Jams and Country Roots

A bubbling pot of sweet goodness. That's what you're seeing here. I was making jam out of a combination of blackberries and boysenberries with some raspberries (frozen earlier for just this purpose) mixed in to make the whole pot sweeter. 

And that's where the roots and connections come in. That's what my grandmother did and my mother did before me. They passed down the recipe. Of course there's no real recipe - just pound for pound berries and sugar and then cook until it's right. There were other hints though. Some advised putting a marble in the pot to keep it from boiling over. I never tried that. Instead, I used the swipe of butter around the upper rim of the cooking pot. That worked today. I wasn't sure it would since I had the pot pretty full. 

Even the pot connects me to my past. This heavy duty pot has been in use canning and preserving and making jams and relishes since before I can remember. I don't know if it was new with my mother, but I do know that it's boiled a lot of pots of jam, not to mention cooking tomatoes and pears and green beans to get them ready to pack in canning jars. I've done all that too. Now I just do the occasional pot of jam or relish. I do can a lot of green beans but have packed them raw into the jars for these last many years after a home extension agent convinced my aunt it wasn't necessary to boil them before packing them in the jars. She shared the easier method with my mom.

I use some of these canning roots in my stories. I had Kate and Evie canning beans in my book, Angel Sister. In the Hollyhill books, people were sharing garden produce with their preacher all the time. Gardens are a great way to make connections. I have one daughter-in-law who likes gardening and putting up her own produce. She too feels the connections as she  is following in her grandmother's and mother's steps. 

Most every body who could gardened in the generations past and then canned and preserved. It was patriotic during the war years when anybody with a backyard was encouraged to plant a "victory" garden. Gardening then wasn't a hobby or for fun. It was survival and a way to have good food summer and winter. It's not survival for me. I can buy good food at the store. Produce is available all year round. But it seems wrong not to preserve and can. 

Many years ago, I read an autobiography of Janice Holt Giles, a popular historical novel author who lived in Kentucky and wrote about Kentucky history. She had to use her mornings to can the produce Henry (her husband) insisted they had to raise. A city girl, she wasn't a young woman when she married Henry and moved to his family farm in Kentucky. She sounded a little resentful when she wrote of having to spend time canning instead of writing as she wanted to do. Especially after her books were making money. But roots go deep for country folk. To Henry, canning that garden produce was as necessary as breathing and probably seemed more necessary than writing. Maybe it is for me too. A connection to my country roots. A connection with a bonus. It's kept us well fed and has given me fodder for my stories. 

How about you? What connects you to your roots? 

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Happy Wednesday - Dub made bail!

I bailed my big old chocolate Lab out of doggie jail on Monday. Somebody had picked him up on Thursday and turned him into the animal shelter, but I couldn't get any answer at the shelter until Monday because of the holiday weekend. Poor old dog had to sit in that cage all weekend. I have his tags, but had neglected to put them on his collar. You can believe they're on there now. As soon as I drove up to the shelter I could hear Dub barking. He must have recognized the car and was he ever glad to see me. I'm hoping he'll stay down on the farm now. The neighbor bailed his dogs out too though it gets expensive after a few days in doggie jail. So very glad to have the old dog stretched out on the porch again even if he does need a bath.

I have to apologize to all of you who entered my book giveaway. I said I'd announce the first winner of an autographed copy of The Believer last Sunday, but I guess all the fireworks and missing dog addled my brain. However I have now drawn for the first week's winner and that is (drumroll please) Jeneen. I'll be contacting Jeneen to get her address to send the book when I get my copies. I haven't received a copy yet, but I learned last time with The Outsider not to get too anxious. With that book, I saw copies in the store before I had any in hand. Not a bad thing. I like seeing copies in stores and in other people's hands as they read. I'll draw for the next winner Sunday - if my brain isn't too addled from playing with grandbabies this weekend. I'm going to WV to babysit that set of grandkids. We'll have fun and Grandma will be busy.

I'm still doing those yucky housecleaning chores. Painted all day Monday and Tuesday till eleven in the night. Had to take a break on Monday to go bail out the dog and on Tuesday to go to the dentist. I almost looked forward to that since I figured lying back in a dentist chair would give me a few minutes rest. Of course they stand you on your head these days and then try to carry on a conversation with you. There you are practically standing on your head with blood rushing down (or would that be up) into your head along with having two hands poking around in your mouth. It's "aah, ogg, splutter" when you try to answer. Anyway came home and had to pick up the paint roller again. I'm definitely developing muscles in that arm. Sore muscles.

But today, I decided I'd better take a break if I was going to be able to keep up with the grandkids the rest of the week. The hometown grandkids came out to pick zuchinni and peppers out of their part of the garden. They're so cute out there among the rows of veggie plants that I need to take my camera out there and snap some photos to add to the hundred or two I already have on my camera. Do any of the rest of you have that problem? Just adding to your memory card and putting off downloading or printing them? I'll have to take my sleeping bag to Wal-Mart when I decide to get the pictures printed off.

Just a few more weeks until I'll be doing my booklaunch at Shaker Village. Corinth Bookstore in Frankfort is selling the tickets and say they're getting some calls. Hope those of you in the area can come join in the fun. The tickets are for the breakfast. You can check out the details on my webpage in the schedule part on the Home page. Also thanks to any of you who may have befriended me on Facebook and Goodreads. It's good to have new friends and to get reacquainted with some old friends.

Hope you're enjoying lots of great photo ops this summer.

Gardening for the Brain

The tea at Clear Creek was great. And I found out the church is way over 200 years old. It was established in 1785. Wow! And it is a beautiful church with beautiful people. My talk wasn't as good as I'd hoped it would be. I can never decide whether more practice is better or less practice is better. Sometimes when I prepare too carefully then I get hung up on wanting to say those great words I've thought up exactly as I wrote them down and then I'm stumbling around trying to remember what it was I had worked out to say. So then I try just preparing an outline of ideas and that works better, but then I skip over what I'd hoped would be some of my best points. I like to speak and I hope as I have more opportunities that I will get better and find my comfort zone somewhere between too much preparation and not enough.

One thing sure, the ladies at the church had done the proper amount of preparation. The tea party was great. The place was decorated in chocolates. Now you can't go wrong with those kind of decorations. Everything was pink and chocolate brown. And the centerpieces were elevated cake plates with brightly wrapped mini candy bars. Then the food was fancy with lots of dainty sandwiches, crackers and cheese dips and pretty and delicious desserts. Oh yeah, and my favorite part, fruit. I'm just saying that to keep everybody from thinking I totally pigged out on the chocolate. There was strawberry tea and peach tea and raspberry tea. All very yummy and served up by some of the guys in the church.

You'll be glad to know I did come up with something to say. I probably even talked a few minutes past twenty, but only a couple. Nobody went to sleep (that I saw) and only the littlest baby got so tired she cried. I enjoyed meeting all the ladies and appreciated their kind words about my books. There was a momma there who has an eleven month old baby boy, a twin, with a serious health problem. Evan is facing a bone marrow transplant when they find a donor, so keep him and his mom in your prayers.

Now to the title of the blog. I always make you wait. I just read an article in the newspaper that gardening can help us hang onto our cognitive abilities. I want to hang onto mine for sure, although I have to admit to being more forgetful than I used to be. I can turn around once and lose something completely and totally. I usually find whatever it was. But sometimes not for a couple of days and half the time it's right where I thought it was all along. I think the gremlins are playing tricks on me. You know about gremlins - those invisible little beings that collect odd socks and hair clasps and paperclips and dozens of other necessary and chronically disappearing items.

Anyway, I've been vegetable gardening all my life. Darrell does most of the gardening work these days. Now I realize how I'm blessing him by letting him do most of the planting, hoeing, etc. since it's helping his brain stay young. But I'm still in the garden a bunch, picking the veggies and pulling the weeds you have to lean over to get. If Darrell can't get them with his hoe, they don't get got. So maybe we'll both fend off dementia for a few more years and even if we hang up our vegetable garden hoe, there will always be flowers to plant and water.

I guess I'll keep digging in the dirt until I forget which is a flower and which is a weed. I was showing my grandkids which were weeds and which were not the other day. They're growing some beans in half our garden. The little one who just turned three pulled up the morning glory vines out of the beans and then very carefully planted them in the middle of the rows to keep them from dying. One thing sure, gardening is more fun with kids around.

So grow something this week and stay brain young. See you again on Wednesday. No telling what I'll talk about then, but maybe it won't be more than fifteen minutes worth.


My son