The First Christmas Card

Every year, for as far back as I care to remember, the first Christmas card to arrive in my mail box has come from an old highschool friend.  For those of you who don't know, highschool was darn near 50 years ago.  Last year, just before Christmas,  I lost my lifelong friend and that was a very sad thing.

I have just received the first Christmas card of this season.  Instead of my the usual one from my old friend, with her lengthy letter to tell me all about her life and that of her family, I got one that was simply signed, along with a Merry Christmas greeting that the makers no longer see fit to imprint on the card itself.  It was an instant reminder of my loss, and instead of the excitement a first card usually brings, it has just brought sadness.

Newest Family Member

I've had a new grand-dog for a week now. I was holding off so I could post a picture of him, but my son brought him to visit with me today, and I forgot all about taking a picture.  He's really cute and for now you will just have to take my word for it. I'll post pictures when I get some.
........I just hope he's still a puppy when that happens! 

Garden Surprise - Mystery Solved

As I mentioned in my Garden Adventure post earlier this year, I had no deer for a while so I decided to plant a garden. One of the things I planted was an assortment of lettuces.  Everything was going fine until one day I noticed something strange.  There was this white thing sticking up out of the ground.  As far as I knew, lettuce didn't grow big thick roots like that, so I took a picture and put it on Facebook, asking my friends if they could identify this plant.

I got all kinds of responses, running from white carrot and parsnip to horseradish.  After checking out those plants online, I knew it wasn't any of them.  I still had a mystery on my hands.  And for some reason, I stopped eating the leaves.  I mean, I had planted lettuce, and this sure wasn't a lettuce, so I wasn't eating it until I knew more.

A friend of ours, Brian Henderson,  used to be the horticultural professor at Algonquin.  He's now the head gardener at Upper Canada Village.  While out prowling the countryside one day, we stopped in for a visit.  As we were about to leave, I mentioned this strange plant and he said it sounded like a Daikon Radish.  I had never heard of such a thing, but I must have described it really well because, when I looked it up online, that's certainly what I had. 

I read that they don't mind a hard frost, so I left it in the ground until this week when morning temperatures were often around minus 7C. Then I dug it up, washed it off, removed and stored the leaves and wondered what to do with the thing.  The younger leaves can be used in salads, as I had been doing in the beginning.  The bigger leaves can apparently be cooked like spinach, or used in recipes calling for spinach or kale.  The root itself, I figured could be grated and used in salads too.

A friend came for tea yesterday, and I showed her what I had accidentally grown.  She knew what it was right away, and said she always had to get hers at a farmer's market!  I asked her what she did with them, and she told me they were good in stir fries and stew.  I was planning on having a meal of pork shoulder chops, with onions, potatoes and carrots all cooked in the same pan.  I decided this was a good time to try cooking some of my Daikon radish too.  It was actually very good, and now I'm planning on creating a stir fry soon.

Like my friend,  I will be looking for these daikon radishes at farmer's markets in the future. I can't imagine growing a whole row of these things as one is good for several meals!  One or two a year will make a nice change of pace though, so I will be looking forward to finding them.

Finding this new vegetable growing in my garden was a much better surprise than finding that the deer had eaten all my hostas, as they had for the past couple of years.  That's for sure!

Lessons for Today

Today I learned that when you iron 7 pairs of pants and stack them to put away when you are done, the pairs on the bottom of the stack could end up with more pronounced wrinkles than when you started.

Iron?  Oh, I forgot. Some of you have never touched one of those and don't know what they are for.  An iron is a hot instrument meant to flatten the wrinkles out of clothing.

Shoot. I did it again, didn't I?

Wrinkle?  Those are unsightly creases in clothing. Those of us born before a certain year feel our clothing looks neater with out them.

You might not understand why anyone would bother to remove those wrinkles, but then, those of us who do might not understand why you would willingly let someone stick inked needles into your skin to leave a permanent stain there either.  

Times change.  People's ideas of fashion change with them.

This post has been a little look back in time, to see how some of your ancestors used to waste their time trying to remove something that just comes back anyway.

Graduation Day

I have been busy getting ready for an art show I had agreed to be in.  Originally I thought it was just the members of our art class but later found out there were many more established artists in the show. That kind of made me nervous.  I mean, while I have shown my photographs before, this was the first time my painting would be on public display.  I always say I'm painter, not an artist, but will admit I've been working on the transition and had hopes to move on up the ladder.

About 23 of us took part in That Art Thing and it was a wonderful event.  It got it's name because, when ever we referred to it, the questions and statements always came out like, "What day is that art thing?"  "How many paintings can we bring to that art thing?"  Or, "I just finished a new painting for that art thing."  That's what we knew it by, so the rest of the world might as well too. 

The day before That Art Thing was beautiful. The weather was perfect for cleaning up the garden and doing other necessary outdoor chores before the cold weather arrives. Luckily for us, the day of the event was a little wetter and cooler.  Not so bad though, that people decided to stay home, but just bad enough that they could not do other things around the house.  It was just perfect for visiting That Art Thing.  And visiting was what they did.

At other art shows people tend to come in, look at the art, maybe talk to the artist for a moment, and then wander back out, with or without a purchase.  That Art Thing was located in a tiny village and many of the people who came in found other people they had not seen for quite a while, and not only did they look at the art, but they stayed for a visit.  It was a very happy, friendly crowd, and a really fun day.  Most of us, in fact, actually made a new friend or two. 

If I had known earlier that it wasn't going to just be our paint class showing off what we had accomplished, I probably would have shown photographs, or maybe even digital art instead.  I have more confidence with those.  But my paintings were well accepted by both the public and the other artists, so I think I just graduated. I'm not just a painter any more.  Now, I'm an artist.

A Grandma By Any Other Name ....

I raised an autistic child and was well aware that he often took the things I said literally.  I guess I forgot that other small children can be equally confused by our choice of words.

My oldest grandson will soon be eight years old.  He came to visit, and after spending some time playing with his Grandfather, he sat with me for a while.  He asked me, "Nana, why don't I have a Grandmother?" 

I was shocked, but informed him he did, in fact, have two Grandmothers. (well three if we want to get technical, but let's not just now).  He said, "No I don't." And I said, "I'm your Grandmother, and Budda is your other Grandmother."  Instantly I saw the problem.  While the other one was Gramma in the beginning, the wee one couldn't pronounce that and one day it came out as Budda, and that has stuck. Me, I've always been Nana because I had a Nana and a Nanny myself while growing up.  So, while this grandson knew his Mother had both a Grandmother and a Grandfather, known to him as GG and GGPaw, he though he just had a Grandfather and no Grandmothers.

After being straightened out on this matter, he sat quietly for a while thinking about it. I guess he got it straight because when he spoke again, he said, "So, my mommy had me and my brother, and you had Daddy and Uncle Steve, right?"  I assured him that this was so.  I think he was relieved to discover that he did actually have Grandmothers, even if he calls us something else.  He wasn't so deprived after all.  Grandmothers are special people you know.

Produce From the Medical Centre

Our local medical centre has created a new program aimed at helping us eat healthier.  They call it the Good Food Box.  Once a month orders can be placed for a box or bag of fresh fruits and/or vegetables.  The price is basically by the pound, I believe. For instance you can pay $5 for 5 pounds of either fruit or vegetables, $10 for 10 pounds of either or a mix of the two, and I think there is a $25 dollar option as well, That's probably of a mixture of both fruit and vegetables and would be suitable for a family. It would include a 10 pound bag of potatoes, from what I saw when  I picked my order up.

There are just two of us here, and I have to walk half a mile each way to both order (and pay for) and pick up my produce. For these reasons I decided to try the $5 bag, and chose vegetables this month.  As I was on my way over there to pick them up, it suddenly dawned on me that, at this time of year, there might be squash and sweet potatoes in the mix. Nobody here cares for either of those.

I notice the medical centre has also created a companion program called Cooking from the Box. That's a community cooking class where you get to make food using the things found in the current months box.  If a sweet potato or squash had shown up there I might have attended, just to see if I could learn a way to make something we would find palatable from these ingredients..

Luckily for us, there were neither  in my bag, and only things I buy regularly anyway.  That's not very exciting, but at today's prices, I think I came out ahead.  What do you think?