OWAV:)...05/03/11...5am...33°...☀/clouds

Up since 5am...drinking coffee...played the only scrabble game that was finished...then played angry birds, trying to get more 3 stars...my excuse for not starting on the blog is this...can't hold the coffee cup and type but can do scrabble and shoot pigs with one hand.

Yesterday was spent writing my bio for our 51st class reunion coming up in late June...Of course I didn't pay much attention to the cut/off date, because June seemed light years away when I received the notice...May 1st was the date so I emailed it yesterday, one day late... Now it is done...good or bad...time to move on.

On Sunday Herb and I spent the morning outside enjoying the beautiful sunshine...He working on the garden fence...needed some sprucing up...me planting a few rows of seeds...  I put in beets, carrots and mixed green with radishes thrown in for spacing...My mom kept popping into my mind as I worked away on my own style of gardening...I'm sure she was turning over in her grave as I made wide, crooked rows in the untilled soil...this is called lasagna gardening...very different from her gardening days.

When I was growing up Mom's garden was her own territory... her escape...Daddy would plow the garden space...then she would take over...not sure how she managed because roto-tillers hadn't been invented...Kids were allowed in the garden only if they stayed on the paths, maybe they could sample a fresh pea or a raspberry...then she shooed us away while she went back to work.

Many years later she could hardly wait for the soil to dry out enough so she could use the roto-tiller...oh how she loved that machine...I can see her now, wearing a long sleeved man's shirt with a baseball cap on her head...always guarding her skin from the hot sun...first she would go up and down, then across, and last diagonal of the garden plot...following in the track of the tiller as she went...holding the machine steady, her strong body shaking as she hung on...moving back and forth, up and down, sometimes in reverse...Then resting in the shade she would admire the freshly plowed soil...mentally planning where every seed would go.

In the cool of a morning..."row marker" in hand, she measured off long even rows and using a pointed hoe, handed down from her mother, she made the furrows before planting her seeds...potatoes, beans, peas, carrots, beets, greens and corn...each row was marked, with a stick she had sharpened with a hatchet before pushing it into the ground...again she sat to admire her work...For the next two weeks she faithfully water and weeded if necessary, as she waited for her garden to grow.  

She used her "wheel hoe", handed down from her parents, for weeding between rows, always keeping the soil loose so the water would penetrate...All summer she weeded and harvested, eating fresh vegetables, sharing with family and friends, canning and pickling, always putting away for the coming winter...Each year the tiller was harder for her to start and more difficult to keep under control...soon my brother started tilling her garden while she watched...not happy about it but accepted what had to be.

While shopping one day in early spring, she spotted a small roto-tiller and from the gleam in her eye I knew that we would be taking it home...It wasn't meant to till the entire garden but could be used for weeding and cultivating between the rows...Now she could get her roto-tilling fix as she jiggled and shook her way up and down each row in her relentless war against the weeds...She celebrated her 89th birthday that year...OWAV:)

OWAV:) 01/23/2011, 4am, 26° moon still up

We have another busy day ahead of us.  After many years we have this canning thing down to a fine science, so it isn't so hard for either of us.  We have learned to spread it out over several days, doing only 2 canners a day instead of 3 or 4.

Video chatted with both kids yesterday, I still marvel at this modern communication.  I love the daily interaction in their lives.  I was able to view Cienna's Science Project Poster.  She did her experiment on cheese making and will have her display at the Science Fair later this month.  She is starting to take her studies more seriously.

Connected with niece Diane on Google chat, we compared notes on our canning marathons as well as everyday life.  She is a school teacher in Burns, OR and leads a very busy life.  My sister Mona called and we signed her on as a follower for my blog site, also started her on a scrabble game through facebook.

Herb is up now, so soon I will have him help me get the last batch of chili in the oven where it heats up so I can put it in the jars.  Herb will have extra things to do this morning as he now does the laundry at our house, and Sunday is the day that he washes the "bed clothes".  I think he takes great pride in this chore, and I feel very pampered as I crawl into a bed, made by someone else with clean fresh sheets.  (For several months of the year the sheets are dried on our outside clothes lines.  Oh, how I savor that smell!)

★One of my most vivid memories as a child is the smell and feel of the line dried sheets that Mom put on our beds.  Not every week, but often times our bath night, (once a week) and clean sheets would coincide.  We would have a bath in the round, tin tub situated in front of the kitchen range, the warmest place in the house.  The most wonderful nights sleep was on a night after my hair was washed and dried, my body freshly scrubbed, and wearing clean jammies, I snuggled into line dried sheets.  Add to that, the fact that I was surrounded by the love of my parents, I was truly blessed.★

9:30am and I am again sitting at the kitchen table, writing and watching the gauge on the pressure cooker.  Today we will finish the "chili marathon" and have 58 pints and 18 quarts of homemade chili.  A great feeling of satisfaction comes when the jars neatly line the cellar shelves.

I have signed up for a cooking class this afternoon, sponsored by "Fishtrap and The Big Read".  We will be making pies.  I'm not a bad pie maker but not the best either.  I always think I can learn something and at this point in my life, I still have so much to learn and so little time to get it all in.

Have a good Sunday, until tomorrow OWAV:)