DO YOU KNOW ME?:

"My master told me to get out of the car and stay. I stayed for two months, licking dew off the weeds and eating grasshoppers so I could stay where he told me to. He never came back for me and I don't know why because I'm a good dog. I'm old and have bad hips but I have loved my family my whole life and don't understand why I would be left in the middle of nowhere to be eaten alive by coyotes. I am worried about my human children, where will they be dumped when their joints hurt and they can't run fast anymore? Grammie Hoffman found me and takes good care of me but I still miss my family."

If you overhear someone saying they're going to let "Spot" or "Jake" live out his life in the wild of nature, to be FREE, be it wheat fields or mountains, please have him read this!

OLD FARMHOUSE "BEFORE" PIC:

This pic was taken spring '07. Major clean-up and beautification project was scheduled for last summer. Well, here it is spring '08, and it looks exactly the same...

GIFTED AND TALENTED:

Not so nifty as it sounds. Always knew I was different...not stupid, just different. I understood complex problems and was always coming up with an invention of some sort. Maybe a little slow, seemed like it took me twice as long to complete a task than anyone else. I hated cleaning my room; it would take me all day. Two hours to do the dishes and we had a dishwasher. Just wasn't interested in anything unless it intrigued my brain, like taking the dishwasher apart to see how it worked!

As long as we learned the Catechism, the same fifty kids were pushed through Parochial School, year after year. I could not do some of the required general math. Just wouldn't stay in my brain, just floated away! Yep, I know math is a science, once I got to the point were I could use a calculator, no problem! I was also uncoordinated, was never picked for a sport team. Was always the last one standing there red faced.

On the other hand, I couldn't get enough of science. I lived and dreamed science. Mammal, insect, reptile and plant collections of all sorts, took up every available space in my bedroom. Never could figure out why no one else was interested in my microscope and chemistry set except for a couple relatives. I was almost expelled from school one day because I presented Sister Frederica a bouquet of roses from my mother's garden. A honeybee had died while feasting right in the middle of the bunch. It was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen...SF did not think so.

I had some cousins on my mom's side of the family, who lived a couple hours away. They spent a couple weeks at our home every summer and sometimes holidays during the year. Their visits would make my whole year. Five kids, the oldest girl, Sally, was a year and a half older than me, the next girl, Linda, was two weeks older. Then there was a boy two years younger and two more girls but it was Sally and Linda who shared my freakazoidness. We did the neatest things together and what great times we had!

Sally was the boldest of us three. I'll never forget the looks on two poor old ladies' faces as they screeched to a halt, eyes popped out, mouths wide open in soundless screams. They were driving up the street and spotted a ten year old kid, weaving around with a coat hanger skewered through her torso. Half a bottle of ketchup gave the gag a gruesome appearance as well as Sally's horrid expression and the hand with more ketchup flailing around. She was so good! By the way, she is now a teacher for "gifted and talented" children!

Years later after we were all grown up, I happen to read a soft cover book written by Sally's oldest daughter, Karen Isaacson, about rearing "gifted and talented" kids, "Raisin' Brains". It won an award and is worth reading. This was the first time I had ever heard the term "gifted and talented" used. I cried for an hour...I finally knew why I was different and it had a name! (CONT.)

YEP, I'M A SOFTY:

Noeatum...Longhorn calf

ORIGINAL MAYONNAISE:

Long, long ago, before there was Best Food's, Hellman's or Miracle Whip, there was an "emulsion" made by farm wives. Only a little was made at a time due to the lack of refrigeration back then. While going thru junk in the farmhouse attic, I came across a box of old recipes. This is one of many interesting ones.

1 tsp. mustard
3 finger pinch pepper
3 finger pinch paprika
1 tsp. salt
1 finger pinch cayenne
1 1/2 cups salad oil (of choice) (I use way less oil)
1 egg yolk
4 tbs. vinegar (of choice)

Mix dry ingredients, add egg yolk and mix well. Add oil, a very little at a time at first then when an emulsion is made, add the oil and vinegar alternately.

I use canola oil and any type vinegar, depending on how the dressing is going to used.

On a farm, you know your eggs. Actually, you know your eggs parents and their parents...I have never come across salmonella or botulism, use raw eggs with caution tho!

HOLD TIGHT AND ENJOY LIFE:

You never know when a tragedy may strike your family or friends. I've been pretty lucky so far. My Dad passed away a couple weeks before his 80th birthday and I've lost all my grandparents and uncles, each death was painful but since we don't live forever, it was expected.

My cousin died of AIDS in the early '90s. We weren't real close, saw him every year or so. He and his sister were my dad's only sibling's offspring. Jerry started feeling sick and was gone 6 months later because of a tainted blood transfusion. I was able to say good-bye.

Then there's losing someone you love, one day they're there, the next GONE. The shock, the pain, the anger, the question WHY? The guilt kicks in. I could have been nicer to him, could have made more of an effort to keep in touch. Lots and lots of guilt.

Hold on to the ones you love. Let them know you care. Give big hugs even over the phone. When it happens, because it happens to all of us eventually, the pain will be eased because you know they KNEW!

PINK PIGGIES:

I remember watching the TV show "Green Acres" when I was young, never dreaming I'd be "Farm Living" myself one day. I don't know anyone with a pet pig. I take that back...I do know a lot of people who had pet porkers but none that lived in their house. Pet pigs are adorable until they get to be about a year old. Seems that's true with a lot of animals, cute until the hormones kick in, then they become obnoxious. Knowing this, I named my pink piggies "Roast" and "Ribs".

When the day came, I took the 1 hour drive to the city and went shopping at the mall. Shopping can get my mind off most anything. Returning to the farm at night, I would find the chest freezer full of neat packages wrapped in nice white paper. The butcher was used to dealing with squeamish people like me so he assured me it was NOT my pigs he had left for me. It was years later when I discovered he told everyone the same thing and it WAS my pet porkers I was BBQing. Now I'm glad he lied because I never would have been able to even cook a piece of that meat, let alone eat it!

This Granny has another gripe. Why, in this day and age, is boxing legal?

BARN CATS:

Cozy

Kylie

Omar (Orange Marmalade)

Mystic (Momma Kitty)

BY THE WAY:

When living on a farm, you NEVER crack an egg directly into a mixture in a mixing bowl or a pan that already has something cooking in it. Farm fresh eggs are delicious but sometimes they contain surprises!

I always take eggs out of the fridge the night before I'm going to cook them. Room temperature makes them crack easier and cook better. If a speck of poop won't wash off, use a piece of fine sandpaper to buff it off. Brown egg yolks are a little darker than white ones but they taste the same.

Chickens are a hoot! A couple years ago, I brought home cute little fuzzy babies and had them all named, they followed me around as I clucked to them. When I turned over a piece of wood alive with earwigs and other creepy crawlers, the pitch would be high with frenzy. Later in the afternoon while lazing in the rocking chair, I would make low crooning clucks and they would all gather around, pulling their feet underneath them and doze. I loved those chickens!

Then one night, it started. Terrible screeching sounds "help me, help me!" in chicken language, blasted from the hen house. I grabbed the trusty .22 cal. rifle and ran out to find the girls in an uproar and a only few feathers in Ellie's nest box. She was gone.

Night after night this would happen. A beloved feathered friend would disappear and I would again reinforce the fence, making it higher and stronger, making sure every little opening into the building was sealed. Still, the massacre went on, again and again. Alice, the lone survivor, followed me around all day. She talked non-stop and I knew she was frustrated because I just didn't GET it!

I placed her in her box that night. She was nervous because she knew it was her turn but she trusted me. I piled fresh hay in the corner and planned to sit there all night, armed with the 22 and a flashlight. Finally, around O dark thirty, Alice alerted me "the beast is here!". Turning on the light, I see 2 very fat raccoons lifting a board and crawling out towards Alice. I blasted them both with snake loads, over and over again until they got the point. They both retreated back under the floorboard, I secured it with a old heavy crock.

When it was light enough to see, I pried off all the flooring in the chicken coop and found I had created a coon condo with an all you can eat smorgie! They even had feather beds to sleep on for them AND the babies! I made their home safer for them by walling other predators out.

Being the softy I am when it comes to animals, I plucked out all the miniature bb's, stuffed the whole family in a gunny sack and transported them to lovely Mt. Spokane which is far enough away for them not to find their way back to the "Raccoon Regency".

THE IDIOSYNCRASIES OF FARMLIFE:

If you have a farmhouse, nobody uses the front door. It's like it doesn't exist. UPS, neighbors, everyone, comes to the back door. Not only to the back door but right on through the closed-in back porch to the kitchen door. It took me about 6 months to get used to this. The doorbell by the front door didn't work when I moved in, probably from lack of use and I just never got around to fixing it, would have been a waste of time anyway!

At the beginning of each new season, I would decorate the front porch with enthusiasm. My favorite was Autumn. The grapevine wreath I wove at my mother's home in Sonoma County, CA., with fall colored leaves, adorned the front door. A scarecrow sat in the old wicker rocker with a pumpkin and a basket full of Indian Corn on his lap, stuffed crows on his hat. Bundles of shocked corn stood here and there.

It was all in vain, not a single human eyeball ever glanced toward the front porch on their way to the proper "farm house" ingress - egress.