Neighbor

Neighboring Amish Farms

Today, Ward and I visited Amish farm country. While there, I heard something from a farmer that gave me food for thought. I am going to try to think about this each day.

"If someone asks if I'm a good person, I could say anything. If they really want to know the answer they should ask my my neighbor."

Food Waste Friday--April 27, 2012

It's time for Food Waste Friday, when the Frugalgirl encourages us to post pictures from the previous week of wasted food from our household. This accountability hopefully will help us to be more careful with our food and maybe save some money. 

Here it goes for this week.

We're on a roll with no waste again this week. However, I did have pause to think about the whole process. Here's what happened.
 

I was on my way home from work and I was hungry and thirsty. That found me driving through Burger King where it was cheaper to get a small value meal that included fries than it was to buy the drink and burger separately. So that's what I did. The burger and tea hit the spot and I only ate a couple of fries. I was going to throw the rest of them away, but I didn't want to have any waste for Food Waste Friday. So I heated them up in the toaster oven, and we had the rest for dinner. But did we really need them? No.
 

In the grand scheme of things, all is okay with this scenario. It's okay to eat fast food every once in a while even though it may not be the best nutritionally. It's okay that I served my leftover fries to my family. However, philosophically, I wonder about serving the fries again just to have no waste. That seems as if that was carrying things a little too far.  

Do you ever do things like I did just to have no waste?

A Second Look--April 25, 2012

This week during a Second Look, I saw some exciting things. For the first time we saw a pileated woodpecker at our feeder and now we finally have seen the bird that Woody Woodpecker is based on. The bird has visited twice and we hope that we're on her regular feeding schedule.

In addition, the rhododendron has started to bloom and for the first time I noticed all of the blooming stages that it goes through. The big flower is made up of smaller flowers and they bloom over several days individually until the big bloom that we're familiar with is complete.

Also as I mentioned last week, we have more than one kind of wild cherry in the yard as I found different kinds of blossoms on different trees. Up until this point, wild cherry was just wild cherry to me. That's why I like the Second Look so much. I see new details from the same old things I have looked at many times before.

 Here's What I Saw This Week

Pileated Woodpecker (female)

Dogwood

Our only tulip

Lily of the Valley

Four stages of a rhododendron bloom

Siberian Iris

At least two kinds of wild cherry blossoms

Japanese painted fern emerging

 

Azalea

School Days--Paul

 School Days is a reoccurring feature in which I ask people about their early memories of school. Everyone has a story to tell about this and I hope to give them a voice here. 

Here is Today's Story

Paul started kindergarten at age five at a Catholic school in Maine during the early 1960's.

Tell me about starting school or an early school memory.

 I went to St. Louis school for kindergarten and first grade. The neighborhood was mostly French Canadians and most of us spoke some French at home. The nuns instructed us in English, but we usually spoke in French on the playground. Norman was my best friend and we talked in French at recess.

During my first year of school, I had a lot of stomachaches and stayed home a lot. I'm not sure why, but it could have been because there was a big bully on the playground. He was big and chubby although I think he was only a first grader. He lived next to Norman. Also, there was a big picture in the hallway of the devil that freaked me out. The devil was black and charred with big white eyes. I looked away every time I passed.

We had to walk to school but it wasn't too far—maybe about two tenths of a mile. There was a puddle on the way home that had water in it from rain or snow melt. I always walked through it. It was deep enough that is would go over my goulashes and get my feet wet. That really exasperated my mother, but she always had a huge glass of milk and a chocolate chip cookie from the local bakery waiting for me when I got home. That cookie was really good.

I don't remember much about what I learned. I do remember that we had to practice a lot of writing and there was a match game that I really liked. Instead of Dick and Jane readers, we had readers that featured John, Jean, and Judy. When I moved to Sacred Heart for second grade, I was very worried that I would not have my John, Jean, and Judy books. They had the same books and I was happy.

In first grade, we had a long term sub that was very strict. One day I was asked to recite an answer and I didn't know it. The teacher put her hands around my neck and shoulders and shook me and said “Petit Paul doesn't know the answer.” I went home and told my mother that my teacher tried to choke me, but she didn't believe me.

Thanks for your stories.

Candy

Thanks to Theodore, we're still enjoying Easter Candy.