Here is a photo of my blissful kitchen - at least part of it. You cannot see the floor length window or the stove on the other side of the table. It is little, but I love my kitchen! For 22 years it has fed us!
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Jeannie's Kitchen
Here is a photo of my blissful kitchen - at least part of it. You cannot see the floor length window or the stove on the other side of the table. It is little, but I love my kitchen! For 22 years it has fed us!
Bliss in the Kitchen
As part of the MaryJanesFarm blog-a-thon, bliss in the kitchen is the theme for week three. Well, to coin a kitchen phrase, that really opens up a whole can of peas! My bliss in the kitchen began early with memories of my grandmother's kitchens. I can remember every detail of both of them, both farmgirl kitchens for real.
My paternal grandma had a kitchen on a dairy farm in Iowa. It was complete with big windows, blowing curtains, and a table right near the stove and sink. She cooked huge meals for the farm hands and she would always sit down and eat last. As she grew older, she could not do as much, so mom would do the cooking and washing when we were there. Grandma also began to lose some of her memory. The last time my mom stood washing the dishes, grandma walked up to her, put her arm around her and said, "I don't know who sent you to help me, but you are a jewel!" She thought mom was hired help! We laughed at that one and always told mom she was indeed a jewel in the kitchen. Family bliss in that memory, for sure.
My maternal grandma had a pump at the sink in her small town kitchen until the 60's. She also always had a daybed on one wall. Above the daybed was a wall lamp where one could lay and read. Anyone not feeling well could always convalesce there where she could keep a watchful eye on them. Her back door went right out the side of the house into her garden, and she canned constantly it seemed. Wearing an apron of course. Her house had no dining room, so we always ate in the kitchen or in the back yard. It was blissful in that room, too.
My mom's kitchen was big, bright yellow, and in the center was a yellow mother of pearl kitchen table. When my grandma came to live with us, my parents gave their bedroom to her and they slept in our kitchen on a roll away which got tucked away during the day. The sink was so deep, she gave me baths in it as a small child! It was so sunny, and had a huge walnut tree outside the back window. Each morning mom would stand there with her coffee. And on late nights, she and I sat and had hot chocolate and talked at the table.
So for me bliss in the kitchen goes a lot deeper than meals, recipes, or the latest appliances, as important as those things are! In fact, it goes backward in time to kitchen living that provided childhood bliss. The best kind.
Check out http://www.maryjanesfarm.org/! Much more bliss in the kitchen can be found there!
Later, I will tell you stories about my kitchen and my daugher's, too. Hers is yellow and sunny, by the way.
My paternal grandma had a kitchen on a dairy farm in Iowa. It was complete with big windows, blowing curtains, and a table right near the stove and sink. She cooked huge meals for the farm hands and she would always sit down and eat last. As she grew older, she could not do as much, so mom would do the cooking and washing when we were there. Grandma also began to lose some of her memory. The last time my mom stood washing the dishes, grandma walked up to her, put her arm around her and said, "I don't know who sent you to help me, but you are a jewel!" She thought mom was hired help! We laughed at that one and always told mom she was indeed a jewel in the kitchen. Family bliss in that memory, for sure.
My maternal grandma had a pump at the sink in her small town kitchen until the 60's. She also always had a daybed on one wall. Above the daybed was a wall lamp where one could lay and read. Anyone not feeling well could always convalesce there where she could keep a watchful eye on them. Her back door went right out the side of the house into her garden, and she canned constantly it seemed. Wearing an apron of course. Her house had no dining room, so we always ate in the kitchen or in the back yard. It was blissful in that room, too.
My mom's kitchen was big, bright yellow, and in the center was a yellow mother of pearl kitchen table. When my grandma came to live with us, my parents gave their bedroom to her and they slept in our kitchen on a roll away which got tucked away during the day. The sink was so deep, she gave me baths in it as a small child! It was so sunny, and had a huge walnut tree outside the back window. Each morning mom would stand there with her coffee. And on late nights, she and I sat and had hot chocolate and talked at the table.
So for me bliss in the kitchen goes a lot deeper than meals, recipes, or the latest appliances, as important as those things are! In fact, it goes backward in time to kitchen living that provided childhood bliss. The best kind.
Check out http://www.maryjanesfarm.org/! Much more bliss in the kitchen can be found there!
Later, I will tell you stories about my kitchen and my daugher's, too. Hers is yellow and sunny, by the way.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Tie One On - An Apron that is!
Last October, my daughter and I had the fun opportunity to meet MaryJane Butters. She was visiting the Atlanta area, and we had a great day together eating, making rag rugs, chatting, and of course taking photos. Here is one memory of that wonderful day when we all had our aprons on and enjoyed a day of farmgirl friendship! Here you see maryjane's daughter Meg holding Stella, MaryJane, me and Julia, my daughter.
Visit www.maryjanesfarm.org and find out about her!
Saturday, April 5, 2008
MaryJanesFarm
In May 2004, I found a great website. MaryJanesFarm. Now I am not one to visit chat rooms, and surf all over the net. But this is the one place I visit and shop at regularly and it's a keeper.
Many who visit this blog will already be very familiar with MaryJane and what she stands for. If you are not, go to http://www.maryjanesfarm.org/. It is a great place. A place where folks who want to live life in a simple way can learn how to grow an organic garden, buy organic food products, and meet with similar minds from all over the world. This is one site that is safe, well moderated, fresh and interesting.
Since I am such a newbie at blogging, I do not know yet how to show a link to her site, so that is why I listed it above.
I have met MaryJane personally. She is a wonderful and genuine person who has found herself at the head of a "farmgirl" movement. She promotes a cause that many of us strive for - good family life, creating things with our hands, making homes and farms and businesses that reap positive results, both in the fields and in the family.
So visit there! You will have fun!
Many who visit this blog will already be very familiar with MaryJane and what she stands for. If you are not, go to http://www.maryjanesfarm.org/. It is a great place. A place where folks who want to live life in a simple way can learn how to grow an organic garden, buy organic food products, and meet with similar minds from all over the world. This is one site that is safe, well moderated, fresh and interesting.
Since I am such a newbie at blogging, I do not know yet how to show a link to her site, so that is why I listed it above.
I have met MaryJane personally. She is a wonderful and genuine person who has found herself at the head of a "farmgirl" movement. She promotes a cause that many of us strive for - good family life, creating things with our hands, making homes and farms and businesses that reap positive results, both in the fields and in the family.
So visit there! You will have fun!
Thursday, March 27, 2008
HomeMade Stitches
Over thirty years ago my mother gave me the last quilt top my grandmother ever made. Not too long after piecing it she had a stroke and came to live with us. When her home in small town Pawnee, Illinois, got cleaned out, Mom found the quilt top, kept it, and passed it on to me when I was newly married.
I bought a quilt frame, purchased batting, pinned the top to a backing, and began the project. It was slow going. I guess thirty years is very very slow! A baby came along, the quilt frame came down, and a crib took it's place. Time went by, and the quilt stayed folded neatly in the linen closet. Until November 2007.
That is when, through MaryJane'sFarm website, I found a wonderful business called HomeMade Stitches. A group of Mennonite and Amish women in Minnesota and Wisconsin finish quilts and also make custom quilts as a business - and everything is done by hand. Out of the linen closet came grandma's quilt, still pinned and only slightly sewn together. Back to the mid-west it travelled and a few short months later, it is now a finished work of art. To me anyway.
This quilt was pieced together with what was once my grandmother's housedresses. When they wore out, she used them for quilting. I know that because the first time I saw it, I immediately could see her in those dresses which were usually covered with an apron...and I think there are apron pieces in there too.
When the box came home to me in the mail two days ago, my granddaughter was with me. We opened it together and drew out this quilt, and I felt the threads of time literally piecing our lives together - grandmother to grandmother, I stood with the woman who made that last quilt top.
I bought a quilt frame, purchased batting, pinned the top to a backing, and began the project. It was slow going. I guess thirty years is very very slow! A baby came along, the quilt frame came down, and a crib took it's place. Time went by, and the quilt stayed folded neatly in the linen closet. Until November 2007.
That is when, through MaryJane'sFarm website, I found a wonderful business called HomeMade Stitches. A group of Mennonite and Amish women in Minnesota and Wisconsin finish quilts and also make custom quilts as a business - and everything is done by hand. Out of the linen closet came grandma's quilt, still pinned and only slightly sewn together. Back to the mid-west it travelled and a few short months later, it is now a finished work of art. To me anyway.
This quilt was pieced together with what was once my grandmother's housedresses. When they wore out, she used them for quilting. I know that because the first time I saw it, I immediately could see her in those dresses which were usually covered with an apron...and I think there are apron pieces in there too.
When the box came home to me in the mail two days ago, my granddaughter was with me. We opened it together and drew out this quilt, and I felt the threads of time literally piecing our lives together - grandmother to grandmother, I stood with the woman who made that last quilt top.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Spring has Sprung and all is Dusty Yellow!
Today is a glorious day! I took a mile walk, and now I am watering the garden we planted yesterday. The nursery was a busy place on a sunny Palm Sunday! Hubby and I got tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. After getting them in the ground, I fertilized my snap peas and harvested some more broccoli. I am letting the broccoli bloom out a lot, though, because the bees LOVE the flowers, and that will bring precious pollinators to my new little tomato plants, some of which already have tiny blooms. Broccoli has the loveliest, most delicate yellow bloom; they are really pretty and edible!
But the air is yellow! Really, I mean really yellow. I have a blue car, and the Oak pollen has coated it as if it needed talcum. When I drive, some of it blows off, and when it rains, everyone has a polka dot car. Driving country roads, one can see what looks like a dust cloud from a recent car, but it is just clouds of pollen blowing out of Oaks. And here in the deep south, there are a zillion big old Oaks!
The photo I posted below is of little Abigail and Hannah, watching their favorite show, Calliou. They can watch 1/2 hour of TV at my house on Wednesday, when they visit me. This is their choice, and they cozy up together and it gives me time to make the lunch!!! There is a method to my madness, but it is their first choice of shows, too.
There they sit, in my hubby's grandma's rocker, which makes it their great-great-grandmother's rocker. I do not have anything that belonged to my great-great grandmothers, so I hope to keep it for them to have someday.
Well, back outside now to move the sprinklers!
But the air is yellow! Really, I mean really yellow. I have a blue car, and the Oak pollen has coated it as if it needed talcum. When I drive, some of it blows off, and when it rains, everyone has a polka dot car. Driving country roads, one can see what looks like a dust cloud from a recent car, but it is just clouds of pollen blowing out of Oaks. And here in the deep south, there are a zillion big old Oaks!
The photo I posted below is of little Abigail and Hannah, watching their favorite show, Calliou. They can watch 1/2 hour of TV at my house on Wednesday, when they visit me. This is their choice, and they cozy up together and it gives me time to make the lunch!!! There is a method to my madness, but it is their first choice of shows, too.
There they sit, in my hubby's grandma's rocker, which makes it their great-great-grandmother's rocker. I do not have anything that belonged to my great-great grandmothers, so I hope to keep it for them to have someday.
Well, back outside now to move the sprinklers!
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