A to Z "Z"

Z is for Ziggy.  No the cartoon character. I mean my daughter, Ziggy. Nope, not her real name (the nurse in the delivery room threatened to take her home if I'd actually named her that).  It is her nickname. Long story how it came to be, but it was assigned in utero--back in the day before we knew the gender before birth.  She didn't look at all like a Ziggy, but it stuck, anyway.

She's goes by more than Ziggy. There's Zigzee, Megan Maroo, Zigoletto, and the Zigmeister. Similarly, her brothers have nicknames too, Natters and  Fuzzy Schmo, among others.

The reason this is on my mind today is because of something my 5 year old granddaughter (who is Nattiecakes) said to me last week. Nattie and I both have puppies. Hers is six weeks older than mine. My little guy is Leo. He is also Leomoemoeway, and he is Schmo-Schmo (along with Stop, No Bite, Bad!) and he recognizes all of them as his name when it's spoken (or in some cases, shouted).

Last Friday, I called Leo "Schmo-Schmo", and Natalie said, "Daisy doesn't have any other names yet."

It got me thinking. How many of us assign nicknames? How many of us have nicknames? What determines if a Megan is also affectionately known as a  Ziggy? Are there some people who don't give nicknames to their children and pets?

And please--share your nickname, and the story of how you got it. :-)

Thanks for stopping by and visiting! Visit other participants in The Blogging From A to Z Challenge by clicking HERE

A to Z "Y"

Y is for "Yinz"

And for Yay! One letter left to go. What a great month doing the A to Z Challenge You can click that link to find other participants.

Back to "yinz".  When I was a kid, like all kids, I learned the language that was spoken around me, including the dialect. But, when I was a kid, I didn't know that. I just figured I spoke English. Oh, and those people over in England, and the people down south spoke with  funny accents.

Ha! Imagine my surprise...  ;-)

One of the words I grew up saying was "yinz". That is Pittsburghese (the dialect of Pittsburgh PA, USA)  for saying: you guys, you all, y'all, yous, you ones, all of you.  Though we joke about it, the dialect is quite real. Carnegie Mellon University offers classes on it.

Anyway, I had no idea I didn't speak mainstream American English, and couldn't even hear the difference in pronunciation between how I sounded, and say..how  major network news anchors sounded. Holy cow. I talked just like Walter Cronkite.  :-)

Of course, school tried hard to take it out of us, to teach us proper grammar.  And for the most part, it worked.  But there were some sneaky little words that persisted, and until I was an adult, I had no idea that people other than locals didn't say "red up the house" -- meaning to clean the house, jaggerbush--for thorny brambles, or nebby--for busybody.

And it's not just words unique to the region, it's flat out pronunciation that's unique as well.

When my daughter went to college and began taking linguistic classes, my real education began.  She'd come home and tell me things that sort of amazed me. One of the things I learned as a side effect of her linguistic classes is just how much I write like I talk. Uh oh!

I immediately began paying attention to how I said things, how I expressed things, the order of words I chose. And I started eliminating certain words from my vocabulary. (By then I'd already eliminated 'yinz' from my vocab. I hadn't said it in years). On one of my daughter's weekend trips home from school, I commented to her that I was working on changing how I spoke--and in the process, the way I wrote. She told me that she wasn't.  Her dialect is part of what makes her, her.  And she added that the way I write makes me, me. That infusing dialect adds to a distinct voice. Well, within reason.

I'll share one short video to demonstrate extreme Pittsburghese dialect. I reiterate--this is extreme dialect. And I don't think I talk like this at all. But yinz would be a better judge of that than me. (lol)
The video is a one minute clip known locally as the "yinzer tornado".  It's real.

If you want to read further because you are fall down, roll over. fascinated with the subject, you can read more by clicking here: About Pittsburghese

Happy "Y" day, all. :-)

Weekend Writing Warriors: April 28, 2013

Week 13: A Guard for life..."

Welcome Warriors!  Weekend Writing Warriors is a weekly blog-hop. Each week, participants sign up HERE at Weekend Writing Warriors, then post 8 sentences of their work, published or unpublished, to go live between 12:00 noon Saturday, and 9:00 AM Sunday EST.  Then we visit each other, read, comment, critique, encourage--all those great things that do a solitary writer's heart good.

Give it a try--we're a pretty nice bunch of people.  :-)

This week, returning to my WIP, ATNS. This takes place about a third of the way through the story.

The setup:  This snippet is from the near the middle of the book.  The reader is getting a glimpse of backstory of how things work in the Rialtan Empire, and how Abraxum came to be Cuylrh's (the young King) guard for life.

The scene started with Cuylrh leaving camp in the middle of the night, and Abraxum following him. Cuylrh has just hit emotional rock bottom over his grandfather's unwillingness to accept Rissa (of Earth) and he's poured out his heart to his old guard. Cuylrh explained to Abraxum that he knows it's decision time--leave Rissa behind and break both of their hearts, or hurt his grandfather, but he doubts his ability to withstand the wrath his grandfather will dish out-- if he chooses Rissa. 

"Abraxum also understood so much more than even the focused observer would. The Earth woman was a blessing. No matter how she'd arrived under their night sky, no matter the sin his young King had committed in keeping her, and no matter the dire consequences waiting should that sin be discovered,  she was what he needed.  And she'd arrived in their midst when his need had reached desperation. 

All of the things that wrenched his heart, twisting it nearly beyond bearable pain, came to a halt when he thought of to whom his allegiance was oathed. On this he did not waiver: if a mortal threat arose, he would raise his sword in Rissa's defense out of loyalty to Cuylrh of Medoch. Pray, Giver Above, that it never came to that."

That's it.  What jumps out at you, good or bad ? I'd love to hear it and am truly grateful for every bit of criticism, opinion, and shared wisdom..  Thank you so much for visiting! 

Note* If you are launching a book, offering one for free promotion, or  have a blogpost you'd like shared, tweet me @Teresa_Willow and I'll retweet it for you. :-)

A to Z "X"

When I was a kid, it seemed that "X" was the most important letter in the alphabet. It served to handle such monumental tasks as a signature for people who couldn't write--and what a noble purpose!

And we can't forget that crossing one's heart more often than not was a hastily motioned "X" over our chests. And that signified the whole truth and the utmost sincerity.  Few things ranked quite so high in the world of kid-dom as being able to count on the sacred oath given of "cross my heart and hope to die."

And now, to the one use of the letter X that, by the tween years, trumped all others. The note, passed across the classroom  with two letters added at the end. X and O.  Hugs and kisses.

Now, just for curiosity's sake, do you know which is which?   Don't look it up--just guess if you don't know.

And for good measure, a couple pics, the first of the treasure map they  found, and second, of my son and his friends with two dogs in tow,searching for treasure --all in jest and documented to help my daughter do a storyboard for one of her college classes.

Happy X day to all the other participants at the  Blogging from A to Z Challenge !

A to Z "W"

W is for wild juneberries.

In the garden of my youth, my grandmother had various things planted around the border, just inside the garden fence.  The garden was big. Have I mentioned that? At least an acre, I'd guess.

While doing time in the garden of weedin' , we occasionally took breaks, especially early in the summer, to visit the things planted along the border. There was rhubarb, a long row of gooseberries, and then a juneberry bush. The juneberry bush was a shrubby kind of plant. Lots of small trunks rising form the earth, a clump of suckers.  And we'd fill up its branches (as they bent down beneath our weight) like a flock of hungry birds.  And then, Grandma would discover us and cuss at us in German-because just like the hungry birds, we'd beat her to the berries every summer, just before they were ripe to her liking. Her anger didn't last long.

That's all gone now, the juneberry bush, the rhubarb and gooseberries, the garden, and even grandma.  What remains are the memories.  An they flood back each spring when I see, near to the 21st day of April, the cousins of that garden juneberry bush come into bloom.

A genus of the Rosaceae (Rose) family, the wild juneberries, Amelanchier  ssp, known as service berries-- among other common names,  are scattered along the hills and hollows of my neck of the woods.

They announce the arrival of spring just as constant as the return of robins or the spring peepers' song.

A few pics I took yesterday from my part of the world. Enjoy. And thanks for visiting.  To see other "W" posts from A to Z participants, click Here.

A to Z "V"

V is for vegetable.

If you live on a farm, even live in the country, you've probably grown a few vegetables.  And you understand that zucchinis are the most shared vegetable ever, green peas are the biggest bargain in the supermarket, carrots really grow funny if you live in rocky soil, and tomatoes are the most aggressive vegetable in the garden.

Ahh...memories of summer days. The list on the refrigerator door always included "Hoe a row in the garden." I won't fess up to what passed for hoeing a row, but if we'd had a lawn mower, it would have been tempting.

At some point, hoeing became futile. Yep. Impossible.  The cucumbers and the beans and the tomatoes sprawled across the landscape, threatening to obliterate any view remaining of actual garden dirt.  Now, that was a good thing, but that was a bad thing too.

Because when  you're done hoeing for the year, it was because it was time to start picking for the year. It started early enough, and continued until the cows came home--or as was more often the case, until the frost came.

Tomatoes used to be like that, you know. They just grew and grew and grew, "indeterminate" space-raiders that they were. And the thing about tomatoes is that every so far along a tomato vine, it will set a whorl of leaves and stems AND blossoms--which turn into fruit. Starting at the oldest part of the plant (the bottom near the ground) and then it continues in this manner until it's autumnal demise.

So, if you planted a tomato, it would provide fresh, ripe tomatoes for a couple of months.  Here is where necessity (by canneries) bred a whole new type of tomato plant.  Canneries with farms had a very labor-intensive crop in their fields. They had workers picking a few tomatoes from the same plants day after day, weeeek after week...you get the idea.

But...what if they had a tomato plant that produced all of its tomatoes at the same time? And they all ripened at the same time?  And then...drum roll...they would be efficient. You could harvest an entire field, turn it over and be done with it. You could apply treatments aimed at a specific stage of plant maturity--to a whole field and not worry about damaging a later crop on the same plants. Maybe...why stop with the tomato. How about pole beans and those sprawling cucumbers. Maybe---you could even utilize machinery to help you pick.

Thus the "determinate" "bush" tomato variety was born. And pole beans fell out of style, were relegated to the title of heirloom, and replaced by bush beans. Same with the cucumbers.

What the researchers and canneries won't tell you is that while in breeding out the propensity to sprawl--to grow endlessly, they also bred out a great deal of the flavor.

Those "heirloom" varieties are incredible. Try one if you get the chance.

And, those bush varieties promoted by the few, mega-conglomerates that own the major seed companies, are leading us toward an agricultural disaster. Diversity is key to survival.

It's getting awfully shallow in the seed gene pool.  If you plant...grow an heirloom or two.

A to Z "U"

U is for...universe.

When I was a little kid, it was a pretty big deal to wish on the first star I saw each evening.  And now, as an adult, I still like to do it--though the wishes have changed. Shhh...don't ask. I can't tell. I'm sure wishes on stars are just like wishes on birthday candles. If you tell-- they don't come true.

And as an adult, I've developed a love of watching the stars come out. Have you ever done it?  After the sun sets, the watch starts. And the stars appear mysteriously. A moment earlier there was no star there, but now there is. An abracadabra kind of thing--another kind of magic in our lives.

In my part of the world, (western Pennsylvania, USA) our light pollution is minimal. But horizons are generally obscured by light.  So for our best view, we look up at the universe.  It's nearly overwhelming-- how many stars are visible on a clear night.  And the thoughts that go through my mind??

Who are we--humans as a whole? Who are our ancestors? What are we doing here, and why are we here?  And are we really alone?  Surely...there must be others. Well, that might be at the root of my scifi-ish leanings when I put pen to paper--or fingers to keyboard as the case usually is. :-)

Why are we so drawn to it? What pulls our eyes heavenward?  And then we are mesmerized, thinking long, deep thoughts that nothing else comes so close to inspiring. It's not just me. Ask yourself. Ask anyone--what do you think about when you are gazing at the stars?

There's real mystery there, but it's not a frightening. It's an unknown that we're comfortable  with.

The universe. There's just so much out there. And the thing about it is that it's a conundrum. The more we know about it, the less we know.

When I was a little girl, I remember listening to my sister, Anna, talk about Neil Armstrong's famous walk. A few hours before it happened--and it was all the talk of everyone everwhere, Anna said, "I hope they find out it really is made of blue cheese!"

Yep, we were a simple bunch of people. And I think that what my sister said was very telling. We want to have some mysteries remain. We want to be able to just look up at the universe and dream.

*note--if you have an Android powered cellphone, and you don't already know about this free app, check out Skymap. Once you load it on your phone, click on the app, any way you move your phone, it identifies the stars, planets, an constellations in whichever direction you point your phone. Really, really neat app.

A couple photos--both mine. One, the moon, as taken. Another, a pic of the sunset, filtered for color and stars added, one little old dot at a time with Windows Paint.

 

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by clicking Here

A to Z "T"

Trilliums and Back Door Friends 

 

Thinking of springtime and mothers day in a couple of weeks... Of all the stories my mom told me about moving from a small town to a backwoods farm--some sixty plus years ago, this particular one captured my heart and still holds it fast.

She was not readily accepted into my dad's family. They thought her snooty (city girl) and college educated (she was an RN).  It didn't matter that she had come from a tiny company town out in the middle of rural obscurity, or that she had entered the school of nursing as a Cadet. 

What did seem to matter the most to his family was that dad's three brothers had all married local farm girls.  And dad had not. Period.

To complicate things, my dad was the last of my grandma's children to live at home.  It was expected of him to remain at home and help her with the family farm.  So, mom moved into an unwelcoming world, far from family and friends.

When the first of mom's children was born, she quit working at the hospital--to be a full time mom.  Her sense of loneliness and isolation from her own family--who lived over an hour's drive away, must have been nearly overwhelming.  But she stood tall (as tall as she could stand at 5' 2" on her tippy toes) beside my dad, learned how to do farm work, and kept having children.

Life took on its own rhythm.  We children ran wild and free on the farm.  And one of the things that we often did was bring mom bouquets of flowers.  It didn't matter the season. Spring to fall, there was some  weed or wildflower to carry in for her.

At the end of winter, we watched for the flowers.  We knew which ones bloomed in what order. From the catkins of softwoods--we dubbed "pussy willows" even though they weren't, to the violets and tiger lilies (trout lilies) and then finally, the trilliums.  We were mom's friends, walking into the house with bouquets that were stuffed into water-filled Mason jars.

Her life was busy...but not so busy that she wouldn't have had time to think about how few friends she had--save for the rare visit from one of her family, or a couple that dad knew--a school teacher from his youth.  And dad's life was busy. He worked away from home, and then came home and farmed. He probably wasn't much in the way of companionship in those early years.

Mom raised kids,  and did housework and farmwork all day long.

So, springtime one year-- before I was even in school...and the trillium bouquets had begun to appear, we gathered handfuls and brought them home for mom--for her ritual.  A few drops of red food coloring in this jar, green in the next, yellow...and then blue in two more jars.  It was like my mom was a magician!  Our white, three-petaled lilies changed over the course of a couple days. We had pink lilies, and pale yellow, pale green and pale blue lilies

A farm over the hill and just beyond view had recently sold.  And dad appeared one day with one of the new owners. His name was Bill, and he sat in our house and visited for a bit after dad had introduced him to mom.

He had a wife, Irene, and a pack of kids--a wee bit smaller than our tribe, but it did qualify as a pack.. No, they weren't farmers, but decided to try their hands at it.  With one daughter and the rest sons, they thought it was a good direction to go. No, they weren't from Pennsylvania. They were from Ohio. "Oh, Irene? You should meet her, she knows no one here. She would love to meet you."

When Bill rose to leave, my mom quickly grabbed a bouquet of the food color lilies, and handed it to Bill while saying, "Give this to Irene, from me."

Bill looked over the flowers and then asked, "How do you get colored lilies?  Irene and me and have walked our property and only ever saw  white ones."

My mom never batted an eye when she replied, "They grow like that, here."

Bill was amazed.  He took the jar full of flowers home and gave them to Irene...and told her just what he had been told.

It had opened the door for a friendship to form that lasted most of the following five decades.  And over all those five decades, the mention of colored lilies never failed to get a smile for the joke my mom had played on her new neighbor.

In 1975, when I was 15, Bill and Irene had sold the farm and begun living the good life in Florida.
They invited mom and dad to visit, and incredibly, mom decided that we three youngest should go along. I had never been on a vacation, and this was big time. We were going to Florida for a week.

We spent over two days driving there;  the winter scenery was beautiful the whole way...but it was a long time in a car.

When we arrived at our destination, anxious to stretch our legs, we piled out and headed for the front door where Bill answered.  Then as I stepped into their house, I saw Irene hugging my mom at her "back door."

I never forgot that, but it took me years to understand why they had done it.

Years later, my mom and I were talking one day, and she told me about back-door friends. That's what her and Irene were, they determined.  "You know, Teresa, you let company in through the front door--but real friends come in through the back door."

We made several trips to Florida as the years went by--to visit Bill and Irene.  My mom never failed to use the back door when we arrived.  And Irene never failed to be standing at her back door, waiting to hug my mom.

Odd little ritual...big treasure.  Everyone should be so blessed.  Everyone should have friends who know what the back of your house looks like--and love you just the same. And everyone should have friends who know what your heart looks like behind your smile that's fit for company.  Maybe you call them something different? Kindred spirits, let-down-my-hair friends? Bosom buddies?

No matter the name, there is something beyond joy in the relationship.  There is a beauty that runs as deep as our souls.  Back door friends.

I hope your life is blessed with them...

A to Z "S" is for soap

When I was a kid, bath time involved lye soap. Grandma made it in the summer kitchen behind a closed door--she said it was too dangerous to chance having a spill near a little one. I never thought about it then, but somewhere during my adulthood I began to question just why the people who protected and loved us...would bathe us in something so dangerous.
     Silly me.There was either something wrong in my recollection that we'd used lye soap, or something wrong in my understanding of just what parents are meant to do.
        Or...neither. :-)
     To truly understand why my grandma closed the door to the outside world and then cooked her dangerous brew (she was said to be a witch for other reasons--not the soap) I took on the challenge of making homemade lye soap.
     I bought a book about soapmaking, The Complete Soapmaker by Norma Coney. I highly recommend this book to anyone thinking of making soap.
     Above and beyond the book, I did some research. I am not a chemist, but have a good grasp of the concept. Simply put, to make soap, you need to add a base (lye/sodium hydroxide/caustic soda) to a fat.  Coney's book does an excellent job of covering that.
     Once the fat and base are mixed and stirred, a chemical reaction occurs called "saponification". As a chemist explained to me, roughly 2 molecules of fat and 2 molecules of base become 3 molecules of soap and 1 molecule of glycerin. So, homemade soap tends to be less drying than commercial soap because commercial soap makers remove the glycerin and sell it as a separate product--and glycerin is a moisturizer.
     My most important revelation? That once the process of saponification occurs, there is no longer lye in the soap. See--it was safe all along. Whew! 
     Have you ever wondered how soap breaks down fat in water? It actually makes oil and water mix.  The secret is...soap molecules have split personalities--sort of. ;-)  One end of each soap molecule is hydrophobic (water repelling) and the other is hydrophilic (water loving).  Soap molecules attract both oil and water.
     Pioneers saved their fat scraps and rendered them. They saved suet, and any leftover fat such as bacon fat or from cooking meat and roasts.  When they'd collected enough, they dripped water through wood ashes they'd saved, and the water that dripped through the ashes was lye. They judged the strength of the lye (pH level) by placing a fresh egg in the container of lye. If it floated, or went straight to the bottom, the solution needed to be adjusted.
     In modern soapmaking, I still use lye, but it's from a plastic bottle.  And I've used everything from Crisco to olive oil to saved bacon grease to make soap. Interesting thing to do.
     And to make  glycerin soap that's transluscent like Neutrogena--you have to use alcohol that is minimum 90 proof.
     I know the man at the liqur store doubts my sincerity when I tell him I use it to make soap. Might have something to do with walking in the store and asking, "Where is your cheapest whiskey and vodka?"
     Coney's book also includes instructions for making that whiskey soap. ;-)  
      
      

Weekend Writing Warriors: April 21, 2013

Week 12: A Guard for life..."

Welcome Warriors!  Weekend Writing Warriors is a weekly blog-hop. Each week, participants sign up HERE at Weekend Writing Warriors, then post 8 sentences of their work, published or unpublished, to go live between 12:00 noon Saturday, and 9:00 AM Sunday EST.  Then we visit each other, read, comment, critique, encourage--all those great things that do a solitary writer's heart good.
Give it a try--we're a pretty nice bunch of people.  :-)
This week, returning to my WIP, ATNS. This takes place about a third of the way through the story.
The setup:  This snippet is from the near the middle of the book.  The reader is getting a glimpse of backstory of how things work in the Rialtan Empire, and how Abraxum came to be Cuylrh's (the young King) guard for life.
The scene started with Cuylrh leaving camp in the middle of the night, and Abraxum followed him. Cuylrh has just hit emotional rock bottom over his grandfather's unwillingness to accept Rissa (of Earth) and he's poured out his heart to his old guard. Cuylrh explained to Abraxum that he knows it's decision time--leave Rissa behind and break both of their hearts, or hurt his grandfather, but he doubts his ability to withstand the wrath his grandfather will dish out-- if he chooses Rissa. Cuylrh was raised by his grandparents.


This is on Abraxum's (Cuylrh's old guard) POV.

"Abraxum smiled at the memory of his young King’s newborn perfection. The babe’s hair, straight and silky, so black it looked blue, and his perfectly chiseled nose and uniquely defined eye wrinkles had attested to the legitimacy of his place in line to the throne. He was a miniature version of his father…who had been a miniature version of  Daekartha. The grandfather’s blood ran true.

Shifting where he sat on the rocky ground, Abraxum settled into a softer spot for his weary bones. In all the years since that wondrous day of Cuylrh’s birth, Abraxum had never failed to hear praise come from Daekartha’s lips when speaking of his grandson…until now. 

He sighed, meaning it to be much quieter than the telltale heavy breath of  heartache leaving him. He knew that the elder King’s pride was bruised, and his heart nearly broken in the sea of anguish threatening to engulf them all. And Abraxum wasn’t born yesterday—he also knew that with a drop of a sword, Daekartha’s anguish could turn into anger."

That's it.  What jumps out at you, good or bad ? I'd love to hear it and am truly grateful for every bit of criticism, opinion, and shared wisdom..  Thank you so much for visiting! 

Note* If you are launching a book, offering one for free promotion, or  have a blogpost you'd like shared, tweet me @Teresa_Willow and I'll retweet it for you. :-)

A to Z "R"

R is for rock.

It could have been for so many things, like rabbits--the eastern cottontail variety, or roosters--crazy flogging roosters, or rhubarb--the pucker power of which is likely unequaled. Oh, can't leave out the home made root-beer--yeast, water, sugar and extract. Let the bottles lay in the sun to ferment and voila--fizzy homemade root-beer. And the Raleigh man comes to mind. He came back old farm lanes, selling his Raleigh brand extracts, seasonings and mixes to housewives, out of a big old station wagon.

But rock won.

The reason I say this is that people who live in a place where they regularly traverse a large area, often comes up with names for places. Sort of landmarks on a mental map.  And we had THE big rock. It was on top of the hillside. Hillside was specific, too. There were several sides of hills on the farm, but only was called THE hillside. From THE big rock, we could see THE little hill and THE big hill on the lane. There was another hill, but it never earned a title. :-)

When I was a child, there were no less than 5 gates on the farm, but the one on the lane was THE gate. If you said "back at the gate", you meant the gate at the backside of the property where it connected to the neighbor's coal mine property.

There was THE pine tree. We had at least a hundred pines on the property, but if you said THE pine tree, we all knew you meant the white pine right beside the house. And while we're talking about THE pine tree--that was over four stories tall, there were two sections of climbing challenge that earned their titles of the THE ladder, and THE little ladder. Each so named because they had at least four branches in a row on the same side of the trunk--sort of forming, you know... ladders. ;-) The pine tree is in the background next to the house--left of the foreground garden shed.

And THE bee tree--so named for the nest of honeybees in it, year after year. And that tree was on THE flats--one of a very few sort of level pieces of property on the farm.

There were three orchards, but if you were up at THE orchard, you were at the one beside the 3 acre field. And that was a couple fields below the four-corner woods.
Picking berries in THE orchard.

And we had THE woods. There were lots of little patches of trees but only one was THE woods.

It's funny, how some of those places evoke feelings, just for having typed them on this page.

THE big rock probably still has a pair of initials chipped into it. We watched across the valley when my cousin and her boyfriend walked up to the top of THE hillside. And when we later walked over there, their initials with a plus sign between were freshly chipped into it.  That was nearly 45 years ago. They're still married. It really was carved in stone ;-)  And we watched a pair of foxes with their young frolic in front of it one day--their burrow was beneath it.

Using car hoods for toboggans on THE hillside.

THE big hill--oh, the winter memories, getting stuck on that hill and not making it out the lane. And riding sleds down both hills on the lane.

Climbing THE pine tree. When my head emerged from the top pine branches to the open air, there was always a breeze up there--even on hot summer days when the air was still next to the earth. And you could see almost forever.

And in THE woods, there was a hollow oak tree where mom used to tell us the elf that made shoes lived. He obviously took a vacation ever summer. We ran barefoot from June till September.

How about you--do you have landmark names for places in your world--names that someone outside out of your family might not understand?

If you'd like to see more from the A to Z authors, click Here

A to Z "Q"

Q is for quilts...

That's mighty country. The image, an old fashioned wooden front porch swing with a quilt lying across it, or an old "arn" (iron) bed with a crazy quilt.

The former was an image from Good Housekeeping magazine, and the latter was an image from my childhood.

Both of my grandmothers quilted, but their approaches and levels of finesse were quite different. My mom's mom was a perfectionist. A prim woman who always wore an apron at home, and her quilts were rather prim too--meaning precise and proper. And, they were beautiful!

The only quilt I ever saw that my dad's mom had made was a crazy quilt, with "1930" crudely embroidered on one of the random-shaped pieces of salvaged fabric that kept my dad, aunts and uncles warm.  The quilt was dull in color, with old snippets of wool and flannel remnants neatly hand stitched together.  My grandma and my aunts, as the story goes, made the quilt together.

Out of that quilting DNA, I'll share my attempt at quilting. I gathered instructions a few years ago, just a simple 9-patch quilt. Giving my paternal grandmother a nod, I used salvaged fabrics to make the squares. I measured, made sure it was all cut perfectly, the corners met just right --the nod to my maternal grandmother.  And by the time I had two 9-patch pieces sewn together, I was absolutely sure that any quilting gene had completely skipped over me. Yep. The truth of it? There are a lot more ways to arrange 9 squares than the instruction would have you believe., And by geez, I found at least two of them. :-)

I'll get back to it someday--and give a bigger nod my paternal grandmother's direction. Go for the crazy quilt... It's a good quilt. (lol).

And here's a the biggest nod of all to my friend, Theresa, in Texas, who made me a Christmas quilt two years ago. and it's just as pretty (and perfect and complicated) as the day is long!

And I have to go visit the quilters taking part in this year's A to Z challenge, and tell them how amazing they really are! To find more A-to-Z-ers, click Here

A to Z "P"

P...puppies and paw prints.

I have to share this story--a goosebumps story. Last Wednesday I got home from walking the community trail after work, and I noticed that the daffodils and jonquils were blooming behind the house--the flowerbed by Pokey's grave. "Poke" was my old Border Collie Springer Spaniel mutt mix.  He was 15 years old when I made the most painful decision of my life--to have the old boy put down.  I cried for weeks. I didn't think the puffiness would ever leave my eyes. It did, but the hurt never left my heart. 

So, I went back to admire the flowers last Wednesday, and as happens, I started talking to Pokey. I guess in a weird way, I feel guilty about Leo-- the new little puppy who came into our lives just seven short weeks ago, desperately needing a home. He was such a tiny baby, only five weeks old. My guilt? Because Pokey was this fantastic dog that I didn't think I could ever move forward beyond. Anyway, I told Poke while I stood by his grave, that Leo was pretty neat, and that he reminds of me of Poke. And then I said I wondered if Pokey sent him, or if it's Pokey's spirit returned.

That evening, hellacious storms blew in, bringing wind driven rain that drenched the front porch, even under the roof. About 9:00 I put Max and Maggie out to pee. Max is our 120 lb rescue Rotty mix, and Maggie is our 70 lb rescue Rotty mix. I left them back in shortly after. They were never set loose to get into anything.  They wanted outside again  about an hour later. Lots of wind, rain, rumbling thunder and things outside they wanted to get a look at I figured. It was an unsettling evening.

When I stepped out onto the porch, I saw white paw-prints on the step and on the porch just at the top of the steps in front of the door. The wind was driving the rain again, so I left the dogs back in. I thought maybe (but doubtful) that they'd stepped in something-- and whatever it was had to be next to the step or the porch, so I went back outside to see if I could see something--I wanted to get it out of the dogs' (and the porch's) harms way. Nope. There wasn't anything, including paw prints, leading up to the steps.  But there were paw prints on the steps and the porch.

I went back inside and got distracted. The next morning when Dave and I stepped outside onto the still wet wet porch he looked down and asked what the dogs stepped in, or whose dog had made the footprints. I told him about the night before. I grabbed the porch broom and tried to sweep the print off of the sopping wet wood. It didn't brush off. It looked like dogs had stepped in white stain.

I sort of (and sort of not) tongue in cheek suggested to Dave that Pokey had come back to visit--to see Leo.  Dave commented that some of the prints were too big to have been made by Pokey's paws. So I told him that maybe Gus--our 12 year old Husky Rotty mix who had to be put down 8 months before Pokey, had come back to visit too. 

Dave and I scratched our heads and got on with our day.

When I got home from work, Dave told me that he had looked all over the yard, the driveway. There was nothing else, no other white paw-prints. We didn't talk about it much after that until Sunday night while driving home, out of the blue I asked him, "What made those paw-prints?  They were made in a storm of blowing, drenching, rain." He still has no idea either.

Crazy. 

I'm Thomas--the doubter. I want irrefutable evidence. I want empirical evidence. I want to believe without seeing...but just can't. I'm still looking for a plausible answer...

When all of the logical, rational, and tangible explanations are exhausted, don't we have to begin looking at the illogical, irrational, and intangible ones?

Did our old dogs come back to visit?

A to Z "O"

O...  Onions came to mind when I thought of the letter O with respect to growing up on a farm. Onions, for anyone who has never grown them, is a root crop in the lily family. I'm a fan of onions. Growing up on a farm with a tight budget, there was ample opportunity to meet different foods--and to eat what was fixed for supper. It was a long time until breakfast--should I have chosen otherwise. I digress.

Back to the onions. They are pretty easy to grow, too. Root crops, in general, are an easy group to grow. We grew a ton of root crops when I was a kid. Turnips--which I still like to eat.  It was pretty common for us to have mashed potatoes/turnips in about a 50/50 blend. Probably healthier too than just plain potatoes.

Potatoes... now that brings to mind picking potatoes. Of course, when I say "picking", it's not like you can pick a potato off of a plant like you pick a pepper or a tomato (which are, oddly enough, in the same plant family--the nightshades).  Since potatoes are tubers that form along the root system of the plant, the roots must be dug up from the ground before we can pick potatoes.

Dad had a potato digger. He pulled it behind the Farmall H and it dug into the ground much like a plow does.  Then we had to carry buckets into the field and loosen the clods of dirt to knock the potatoes loose. I've read it compared to searching for treasure from the earth. Hmm...maybe now I'd say that, when I grow a couple of Yukon Gold potato plants, and a few blue potato plants. But when I was a kid and stood looking at a two acre field of potatoes being turned over, it was anything but treasure. It was work.

I suppose I was grumpy--I must have been all of 5 or 6 years old--the memory is quite hazy. My grumpiness, I suppose, made it quite easy for my older brother Pete to torment me to the point that I picked up a potato and threw it at him with a wind up that would've made Cy Young envious. And I suppose it was just as easy for Pete to duck and watch the potato sail right past him and wallop my aunt Mary in the head just as she lifted her face to yell at us for bickering.

I've digressed once again. This is the "O" post.

What I wanted to share today is the reason we cry when we peel and slice and chop onions.

Onions have sulfur compounds in them. When they are sliced, those compounds mix with other compounds and become airborne. That meets the water that lubricates our eyes and forms a very mild but highly irritating sulfuric acid.  Then our eyes begin to tear, trying to wash away the irritant.

Whew, that was a two dollar story just to give you a ten cent explanation. ;-)

Happy O day. :-)

A to Z "N"

N is for neighbors...

Growing up out in the sticks, we knew our neighbors. Families knew families for generations, and neighbors, as corny as it sounds, helped each other. It lightened the load for everyone involved.

Now, I don't mean that people took advantage, but I will say, we were good neighbors to know because we came equipped with a full out work-crew--what with eight kids n'all. Heck, we could field two baseball teams all by ourselves when it came time for a pick up game in front of the barn.  Okay, the teams were small, but the area was small too. :-) I digress.

It all sounds so cliche, but it's all true. If we walked to a neighbor's house, we knew every person who passed by in a car, and many stopped to see if we needed a ride somewhere.

We'd help neighbors put in hay.  And the some of them helped back. I guess it was tempting for some of them to just figure that Louie had eight kids--he had it covered. :-)

The neighborhood wasn't a street we lived on, or a city block. It went for miles. And we didn't know just the people: we had half an idea bout the animals that lived in our neighborhood. We knew shortcuts cross-country to other farms. And we knew who was genuinely happy to see us, and had a swing or a bench and would sit down and talk to us.  Even when we were little kids.

My favorite neighbor to visit was Mary Frazak. From the time before I was even in school, we knew if we walked halfway up our lane, then cut across a meadow we called the flats, cross the creek, climb onto a large rock, we could carefully step over the electric pasture fence running between our properties. Then we walked up through the "cattle run" --exiting at her barn. We'd stop and pump a drink from the well, catching it in our hands to drink. Then on to Mary's house.

She was a worker, from sun up till sundown, barn, garden, fields. A tough woman, child of Polish immigrants. And I know her stories. I have them stored in my heart, because when she told them they were beautiful and bittersweet--even to a child.

It was a wonderful direction to head to when we had free time. And Mary never failed to stop what she was doing and invite us to sit down with her and talk. I can still see the pidgeons flying from her barn roof toward the field. We'd marvel at the variety of colors. And she had this great old grape arbor, and plum trees and a strawberry patch.

When we headed home, the summer evening was falling on our corner of heaven on earth. A blue mist crept across the hay fields, slipping down toward the valley, toward home, much like us. We beat feet back through the cattle run, wanting to get over the worst of the steep terrain before dark--not to mention to avoid fresh cow patties and thistles-- in our bare feet.. Lightning bugs flashed in the dimming twilight when we stepped over the fence, and the day birds had been replaced by low flying bats.

Looking back, I see a small life's lesson. She was my favorite neighbor because she took the time to acknowledge us, even when we were little kids. And that was in a day when children were to seen but not heard. And she always stopped what she was doing when "company" came.


I tried not to be a stranger to her when the years piled up behind her. She was a delight to visit even into her nineties. I wish we all aspired to be the kind of neighbor that Mary was.

Do you know your neighbors?

A to Z "M"

And in keeping with my country/farm childhood theme, M is for Milk cow.


In my generation, we had a lot of different animals over the years, and the "famous" ones have remained in my memory.  I've already written about Cheeper, that cute little peep that grew into a monster of a flogging rooster.  And today, on the topic of milk cow, I'll tell you about Betsy.

She was a milk cow, a Brown Swiss, maybe. If she was a pure bred cow, it was probably by accident, because I think even our cows were mutts.  

I don't know how old she was. I can just say that she was part of the farm as far back as my memories go. Betsy was about as tame as any cat on the farm, and the most dependable animal for showing up at milking time.

We milked by hand--also just part of life. It was something you learned, and all of knew how, and all of us did it. Although I will say, some of us did it more than others. Being one of the youngest, it didn't fall on me very often. It was more of a novelty when I got to do it. I'd beg to get to take a turn.

Over the winter, the cows were in the barn, and were let out once a day for water, then herded back inside. But in the summer, they roamed the pasture, living outside. And Betsy was milked over the summer.  But we never had to go chase  Betsy down and herd her back to the barn to be milked. She showed up at the yard fence at milking time.

I'd think that a cow's udder becomes quite painful if those gallons of milk aren't removed in a timely manner. Or...maybe she just liked us. I remember feeding her bread as a treat while she stood at the fence..  Really...sliced bread.

And then we'd milk her right there at the fence.

Drum roll...   I give you Betsy... the milk cow. My sister Betty, 14 months younger than me, is beneath Betsy, milking her. I'd guess that Betty was 5 or 6 years old in this photo. Look at the dogs and cats! In the second photo, I am the little girl in the foreground, holding an egg carton. The photo dated Sept 1964 tells me that I was four years old. But sheesh--you'd think I'd have known by then you don't bring an egg carton to milk a cow. :-)