Grandma's House

This is the back of my mama and dad's house in Traverse City, Michigan.We always refer to it as Grandma's house. It is an old farmhouse. It seems to sag a little with fatigue.


The left side of the photo shows the round screened-in porch that can be accessed from inside the front hallway or from the front porch which runs the length of the house.  A back porch has been enclosed and houses a hot tub. The dormer window is in my parent's bedroom upstairs as well as the first window on the east side. the next window is to the guest room where I am staying. The picture windows are in the living room.


One picture window looks out onto the lake while the other oversees the fenced back yard. In spring white, purple, and lavender lilac bushes higher than my head surround the house and yard and drown them in the delicious scent.


In the summer Dad keeps a garden, fishes on the lake, and tends black-raspberry bushes on the slope behind the house. Though I never lived in this house, since my parents moved here after I was married, I have visited them here many times and love the old house and the memories it holds.


While I am here for a few weeks caring for my parents, I would like to show you the inside of this house. So, I will be posting pictures and stories called The Corners of Grandma's House.

Not a Day for Cowards

Winter is here with its snow and ice, storms and rain, winds, and cold. It is not a time for cowards. But it is a time for hopes and dreams. 

Dreams of sunny balmy weather to come. Dreams of spring and the warmth of summer. Dreams of future promise.

We dream of tulips, of daffodils, and other spring flowers and hope that though hard times have come, tomorrow will be sweet. We need to have this blessed hope or we spend our days in fear of the future.

We can't afford to turn back, to cling to past, and feed on memories that will someday evaporate like a puddles after a rain.

We need to exercise faith that lets us see the face of the God who promises and who keeps His promises.

When we see His face and know His heart then we can believe in the future. He is the God who vowed to man (Oh, what a miraculous thing that - made a vow to man.)  Genesis 8:22  says: "While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease."

Spring is a promise. Tulips and daffodils will bloom. Winter will pass.

Cooking for Winter Weather

Cooking as an activity is perfect for snowy winter days when we are shut inside. It warms the house and passes time while blessing everyone with special and comforting foods. Brenna set out to try a German recipe from my Southern Heritage Breads cookbook. Pirogi is a  noodle dough stuffed with cheeses, or cabbage and onion, sometimes with mashed potatoes.

The dough is rolled out thin like pie crust and then each square filled with a spoonful of the chosen filling.

Folded into triangle and sealed with a fork.

Drop into boiling salted water and cook for 12 minutes.  Drain and then sprinkle with Parmesan cheese,

and add a drizzle of butter.

This is biscotti, or toasted pecan Mandelbrot, the Jewish version that I baked this afternoon. Ron loves biscotti with hot coffee.

I used a recipe from my The Great Cookie cookbook by Carole Walter.

Toasting pecans in the oven on a cookie sheet is tricky.

 Don't burn them!

I mix and knead bread in my Bosch machine and let it rise in this crockery bowl.

After the first rising, I form it into rolls or loaves and let it rise again.

Ready and into the hot oven.

Fresh from the oven cinnamon rolls and loaf of oatmeal bread.

Frosted cinnamon rolls make everyone happy.

Winter Comfort Foods at Our House

    

 Minute tapioca pudding is my favorite of comfort foods. It relates to memories of my dad. He loved to cook up a big pan tapioca for us on a winter night, usually a Saturday night or a Sunday night after church. (Many people hate tapioca and I can understand because most people have only tasted it cold from a cafeteria. It was thick and like glue and  it usually had been canned.)

 But to come in the house on a snowy and cold winter night and smell the pudding as it began to simmer and bubble was a different version of the dessert. Milk, eggs, ground tapioca, sugar. Soon it begins to steam and finally as you stir it, the mixture begins to boil.  After it cools it begins to thicken. I never allow mine to cool much. I like it served hot.

A sprinkle of nutmeg on top and it is perfect--warm and delicious like a custard pudding or a heated eggnog. When I have a trouble or miss my dad I like to cook tapioca.

Molasses spice cookies are a comfort anytime. Shelley loves these. They taste wonderful with a cup of Ron's "brown dog"coffee. They make the house smell so spicy cinnamon  sweet. I love to cool them on this brown and white plaid platter.

 Brenna made this batch . She can cook more and more good foods. She will be a fine cook some day even though she prefers grafting pecan trees and feeding the cows, climbing trees and riding horses to kitchen work.

Chocolate pecan fudge is a favorite with the kids. I rarely make fudge anymore, except for Christmas. I boil cocoa, sugar (brown and white) and milk and butter in an iron skillet. When it gets to a soft ball stage, I set it off the heat. After it cools some, I begin to beat it with a wooden spoon. 

When it begins to thicken I add vanilla and pecans and pour the candy into a round cake pan. When it hardens, I tip it out unto a plate and gently break it into pieces.

It is one of the greatest comforts a mortal can find!

 I like to bake bread and this week I used Penny's recipe. I use 4 tsp. yeast and 2 and a half cups of warm water, 1/4 cup of sugar, 1 Tbl. salt, 1 egg, 1/4 cup oil, 2 cups wheat flour and 4 cups white flour. This makes a nice soft bread that is delicious. Often I add 1/4 cup of cornmeal to the recipe. I shape one into a loaf and roll the other dough out to make cinnamon rolls. I butter it, add brown sugar, cinnamon, raisins, chopped pecans.

The boys love this bread. They can eat a whole loaf of it fresh from the oven.

The cinnamon rolls just disappear.

Winter in the Country

I love the spring and summer, but not so much the wintry months in Oklahoma. There are a few snowfalls each year that we are enamored with because snow is spectacular to us. We don't have four or five months and mounds and mountains of snow to grow weary of it. It covers all the dismal grays and browns and suddenly we see a miracle of sparkling clean. Schools are out and road crews scrabble to save the day with the random road clearing equipment they have available.

Usually, sometime in March, we suffer a damaging ice storm and that is an occurrence that we dread. Electric is out and folks can't get around, as we have no experience driving on it nor snow tires and chains to help us. But looking close, I find even the flower-poor winter in Oklahoma is filled with God's wonderful artistry and  brings wonder to feed the soul.

Outside my office window a fat red cardinal hops across the woodpile and cocks his head as if he is listening. Shiny black crows stalk across the dry winter grass and light in the pecan trees for a meal.  

Huge flocks of brown-headed cowbirds with a few red-winged blackbirds, and Starlings thrown in cross the fields feeding in lighting moving swishing swirls like a hypnotizing dance revue finale.

Meadowlarks and doves, sparrows and jays, cardinals and juncos, bluebirds and goldfinches all come close to get a handout in the cold. Hawks and woodpeckers, even owls and the rare bald eagles that went undetected in the summer, now sit exposed and I learn their haunts.

The grasses and wildflowers have dried and there is still a mystic beauty in their sway in waving patterns like the ocean swells breaking on the shore.

The few evergreens that grow here show up in winter when the scrub oaks are brown and the deciduous trees have lost their leaves. The branches of fir trees drop red-brown pinecones. The magnolias shiny leaves, like stacks of green plates, weigh down the limbs to the ground. 

Sprays of red and green berries cling to barbed wire fences and fence posts. Tufts of mistletoe show in the bare branches that arch like filigree against the wide sky.

Pastures are filled with horses who stand with their tails to the north wind and face the south as if they long for summer. Herds of beef cattle graze slowly across brown meadows. Come January, new calves appear nearly every day to run playing and butting heads beside their grazing mothers.

The brown  fields seem to offer little nourishment. Farmers deliver bags of sweet feed and huge round bales of hay through the winter.

I will out last the winter too. Yet, I want to do more than endure. I want to learn to enjoy all the seasons with open heart and seeing eyes.

The Bricks of Savannah

Bricks. I love the permanency of bricks. Anything built of bricks is built for the long haul, is built to last. My trip to Savannah afforded me glimpses of bricks from many perspectives from sidewalk to window and door frames to rooftops. The windows of this old building which houses an art gallery were large and unusually shaped.

Kress was a five and dime store. We had one here in Okmulgee.

Notice the way bricks are laid around the windows of this building. Notice the pineapple-slice-shaped designs above the windows on the tower.

I love all the brick decorations on this building.

Bricks enclose the porch and still allow air.

This bricked area formed the front walk leading to the front doors of the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist.

Brick homes with brick staircases, many which had fallen into disrepair, have been restored in the historic section of Savannah.

I would have liked to spend a day or two exploring this brick house.

Old brick paths like this one led through the gardens and yards of homes .

Brick sidewalks on the Riverfront street were places for pigeons to stalk watching for handouts from tourists.

The brick sidewalk lined the cobblestone and gray brick streets.

This tower building in a historic railroad station yard was three fold. From the top rose a huge chimney. The second story was a water tower. See how leaks have deposited metal rust on the white-washed brick structure which is the lower story.The doorways-18 of them encircle the lower level each at one point in the past led to a toilet. (early public restrooms)

This building was restored and will  house a railroad museum. It looks like a small castle except for the vines sprouting from the roofline.

The Cotton Exchange Building was where cotton farmers brought their crops to sell and be shipped.

Interesting story-provoking openings at the top of some buildings seem to be open to air circulation, but are grated to keep someone or something in or out. A jail?  

A gray brick street downtown.

Tall arched brick doorways divide up the railyard.

A restored railroad roundhouse building.

Beautiful red brick educational building.

Brick stairways to brick fronted apartments.

Bricks give Savannah character, beauty, interest, and warmth.