Greetings, earthlings

First on my list today is a birthday wish to my Grandma, who turns 82 today.  Happy birthday Grandma!

Second, Shelly asked me what a mayhaw is, since I mentioned one in reference to jam.  Eh voila:

Yon mayhaw is a berry from a type of hawthorne tree that fruits in May (May + haw, get it?) So mayhaw.net tells me.  As far as what it tastes like … well, it tastes like a mayhaw. You should try it.  It’s a southern treat, as mayhaw trees flower early on in the year.  Consequently the trees grow best mostly in Louisiana but also in  Mississippi and east Texas.  My neighbor who made mayhaw jelly was from Louisiana (Looozeeeana) and I grew up in east Tejas, so I guess that explains my familiarity.

Y’all want me to break out in an east Texas twang, now?  Hahahahaha.  That would be the day.

Speaking of jelly, tomorrow I venture out in a westerly direction where there are a number of fruit tree farms between here and Fredericksburg - peach trees to be precise.  I’m going to see if I can procure some of those tasty things and do some more canning with them.  I’m quite positive that some obliging farm folks will have recipes I can try at the farm stands.  Each year I’ve been out there when fruit is in season I’ve come back with pages of dessert recipes.

I meant to write a post yesterday but honestly, I was being quite weepy.  Quite. I’m not normally a weepy person, but … well, I picked up Caper’s ashes yesterday.  The folks who do this did one extra thing I wasn’t at all prepared for.  They made a clay impression of his paw.  That’s right, it did me in.  I cried and cried. *sigh* I miss my cat.  His food bowls are still out.  I can’t help it, I’m not ready yet.

If that wasn’t enough, I went to Shelly’s blog to read her account of delivering the Share A Square blankets (sniffle), and then read the account at Yellow Rose’s Garden (Sherry and her daughter went) (sniff), and then went and looked at the pictures Shelly posted on Flickr (sniff) … and then I cried some more.  Then I remembered Shelly gave me an Arte y Pico award earlier this week (that was sweet of her, wasn’t it?) and there was yet more sniffling.

And then I realized I really just had to get off the internet before I became a weeping puddle of goo and go read or something.  So I did, and so I will do now, because I’m not yet done with my book.

Twenty years I’ve waited …

.. to hear that POP!  What pop?  The pop of the lids on the canning jars as they seal!

Remember when I told you about Mabel, the dear, sweet woman who lived next door to us when I was growing up?  The woman who was my step-in grandmother when I was growing up (since my real grandmothers lived states away).  The woman who taught me to garden, made me my first quilt, let me play with ceramics, and cooked lovely scrumptiously delicious apple turnovers?

Well, Mabel also inspired me to make jelly and to can things.  Mabel made the absolute best Mayhaw jelly and pickled okra ever.  Although inspired, however, I’ve never actually had the courage to do anything about that inspiration until tonight.  I was convinced it was too hard.

But as of an hour ago tonight, there are three jars of okra pickling and one jar of cucumber slices. SWEET!  And as they cool from the processing, the lids go POP! I’m so excited about this I can barely sit still!!

Walk down memory lane

I’m working on gathering up fourteen years of kitty pictures so I can make some sort of a collagey-thing about kitty. He managed, in many of his photos, to give me this look of long-suffering “you are boring me with this flash in my face please go away ah! I’m blind” look. Which is probably what he thought. I even have pictures of him with his paw over his face.

Looking through old photos is always a lovely walk down memory lane. At this point, college seems like quiiiiite a while ago. I’d kinda forgotten how pathetic my housekeeping skills once were - my first apartment was TRASHED. After that, it was really either learn to keep house better or just throw it all away. Do you know I once had an entire room filled with broken down empty boxes? Lovely!

I also ran across some of my memorabilia. This particular shadow box has one of my little collections of things I love. I do love the collections people have, the things they treasure over the years scattered around their house. It says something if people have these collections or not, too.

The book is Seventy Lessons in Spelling, a little teaching book from my paternal grandmother’s childhood. There’s a little purple book I made as a resolution one year. The bell and the cup were my grandmother’s also, which she left me. The buddha … well, that’s because I like laughing Buddha. The tile is from my Aunt Becky’s trip to Spain - I’m quite fond of Spanish repeating designs - it’s the Arabic influence. The mermaid is The Little Mermaid of the folk story. My brother gave me that and the book after he took a trip to Denmark.

What you can’t see on top is the wooden cutout of the church in Iowa where my family has belonged. It’s sitting next to an icon I bought near a small and beautiful church in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Ah, memory