Iced Tea Chat: Lovely August Things

Hello, dears!  There are lovely things about August.  I know it's terribly hot but that's proper August weather and I'd rather have it hot than unseasonal.  So what are the lovely things about August: the aroma of freshly mown grass, the loud serenade of cicadas in the trees, flowers blooming, fresh garden produce, the sound of canning jars pinging shut, the aroma of a charcoal grill, the sound of children screeching as they dash through a sprinkler or splash in a pool in the yard, the steady hum of mowers all over the neighborhood, the flavor of a fresh ripe tomato and the regret as we bite into the last fully ripened peach of the season...Oh there are so many things to savor about August!

Where are my manners?  Would you like tea or an icy glass of our good well water?  I'm leaning hard on water these days.  I feel it is the most beneficial but I shall have tea.  I can overdo the water a bit and start to feel a little depleted.   I told John this is the worst of times to be out of electrolyte drinks and requested he pick some up when he went to town to get gas for the mower the other day.  I further added to the supply and bought a big tub of powder when we went into the grocery this past weekend.

Where shall I start?   

Josh was to back to school last week but it's been postponed until next week.  Taylor will start kindergarten at the same time.   We shall see how that goes. Isaac says he's going to go to school this year, too, "Grampa school." lol    

It hardly seems right to not have school start at this time of year, but I do understand the cautions. There's been careful instructions issued about wearing masks, and sanitizing hands at home for Josh and a weekly list of rules from the school in the local newspaper.  

The county has done a great deal to insure the students will be safe with checkpoints at the doors and fewer students to a classroom and students staying in classroom all day long and not swapping classes as they had in the lower grades, nor leaving the class room to eat and no public use of fountains.  I do hope they get some sort of recreation time outdoors.   It's hard on 6 year old children to be shut in a room all day long.   

The new year mentality does take hold when the calendar turns to August...I get into that mode myself.  I stocked up on notebooks and paper last week.  I love a neat stack of paper waiting to be filled with plans and dreams and prayers and lists.  I feel just as excited as I did when I was school age.  

The long lonely summers were over and the whirl of school and being around friends five days a week meant much to this country girl.   My parents didn't believe in having friends over to visit or allowing us to go visit anyone other than Granny and on rarer occasions to Grandmother's. While I loved living in the country, I did envy the classmates that lived in town and made visits to one another's homes.  So yes, the school year meant a great deal to us children as it does to Josh.  He too is a country boy and while Sam and Bess do have friends with children his age, they are all busy and visits are few and far between. 

Sunday as we drove to church I admired the lush green fields.  Cotton, soy beans, peanuts are mostly what we see this year and the cotton is blooming.  I spied a crow sitting atop an electric pole surveying a wide open field and wondered if he was admiring the view as I had been.   This summer has been a rare one with just enough rain to water the crops and not so much that they are too saturated to grow well.   It's kept the lawns green and lush, too.  I've seen pear trees heavy with fruit and it appears that peach season was a good one.

It's also meant John is mowing grass a lot this summer.   He mowed on Sunday afternoon and I had some rare quiet time alone which was much appreciated.  It was lovely to sit here and have no television talking.   That is the one thing that I think is hardest about retirement is that the television is almost constantly on.  It makes my head feel overfull at times to have it on so much.   I love these rare moments when it is shut off.

I sat here and just relished it.  I listened to a little soothing music but I shut that off as well and just enjoyed the quietness about me.  I'd worked hard that morning and afternoon and was more than ready to sit and enjoy the peacefulness.  I think it's partly why I slept so very well that night.

I'll not complain too much about the television.  John has picked up several older programs that we're watching nightly, like "Have Gun Will Travel", "The Dick Van Dyke Show", "Dragnet", and occasionally "Bewitched".  It's lighter fare than news commentaries and I enjoy these older programs.  It makes for a more relaxed evening overall.

The week has meandered by.  It seems it's all gone quickly, with tomorrow being Friday, but at the same time, as I look back if feels more leisurely.  This week especially feels leisurely.  I had such a long list of things I meant to accomplish but I've only touched on this thing and that and nothing has really been completed except grocery shopping and bills.  Never mind.  I've tried.

I tackled the blinds last week and got them dusted.  I weeded about the house and nearly finished in a single 30 minute session.  I did get out in the yard to start on that task, but I've done nothing about the porches.  I had to wash and hang out a quilt end of last week when baby boy surprised me with a shower while I was changing his diaper, but no curtains washed and hung to dry though the week has been prime for it.  As I said, I touched on a few jobs, I got little bits done.   My reason for not getting more done is simply that I haven't been well.  My slight head cold has turned into my annual allergy/Eustachian tube blockage and I've been dealing with the side effects of that.  I'm getting better though, having decided that I'd rather listen to my own intuition as to what to do and am having a little success.  It's breaking up far sooner than it did last winter! 

I have been so determined to 'put by' something this year and with more cucumbers and tomatoes than we could easily eat this week, I put up a single pint jar of salsa and another of pickle relish.   I have to say that I was nervous about this bit of water bath canning and it wasn't without trials.  I searched hard to find basic recipes so I had most of the ingredients on hand.  I could find celery seed in the stores easily enough but not one mustard seed was to be had.  I had to order those from Amazon.  

I like freshly ground mustard seed in my homemade blue cheese dressing and as I stood at the stove yesterday I realized that the mustard and celery seed could be used on corned beef along with bay leaf and red pepper.  I cooked a corned beef this past week and there was no pickle seasoning packet with it but really I now have all on hand that I'll need in future.

Anyway, I didn't follow the recipes exactly.  I followed them pretty nearly...I worried about that at first, but then remembered the vast number of recipes I'd read through over the past few days as I sought the 'right' one and how each differed in ingredients or processing time, etc. and decided that as long as I had the basics right I'd likely come out okay.  And I did.  Both jars sealed immediately.  I had a wee bit of pickle relish extra and put that in the fridge.  It tastes GOOD!  We didn't have any extra of the salsa, and since I have a jar of store bought in the fridge, we won't be opening it right away, but I don't mind sharing that I was right proud of those two little pint jars on my counter yesterday.

I have snapped and blanched and frozen green beans, sliced okra and battered some and flash frozen them, and then sliced another batch and dusted those with cornmeal to freezer.  That's the way we did it when I was growing up.  I've put away a few peaches in the freezer.  It's all just bits and pieces but that's okay.  It's a little more than I had before.

Jars...when I went into the cabinet to seek out jars for canning, I found I had two pint jars and 1 quart jar.  That's it.  I can account for one 1/2 pint jar and one pint jar that are in the freezer, and one quart jar and one pint jar in the fridge, but that does not explain where the rest are.  I should have dozens!  Nope.  None to be had.   Where do they disappear to?  In the past I'd used quart jars to store some of my dry goods but over time I've replaced those with canisters or half gallon and gallon jars.  Where did the pint and quart jars go?  I haven't broken them.  I might have passed a few on to the kids with soup in them but they are generally pretty good about returning my jars, usually with something in them...

Well needless to say I am going to be looking for jars and lids and buying them as I see them.  It's one reason I miss estate sales.  There were always plenty of canning jars at estate sales in this area.  In the past a woman wasn't worth her salt who didn't put something up each summer, even if she didn't garden and most of them were gardeners, too...Nowadays, Ball and Mason jars are more likely to be used as drinking glasses and flower vases, especially for country weddings and parties.

Anyway, if I see any jars, I am going to start gathering them, even if it's one or two at a time at a thrift store.  John was watching one of his lawnmowing videos the other day and the man's wife was hunting all over for canning jars.  She'd mentioned in an earlier video that her green beans had gone crazy and I'm pretty sure she meant to can them.  They ended up buying some from friends who had boxes of them in the shed.  John asked, "What?  Is there a shortage on glass jars, too?"  "Yep, there is!" I told him,  "and what's more you're very lucky to find someone willing to pass them on to you, too!"

At one time, Taylor County, and probably other rural counties, too, had a Rural Homemaker's Club.  Can you imagine how nice that must have been?  They met once a month and shared recipes, quilted, had extension service programs, etc.  Doesn't all that just sound lovely?  I'd have enjoyed a group like that to belong to but I admit that by the time I became a full time homemaker, I was the odd one out.  Other women worked part time at the very least, and most were pursuing a career.  Those few who stayed at home full time cared little for the joys of homemaking.   They were more prone to have maids and spend their days shopping, or going golfing.    Yes, I was the odd one out, but it didn't dull my enjoyment of my days puttering about my house and yard and it still doesn't.  And really I guess I do have a sort of homemaker's club albeit an online one amongst so many other like minded women!

We went off to do our monthly lot of errands this morning and took a detour home.  It took me back to my childhood days.  We so enjoyed being at Granny's but even better was to be at Granny's and have her take us out to Big Mama's to visit.   That was the route we took back from the other town today and I was just filled with nostalgia remembering those sunny summer mornings driving out.  I just remembered it's also one of the roads Granny taught us to drive on because it had so little traffic.   Yes, it was Granny who taught us to drive.  By the time we had our learning permits we had a working knowledge of how to operate a car and keep it on our side of the roadway.  She was very patient with us about it.   

I don't know if our parents were ever aware that she'd done so...Surely they must have wondered at our relative ease in getting behind the wheel of a car and taking off?  But there were plenty of things none of us ever mentioned to our parents.  There was a sort of unwritten rule that what happened at Granny's stayed at Granny's and was between us and her and seldom were parents informed of anything happening unless there was bodily injury that required a doctor involved and that only happened once.  We were rather free spirited creatures when we were here and after working in the morning, we headed out to the backs of the fields into the wooded hillsides to play or down to the creek to dam it up, and one rainy summer, we spent a whole week sliding down muddy ditch banks and hauling one another out of mud that sucked and grabbed at us as we sank up to our thighs in ditches.   Granny just hosed us off  outdoors and we were sent indoors to strip off and shower in twos.   I've no idea how she got our clothes clean or dry, but they were!

We ate well at Granny's, too.  We had a proper breakfast most mornings, seldom did she go to the expense of trying to feed us cereal.  We usually had a sandwich lunch with fruit and cookies to follow.  Suppers were proper meals as well, with meat and vegetables and a pudding or ice cream as dessert or in leaner times, chilled peaches or water melon.  We drank lots of water but had tea and Koolaid, too, though seldom sodas.  Granny used all her best stretching recipes to feed us but we never left the table hungry and we were seldom hungry between meals.   

We did work while we were here.  We pruned and weeded and cleaned house and stretched barbwire and picked berries or helped pare apples and pears.  We snapped and shelled beans and peas.  We helped cook and mowed grass.   But Granny left us plenty of time to just play and be kids, too.  Sometimes she'd set up the old canvas army tent and we'd spend the night outdoors.   There was no need of worrying over us.  I mean there were seven of us, and it wasn't likely something would happen to any one of us without six piling on to protect the one!

I make it sound as though we had all summer long with her but we didn't.  Often it was a week or two or at most three all summer long but it was a haven for all of us.  Life was hard at home for each set of us children.  It wasn't until my cousin and I reunited as older 50 somethings that we told our stories of abuse and alcoholism.  Did Granny know this?  I doubt we ever told her, no more than we'd let our secrets be known to one another,  though likely one cousin did drop a hint the day Granny was forced to switch her sister for a serious transgression of rules and the cousin said "Just use the broomstick on her Granny, it's what they do at home!"    I suspect Granny did know some of what went on in our homes.  She was observant.  I knew that from the gentle talks she'd sometimes give us about morals and respect and faith which always seemed to be very on point to a situation in our lives even though we mightn't have breathed a word.

Oh my...I've meandered along back roads of memories as easily as we wound our way back to town this morning on those old roads!

Well let us take a different road of memory.  There was one summer week that we were at home with Mama and Daddy.  I don't remember why they were home, but it must have been one of those summers when they had time off and we had no plans to travel.  Daddy's Aunt and Uncle came in unexpectedly one afternoon.   We were in one of those busy spells at home, with garden produce coming out of our ears and canning and freezing ongoing and all the process of putting things away.  

Aunt Martha and Uncle Hoyt were childless, but they'd babysat most all of their nieces and nephews at some point and a great many of their great nieces and nephews, too.  Aunt Martha was an attractive enough woman, but she was rather somber faced and a little bit daunting until you realized she was stern outside and marshmallow fluff inside.   We three kids had spent long weekends with her many times in the past when Mama's daddy was in the hospital in Aunt Martha's hometown so we were well familiar with her and Uncle Hoyt.   

It was unusual for them to come visit on their own.  They generally might have ridden down with Granddaddy and Grandmother and stayed a few hours but this time they came and we soon found that Aunt Martha was on a mission.  "Now Ann, I need new dresses and I know you can sew, so I thought we'd just come down and you could run me up two or three...Now don't you fret none, we'll be saying overnight..."    To say that Mama wasn't quite prepared to do dressmaking in the midst of her summer canning week would be putting it mildly.   Yes, and to have company, too, which meant the traditional Southern hospitality spread of more than the usual amount of food which was considered only polite when one had company.   Company could generally be construed as those who didn't come often enough to be considered merely family so Aunt Martha definitely qualified for company in this instance.  

I took over the canning and cooking duties which I could do on my own, and Aunt Martha helped shell beans and peas while Mama cut out fabric and fitted pieces and 'ran up' two new ones over a two day period.  I'm pretty sure that somewhere in there Aunt Martha managed to get a home perm done, as well...It was a packed two day visit, let me assure you.   When they left, she carried home with her two new dresses, a fresh head of curls, some garden produce and a jar or two of home canned goods.  

Aunt Martha was the type who just couldn't leave someone's home without a little something to take back home with her.  It was a running, but loving, joke amongst the family that they'd best have something for her to take with her.  I was at my dad's sister's visiting one day when Aunt Martha and Uncle Hoyt arrived.  Apparently Uncle Hoyt was on a mission to get a part or something and hadn't planned a long visit.  Aunt Martha was apparently not aware that they wouldn't stay and visit a bit.  When he announced his intention of leaving, Aunt Martha said with near panic in her voice, "Oh quick, Mary Jo!  Give me something to take home with me!"  "I haven't got a thing, Aunt Martha..."  "Give me a paper towel, I'll just wrap up one of these pickles out of this jar."   And she did!   Aunt Mary Jo and I laughed and laughed after she left.  

Now Aunt Martha never met Josh but that little boy reminds me of her each time he comes to visit.  "Can I take something home with me?" he'll ask each time it's time to go.    He mightn't like pickles, but he'll happily accept a muffin or a piece of bubble gum, just so long as he doesn't have to leave empty handed.   And I always find him something and smile to myself and think of Aunt Martha.  

The 'everybitcounts' challenge by Three Rivers Homestead made me think of how creative Granny got with drying apples and peaches.  She didn't have a fancy dehydrator.  She dried her apple slices the old fashioned way, on window screens in the yard in the sun.  She'd cover the screens with cheesecloth to keep the flies off the fruit.  When the humidity rose and the apples seemed to be taking longer than necessary to dry out, Granny pulled the car out of the shed, parked it in full sun and put the screens of apple slices inside the car, rolled up all the windows and let that do the job.   And it did!  I was thinking about this the other day as I blanched my handfuls (literally) of green beans to put into the freezer.    How creative we might get if we didn't have the modern day conveniences.  Of course, we can also use our ovens for drying as well, but Granny wasn't likely to run air conditioning and the oven didn't go on for much except baking pies or cakes and then only in the earliest morning hours in summer.

I've shared before that my family were country folks and they put things away year round if they could.   Nuts and berries, stone fruits that grew naturally on the land, garden produce, fruit.   It was all preserved one way and another.  They knew where to forage to find what grew wild, like huckleberries and plums and muscadines and grapes and scuppernongs.  Big Mama had a big old crabapple tree, not a decorative one but a proper fruiting tree.  She gave a cutting to someone and I had a chance to get some of the fruit from it.

I picked a 5 gallon bucket of crabapples from it one year and cooked the fruit to make juice and squeezed it out over a big pan.  I can't remember just why I had to leave home but I had to run an errand or something and when I returned the kitchen was spic and span clean and the pan that had held the juice was empty.  I asked my oldest daughter Amie where the juice was.  "I thought it was dishwater so I poured it out..." she said and I sat down and wept as I knew that was the last time I'd ever be able to pick from one of Big Mama's trees.  I thought of all the lovely jelly I wasn't going to get, lol.  Well, now it's just a funny story to tell so I guess I'm still getting fruit off that tree in one way or another, aren't I?

Gracious this has been a nostalgic sort of visit...I guess I'd better finish up here and get on to doing other things.  I have supper to prepare and I'll wager that today I must pick Caleb up from nursery as the sky has remained steadily clear and it's not likely his daddy will be rained out of work today.

Hope you've enjoyed this visit as much as I have!