Happy, Happy Birthday Baby

My baby sister is 24 years old today.

From a little squirt that would laugh at the drop of a hat...
to a bigger little squirt with curls. Would ya' look at those curls!
Now she's all grown up, going to culinary school and working in a fancy restaurant 1800 miles away.
Duck confit, anyone?
She's miles away and I miss the little squirt.

Happy Birthday, from you meanest big sister. I love you.

Fried Crackers

This was a delicacy when I was a kid. Every now and then Granny would fix fried crackers and we kids just loved them.

Take a little butter (real butter, not that fake stuff) and melt it in a small skillet.Get your saltine crackers out. These are fat free crackers and so they're perfect candidates for frying, but any saltine works.Gently put your saltines in the melted butter and let them swim a bit.Flip them over so the other side gets some butter too. Now be sure to flip these a few times until both sides are equally brown.Like this. Yum! Somehow the butter just makes these crackers taste so good. These are best when still a little too warm to handle, but it is so worth it.
Crispy, flaky, buttery! Three of my favorite words.

This is one of those 'try it, you might like it' recipes. I don't expect it would be everyone's cup of tea.

My Granny's quilts

I'm fortunate enough to have four of my granny's quilts.

Granny had a quilt frame suspended from the ceiling in the big bedroom. Each side of the frame had a row of little nails and the corners were held together with C-clamps. When it was time to put a quilt together, Grandad would unroll the frame down to a comfortable work height. Granny would take her quilt back and stretch it on the frame, poking the nails through the edge of the fabric. Her next step was to put down her lining, what we would call batting today. Most of the time it was an old blanket, such as an electric blanket that quit working or maybe even a worn out quilt. Next came the quilt top. All of the layers were stuck over the nails to hold them in place. She would take long pieces of crochet thread and start tying. Once the entire quilt was tied she'd take it to the treadle sewing machine and bind the edges.

I loved sleeping under her quilts as a kid. They're heavy and they just make you feel so cozy. I learned early on to put the string side down so that the little strings wouldn't tickle your face.

This quilt is an example of her everyday utilitarian quilt made of muslin and the inside is an old blue floral blanket. The whole thing is tied with green crochet thread. I remember her making this type the most. Muslin was cheap and there was always an old blanket around.

This is another tied quilt. This one was my grandad's quilt for his bed. I faintly remember her making this one. The back isn't muslin, but it is cotton. The inside is an orange blanket. It's tied with ecru crochet thread.
I helped Granny make this one. She taught me to sew on the treadle joining these blocks together. The back is muslin and it's tied with ecru crochet thread. The inside is an electric blanket complete with wires. I washed this one the other day (gasp!) and when I took it out of the dryer (double gasp!) I found a little silver spoon in the lint trap. I never saw the spoon when I shook the quilt out before putting it in the washer and didn't see it from the washer to the dryer. One of the seams is loose and so I wonder if the spoon was inside the quilt. I'll probably never know. Just a little funny.
Mom said this is one of my granny's company quilts. Mom graduated in 1964 and remembers it from before then. She thinks it was probably made in the 50s. I have it hanging in my guest room. It's hand quilted and probably hand pieced. I remember seeing this one as a kid playing in the closet.
Granny and Grandad have been gone almost 22 years now. I'm so thankful I have these quilts to help me hold on to my memories.

The ugly pot

Isn't really a pot. It's a jardiniere minus the base.

I always called it the ugly pot and loved it as a kid. I'd never seen anything so exotic looking. I would sit and look at the colors and the cobalt blue was always my favorite. For as long as I can remember, the neck has been held together with wire and the chip in the rim has always been there.

My granny had this pot in her closet, probably to keep it safe from kids. We kids would get into the closet and sit on an old army footlocker stacked with quilts and pretend we were riding a train. This pot was where our train tickets were deposited. Such imaginations.

Mom told me that she could remember it being on her grandparent's farm when she was a little girl.
The bottom is marked T.F. & S L(d) England.

A little sleuthing on the internet told me that this was the mark of Thomas Forrester & Sons Ltd of the Phoenix Pottery, Longton, Stafford-
shire (1883-1959). Piecing together what little we know about it, Mom and I think it's probably from the late 20s to early 30s.

The ugly pot proudly sits on the treadle of my granny's sewing machine. To say it's fragile is an understatement. While dusting it the other day I noticed that the entire bottom is loose and could come off at any time. Over the years bit and pieces have come loose from the sides and so I try to handle it as little as possible. I fear that one day I'll go in and the entire thing will have crumbled to dust.

The Leotard kids

My granny was a multi-tasking kind of woman. She took in ironing for people, baby-sat kids, and kept up with her own grandkids and family.

Granny's last babysitting job was the Leotard kids. No, that wasn't their real name, but close enough. Somebody has to protect the mean and ignorant.

I was five years old the last time she kept them. I can remember the last day just like it was yesterday. I hated it when the Leotards came over. When these kids showed up, cats would run and hide and the chickens would go get in the goose pen so the goose would protect them. Yes, they were that bad.

There were five of them, a couple of girls 6-8 years older than me, a boy about my age, another girl just younger, and a baby. The oldest girls were bullies and just plain mean. Their favorite past-time was holding down a younger kid and pummeling the crap out of them. I got more bloody noses and deep bruises from the Leotards than I've ever had in the rest of my life. I also had my first and only drug overdose at the tender age of 4, compliments of the Leotards, but that story is for another day.

On that last day, Granny had spent the morning washing quilts and had them hung out on the line to dry. The Leotards came and Granny immediately sent them outside to play.

Somewhere along the way, the oldest two girls got the idea to play with one of the quilts hanging on the line. Now everybody knows, you don't mess with Granny's laundry hanging on the line. Line hung laundry is close to sacred.

Not the Leotards. Everything was fair game. Granny caught them the first time and scolded them, but they weren't deterred. They just moved down the line to the other side of the lilac bushes, where the heaviest quilts were hanging and where Granny couldn't see them.

The girls took one of the heaviest quilt off the line, still wet from washing, and spread it out on the ground close to the goose pen. They got a bucket full of chicken feed and poured it in the middle of the quilt and waited. Eventually, the chickens decided it was okay to check out and descended on the feed. While the chickens were busy pecking, the Leotard girls rolled them up in the quilt. Twenty-two laying hens, rolled up in a wet quilt. I still can't believe how fast it happened and how they managed to get all of the hens in there.

I wanted to tell my granny so badly what was going on, but I'd already been pinched hard enough to leave a bruise, just for being alive. What would they do to me if I actually tattled on them?

Granny called all of us kids in for lunch and the chickens were promptly forgotten.

After lunch we went back out to play and I tried to keep from getting beaten up. We climbed the old apricot tree, swung on the rusty swing-set, and played hide-and-seek. Chickens forgotten.

About three o'clock that afternoon Granny called us to help her get the quilts off the line. I loved this part of wash day. I got to hold the pin bucket she kept her clothespins in and when she'd hand me a pin, I got to put it in the little bucket. I thought I was in high cotton.

One by one the quilts came off the line and were folded. Each child was given a folded quilt to take into the house and put on the cot in the kitchen until Granny decided where they belonged.

We finally got to the other side of the lilac bushes and my granny had the only conniption fit I've ever known her to have. She wanted to know who took the quilt off the line and why was it laying on the ground. I think she had an idea who did it, but wanted to see if they would confess.

Well, the Leotards, being the kids they were, pointed right to me. Yep, they stood there hand on hip, pointing their fingers straight at me and telling my grandma I did it. I was scared! I knew I didn't do it, but right then I would have admitted nearly anything.

Granny sent me to sit under the tree until she was finished and then she'd deal with me. I knew one of two things was going to happen. I'd either get switched or she'd make me go in the house to think about what I'd done and then I'd get switched. Personally, the thinking about it made the switching that much worse.

I can still hear what came next. The absolute terror-filled, blood-curdling scream that came from my granny as she unrolled that quilt to find twenty-two steamed, suffocated, very dead, laying hens.

In the 19 years I knew my granny, I never ever knew her to sit on the ground, except that day. She fell to her knees and sobbed. I don't know what hurt her more, the loss of her chickens, or the fact that kids would do something like that. Probably the latter.

She sent all of us kids in the house and called my grandpa to come home. I'd never seen Grandpa looking quite as grim as he did when he walked through the front door.

I don't know what came of the chickens or the quilt, but I know she never ever kept the Leotard kids again.

One of my dumber days

I mentioned below in the 7 random and/or weird facts that I had to have a steering wheel removed from my hand when I was 17.

Grab a drink and travel with me back to 1984, when I didn't have the sense God gave a clump of dirt.

What started off as a really normal day quickly turned into a comedy of errors sprinkled with fear before the day was done.

Early one morning, the summer before my senior year, my sister and I hopped into old farm pick-up and drove out to a cotton field 17 miles from the house. Up and down hills, across cattle guards, down muddy turn-rows, and finally to our field.

We had our lunch packed, a thermos of ice water, our lip balm, hats squarely on our heads, and two razor-sharp hoes. We were set to hoe 160 acres of young, tender cotton.

We loved this kind of work. The solitude. The sun. The rattlesnakes. Okay, so we didn't like the snake part, but the money was good and I had my eye on a new pair of boots for school. A little old rattlesnake or 20 wasn't going to keep me from those boots.

The way we tackled a job like this was to park the pickup in the middle of the section and then each of us would take a side and hoe our way towards the center. This way, when we got done we didn't have to trek what seemed like a million miles to get back to the truck. Pretty smart for a couple of dumb farm kids.

We hoed, yelled insults at each other, daydreamed, and killed way too many snakes that day. At least the hoeing went fast since the cotton was little and the weeds hadn't had time to start invading.

Finally, it was time for lunch. We'd done a little over half of the 160 acres and we were ready to dig into that bologna sandwich. We went to the truck, rolled down the windows and left the doors open. Our feet and legs were covered in a fine layer of dirt. Sweat ran down our backs and faces. It must have been close to 100 degrees.

We ate, talked, and dreamed about the future. All too soon it was time to get back to hoeing. My sister wanted to sit for just a little longer so I agreed.

I'm a fidgeter. I can't just sit and do nothing. I have to be doing something with my hands. So on this fateful day I started playing with the steering wheel. It was a shiny chrome number with graduated holes in each spoke.

Kind of like this one.

I began on the end with the little hole and methodically poked my index finger in each one. Then I switched to my middle finger. Poke. Poke. Poke. Poking each hole while listening to my sister talk. Then it was time for the ring finger. For some reason, I went out of order this time. I poked the little hole and then the biggest hole. Then the middle hole.

Imagine my surprise when my finger slipped all the way into the hole. Now, imagine my shock when my finger wouldn't come out of the hole. Oh crap! I tried pulling, twisting, everything. It was stuck.

My sister was sitting there with her head back, eyes closed, yammering away like she had a certain number of words to speak or die. I was too shocked to utter a word. I finally got her attention by pulling her hair. (Yes, I'm the tactful one of the bunch.)

She started laughing. Then she realized I was truly stuck. Oh dear! We tried pouring water on it thinking that might loosen things up. Nope. Now there's mud all over my feet and legs.

Okay, how about lip balm. Frantically we put lip balm on my finger and the steering wheel hoping that a little lip grease would work. Nope. But now my finger smells like watermelon and my muddy feet and legs are greasy.

By now my finger is swollen and has a lovely blue cast. We know it's not going to come out while sitting in the middle of a cotton field so we decide to pack up and head for the house.

The only problem with going home, we have to drive to get there and I'm firmly attached to the steering wheel. Did I mention the farm truck didn't have power steering? We gathered our wits, our hoes and started down the turn-row, headed for the house.

Sometime during our 7 hour stay, the tail-water had gotten out and made a huge mess. I'm talking mud like you've never seen. We fish-tailed, slid, and got stuck trying to get back to the road. It's hard enough to drive a truck with no power steering, but to drive essentially with one hand is nearly impossible.

I cried. How stupid could I be? I was supposed to be the smart one. I was the oldest after all and the younger ones did stupid stuff. Not me!

We finally made it to the highway and high-tailed it to the house. Barney wasn't home and we couldn't get him on the radio. I made my sister go in the house and call my mother at work. Mom said she'd be home as soon as she could get there and she was bringing a cooler of ice. Ice? For what? My severed hand? More crying ensued.

I had all of these horrible thoughts racing through my mind. Would they have to cut my finger off? Would they stop at the finger or go for the whole hand? How would I ever get married? If I did get married where would I wear my wedding ring with no hand? You might say I was getting close to hysterical.

While we waited I had my sister get a screw driver and a wrench and I proceeded to tear the steering wheel out of the truck. Before that day, I had no knowledge of how stuff like that was put together, but I was determined not to lose my finger or hand if I could help it.

By the time Mom came home I was in the bathroom with my hand and attached steering wheel in the bathtub full of ice water. My finger was really blue and it hurt. She called Granddad and he said to try some grease.

We dried off my finger and started slathering on the Crisco. We could get it to budge a little, but then my finger would swell up even more. Mom finally said enough and packed me, my steering wheel, and the cooler of ice in the car for a trip to the doctor's office.

That had to be the longest 15 mile trip I've ever made. My mother didn't mince words and I had no choice but to sit there and take it.

"Yes, I know better."

"Yes ma'am, I know it was stupid."

"Of course I'll pay for it."

On and on it went.

We finally arrived at Dr. Gregory's office and were discreetly ushered into an exam room. Well, as discreet as you can be with your finger stuck in a steering wheel that's covered in a neon yellow towel, parading through a waiting room full of people.

Dr. Gregory came in, took one look, and promptly started belly laughing. He said he'd seen a lot of silly stuff in his life, but I won the prize for the silliest. Thanks Doc.

Once he recovered, he set about trying to get my finger out of that entrapping metal. He tried binding my finger with string to compress it. That didn't work. He tried pulling it out, but that caused too much pain. Finally, he said, "We're going to have to cut it off." I fainted.

When I came around, my finger was being very gingerly cut out of the steering wheel with a pair of bolt cutters. Once he was sure my finger was okay and that it wasn't going to fall off due to lack of blood he said I could go home. I gathered up my steering wheel, bright yellow towel, and ran to the car, leaving my mother to deal with the paperwork and people.

I never did get the boots I so desperately wanted. Instead, I paid for a pair of bolt cutters, a doctor's visit, and a new steering wheel.

My dumber day has led to years of being the butt of family jokes. That's okay. It's built character. I kept that steering wheel for a lot of years. Maybe as a reminder to keep my fingers to myself or maybe because we had such a close bond for a while. Who knows.

To this day I don't stick my fingers where they don't belong, even if it's only up my nose.

Discipline...Grandpa style

Growing up I had my share of spankings and such. I grew up okay and don't seem to be damaged. That said, my grandpa had his very own way of getting us kids to behave.

Grandpa was a tolerant kind of man. He put up with kids jumping all over the place and hanging on him when he was outside working. He put up with us playing in the well-house, rearranging his boxes and jars of nails and other Grandpa stuff.

He refereed boxing matches, turned fist fights, between the kids making sure nobody really got hurt. He was really pretty easy-going until Saturday night wrestling was on and then, well, we'd better behave.

He would finally get fed up with the bickering or what ever nonsense us kids were up to at the time and then he'd holler at us. That was our one and only chance to knock it off. After that, he'd thump the floor.

His chair sat almost in the corner of the living room. On the right side of his chair was an end table and on the left, his spittoon.

After our one and only chance, those of us foolish enough to continue acting like apes, were summoned to the living room where Grandpa would thump the hardwood floor with his knuckle and tell us to sit down.

Being the oldest, wisest and fastest, I always got the spot between the end table and his chair, leaving the less desirable spittoon side to another sibling. Nobody wanted to sit on that side of the chair and I mean absolutely nobody.

I would sit on my side of his chair with the Reader's Digest I'd stuck under the end table and giggle at the gagging sounds coming from the other side. As a rotten kid I took great pleasure in the misery of my unlucky siblings.

Yesterday, the kids were cranky and constantly at each other. I found myself doling out discipline like my grandpa did.

I needed to get some fabric ready to wash and was serging the cut ends. I could hear the kids over the clacking of the serger and so I hollered at them. Into the third end of fabric the noise level had risen considerably so I summoned them both.

I put one in front of the door and the other in front of the dresser and told them to sit and be quiet. Nothing makes a kid more miserable than to be required to sit and not talk while under the watchful eye of an adult. They just can't help but squirm due to the discomfort. The pain of it is intolerable, to a child.

They dont' know how lucky they are I didn't have a stinky spittoon.