Little Green Box

My kitchen isn't very big and, thus, I have very little storage space. If you were to look in my cupboards, there isn't much in there that I don't use regularly because I simply don't have room for extra stuff. (To put it in perspective, my crockpot is currently being stored in our bedroom because there isn't room for it in the kitchen.) Still it's the usual assortment of dishes, pots and pans, and pantry items.

However, if you were to sneak a little deeper peek, you might just find a small olive green tupperware container and a small tan box with a bumpy clear lid.  These are oddities in my kitchen because I've yet to use anything in either container since I got married.  Even before I got married, these two small boxes were often dust collectors in a box under my bed. I think I've used them about three times since they were given to me.

So what is so special about this little green box and tan container?  Simple.  They were the last things my late grandmother gave me.

When I started college, I moved in with my grandparents to help out.  In exchange for free room and board, I did the occasional load of laundry, washed a few dishes, and played chauffeur on weekends.  It was an idyllic time for me.  I was moved away from home (no pesky little brothers to bother me), had no rent, and my grandma did most of the cooking.  That's what I thought at first. Slowly, I started to actually talk to my grandparents and I realized they were some pretty cool people.  My grandpa talked about his beloved HAM radio buddies and his favorite bluegrass singers.  His memory wasn't the best but he had his favorite stories to tell about the three F's and the P-growing up on the Farm, visiting Finland, surviving the Fire, and being stationed in Panama. His stories always got more outrageous with each telling but that was how my Papa was. My grandma, recognizing I needed a hobby and some encouragement, took me under her wing. We spent hours talking, often late into the night, about everything from my class schedule to boy troubles to how to make bread.  She taught me how to cook by sight and taste, knit cozy socks and sweaters, and showed me her photo album of cakes she had decorated over the years. 

I have fond memories of those cakes.  Each birthday during my younger years, it was a special treat to get a decorated cake from Grandma. We looked forward to that cake all year because, even if you chose what the cake would be, you never quite knew what it would look like in the end.

Towards the end of my time at my grandparents, she was beginning to teach me a bit about cake decorating. Unfortunately, my grandparent's health took a sudden decline and they were unable to live at home anymore even with my assistance.  Before leaving the house that very last time, my grandmother made a point to give me her cake decorations and her decorating tips so I could continue my cake decorating lessons on my own.  I've had little opportunity to use them since they were handed to me that day but I can't bring myself to simply pack them away again or pass them on.  They are one of the last links I have to that very special grandmother and, now that I have kids of my own, I hope to one day pull out those battered old decorating tips and aging decorations to make their birthday cakes as special as the ones I remember from my childhood.

But most importantly, I'll remember that it isn't about the cake or the decorations.  I'll be passing on the love my grandmother shared with me.

*I wrote this essay in honor of my late grandmother for Mother's Day last year but tucked it away in a folder and forgot about it until I found it during a Spring Cleaning spree.

Life with a Chicken Coop

In the last few days, the old adage "In springtime, a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love" has come true in our chicken coop. Due to a territorial new momma dog in the fall and two marauding (and apparently hungry) puppies this winter, the population in our chicken coop has dwindled down to two quite large roosters and a lone laying hen. Ms. Hen was being 'wooed' quite vigorously by her two suitors the other day and V just happened to get in the way.  The more ardent of the two roosters took exception to the fact V was blocking his (the rooster's) view of his ladylove and proceeded to make his feeling known.  Luckily, L was only a few feet away and managed to get the rooster away from V before it could do more than flap it's wings a few times and try jumping on V's back. Aside from a slight scare, my little boy was unhurt although he did want to put 'that mean chicken in time-out'.

The rooster, on the other hand, was a tad worse for the wear.  L knocked it out when he grabbed it away from V.  The slightly bedraggled rooster was up and about in a few minutes but he spent the rest of the day in the coop. Sulking or recovering, I'm not sure...All I know is that rooster makes a wide path around my kids when they are playing outside now.

Breathe Deeply

Ahhh...Smell that?  Spring is in the air.

What is Spring to me? It's a time of melting snow, suck-the-boots-off-your-feet-sticky mud, and dirty kids tracking said mud around my spring-cleaned house.  It's a time of dirty-ness.  All that clean white snow is disappearing only to reveal dull brown grass, half rotten leaves, and (due to a home renovation project last fall) a swampy muddy back yard with various piles of construction debris intermingled with the remnants of our wood pile. 

Yet, soon, hopefully anyway, that brown forlorn pasture will provide a lush clover meal for grazing cattle. Bare branches will be clothed in vibrant shades of green.  My soupy back yard will be transformed into a smooth grassy play area with a new sandbox, clothesline, and flower garden. (Okay maybe I'm dreaming a bit here on that last one.)

Mother Nature likes to Spring Clean too.
Just hope she doesn't put it off like I usually do.

Spring Cometh...Or not...

Spring 2012
The days were warm and sunny.
The garden was growing and bird were singing in the oak trees behind my house.Cows were grazing in the lush green pasture.
My wardrobe was T-shirts, capris, and flip-flop sandals.

Spring 2013
Yuck...
Muck...
It's snowing...again...
I'm still wearing my winter sweats, warm socks, and knee-high rubber boots.

There's going to be plenty of irritated people if that forecaster who predicted 60's and (gasp!) 70's for this weekend turns out to be wrong.