Food from Heaven

On long, hot summer days I had very little to do when I was a child. I especially remember walking down the dirt road about a quarter of a mile to visit one of my sisters-in-law, Opal. She was married to my brother, Ned.

Opal was a very nice, quiet, soft-spoken lady. She would quite often think up some kind of “goodie” to bake for us.

On this one particular day she chose to bake a pan of gingerbread. While this was baking she got out of cup of real cream. This cream had come from the top of cold milk that came from their cow, not store bought. She whipped up this cream until it was nice and thick, adding a little vanilla flavoring and about a fourth of a cup of sugar. When the gingerbread came out of the oven, she cut us each a big square, topped it with the cold, sweet, whipped cream. That had to have been the most delicious thing I had ever eaten!

Gingerbread

 1 2/3 cups          All-purpose flour

 2 teaspoons      Ground ginger

 1 ¼ teaspoons  Baking soda

 1 teaspoon        Ground cinnamon

 ¾ teaspoon       Salt

 ¼ teaspoon       Cloves

 ½ cup                 White sugar

 ½ cup                 Dark molasses

 ½ cup                 Vegetable oil

 1                          Egg, beaten

 ½ cup                 Boiling water

Directions:

1.    Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

2.    Grease and lightly flour a 9-inch square baking pan.

3.    Whisk flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, and cloves in a bowl.

4.    Stir sugar, molasses, oil, and egg into flour mixture until just combined.

5.    Pour in boiling water and whisk until the batter is smooth and shiny, about 1 minute.

6.    Pour batter into prepared baking pan. Tap pan gently on the counter to remove any air bubbles.

7.    Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 35 minutes.

Top with whipped cream if desired. Recipe may be doubled for use with larger pan.

Hot and Dry

I remember summer always seemed so very, very hot. There wasn’t any kind of cooling system. One summer when I was a child must have been hotter than usual because we had no water!

Our water supply was rain water collected in a large metal tank located beside the house, at least that’s where it would have been if we had any! Since it hadn’t rained in a very long time there was none.

My Dad hitched up the team of horses, loaded several empty barrels in the wagon, and prepared to go get water. I was excited because he let me climb up beside him and go along.

We had to travel about five miles on a dusty, dirt road to a large, open well. It was spring fed with wonderful supply of water all year round.

When we arrived at our destination I was amazed to see a procession of wagons, all lined up with their empty barrels, waiting their turn to get a supply of water!

Digging Through '#$!*'

My cousin and I were seniors together in high school. We graduated together and also received some of the same gifts for our graduation presents.

One gift she received that I didn’t was a gold wrist watch. I think her parents gave it to her. She was very proud of the watch and wore it all the time.

She had a very unfortunate incident happen to this gift. If you know about out-door toilets you know what hot, stinky places they are in the summer! On one of Jewel’s visits to their outhouse shortly after graduation she was wearing her watch. The clasp got hung on her clothing and came open. Before she could catch the watch it came off and fell down into one of the holes. Needless to say, she was horrified.

When her dad came in from working in the field she told him what happened. He suggested she get a rake and sain through the ‘mess’ and see if she could find it. Sure enough, after several hours of trying she came up with the watch. After a good scrubbing and cleaning, the watch appeared to be as good as new. She was very happy! 

Pictures & Prices!!

It is exciting to finally have pictures, descriptions, and prices for all my quilts. Thank you for stopping  by to take a look. There are several very intricate quilts, some more interesting in their construction than others. All of them involved many long hours of hard work. 

I'm sorry to say the pictures don't really do them justice. I don't have the facilities to photograph such large items. If you are interested in a particular quilt I will do several close-up photos for you and send them to you by email. 

Is it Worth a Paddling?

When my sister, Dessie, four years older, started trying to “look pretty”, she wanted to curl her hair. We, of course, had no curlers so we had to make some. I say ‘we’ because when she did something, I immediately thought I should do it also.

Prince Albert tobacco cans were available, as we had brothers who rolled their own cigarettes. We cut half inch wide strips from those cans with scissors and made them about three inches long. Yes, those were my mother’s only pair of scissors, and we probably ruined them. We then wrapped those strips in several layers of fabric.

Dessie used me as her guinea pig and rolled my wet hair that afternoon. Naturally my hair wasn’t dry by bedtime. My parents said there was no way I was going to leave those things in to sleep on them.

Dessie took my hair down and we went to bed with me crying as loud as I could. My Dad said that if I didn’t stop that hollering he was going to come in there and paddle me. Dessie was upset that she had to take the curlers out so she told me that if I would keep on hollering as loud as I could, she would change sides of the bed with me and take it for me. My Dad knew which side of the bed I slept on and he wasn’t going to light a lamp to see differently. True to her word, she took the paddling!

Freezin' to Death

Winters always seemed to be colder when I was a child. In part, I’m sure,  because we had no good way of keeping warm. The wood-burning fire places kept us warm as long as we stood directly in front of them, and even then we needed to keep turning around to keep the other side warm.

There was also the problem of being able to dress warm when we went outside. My family had very few warm clothing, especially the children. We were kept inside on the really cold days.

 One cold winter, when I was maybe five or six years old, my brother, Reuben, came over to tell us his oldest daughter, Jewel, had slipped and fallen on the ice on her way to school. She had apparently broken her leg.

The next morning it was still very, very, cold, but my parents decided we should pay my brother’s family a visit and see for ourselves how Jewel was doing.

My Dad hitched up the team to our wagon. We bundled up as best we could and loaded in the wagon. Mom wrapped my sister and me up with an extra layer of quilts. We proceeded to travel the four or five miles from our house to theirs.

We reached our destination without incident, but when I started to get out of the wagon, I couldn’t feel my feet. Dad said they were frozen. Once we got inside Mom got a pan of warm water for me to soak my feet in until they thawed.

Jewel did okay with her broken leg. She learned to use crutches just fine. The only problem she had was going from being a skinny little girl to being a little too chubby.

Butterflies on Zennias

I have a very happy memory of a time when I was probably four or five years old. One very warm, summer day my parents decided we should go visit my sister, who had been married for a few months.  My Dad harnessed up the horses, hooked them to the wagon, and my parents, sister, and I took our usual places. My parents on the one board seat in front, with my sister and I sitting on the floor in the back. I’m not sure just how far away my sister Mary and husband Bert lived, but it couldn’t have been over a few miles. I always enjoyed riding in the wagon, seeing new sights, and feeling the soft breeze on my face.

When we reached their home, I was amazed to see her front yard covered with beautiful flowers. She planted Zinnias, or as was commonly called, “Old Maids” all over her yard. I spent my visit in that flower garden chasing butterflies!

The next spring my sister brought over a handful of flower seed, told me to plant them, and see if I could get them to grow. At first I couldn’t think of a place to plant them. We had a bare yard where noting grew because the chickens would immediately pluck up any green plant that was brave enough to peek up out of the ground. My mother came up with the idea of my planting my seed in the chicken pen, as the chickens were running free in the yard. I spent many hours digging holes and planting those seed.

Imagine how thrilled I was when I eventually had a beautiful flower garden with butterflies coming to visit me, just as my sister had the year before. I was a happy child.