Changing Times

A  post with this title could refer to Daylight Savings Time, or Spring Forward, which happened a week or so ago. We changed clocks on everything that is not computerized so that the clock changes automatically and prepared ourselves for darker mornings and light lasting longer in the evenings, with everything seeming off balance for a few days.  Or it could refer to the fast changing cultural time we are experiencing. Or just the changes involved in the arrival of Spring.  But I am telling the story of a family dinner that has changed.

Once I wrote how I loved our Sunday dinners after church, with most of our family gathered around our dining table which once belonged to my Grandma Terrell.  She loved Sunday dinners after church too,. I remember thinking and saying then that I was grateful for those times together because I knew it would not always be like that. Our family grew and schedules changed and people changed and the picture tilted. For a time it seemed like family dinners were no longer going to be a regular thing.

Then something familiar began to happen. After Joe and I began to share this home with Ben and his family, we decided to have 2 shared meals a week -  on Fridays, I would prepare dinner and Ben would be chef for another weekend night. About 2 months ago when I was making Beef Bourguignon,  I considered how big my pot was and wondered if our busy oldest son and daughter in law would like to come after work and bring their daughter who is in high school.  Teion, our daughter in law, responded quickly that she and Skye would love to come but Sean would be working late. They came early and Skye played with Nora, who adores her.  Baby Oliver is always in demand for cuddling.  I finished making my beef and wine and toasted sourdough bread to serve it on and we feasted. Sean got some leftovers brought to him.  Teion and Skye said they would love to come next Friday night, Our oldest granddaughter texted that she wanted to come to Friday nights and bring her friend Kasey.  Sean began to leave work in time to come for part of the meal. And suddenly, our Sunday dinner after the church began to happen on Friday nights!  Of course, Jeremy and Michala live in Nevada now and that is not an option for them to join us, but when they were here in January with Jordann and Maddie, our whole family gathered for the feast. Ben and Kristen are gracious co-hosts.

We are too many to go around Grandma's smaller oak table, but we can all fit around Ben and Kristen's dining table which we use in our dining room now.  I served the Chicken Nogales ( * KitchenKeeper blog link posted below)  pictured above. The only difference was I doubled the recipe! We are many more around the table as the years pass.  We are a noisy, happy bunch that enjoys each other and good food. Times do change, but some things about us never do.

*www.kitchenkeepers.wordpress.com/2016/03/04/chicken-nogales/

Starting a Garden. Again.

We have lived in many places, moved many times.  Each time, we made the new place home and part of that was the garden we began and grew there. There were a few apartments, lived in for short periods.  In those, plants were grown in containers and inside. But every house we have called home brought new gardening projects for us. In the early years of moving often and raising little boys, that may have been limited to planting a few flowers and digging to plant the cuttings that family and friends so generously shared with us. By the time we moved to our home on Deep Valley in Plano, TX in 1976, a vegetable garden had joined our early home building projects. In that home, I remember Joe outlining our garden bed with railroad ties.  There I grew enough Zucchini squash to feed the neighborhood and try every Zucchini recipe in my cookbook collection.  We had an apricot tree there that had a bountiful harvest every year, and made wonderful pies.I was by then an avid organic gardener and our sons who were 3, almost 6 and 8, loved helping plant and harvest.

Some of our homes came with the bonus of some planting already established.  In our old Victorian home in Jacksonville in the 90's we tended a giant magnolia, mimosas, camellias, and wisteria along with the delight of finding a long row of purple iris that came up the next Spring. In California, previous owners had planted avocado, lemon, and plum trees as well as some beautiful roses in the courtyard. In Indonesia, we grew orchids in our flower beds along with a mango tree that hung heavy with fruit.  When we came back to the U.S. and began to live longer in one place, we added 2 serious garden passions:  herbs and antique roses.  When he was in college, Ben dug and edged a long rectangle for a gift for me...my first large herb garden.  We had a pool there and little room for a bigger garden in the back, but we had a giant old pecan tree in our front yard and shade beds. I planted old roses across the back of the house:  Sombreuil, Maggie and a fragrant French 18th century rose that looked like watered apricot silk which I cannot find anymore. 13 years later when we moved from that home to a smaller one, we filled our back yard with stone paths and garden, including another herb garden with a sitting wall. We moved from that home last year and left another garden for someone else to enjoy.  Our new home, which we share with Ben, Kristen, Nora, and Oliver, has the largest yard we have ever had but the fewest plants! Amaryllis that were my Mother's and white iris that were my grandmothers went into a front bed. We put in vegetable and herb beds to keep us cooking, and thought about it.

Over the past few months, as we discussed how a new garden might take shape, we asked advice of a landscape planning friend, and the project which began last week became work of our hands as well as our hearts.  Our favorite gardening center came out to make some planting areas, we put in a few plants we already had, and more are one the way.  Morning Glory and Moonflower seeds are already in the ground thanks to Joe and Kristen, Ben has been hard at work digging and planting, and we are all excited to work on this together.  Kristen found some seeds to plant which she gathered from our old house.  The Touch- Me- Not flowers in the photo above are not only old-fashioned and pretty, their seed pods are fun and bring out the child in anyone!  When the pods are full and beginning to dry, just a touch will send the seeds flying! Garden on the way!

Easter 2017

When Nora and her Mom let me help to die these eggs in the days before Easter, and every time the eggs got hidden and hunted, I was reminded of all the years of Easter excitement and egg hunts with Nora's Daddy, Ben, and his brothers followed by our grandchildren as they arrived one by one to fill all our lives with the joy of doing things together.  I remembered our first son's first Easter.  He was only 3 months old on April 14, 1968,  so Joe and I were proud to share our new son with his grandparents and aunts and uncles. I remember sewing Easter outfits for him that got handed down to his brothers and handing down the things we did together to celebrate Easter and other holidays as well. With each new son, it seemed the traditions expanded and became richer.

At the time those traditions begin, we did not plan ahead for doing it over and over again, but I am glad we did. I am thankful that we included the larger elements of gathering with family and worshipping as part of these celebrations. I find deep satisfaction in "doing it again" with my grandchildren. I am thankful that our sons and their wives have loved these traditions and continue them while adding their own!

Funny how colored eggs tell such a story!

Spring!

Every year I watch for my first sight of redbud trees beginning to bloom.  Along with fruit trees like peach and pear that blossom early,  and narcissus spears pushing up to sport their fragrant white blooms plus bluebonnets, Indian paintbrush and other wildflowers, these heralds of the coming of Spring precede the calendar date in our area and bring a smile to my face and gladden my heart. In the woods of Northeast Texas where Joe and I grew up, dogwood spreads its blooms in dark piney woods also.  I do not see dogwoods here in South Texas, but I always include them when I think about this season,. Long before Easter eggs and pastel Spring clothing, these flag my attention and lift my spirits, particularly this year when Easter comes in mid-April.

Spring Break Fun

On the first day of Spring Break, we did not head to the beach.   Kristen, Nora, Skye, and I did something much more fun!  We went to my friend Stacey Roussel's farm and played with the baby goats!  Stacey showed us her mama goats, her dairy, and told us about making her specialty:  goat milk popsicles!  She even treated us to a freshly frozen strawberry pop!  Skye declared this the best day of her life and now wants to raise a baby goat for her Ag class in high school.  Nora giggled, and loved running ahead while she called "come on kids!"  The laughter of my granddaughters was the sweetest music in the world.  Kristen and I laughed and had fun too. Many thanks to Stacey for the pleasure of this unique experience.

A Visitor

We had an uninvited guest this week. I found this turtle in our garage!  Everyone came out to see, and Nora was the most interested since this was her first turtle encounter.  By this time Joe had helped the turtle along to the grass.

Since the turtle was not interested in playing peek a boo, Nora decided to go inside.  This is a large Red-eared Slider, named for the red stripe behind the eyes and its habit of sliding off logs and rocks when startled.  They are the most common turtle around here, so can often be seen sunning themselves when we drive along Texas roadways. I am not sure, but I think this is a female turtle because they have more pronounced coloration than males, and because it is the season when they begin to go on land  and dig nests in which to lay their eggs. Then the mother leaves. It takes 2 months or more for them to hatch, but young turtles are born having to take care of themselves.  This means we may see more unusual visitors since predators like raccoons, herons, and snakes try to find them.

When I was a little girl, it was possible to buy tiny baby turtles as pets.  We had one that we kept in a bowl.  Fortunately, it was discovered that these babies carry salmonella, so it became illegal to sell them.

Red-eared sliders can live 30 years or longer, so maybe this one will come back to see us!

Focus

Joe and Mary Ann Parker, May 1963


This photograph was made 54 years ago, in the Spring before our wedding in December of 1963.  I love the picture.  Not just because we were so young and unwrinkled and happy, but because we are focused on each other. At this time we were in the very early months of learning and loving. The decision to have a wedding by the end of the year had not been made. But as we focused,  we were open to all the possibilities of the future. I believe that, along with a focus of faith in God and all that he would bring us, is the strong golden thread that holds these now many years of meeting every day's victories and vicissitudes.  We have 3 wonderful sons, their wives who are like our daughters, and 6 amazing grandchldren. Our clan now numbers fourteen, and pictures are hard to get because that means everybody gathered and still at the same time!  I love the ways they build their own families with focus and faith.