Family

It is good to visit with family and support each other in time of grief.  Last Saturday, I was able to visit just a little with Mom and Dad.  (Mom fed us, of course!)  I'm posting a few pics of things I saw at Mom's Saturday.  Mom loves flowers, too, so she has been pleased with the crepe myrtle and the zinnias.  The little green lizard (Carolina anole) is considered welcome because he eats the bugs.
 

 

 

Grieving

I will be taking some time off from blogging as our family grieves the loss of two loved ones (one expected, one very unexpected).

Hug your loved ones while they are with you. 

Consider your relationship with Christ while it is "today."

Uphold each other in prayer.

More on goober peas

I had more I wanted to say about boiled peanuts and peanuts in general.  When I was growing up, we ate lots of raw peanuts and lots of "parched peanuts" which were basically peanuts roasted unsalted in their shell.  Usually at Christmas, Mama would shell some of the parched peanuts to make peanut brittle.  We sometimes grew peanuts, and sometimes we would buy a large netted bag of raw peanuts.  We never had boiled peanuts, though.  Probably my first encounter with them as an adult was from a can.  I wasn't impressed.  But when someone gave us fresh ones that he had cooked himself, I thought they were great.
A couple of years ago, we stopped on our way to the beach and picked up some.  I bought some already boiled, and some to take home and cook myself.  We took the boiled ones out onto the beach, and it didn't take the birds long to find them.  They were black-colored birds (perching birds of some sort).  They were very clever and persistent, and I had to hide the peanuts in my beach bag AND zip up the beach bag.  I don't blame the birds; the peanuts were delicious.
The ones I took home I cooked using these guidelines so my husband, who didn't get to go to the beach with us, could have some.  Last year my friend Brooks Pearce gave me some of the peanuts he had boiled.  He says he uses 2 ounces of kosher salt per pound of peanuts.  After cooking "till done," he leaves the peanuts in the salty water for a few hours to soak up the salt.  I'm sure that's one of several different ways to do it.  I don't know precisely how long he cooked his.
I should try growing some of my own again.  I've grown them once or twice when Caleb was young.  We harvested a small pan of them which we washed in a bucket.  After we washed the goober peas, my own little goober had to get in the bucket.  There's something about kids and water...

 

 

I can hardly say "goober pea" without thinking of my older brother singing, "Oh how delicious, eating goober peas!"

Do you like goober peas?

  

In praise of zinnias

When we remember someone who has passed on, there are certain things that will bring fond associations.  My maternal grandmother passed from this life this week.  Her trials are done.  As she said in a poem she wrote, she is "shining over on the other side."  One of the things that makes me think of Granny is zinnias.  She always had a row of zinnias along the edge of the garden or the field.  
This year I gave Mom a mug for Mother's Day.  To keep from giving it empty, I put in a few pieces of candy and a packet of zinnias.  I think Mom was more tickled with the packet of seeds than anything else.  Mom gladly reported how quickly her seeds emerged and then when they bloomed, what colors there were.  At first she had five shades of pinks, corals, and salmon.  Then she got a couple of very lovely, clear bright orange ones.  She reported that just in the last week or so, she has gotten a white one. 
After buying the packet for Mom, I decided I should spring for a packet for myself.  I planted only some of the seeds.  Seven plants survived and I transplanted four of them to a separate location.  They have all bloomed, and I'm "in the pink."  All seven of mine managed to be one shade or another of pink.

 

As you can see from this picture, one of the zinnias is 4 1/2' tall.  (Not as tall as Caleb, though!)

Of course there was a time, when the zinnias were taller than he was.  (Doesn't seem so long ago.)

 

And of course, there was the in-between stage.

 

 

Plant a row of zinnias and spread some cheer.

 



 



 



 

 



Sign of the season

Boiled peanuts.  Yum!

 



Can you multitask?

If women are good multitaskers, I'm an outlier; I just don't have what it takes.  I marvel at people who can do several things at once.  My mother always laughed about the cartoon that had a woman answering the phone with one hand, cooking with the other hand, and pushing a cradle with one foot.  The man in the cartoon is sitting with pencil and paper musing, "Now what could she do with the other foot?"
The headline I just read takes the cake, though:  "Busy mom has baby while registering son at school"!!
http://www.wral.com/busy-mom-has-baby-while-registering-son-at-school/13896437/

Do you multitask?

 

Counting blooms

I've noticed that Mom often counts blooms.  She might count the blooms on a new rose bush she has been given or she might count gardenia blooms as she plucks off the yellowed ones on an early summer evening.  She will know how many golden irises have bloomed in spring and how many different colors of zinnias she has in summer.  I think it comes from a lifetime of productivity--how many pounds of cotton picked in one day, how many rows of cane chopped, how many jars of tomatoes canned, how many bushels of potatoes dug, how many quilts made in a year, how many bra straps threaded at the textile mill, how many diapers changed in a day, how many kids bobbing in the ocean waves, always counting.
I do tend to count the number of birds in a flock if I can or the number of cars in a train.  I don't often count flowers, but sometimes...
Yesterday, there were no blooms at all on my 'Final Touch' day lilies.  Today there were several, probably the most I've had at once, so I counted them.  Seven!  Of course, I didn't stop with counting the number of blooms.  I noticed that two of the blooms had an extra petal.  I even counted the stamens.  The blooms with extra petals had two extra stamen each, eight each.  Aren't they pretty?