Thankful Sunday

I am thankful for my fig.

Soon, we will see things growing again outside, but we're not there yet. But we are there with a plant I have inside. I got a small fig plant late last summer from an acquaintance. Even though I was unfamiliar with growing figs, I was excited by the possibilities.  I transferred it from the yogurt container it was in into a bigger pot and promptly watched the two leaves it had fall off. I brought it inside for the winter with high hopes even though it looked dead. And I was not disappointed. Last week, seemingly out of nowhere, it showed signs of life with a small shoot and leaf. Wow, what a great surprise to see that tender, new growth.

So as I watch the snow and sleet fall outside, I am thankful for this little fig tree and the hope of things to come.

Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day!

In honor of Valentine's Day, I'm going to rerun a post I did several years ago about a Valentine party I went to when Wally was in 3rd grade. It was one of a series of posts of observations about different behaviors between boys and girls. I enjoy the stories involved, so I think I'll run the series again. Here's the first installment.

Boys vs. Girls--Wally's Valentine Party

Boys vs. Girls—You Choose 

 Before I had kids, I thought that each child was an individual, and didn't believe much in gender stereotypes in children. Little boys ran and jumped a lot because that's the kind of games they were taught. Little girls played with dolls because that was the kind of toys they were given. I thought that if all kids, regardless of gender, were exposed to the same things they would have the same tendencies. Then I spent some time in the real world of kids and figured out that I was wrong. Possibly there were some differences between boys and girls. From time to time, I'm going to share some of my experiences that led me to this conclusion. However, so as to not bias you, I'm going to let you guess, who are the boys in the stories and who are the girls.

 Today's Story 

The Event: Wally's Third Grade Valentine Party

The Scene: The kids were seated around tables and had naturally grouped themselves into two groups with all boys on one side and all girls on the other side.

The Action: One group was carefully reading each Valentine and talking about who liked whom. The other group was seeing how many Red Hot cinnamon candies they could stuff in their mouth before their mouth burned too much. 

You choose: Which group was the boys and which was the girls?

On My Nightstand

If you're like me, there's always more out there to read than you can get around to. And it doesn't help that these days, reading is often sleep inducing for me. However, that doesn't mean that I don't try to keep up. Here are the books I'm currently reading, browsing, looking at the pictures in, and sleeping with.

From Bottom to Top:

1. The Beginner's Guide to Starting a Garden by Sally Roth
I first got this book from the library, but liked it enough that I asked for it for Christmas. It is basically landscaping with common plants that people often give away. It has designs and tips for beds and gardens that seem practical and I could make. We have several beds that need reworked in our yard and I thought this would be a great reference.

2. The Edible Garden, a Sunset book by Hazel White and Janet Sanchez
I received a gift certificate for Christmas to an edible landscape company. I have a tree in mind that I want to get, but wanted to do some more research before I made any decisions. So when I ran across this book at the library, I brought it home for more study.

3. The Family Handyman
I brought home this magazine from the library because it had an article on a deck makeover, a project that we want to do at some point.

4. Laughter, the Best Medicine II, Reader's Digest
Remember this feature in Reader's Digest? I guess it's still there, actually, but I'm not sure since I haven't seen a Reader's Digest in a while. Anyway, I picked this book up at a used book sale to have some light, quick reading. It's the perfect bathroom reader or easy reading to go to sleep by.

5. The Beautiful, Edible Garden by Leslie Bennett and Stefani Bittner
Another book I checked out from the library to do a little more research before I decide what to buy with my gift certificate for edible plants.

6. The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
This is the book I read last month for my book club and needs to taken back to the library. The club agreed that it was a good book and enjoyed it. The basic story has a golem and a jinni stranded in New York City in 1899 without their typical masters and abilities. There are many levels to the story from the golem and jinni trying to survive in the human world anonymously to commentary on the immigration experience. It provided a lot of discussion for my club.

7. Why We Sleep by Matthew Wallace
This is a current popular book by Matthew Wallace, PhD, a sleep researcher. His goal with the book is to help people understand what sleep is and how important it is to our health and well being. I've just started the book, but I am already learning a lot.

8. Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty
This is my book club's selection for February. The book itself got very good reviews and the Netflix series based on it has won a lot of awards. I may the last person around to read it; so far I find it engaging.

Are you a read-one-book-until-it's-finished kind of person or a read-several-books-at-once sometimes finishing one of them kind of person? What does your nightstand look like?

More Neighborhood Exploration

Recently when there was a break from the frigid temperatures and the cold rains, we explored another neighborhood park. We found tennis courts, ball fields, playgrounds, an exercise trail, and a nature walk. We explored the nature walk which had long ago lost any of its information. Below are a few pictures.

The temperatures were in the fifties and the sky was clear.

The trail was mostly dry with only a few muddy spots from the rains earlier in the week.

We walked for a while chatting before I spotted this interesting tree. I felt it needed more investigation.

Ward was happy to wait on the trail while I fought my way through the brush to find the tree.

It was worth the scratches and the sticks in my hair because when I got closer, I found the ground littered with hedgeapples.

The large tree that I went to see was pretty impressive, but I was most excited with the hedgeapples. I didn't remember a lot about them, so I looked up one of my posts I did several years ago about hedgeapples when we got home. It's copied below if you want to learn a little more.

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A Second Look--Hedgeapples

A Second Look guest this week--Miss Landers.  Photo credits: Miss Landers 

Miss Landers is introducing all kinds of things to me. First it was rutabagas and now it's hedgeapples which she found doing a Second Look around her vacation cabin.  Hedgeapples are something that I've heard about all of my life, but wasn't quite sure what they were.  Here are a few things I found out.

Hedgeapple

Hedgeapples are a bumpy fruit about the size of a grapefruit that grows on a thorny tree. They are a member of the mulberry family and have naturalized all over the United States although they are quite common in the prairies where rows of them were planted as wind breaks. Also, when they were allowed to grow together as a thorny hedge, the trees provided an effective fence for cattle. Hedgeapple trees were used extensively for cattle management until the invention of barbed wire. (Are you starting to get the idea of where the name "hedgeapple" came from?)

Although not toxic, they aren't as popular as you think they would be in the food world. The hulls are tough to get into which sends a lot of animals elsewhere. However, our friend, the squirrel, manages to chew to the inside to get to the tasty seeds.

Miss Landers found the ground littered with them.

We humans don't eat them either, but we do use the tree and its fruit for a few other things. Many people swear by the insect repellent properties of the hedgeapple, but as usual, the scientists don't see any real proof it helps. The wood of the tree is quite dense and is used to make bows. Many think it makes the best bows in the world.

This hedgeapple got caught between branches during its fall.

I know a little more about hedgeapples now. I can't wait to visit Miss Landers' vacation cabin and see the hedgeapples for myself.

(BTW:  Hedgeapples are also known as Osage oranges, horse apples, and bodarks.)

Want to know more?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maclura_pomifera

http://hedgeapple.com/

http://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/hortnews/1997/10-10-1997/hedgeapple.html

Lagniappe

I like to say the word lagniappe. (Say lagniappe. I pronounce it the second way where the emphasis is on the second syllable). I first learned the word when I moved to New Orleans where it is used frequently. It means a little something extra like the extra doughnut in a baker's dozen. Recently I've received some lagniappe that I describe below. Mind you, I am using the definition of the word loosely in a couple of examples because, remember, I like to say lagniappe.

First, there was the letter from Costco stating that they got a better deal on the Ninja Bullet we bought in December so here was a $20 store credit. Great! The only problem was that we didn't buy a Ninja Bullet. After checking with the store that someone else wasn't using our account and buying blenders, they said just spend it. So we did. An extra $20. Now that's good lagniappe.

And speaking again of New Orleans, I got a fun surprise recently. My friends from there sent me a Christmas ornament. You may remember from my parade of ornaments that I needed to get one from New Orleans so we would have one from every place we have lived. And now we do. That was very thoughtful, very appreciated lagniappe.

The third extra things I acquired were three Corelle bowls. Aunt Martha was giving them away because she had gotten new ones. Even though the old ones had silverware stains from years of use, I took them. Now there's nothing wrong with eating from a stained bowl, but I decided to try to clean them. After a good scrubbing with soap and water, soaking with bleach cleaner, and trying baking soda's magic, I found that Bar Keeper's Friend did the trick. Now we have three shiny white bowls that already are getting frequent use. Thanks, Aunt Martha for the lagniappe. Glad you found a good sale on Corelle Ware because we are enjoying your hand-me-downs.

I bet if I paid attention, I would see more lagniappe around me. And then I could tell everyone about it. Because, you know, I like to say the word lagniappe. Have you been given any lagniappe recently?

But Wait There's More:

Here's what Mark Twain had to say about the word lagniappe in Life on the Mississippi.

"We picked up one excellent word--a word worth traveling to New Orleans to get; a nice limber, expressive, handy word--'lagniappe.' They pronounce it lanny-yap. It is Spanish--so they said. We discovered it at the head of a column of odds and ends in the Picayune, the first day; heard twenty people use it the second; inquired what it meant the third; adopted it and got facility in swinging it the fourth. It has a restricted meaning, but I think the people spread it out a little when they choose. It is the equivalent of the thirteenth roll in a 'baker's dozen.' It is something thrown in, gratis, for good measure. The custom originated in the Spanish quarter of the city. ... If the waiter in the restaurant stumbles and spills a gill of coffee down the back of your neck, he says 'For lagniappe, sah,' and gets you another cup without extra charge." - Life on the Mississippi

Source:  Mark Twain Quotes