A Second Look--June 4, 2014

Here are some things I saw this week during a

 Second Look.

The bearded iris are almost done blooming, but the Siberian iris are still showing their beautiful purple color.

The tulip poplar tree is blooming.

Ward and I had an interesting show one morning as we watched a neighborhood cat stalk a groundhog.

The very fragrant wild roses are blooming. 

The golden garlic is blooming. Every year, I never remember we have these plants until they bloom. So they're always a nice surprise.

The chickadee is starting to lay eggs in the new nest that was built on top of another chickadee nest.

The bluebird box was starting to get crowded with the growing babies. Three days after this, the box was empty. Now we're not the only ones with an empty nest. :)

After having a big serving of suet, the squirrel cleaned up seeds under the bird feeder.

Thankful Sunday--June 1, 2014

I am thankful for Theo, 

and Theo is thankful for a good bargain.

Yesterday, Ward and I visited Theodore to celebrate his recent birthday. He was excited to show us the latest acquisition for his future clock shop--an almost new shop vac that he got for a very good price. We are thankful that Theo is our son, and he is thankful that he got a very good price on this shop vac. :)

Food Waste Friday and True Food Confessions--May 30, 2014

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. Also, I am using this public forum to encourage us to eat out less which includes better meal planning. You can follow how we are doing in this endeavor by reading True Food Confessions. (Thanks to Jo from Simply Being Mum for sponsoring FWF this week.)

This Week's Food Waste

I knew that we had some potatoes that had to be used soon, but I didn't quite make it to them soon enough. We had one potato that was unsalvageable. If it had only been shriveled, I would have soaked it and used it. But alas, it was rotting too. Oh, well. The other two made some good fried potatoes.

This Week's True Food Confessions

I grew up in a time and place when bacon was king. Every morning, my hard-working, lineman father would have bacon and three eggs, over-easy, for breakfast. This meant an accumulation of bacon grease in our grease can. Some people kept their grease can on the stove, but my food-safety-conscious mother kept ours in the refrigerator. But nevertheless, we always had a delicious supply of bacon grease to cook with. And, boy, did our food taste good. However, we eventually became enlightened nutritionally, and my father started having a bowl of Total cereal every morning instead of bacon and eggs.  That made it hard to fill the grease can and at some point it was gone all together. We adapted, but we still occasionally drooled over the thought of over-easy eggs and potatoes fried with bacon grease.

So last night, I was having a bit of nostalgia and we had bacon for supper. This was for two reasons--one was to try out some naturally cured bacon (it was good), and two was to have some fried potatoes and wilted spinach-- both of which can't really be done properly without bacon. At least, not from my perspective. And to round it out, we had roasted asparagus. We were lucky because the spinach and asparagus were fresh from Uncle Billy's garden.

I got a bit distracted with my malfunctioning camera, and burned some of the fried potatoes, but the rest were good.  Almost as good as I remember Mrs. Shepherd's were. Mrs. Shepherd was a neighbor who kept her grease can on the stove and had fried potatoes every night for supper. I loved visiting her around that time. I also wilted the spinach in the bacon grease. Yum. So last night, we had a delicious supper where I managed to slip some vegetables in with our bacon. :)

A Second Look--May 28, 2014

Are you one of those people who everything reminds them of a song? Or is that just me? A thunderstorm was kicking up as I sat down to write this and here is what I started to sing. (Luckily, I'm at home where I can sing as much and as loudly as I want.) 

The winds are blowing and the rain is falling, 
But joy is filling the air
Troubles and sorrows are gone forever,
But song abounds everywhere.

I was reminded of this song by the gusting winds, but I also see now that it has the perfect words to go with how I often feel when doing a Second Look. When I am stressed, I can forget about my troubles for a little while as I explore the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees and the moon up above (Oh no, another song crept in). I think it's time to stop singing and get to the business at hand.

Here are some things I saw this week during

a Second Look.

The Siberian iris around our wellhead are in bloom.

Different bearded iris are also blooming.

The peach tree didn't have many blooms this year, but there are a few peaches starting to form.

The purple sage are in full bloom.

Little blossoms that fell from the holly tree above.

Cranesbill

You can see the blue feathers are starting to form on the baby bluebirds. It won't be long now before they leave the nest.

You can see how much the birds have changed in less than two weeks.

Memorial Day--a look back .

This is a revisit of last year's Memorial Day's Post.

 Memorial Day--Leo's Story

Today is Memorial Day in the US--the day we remember the men and women who died while serving their country in the armed services. There are many different stories about these people and I'm going to tell one of them here about Ward's grandfather, Leo.

Leo, 1941

Leo was the son of Polish immigrants and as a young man joined the army is 1929. He became part of the Army Engineer division. Later at a dance, he met a smart and pretty young girl, LeeAnn, and married her in 1932. They soon added a baby boy to the family and two years later they had another. After renting a small home, Leo built a house for his growing family. Being an enterprising young man, he used discarded lumber from a railroad yard for much of the house. (By the way, the house that he built still stands firm today.)

Leo's and LeeAnn's happy life was not affected much when World War II broke out in Europe in 1939. However, the Army started to send units to Iceland to build defensive fortifications to be ready just in case. At the end of 1941, his unit was assigned to go to Iceland to help in these preparations. While they were in New York waiting for their boat, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. The US immediately declared war against Japan and her allies, including Germany. The US was officially in World War II.

Leo and his unit continued with their orders to go to Iceland, but they didn't make it. Their boat was attacked in the Atlantic by a German submarine and had to be repaired before it could go any further. During the month that the repairs took, the soldiers got to go back and spend time with their families. No one knew that this would be the last time they would see each other.

Their boat was repaired, and they were finally on their way. They made it to Iceland and completed their work. However, on the way back to the states, the boat was attacked by another German submarine and this time it sank. The seas were rough which made it difficult for many to survive. Most went down with the ship. First Leo was declared missing at sea and later he was declared killed in action. It wasn't until several years later that his family knew the details of what happened because much of the information was classified.

LeeAnn was suddenly left with two young boys to raise on her own. A few months later, the unthinkable happened and her younger son was killed in an accident. Despite the terrible losses, she kept going. With various jobs, hard work, and the help of family she carved out a good life for her and her son (Ward's father).

When I met LeeAnn, these events had happened over 40 years ago, but it was like they had happened yesterday for her. She talked about the surprise that Leo was going to bring her when he got home from Iceland and still wondered what it was going to be. She showed me some of the subflooring that Leo built where you could read writing from the railroad cars. She talked about how long it took for them to declare Leo dead and how that affected her benefits. But mostly she talked about the surprise her husband was going to bring her. She thought that it was going to be something to do with their tenth wedding anniversary that they were going to celebrate when he came home.

On this day and everyday, we remember Leo and the sacrifice he made for his country. We also want to remember all of the other men and women who have died in service and hope that their stories have been told. But most importantly, we want to thank each and everyone of them and their families. Because of their sacrifices, we can live a good life today.