bake queen

Had some periodontal surgery last week and have laid low for awhile but awoke this morning feeling better and wanting to BAKE. Ave and family were coming for the afternoon and the weather was sunny and breezy with a definite crisp in the air. I wasn’t up to anything too strenuous yet but the combination of improved health, cool weather and expected guests set me in the baking mood.

Cream puffs and anglefood cake were my choices. I had occasionally made these when the children were all at home and always made them together because the cream puffs use the same number of egg yolks as egg whites are needed in the cake. I hadn’t baked those for at least fifteen years but I didn’t remember it as being particularly difficult.

THe custardy filling for the puffs was perfect and cooling in the fridge. The puff dough, however, wouldn’t incorporate properly and after beating it for ten minutes I gave up and threw it in the trash.

The next batch of puff dough seemed to have a better consistency but was suspiciously dense as I spooned it onto the baking sheet and, twenty minutes later, emerged from the oven as golden hocky pucks…into the trash.

So no puffs but there were plenty of egg whites for the angel food cake so I embarked on that endeavor. It had been years since I had made the recipe so scanned the page and got stuff together, but I hadn’t read it carefully enough. Instead of adding the sugar a teaspoon at a time while beating I dumped it in with the flour and saw my lovely cloud of perfectly beaten egg whites dissolve into a white soup in the bottom of the bowl. I beat the bejeebers out of the mess for five minutes to no avail and then perversely poured the thin liquid into the cake pan and baked it anyway. Thirty-five minutes later I slid a one inch thick, rubber-like disk from the pan, cut a small piece to taste (after all, you never know) and promptly tossed it into the trash.

There is still the cream puff filling, I mused, perhaps I could fill popovers since I am definitely not going to try the puff dough recipe again. Again, I hadn’t made popovers for ages so got out my trusty cookbook and scanned the recipe (lesson; do not “scan” any more recipes) and baked a batch. They were flat and gooey in the middle. I had misread the time and temperatures. They went into the trash.

I reread the popover recipe and realized my mistake. I made another batch and cooked them properly and though they wouldn’t win any baking contest, they were suitable for the custard filling and my family said they were really quite good (I still am relegated to soft foods for a few more days). In fact, the popover dough has a great deal less saturated fat than the puff pastry dough.

I began to put a Shepherd’s Pie together for supper and joked that I was almost afraid to cook any more today after my disasterous results this morning. I arranged the beef, onions and corn in the casserole and proceeded to mash and beat the potatoes when I realized the day’s final affront…the mashed potatoes were lumpy.

rain

Just realized I hadn’t changed the title “Now In The High Desert” to “Now In Maine” and since we have had weeks and weeks of rain it seemed a foolish thing to forget.

Everything is soggy or damp. Mold and mildew are everywhere. My garden is sodden. The peppers are dead and slugs have ravaged everything but the peas and tomatoes. I had a great crop of spinach coming in and it has all disppeared but for maybe five plants and it is pouring even as I write.

“Bad Day At Black Rock”

patience

I was not born with a natural, or should I say godly, gift of patience. Tolerance, forbearance, long-suffering, equanimity, and even-temperedness are all virtues that I admire greatly and have long aspired to.

It seems to me that modern culture denigrates patience and celebrates a restive, impetuous, edgey kind of attitude that fosters intolerance and polemics. There certainly isn’t much in the media that doesn’t espouse self-indulgence in disputation and wrangling, i.e., politics and pseudo-reality shows.

Recently, I reviewed Elder Christofferson’s April 4th 2009 Conference address in the “Ensign” and was struck by his end-notes to his talk, “The Power of Covenants”. He quoted the JS translation of James 1:2-4.

“My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into many afflictions.
Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
But let patience have its perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.”

James indicates that we need patience in order to become perfect thus the process of “trying” or refining or perfecting our faith needs patience. We are, after all, to seek to become like the Savior who is the epitome of
that virtue.

Our God, in His mercy and great long-suffering with His children has provided a world where, usually through our own choices, we have ample opportunity to endure afflictions and endure them with dignity and grace and so learn the lessons of patience and faith…or not.

desecration of the rock

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the brain of a man in possession of the controls of heavy equipment migrates to his butt and stays there until he leaves the seat of power in said heavy equipment.

However little known the abilities of such a man may be on first entering a home construction site, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of surrounding women, that he is considered to have lost the use of his prefrontal cortex by them as long as he remains in the machine.

There is a beautiful rock a few feet west of our cottage at the lake that I have always enjoyed. It is quite large and covered with a two to four inch mantle of centuries of leaf mould which supports a lovely colony of dainty little woodland plants. Decades ago a cedar tree sprouted in this mini lushness and not finding sufficient nourishment sent it’s roots down the sides of the boulder into the earth. The tree is over twenty feet tall and appears to caress the ancient stone and watch over the diminutive garden.

Last fall we decided to have a foundation put under the camp and I made very clear to the man in charge my feelings about the rock and my desire to preserve this beautiful natural work of art.

Today I went in to the lake to start working on restoring the natural order of things after heavy equipment had ravished the whole area around the cottage. My beautiful rock had been abused and violated. He (may his brain forever STAY in his posterior) had dumped two flat rocks onto it that slid down the sides, tearing off most of the soil and cutting one of the cedar roots from the side. The little plants on the remaining small patch of soil had valiantly come forth and bloomed but they were sickly and truly made my heart ache. I don’t know if the cedar will survive and I am unsure about how to restore the tiny woodland garden.

I was so steamed I worked hard outside all day but even now, though I am so tired I can barely finish this, there is a sense of real wonder at the callousness and idiocy of a supposedly sentient adult.

minnesota

We’ve had a great stay here. The weather has, for the most part, been sunny and beautiful. Apple trees, spring flowers and now lilacs are blooming everywhere and help to make a stroll on the walking paths a lovely experience.

We arrived last Thursday on the 30th just in time to see Marcus perform an Indian dance with his class at a local park.
He is also taking piano lessons and I’m suprised at how well he does for having taken lessons for only several months. Baseball is another activity Marcus is enjoying this spring along with sharpening his skills at “arm farting”…oh, to be
almost nine again!

I was also surprised at the progress Lidia has made with violin since last November. Her hard work (and a new violin) has really paid off and I loved listening to her practice. I also had the chance to sit in on her Irish dance lesson. What a workout! Lydia’s tenacity in working towards a goal will be a great asset to her in life.

Friday night we attended Bernie’s dance recital and I realized again what a natural performer she is. One would think she had been raised in front of a camera…so comfortable and completely at ease in front of that big audience! We
celebrated her seventh birthday on Saturday, the 9th.

Also on Saturday we were treated to the musical “Oliver” performed by Georgie’s middle school. Georgie played bass in
the pit band and I had a great view of her during the performance. They all did a splendid job and I enjoyed it very much. Georgie gives up her room to her grandparents when we visit and sleeps on the floor of the “play” room and we appreciate her sacrifice. I’ve also loved hearing her practice the cello while here.

My big problem has been my camera which isn’t focusing properly. I expect there is a setting that needs adjustment
but haven’t found it yet. What a bummah!

leaving

I’ve been cleaning and packing forever it seems but am just about ready to go . I just packed the car’s trunk and since we have no food in the house will be eating out. Good thing…I’m pooped!

ice is leaving

I see by the Sebec Lake webcam sebec-lake that the ice is leaving and a rim of blue is clearly visible! If the link doesn’t work it is because WordPress has now made the heretofore simple task of inserting a link an exercise in futility and irritation. I shall post this and see if the link works.

bogey: before and after

I let Bogey’s hair grow all winter so he’ll be warm enough since we rarely turn the forced hot air furnace on here. R and I just add more layers if we get chilly and Bogey’s hair grows and grows.

At this time of year it’s 40-50 degrees at night and warm to hot during the day so Bogey gets his first summer clipping. It is comfortable for him and gives him a month for his hair to grow enough to keep him comforable in a northern spring.

Here he is right after the deed; doesn't he look perky?

A ground squirrel or some kind of varmint lives under the concrete walk by our house and Bogey has spent many hours this year trying to catch him.

[/caption

what...is he there?

watching the hole

[caption id="attachment_246" align="alignright" width="640" caption="the ol\' \"snout in hole\" trick"][/caption

But at the end of the day he remains...

THE dog!

]

the old ones

When I was a child many of my friends had an elderly relative living with their grandparents. Nursing homes were available but parents usually stayed with one of their children when they could no longer live alone.

Both sets of my grandparents had my grandfather’s fathers living with them while I was young and I don’t think of their homes from that time without remembering each of my great-grandfathers sitting in “his” easychair in an out-of-the-way corner.

My maternal grandfather’s father was called “Bi” (pronounced as “bye”) though I discovered later his real name was Almon Ezra. I don’t know how he got his nickname but none of us called him “Grampa” or “Grampie”; just “Bi”. He was a thin, small man with great, shaggy eye brows and good sized ears. A navy blue cardigan, patched at the elbows, and black, laced ankle shoes were everyday wear, summer or winter. When I was very young he would weed in the vegetable garden and a fine, early evening would often find him out there with long tweezers plucking slugs from the new leaves and dropping them in a jar containing a few inches of kerosene. Bi ’s toes had been amputated and he walked stiff-legged on his heels. We were always warned not to run or play near Bi while he was walking outside because his balance was precarious and an unintended shove would easily knock him over. I recall being very careful to stay a good fifteen feet away from him as he tottered along the uneven lawn and yelling at my younger brother to get away from him. I’m sure “S” would run much closer to Bi just to hear me carry on.

Bi’s chair was in my grandmother’s kitchen in a cozy nook between the woodstove and a window that gave him a view of the road and several of the neighbor’s houses. Actually, he could see all the way to the little general store and postoffice that sat at the end of the street. The window ledge and a small table held an assortment of his stuff; pipes, matches, tobacco, a magnifying glass and other old man accoutrements. Bi didn’t interact much with his great-grandchildren. His feet were apparently very tender and if we started horsing aound in the kitchen and got too close, he would lift his feet and holler, “Old man’s feet! Look out for old man’s feet!” That, of course, would invariably bring a grownup to scold us for playing too closely to Bi.

My paternal grandfather’s father lived a mile or so up the road so I saw him more. He was tall, pleasant and quiet. He usually sat in his chair in a corner of the dining room by the kitchen. The dining room was only used for large family gatherings a few times a year but it was a “pass through” room from the kitchen to the rest of the house. Great-grampa had a small bedroom off the dining room and, unless it was warm enough to sit on the porch, he would always be in his chair or napping on his bed. He never said much to the other grownups but would listen to the conversations in the kitchen from his chair just outside the room.

There were ten of us cousins at that time and when we all got together it could be quite wild. My mother would never allow us to run or yell in the house and I guess my great-grandfather appreciated that because he eventually began to call me to his chair occasionally. He never bothered to learn my name, just called me “little girl”. His son, my grandfather, didn’t like my name because it was too different and he called my by a common variation of my name until the day he died. Maybe that’s why great -grampa just called me “little girl”. Anyway, he would call me over and give me five or six gumdrops, always with the caveat to “…not tell the others”. Then I would sit on the old leather hassock close by and listen to stories of his family and passed generations while chewing on gumdrops. I realize now that he had a real love of history and family history in particular as did his son, my father’s father. Unfortunately, I cannot remember any those stories that he told me when I was between seven and nine years old. By the time I was ten he was becoming increasingly frail and didn’t talk to much of anyone.

Both of these great-grandfathers died in 1964 when I was thirteen. They were quiet men and they smelled alike of tobacco and old pencils.

They have now had their temple ordinances done for them and their families. What an extraordinary thing it is to participate in that work, to link these beloved ancestors back through time for the purpose of living without time in an eternal family.

haseltine family reunion

There were two big events that my brother and I looked forward to all summer. One was the fair in early fall and the other was the Haseltine family reunion held the first sunday in August. Fred and Bertha Haseltine were my maternal grandmother’s parents. They had seven children one of which died of diphtheria as a child and one that lived in California. The other five and their descendents gathered at Fred and Bertha’s camp on Lake Sebasticook for an all-day family gathering every summer while Fred and Bertha were alive.

That morning, my brother and I would wait impatiently for Mom to pack the salads, pies, chips and other special treats she had prepared the previous day. We were given the delightful job of waking our father earlier than he was wont to arise on Sunday morning. Fresh and clean from our Saturday bath the night before, we had donned our best play clothes, making sure our bathing suits and towels were included in the bundles destined for “camp”.

We were off by midmorning and though it seemed an interminable drive for two excited children, I realize now that it couldn’t have been more than a half hour ride to Camp Mi-an-ti-no-mo on the shores of Lake Sebasticook in Newport. I have no idea what the camp name means (and neither does Mom) but I remember thinking how wonderfully Indian it sounded and I would repeat the phrase, “camp Mi-an-ti-no-mo on the shores of Lake Sebasticook” frequently throughout the summer, conjuring the smells, sounds, and scenes of that treasured place.

We strained to see the first glimpse of blue water as the car turned onto a dirt road that accessed the lake and soon arrived at various vehicals nosed into leafy bowers at road’s edge. Dad would slowly drive through looking for a parking space while I would practically burst with eagerness to be out of the hot car and into the water.

At last we were parked, everyone laden with bags and boxes, and walking down the dusty road and onto the lawn where chairs and tables were set, covered in hampers, bags, and boxes like ours. I always hated the first few minutes of shy greetings between cousins and second cousins who hadn’t seen each other for six months or a year. But soon we were swimming, playing hide-and-go-seek, and all the other rowdy games that children played before video games were invented. My mother’s warnings to “be ladylike” and not to “act like a wild indian” were forgotten until I got “the eye” or until she grabbed my ponytail amid an enthusiastic game of tag that had invaded the grownup’s turf.

Another source of pleasure was the big galvanized tub filled with ice and bottles of soda (or “pop” as we called it). We didn’t have that treat very often but on this day anyone was allowed to have all he or she wanted and the children made the most of it. In those days soda was only sold in bottles and the colors were marvelous in that white ice; grape, strawberry, orange, rootbeer, gingerale, colas, and always a few bottles of Moxie.

Around noon the ladies started unpacking food and the men would tend a homemade grill where hotdogs and hamburgers sizzled and the aroma would bring children in from woods or water. Baked beans, potatoe salads, various jello salads, fruit salads, always at least one chop suey, pies, cakes, and cookies covered every available table space. It didn’t take us kids long to eat and then we would be pestering parents to let us go swimming again. In those days it was believed that swimming directly after a meal lead to cramps that would drown a person so we weren’t allowed in the water until an hour after we’d eaten. But after the meal was consumed and the grill fire extinguished it was time for business. As some cleared food and picked up trash, others were preparing for a business meeting and entertainment.

The Haseltines were an arty people. Everyone played an instrument, wrote music or poetry or both, sang, acted, or recited and it was expected that these talents should be displayed at the annual reunion. The business meeting was quite short and after that children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren showed their stuff. Instrumental numbers, songs, poems, recitations, skits, and one baton twirling act were performed every year. Great-grammie Bertha was fairly disabled with severe arthritis when I knew her but great-grampa Fred still liked to perform and somewhere in the middle of the program he would appear, dressed as a hobo and carrying an old bandana with what he alledged was “all (he had) in the world”. He would shuffle into the “stage” area, tell jokes and sing funny songs. We children thought he was a scream and would laugh uproariously at his jokes and ask him questions as if he was a real hobo.

I remember specific people so well from year to year. My grandmother, for instance, was always bustling around seeing to things and she sometimes would read a poem she had written or play the accordian. Great-uncle Harry was kind, good-natured, and funny and always had something personal to say to each child. His wife, great-aunt Mary was one of the nicest, most “lady-like” women I have known. Great-aunt Vera dressed really well and I don’t think I ever saw her frown. Great-uncle Tim had a band and no reunion was complete without a trumpet solo from him and then a duet or trio with Tim and a few others. Tim’s wife, Lib, was always so kind and very involved in helping others. Great-aunt Nellie had seven children and I loved playing with them. Even Great-grammie Bertha would have written a poem sometime during the year and it would be read aloud at the reunion.

Late afternoon and people started leaving. I would invariably go swimming again while Mom was packing up and helping clean. I never wanted to leave and my mother would have to get quite stern to get me out of the water and dressed for home. I don’t remember any rainy reunions though I’m sure there must have been some since we were in Maine. Those memories are always couched in sunny, warm days, blue lake, green trees and grass, the scent of water, pine trees, and grilling meat, much laughter, a lot of conversation and a great sense of belonging.