soup is served

Making a delicious soup need not be difficult or time consuming. In my experience of making soups, I am most inspired by the ones that do not require a recipe, but rather meld together with whatever available ingredients I have at hand. Tamar Adler's book, An Everlasting Meal, gave me even more inspiration for the creating of tasty soups economically by using food parts that might be tossed into the garbage as waste (ie, cheese rinds, skins, peelings, or end parts). 

During the winter months I would take one morning a week, usually Thursdays, to make a soup with the leftover meat and vegetables sitting on my refrigerator's shelves. The comforting aroma of soup would be wafting throughout my house about the time that Charlotte's violin teacher would arrive for her lesson. Then the girls and I would either eat the soup for lunch or it would be our dinner that night when my husband came home.

Now that summer is here with the rich supply of local, fresh vegetables, I am making soups on a regular basis once more. Cream soups, which are wonderful when served cold, or a mish- mash of vegetables chopped, sauteed and left to simmer with homemade chicken stock to make a more stew-type and heartier soup.

I totally agree with her statement that one does not have to be a professional to cook well. This book is an enjoyable read, and who doesn't appreciate reading a good cookbook especially in the summer months? She gives a no nonsense approach to cooking and you even find several recipes thrown in here and there to try.

the "fermenator"

 I've given myself a new job description, instead of stating that I like to ferment things, I've dubbed myself the "fermenator".

You might have remembered me mentioning on other posts in times past, here and here, my experimentations in fermentation.

Years ago, while on the farm, I had my first attempt at making apple cider vinegar. I used Carla Emery's recipe found in Encyclopedia of Country Living.  My concoction sat in an antique covered crock until it began to make a slushy stuff on top, I sensed failure.

But now I know fermentation will bubble and grow stuff, it is alive and growing, not necessarily bad.

So with my organic apple scraps and cores, distilled water, a glass jar, and a piece of cheesecloth, I am on my way to making apple cider vinegar. It rests inside my cupboard, at this stage it has a most delightful smell.

Now that it is beginning to thicken and form a scum on top, I shall let it stand quiet and undisturbed for a month.

in between times

 We are having those days in between the end of a school year and the beginning of another. These are glorious days crammed with all manner of things.

While at the Yellowstone Lake Hotel in Yellowstone Park, I was dismayed to find out I had left my nightgown at the hotel in Jackson Hole. Simple enough make a phone call, right? Simple except there was no cell phone coverage or internet in Yellowstone to even look up the phone number of the hotel in Jackson Hole. It was some time past our picnic lunch the next day before I was able to get a strong enough connection to make the needed phone call. Yes, they had the gown, and yes they would be glad to mail it to my home. A package arrived at my house a few days after my return...my favorite Verena nightgown.

As we drove into our driveway late on the night of our arrival home, the car's headlights shone on our hydrangea bush. While we were away its blooms peaked in a mass of various shades of pink and violet. The blooms hang copiously adorning my backyard, one of its attractions. The gardenias are also blooming, perfumy sweet, and unlike the bountiful hydrangea blooms, they only survive one day before turning brown and shriveling up into a little brown pod.

an icon of a pleasant home

Clotheslines.

 Frankly, I love them. In the years of living out on the farm, I had the most fantastic clothesline. Practical, serviceable, and there were only a very few days during the spring, summer, or fall that freshly laundered clothes, sheets or towels were not heeped into a basket, carried outside, and pegged onto the clothesline. Even in the cold chill of winter days, I would continue to use my clothesline to dry my bed linens.

In the ten years that I have lived in this house and this particular neighborhood, I have mourned the loss of something so simple and satisfying. But now I've discovered the neighborhood "rules" allow for discreet clotheslines, ones that can not be seen from the road.

I have literally awakened from sleep for several years with the sweet thoughts of hanging clothes on the line.

 Finally, I have a clothesline in my life once again, retractable, modified for sure, and just big enough for me to hang one set of sheets and pillowcases. It is situated in an out of the way corner of my yard, and for the most part it is private.

Today I washed my bed linens, took my new clothes pegs, and with utmost delight I hung those sheets and pillowcases onto my little retractable line. Tonight I shall snuggle under their fragrant crispness.

All day the blanket snapped and swelled
on the line, roused by a hot spring wind....
  From there it witnessed the first sparrow,
early flies lifting their sticky feet,
and a green haze on the south-sloping hills.
Clouds rose over the mountain....At dusk
I took the blanket in, and we slept,
restless, under its fragrant weight.

-Wash- by Jane Kenyon

a vacation out west

The Lord has established His throne in the heavens, and His sovereignty rules over all.

Psalm 103:19

We have returned home from being at Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons for the past week.  The girls and I are creating a scrapbook with our "millions" of photos while the trip is still fresh in our minds and the awe factor still lingers in our brains. I have managed to download one memory card so far, so here I am sharing a few.

I must confess I was completely mesmerized by the hot springs, vents, geyser basins, and mud holes. Rose shows her appreciation of the smells that sometimes would surround you.

A local taste treat for us was the huckleberry ice cream.

Hiking Inspiration Point at the Grand Tetons National Park.

A morning at Yellowstone Lake. 

The most difficult part was the extremes in weather that we experienced, the travel books were certainly right on that account. But after a very cold, windy, rainy evening of about 37 degrees, the next morning was lovely.

For any of you who live out west, especially in the states of Montana or Wyoming, I would like to say how wonderful it was to vacation there and see and experience what is common for ya'll. The day we visited Old Faithful I happened to walk beside an elderly lady with a cane. We had a brief conversation upon which she told me she was 96 years old and this was her second time seeing Old Faithful, the last time being about 40 years ago. I have been telling my girls this is probably the only time I will see these sights...maybe not.

young apiarist

A budding honey farmer has begun her first on the job learning experience. Charlotte has from the very beginning shown a growing curiosity and keen interest in the bees.

 No gloves and no fear, the bees were thankfully friendly that day. She minded us when we told her to be slow in her motions when around the bees. It was almost as if the bees were cooperating to teach her the best lessons too.

 I was close, without any proper gear, so this picture is not the best and snapped rather quickly. The queen was presenting herself to us.

I was reading one of Miss Read's books recently and wouldn't you know it, a  character in the book, Village Centenary, is a keeper of bees.

"Heard the latest?" inquired Mr. Willet the next morning. "About the vicar?"
"He's going to keep bees."

celebrating the measure of a father

Witt and Claire honored us with a get together at their house to kythe their affection for a wonderful father. It was as if little notes were sent out to place an order for such a lovely evening. 

Claire hosts a good many events at her house, and many are carried on outside, under the maple tree.

  After we ate a delicious supper prepared by Witt and Claire, we sat around the table and talked, until twilight fell with a gradual hush, and we were serenaded by thousands of lightening bugs. A light show twinkling on the green lawn.

 All to soon it was dark, time to help carry things back into the house and head for home.

the most photographed birthday cake

It was as much fun to photograph as it was to create.

 Charlotte was having a very important birthday.
 It was her decade birthday, so nothing less than a very special cake would do.

So we baked a yellow cake, mixed the icing until we were able to get the perfectly desired shade of green, and she decorated it.

Then we invited some of her friends over and had an afternoon of confectionery delight. Everyone was given their own pound cake and then bowls of buttercream frosting in colors of blue, orange, yellow, purple and pink were placed in front of them.

And dishes of candy to allow individual artistry of the sweetest kind.

hospitality, knitting, and market bags

Not having had a knitting project in my hands for some time and, therefore, not being able to be a part of Ginny's Yarnalong, it was with great delight that I perchance ran across this pattern for a cotton market bag recently, and with summer time lull (who am I kidding?) wrapping me in its grips, I promptly ran upstairs to my stash and gathered several balls of cotton yarn and began knitting one right then and there! Especially welcomed along with the sweet arrival of local farmers markets now dotting grassy lawns, street corners and paved parking lots throughout the town.

this is the bottom of the bag, decreasing having begun

The subject of Christian hospitality and its practice in our society has stirred a deep desire within me to  to learn more about what this imperative and necessary mandate truly means. What were the writers in the New Testament teaching when they told the early Christians to practice hospitality? Somehow I believe my ideas fall short of its original meaning in Scripture. As a part of the body of Jesus Christ, His Church, I am challenged to rethink and search out the historical roots of this fundamental custom. 

                      "Recovering hospitality as a vital aspect

                               of Christian life will be more complex 

                               than simply resurrecting an old-fashioned practice".

A close-up of the artwork on the front cover, a mosaic entitled, Abraham and the Angels,

wonderfully appropriate.

a story of a marriage

"...we have learned to live with each other, accepting each other's edges and corners."

Madeleine L'Engle

Two-Part Invention

For thirty-five years my husband and I have lived with each other.

The edges and corners have not become less sharp necessarily, just accepted with warm appeal all around.

If you have never read this book, Two-Part Invention by Madeleine L'Engle, you should take the time and do so, perhaps this summer. This book is one of the best books on marriage that I have ever read. It is beautifully written; an open, heartfelt, and sincere book about the beginnings of a marriage that spanned forty years, "unto death do us part". While I might not agree with the entirety of the author's Biblical doctrines, I wholeheartedly believe in the principles that governed her life in how she viewed a committed marriage relationship, and the manner in which she lived her life and defined family.  Two-Part Invention is the fourth book in a series she entitled the Crosswicks Journal, all of which are autobiographical and written with her heart and soul completely entwined.

In celebration of thirty-five years together, my husband and I took an overnighter to one of our favorite getaways. We had six windows in our hotel room, two of which were in the bathroom! We dressed up and dined in the fancy dining room that evening while a music trio played the "soft love songs of the past".

Somehow I have always known my edges and corners were sharper than his from the very beginning...but he would never admit it or say that was true. My husband, my love, he is a wonderful man.

a simple gift

On Thursday mornings for the past month, an orchestra practices in my sun room.

This orchestra consists of three young violinist,

and a cellist.

Young muscians hold sublime favor with me. The learning of a new instrument and performing for an audience is not aways an easy task, but to see their expressions and watch their determination is priceless.

Tomorrow evening is the recital. 

Here is a tiddly bit of a preview.