Sentinel Time

The summer unfolds in fleeting stages, a slide show of lovely, familiar scenes. From year to year each scene will very in length, from two days to three weeks, depending on the weather. This year we raced from winter in a cold April to summer in May. Nature forgot about spring this year. In May our irises blossomed and, two days later, the blooms dried to dust. Columbines flower were so fleeting that the humming birds didn’t bother to show up to sip nectar.

Now, well into a hot June, we have reached a new, but familiar stage – one I call “Sentinel Time.” I name it for the yucca blossoms that have a colony in our yard and south pink pasture roses east pasture, but the stage also includes Queen Anne’s lace, black-eyed Susans, and pink pasture roses along the country roadways and pastures. 

The sentinels foretell that the wheat harvest is about to begin, and, indeed, the first harvesting machines started their work in the fields near us yesterday. Now mere stubble is all that remains of the amber waves of grain.

Next there will be homegrown tomatoes in our kitchen along with sweet corn from a local farm. Before we know it the corn harvest will begin and the woodlands will add gold and reds to their color scheme.

Time keeps marching on.

Copyright 2018 Shirley Domer, .

Jammin'

Right after breakfast this morning Dennis and I made a batch of strawberry jam. It took us about an hour from start to finishing the clean up.  We’ve made a lot of jam together in recent years. By now each of us knows just what our tasks are and we move like clockwork. While I was stirring the boiling jam my mind was pondering a question: why do we make jam? Most people don’t.

We both grew up in families that weren’t far removed from farm life. Our folks still kept gardens and preserved most of the harvest for cold weather months. Dennis’s dad, a banker, even built what he called “the canning kitchen” in their basement. My mom was a high school history teacher and my dad was still a farmer, although we lived in town. He planted a big garden at the farm and hauled bushel baskets of produce to our house in town for Mom to “put up” in glass jars which were stored on long shelves in our basement. So we grew up eating that food all of our young lives.

Because my only household tasks were to sweep the front porch and dry dishes I didn’t get direct experience in canning food, but I somehow absorbed it into my being. When I married, one of the first things I bought was The Farm Journal Canning and Freezing Cookbook.Sixty years later, I still use it every summer, even though it is literally falling apart.

We make jam not only because jam-making is part of our heritage, but also because it is more economical than commercially prepared jars of jam and jelly and because it tastes better than anything we could buy.

Today we used two pounds of strawberries and about two pounds of sugar, for a total cost of about seven dollars. Those ingredients made for pints of jam, which would cost ten dollars each if purchased. Also, we use only fruit and sugar in our jam, but no high fructose corn syrup or expensive commercial pectin.

We use eight cups of berries and six cups of sugar. We buy the strawberries at the grocery rather than a you-pick local patch because locally grown berries are usually fully ripe, while commercial berries are picked slightly under-ripe so they will survive shipping. Under-ripe strawberries have more pectin than fully ripe ones, so there’s no need to add additional pectin.

Alas, this knowledge will be lost. None of our children is interested in jam or jelly making. The tradition will die with us.

RIP

Copyright 2018 by Shirley Domer

No Thanks

About five years ago a friend invited us to an informal reception immediately following his daughter’s wedding ceremony. We attended and took a gift, an immersion blender (which I consider an essential kitchen gadget).  The bride and groom didn’t open the gifts at the event, nor were they expected to do so. But weeks went by and no one acknowledged the gift by note, phone call, email, or text. To put the best light on ii, I thought perhaps the gift card and gift had become separated and the couple didn't know who to thank. 

In ensuing years more friends invited us to their children’s events – weddings and baby showers.  Each time, even when we couldn’t attend the event, we sent generous gifts.  Thank you notes never arrived. Slowly I’ve come to the realization that mores have changed, and the tradition of thank you notes has been cast aside.

My mother taught me that every gift must be acknowledged, even if it is ugly, inappropriate, or useless. The ritual of writing thank you notes was an essential part of the baby or wedding shower.

Obviously that isn’t done any more, but I wish I knew why the practice has been abandoned. 

And, yes, this change is one more thing about modern life that makes me disgruntled. I may stop responding to these invitations and send no gift. Instead I will just attend funerals and send condolences, which need not be acknowledged since the person who is honored is unable to respond.

Copyright 2018 by Shirley Domer 

Disgruntled

I awoke this morning to find that the electricity was off due to a storm. No coffee! That fit right in with my almost perpetual irritation these days. The new lenses for my glasses did not arrive when they were promised. A generous two weeks went by. I called the dispensary to complain. Now three weeks have passed and they’re stillnot here.

I’m not happy with the blood pressure medicine I’m taking, either. It makes me dizzy and unsure of my steps. I feel like a drunk reeling from lamppost to lamppost, and that makes me mad.  What good is medicine if it makes me feel worse?

It isn’t just the big issues that irritate me. For example, toothpaste tubes used to be made of something I could roll up from the bottom and they would stay in that position, forcing the remaining toothpaste to the top. Now they’re made of plastic that keeps its original shape and will not cooperate. UPC code stickers on fruit and vegetables in the grocery store also irritate me no end. They are too difficult to remove, and rip the skin right off a delicate pear. Even stickers on peels that will be discarded irritate me because we give kitchen scraps to our chickens, and they certainly don't need to eat the stickers along with the banana peels.

I could go on naming all the irritants – people, thing, and cs, situations  – but you get the idea. Everything makes angry or irritated. I’ve become a cranky old woman. 

Or could it be Donald Trump?

Copyright 2018 by Shirley Domer