Too Early for Snow

We live in the Midwest, where the weather can be unpredictable and unseasonably warm or cold, wet or dry, or any combination of all of them in one peculiar season. I realize that. However, I somehow missed the weather forecast for today to include snow flurries.

So when we started getting some pretty heavy snow showers, I was amazed . . . and unprepared. I happen to love winter, but usually we work up to snow season more gradually.

Fortunately for us, the huge snowflakes melted as soon as they landed on the brick pavers in the back yard.

Seeing that, and realizing I had nowhere special to go tonight, I relaxed and watched the beautiful flakes swirl around.

I also realized today was yet another day for which I am grateful. Thank you, Lord!

Apples in the Fall

This is an encore presentation from 11/13/2008. I think of this topic every year at this time. Enjoy!

Fall has always been one of my favorite seasons with the start of the new school year, foliage beginning to change and the onset of cooler days and nights. One of our memorable pastimes was to pick apples in a local orchard.

We brought our own containers - a variety of boxes, bushel baskets and tubs. For consistency in measuring how much we picked, the orchard provided their own bushel baskets to use during the picking process, then the apples were gently transferred to our own. It was lucky for us that they could not measure how many apples we managed to eat while picking.

There was an especially bountiful harvest one autumn when my son Jason was six years old. He and I had recently moved back to my hometown after living in the "City", that is, anywhere north of Interstate 80, as far as my Dad was concerned. It was a beautiful cool, crisp day with the sun shining as we drove to the orchard with Mom & Dad.

The trees were just covered with a terrific selection of big juicy apples that year: Jonathans, Red Delicious, Yellow Delicious and McIntosh. Naturally, we had to grab the biggest shiniest ones to taste test before we could begin picking.

As we moved from tree to tree, Jason delighted in running ahead to survey the next target and cry, "Wow, look at all the big ones on THIS tree!" It was so easy to get caught up in the moment of fun & discovery that the four of us ended up picking seven full bushels of apples.

That was a huge amount of apples for us or for anyone. Fortunately, I had an old spare refrigerator in my garage, so we were able to pack it full with the apples that didn't fit into our main refrigerators. With all that food stockpiled, we stuffed ourselves (as well as family, friends and neighbors) with all manner of scrumptious apple delicacies.

The delicious aroma of cinnamon and nutmeg filled our house almost every day. We had apple pie, apple crisp, apple cake, apple coffeecake and apple pudding. And still we had more apples.

We had fried apples, caramel apples, taffy apples, apple butter, apple salads, apple muffins and apple dumplings. And still we had more apples.

Jason took brightly polished red and yellow apples to school for his birthday treat, and for his teacher, too. For Christmas, we even hung shiny red apples by ribbons onto our tree. And still we had more apples.

We had enough apples to last us all through that Fall and Winter and into Spring. By the time we had finally finished eating all those apples, I realized two things: 1) an apple a day really does keep the doctor away because we didn’t get sick all winter long, and 2) I never EVER got tired of apples!

National Family Stories Month - Perfect Pear Picking

November Is National Family Stories Month – What’s YOUR Story?

One of my fondest memories is about a beautiful Fall day at my grandparents’ farm in mid-November. The day was sunny, cool and crisp, with a definite nip in the air. Years previously, they had started an apple and pear tree orchard that was especially abundant that year.

My family made an annual trek out to the farm to help harvest the fruit, often with my cousins coming along. But whenever possible, I cherished the opportunity to spend time by myself out at the farm with Grandma and Grampa.

I grew up loving both apples and pears, but the grocery stores never seemed to carry my favorite pears, the kind that Grampa grew. They are best picked after a hard freeze, so that is how I remember the time of year. The fruit is green, a little lumpy and almost as hard as a rock – literally! Some of them are so huge that a little girl can barely wrap her hands around the circumference.

Naturally, as we picked the green pears, I HAD to try one (or two, or maybe even three), which almost certainly resulted in a tummy ache later that night. I worked diligently to gnaw off the peel until I got a small bite started, then savored the crunchy, gritty flesh inside. The texture always reminded me of fresh coconut right from its just-cracked hard shell.

As the pears ripened at home, their green color transformed to a lovely shade of yellow. At the same time, they gave off an intoxicating aroma that called to me by name, “Elizabeth, e-LIZ-abeth…” until I finally had to chomp down another one.

Regrettably, this variety of pears doesn’t keep well for very long. Once they turned yellow, they quickly over-ripened. It wasn’t long before we had to peel and cook up the rest of them for longer keeping. At that point, the pears were still okay to eat, but they no longer had that marvelous crunch and texture that I loved.

Ten years ago, I discovered that my husband’s aunt and uncle had a pear tree that was the same variety as Grampa’s. I begged and badgered them long enough that now every year they bring us a “care package” of pears that allow me to reminisce about my grandparents and their perfect pear trees. Oh, by the way, I still have to grab one right away and eat it while it is wonderfully hard and crunchy. Thank Goodness, I’ll never learn any better!

About thirty years ago, my parents, son Jason and I got carried away and picked seven full bushels of apples! Just so you can appreciate our culinary creativity, here is an excerpt from my book, Granny’s Guide to Fun & Fabulous Family Stories, that follows up on that apple-picking adventure:

With all that food stockpiled, we stuffed ourselves (as well as family, friends and neighbors) with all manner of scrumptious apple delicacies.

The delicious aroma of cinnamon and nutmeg filled our house almost every day, making our mouths water in anticipation. We had apple pie, apple crisp, apple cake, apple coffeecake and apple pudding. And still we had more apples.

We enjoyed fried apples, caramel apples, taffy apples, apple butter, apple salads, apple muffins and apple dumplings until the house seemed to have a perpetual aroma of cinnamon. And still we had more apples.

Jason took brightly polished red and yellow apples to school for his birthday treat and for his teacher, too. For Christmas, we even hung shiny red apples by ribbons onto our tree. And still we had more apples.

We had enough apples to last us all through that Fall and Winter and into Spring. By the time we had finally finished eating all those apples, I realized two things: 1) an apple a day really DOES keep the doctor away because we didn’t get sick all winter long and 2) I never EVER got tired of apples!

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Harvest Season

Harvest at the Splear Farm 2010

The fall season has always been my favorite: kids returning to school, cheering for the home team at football games, “leaf peeping” as the trees miraculously transform from boring greens to glorious autumn colors, and watching the harvest progress from field to field, restoring the wide open spaces to the land I love.

Once the harvest is complete, we’ll be able to once again enjoy an unobstructed view from horizon to horizon, some ten miles or more in each direction. This is God’s Country and, for me, the best place on earth to live, in spite of all the dirt, grime and grunge involved in the harvest.

I was raised on a fifty-acre farm just outside a small town in central Illinois (the Prairie State). Dad worked long hours as a welder in a factory, plus he farmed corn or beans in his “spare” time. We lived ten miles from a community of about 30,000 and some sixty miles from Chicago, in the middle of the grain heartland.

In my mind, it was the perfect place to raise a large family. We had the best of both worlds: a wholesome country lifestyle with a strong sense of community and all the urban benefits of good schools and plenty of cultural activities to keep seven kids challenged and out of trouble.

When I was a teenager and brought dinner out to Dad in the field during harvest, I was struck by all the physical sensations that assaulted me. During this time of year, when I watch the huge combines run through the fields, those memories are especially vivid in my mind. Here is a more fanciful version of what I remember experiencing as a kid:

The behemoth rolls through the tawny gold field, devouring everything in its ponderous path, spewing out an enormous horizontal whirlwind of chaff, dirt and stalks behind it. Slowly, inexorably, it consumes dozens of rows at a time, cutting a swath through stems bursting with soybean pods. In one fell swoop, the machine separates the precious beans from pods and stems, storing them temporarily in its enormous belly.

I stand beside the tractor, waiting for the monster to disgorge its contents into the first grain wagon. The noise is deafening, even though I try to block my ears. As bad as the noise is, the grit is even worse. The handkerchief tied across my mouth and nose does essentially nothing to keep the fine grit from permeating my mouth, my nostrils, my throat, my lungs, and even my ears.

By the end of the long day, I will feel as if the grit has invaded clear to my eye sockets through every pore of my body. The combination of taste, smell and grubbiness of the grit lingers for days after the harvest is completed, in spite of long, hot showers. I struggle to hold back the inevitable coughing fit, at least until the monster moves past me to the second wagon. Sometimes I even succeed, but barely.

Today, almost 50 years later, there is still a lot of grit, dirt, and chaff thrown out from the combine, but most machines now have enclosed cabs that are climate-controlled. While a side benefit is the comfort of the driver, more importantly it protects the sensitive GPS and other electronic equipment typically installed to monitor crops.

As advanced as farming technology has become, unfortunate accidents continue to happen. Late one autumn evening, I was heading home from a town about eighty miles away, driving through the country. Noticing a warm red glow in the distance, I thought to myself, “What a glorious sunset we’ll have tonight.” My stomach lurched when I realized the radiance was coming from the east. As I drove closer, it became apparent that the source was from a corn field that was on fire.

Lord willing, I will never see such a fearsome sight again. Flames shot into the air, surrounded by huge clouds of acrid, billowing smoke. The farmer scrambled ineffectively to create a fire break with a field cultivator, while the lone fire truck did its best to slow down the marching blaze. Continuing on toward home, I met several more pumper trucks arriving. They did not save much of that particular 160 acre field, but they were able to keep it from spreading to the surrounding fields and homes.

The next time you see a piece of farm equipment working in a field (or perhaps slowing you down on a country road), wave to them in appreciation of their dedication to put food on our tables. You’ll find they almost always wave back, with a smile on their grubby faces.

Do you have a favorite Fall or harvest memory? I'd love to hear it!

Grandkids and Falling Leaves

I love the colors of Fall. Last week before the rains started, I selected a nice sampling of leaves from pale gold to bright yellow, soft pink to bright red and variegated hues to a deep burgundy. I carefully pressed them flat for a few days, then divided them between two envelopes for my grandkids some 800 miles away.

I enclosed a short personal note for each of them and sent the leaves on their way. I was really tickled a few days later when my son called so the kids could sing me Happy Birthday and chat about the leaves they had just gotten.

I reminded my son about how we used to lay a leaf upside-down onto a piece of paper, cover it with another piece and then rub crayons over the leaf to trace the raised veins for a simple little art masterpiece. He had forgotten about doing that, but he was glad to have a new rainy-day activity for young kids.

I miss seeing my grandkids as often as I'd like, but I enjoy sending them little surprises that we can talk about on our calls. Now that truly makes my day!