who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders? Thou stretchedst out thy right hand, the earth swallowed them. Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed: thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation.”

We believe it was by God’s providence that England, a Protestant nation, was able to claim North America from Spain. The defeat of the Spanish Armada saved England from both Spanish and Roman Catholic domination. England became a sea power at the same time English explorers began colonizing North America. The way was opened for English Protestants--not Spanish Catholics--to settle America.

While early Protestants were typically peaceful and willing to live harmoniously with their neighbors, the Catholics often embarked on a vicious vendetta to annihilate all opposition to their religious beliefs. There have been few bloodier battles than those fought in the name of religion.

Thursday Hannah made banana muffins for Joseph to take to Jr. Choir as Last-Time-in-the-Choir treats. That is, they started out being banana muffins; but there weren’t enough bananas to make the six dozen muffins we wanted; so she added applesauce to the mix. Then we discovered there was only one cup of white flour, so she had to use 3 ½ cups of whole wheat flour. Not wanting it to be too heavy, we added a couple of eggs, a little more sugar, and a pinch of salt. Perfect! Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. The Jr. Choir kids were entirely satisfied with their health-food muffins. (Or perhaps I should say, in spite of the health-food status of their muffins.)

The yellow-rumped warblers are back, flitting about the yard, hunting for insects. They don’t usually stay here in our neighborhood, but move to Pawnee Park or some other more wooded area. There is a squirrel that regularly climbs the side of the house to get to the bird feeders. He holds still for a minute or two when I open the window and put my hand out; but when my hand is within an inch or so of him, he skedaddles.

Teddy’s miniature shop is looking better every day, and he’s put several pieces of miniature furniture in it--the furniture he himself made a couple of years ago. Now, where can one find miniature paint cans, I wonder?

Keith bought a new John Deere five-geared, self-propelled lawn mower. When it’s in fifth gear, a person must practically run to stay up with it.

There is a funny man who lives kitty-corner from Larry’s shop who once tied his self-propelled lawn mower to a tree with a long rope, started it, put it in gear, then lolled back on his elbows on his porch and watched it go round and round until it nearly treed itself. Untie, unwind, and on to the next tree. He missed a few patches, but he got a good part of his lawn mowed, he did.

He once strolled over and silently inspected a vehicle Larry had just painted. Soon returning back home again, he got himself a can of spray paint and proceeded to paint one of his own vehicles, an old decrepit thing with an extensive amount of rust. He didn’t even mask off the windows or mirrors or door locks, or anything. One window was broken out, so some of the interior is now nicely color-coordinated to the exterior. And he’s just as tickled as if he had better sense.

One needs those sorts of souls around, to provide much-needed comic relief.

Friday we went to a garage sale that had advertised a high chair; Victoria is in need of one. Well, just as we arrived, shortly after the sale had opened, we spotted a lady putting said high chair into her car. Too bad, so sad.

Since it was May Day, we decided to buy ourselves some flowers. We headed for Wal-Mart. A fire truck, siren and horn blaring, pulled onto the highway in front of us.

“Rats! They’re gonna beat us to Wal-Mart and buy up all the snapdragons!” I exclaimed.

The littles laughed and tried to perch on the edge of their seats, despite their confining seat belts, the better to watch the fire truck.

Guess what. It turned right into the Wal-Mart parking area, and proceeded right up to the front door. The parking lot was teeming with throngs of people, workers and customers alike. We went home.

We learned later that they’d received a bomb threat. Turned out to be a hoax. I think that’s really awful, that people do things like that, don’t you? Keeps us from getting our snapdragons.

Anyway, the mail lady brought me those two hydrangeas, so at least I was able to plant something.

One afternoon Hannah was helping Caleb put on his shoes. “Why is your shoelace in a big knot?” she asked him, struggling with the entanglement.

Caleb tipped his head, watching her endeavors. “Because I couldn’t make bunny ears, so I had to make a knot!” he replied.

One last note: Paul’s mother (the neighbors, two houses down), who was never before friendly, is now chipper as a chipmunk. So that clinches it: Nestles Crunch/Butterscotch Chip/Heath Brickle cookies are fantastic Problem Solvers/Friend Makers/People Pleasers; they’ve done the trick.

Happy May Day!