Winter, when the cat comes in the house for his naps.

Well,  winter is here, as far as Blue-the-cat is concerned.  He's been outside ever since March or April except for very short visits inside just to make sure we haven't changed anything.  He would ask at the door to come in, stroll from one end of our trailer house to the other, try to drink half the dog's water because he's sure it's better than what he has outside, and then meow at the door and leave.

Not so now.  Yesterday he stayed in quite awhile, sleeping in the dog's bed by the window (much to Gabe's chagrin).  This morning he seems to have been on a mission, and finally chose a chair right in front of the television and about two feet away from a heat register.  Good thinking, in my opinion.  Besides, that particular chair isn't very comfortable for humans.  It must have been made with a cat in mind.

When I went to the garage to feed him and Mama Kitty, he was in his little house, an old Igloo cooler with a door cut in the side and straw for a mattress.   He will sleep out there at night until next spring.  Later on, Mama Kitty might join him if it gets down to zero; otherwise, I'm not sure where she'll be.  She has no desire to be a house cat.  

Tonight we'll have a hard freeze, so I went to the garden and got what few beets were out there, and some more turnips.  Cooked a few turnips and made some pickled beets.  We still have a few small tomatoes in the window and enough nice green tomatoes for at least a couple more skillet-fulls.  I could eat my weight in fried green tomatoes!  I use a recipe from one of my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook.

Yes, I'm too lazy to type it all down.  These stay hot for a long time, so be careful not to burn your mouth.  The grandson's girl friend tasted them and said she thought they'd be great with Ranch dressing.  

She was right.  My  husband, though, smothers them in Ketchup.

Remember my poinsettia?

In late September, I blogged HERE about my garden poinsettia.  The plant flourished outside, and I grew rather fond of it, while knowing it would die with the first frost.

Some of my Facebook friends encouraged me to bring it in the house for the winter; a couple of them even told me that if I put it in a totally dark closet for 12 hours each night for a couple of months, it would bloom beautifully by Christmas.  I was pretty sure that wouldn't work for me, because I'm not good with house plants.  But I did finally decide that since it was sure to die outside anyway, the least I could do was bring it in the warm house to die.

So I bought some potting soil, borrowed a pot from a friend, and headed to the corner of the garden with shovel in hand.  I tried to keep the shovel at least 12 inches out from the plant, hoping not to hurt the roots.  But I realized as soon as I lifted it out of the ground that there were many, many broken roots.  The only thing I could do was get it in the pot as best I could, water it, bring it inside, and see what happened.  I placed it in the bedroom near a south-facing window.  The very next day I noticed all the leaves on it were limp and dying.  Within three days, the leaves were dried up and falling on the floor, leaving only the green limbs.  I assumed they'd die too, but I decided to cut them close down near the bottom of the plant so if there was any life there, the plant wouldn't be overworked with more damage than it could handle.

As I was about to cut the last skinny twelve-inch-high branch, I noticed a very tiny leaf at the top that looked healthy, so I left that branch there, looking like a flagpole with the tiniest flag on it.  Soon more leaves joined the first leaf.

Three or four days later I noticed tiny leaves growing on the stumps of the branches I had cut off!

Apparently it's impossible to kill a poinsettia.  

I won't be seeing any pretty red flowers on the plant come Christmas, but I get to witness a wonderful born-again plant healing and growing all winter, anticipating another summer in my garden.  Now I have to decide whether to leave the flagpole branch as tall as it is or trim it down to match the others.

My husband loves potato soup

We are still getting rain; if it keeps on like it is now, we'll have gotten at least four inches altogether yesterday and today.  It looks and feels like we may get more than that.

So here we are, Cliff and I, stuck in the house listening to it thunder and rain.  His sister in St. Louis called a couple days ago and said they will be in the area, so they're coming to see us Friday (tomorrow).  When Cliff got off the phone he asked me what I could cook, and mentioned potato soup in case they get here to eat dinner with us at noon.  I haven't made potato soup lately, so that's fine.  I told him I'd make it today, because potato soup isn't at its best until the second day.

This morning we're both web-surfing and Cliff says, "When are you going to make the potato soup?"

I told him I'd make it whenever I'm ready, and that he was not going to get any of it today anyway.

"How much are you going to make?"  he says.  

OK, at this point I'm wondering what's bothering him, because he's beginning to bother me.

"I don't know," I said.  "Why?"

"Well, because it's going to be the two of us and Charlene and Pat and Rena (his other sister).  And Arick and Alex will probably be here."

Sighing, I said, "But Charlene said Pat wouldn't be eating (there's a story there, but it's not mine to tell).  And I'll make enough to fill up that big, gallon pan that was my mom's."

I don't recall where it went from there, except he said I'd better go to the doctor and get some of those depression pills I took in 2021 due to covid arguments and political talk that was on the Internet that year.  I really do not admire people who have to let everybody know on Facebook what their opinion is, as if we will see what "wise" choices they are making and follow suit.  All I can say is it really got to me back then; now I've learned to laugh about it and I DO NOT need a pill.  I'm not depressed, I just don't need somebody who can't cook telling me when and how much to cook.  

I'm actually telling this story for you to laugh at, because the whole thing was funny.  But I will warn you, a lot of my older friends told me that when Cliff retired, he'd be telling me how to do things around the house.  

Ladies, be prepared when your husband retires... maybe build a nice little she-shed out back.

My favorite tree

 It rained off and on all night.  I went to see how much rain we received (two and one tenth inches) and walked on toward my cottonwood tree.  When we bought this place, there was a cottonwood tree in the yard at our old house.  Cliff hated it though, and finally took it down because when that "cotton" on the tree is ripe, the breeze will take it everywhere.  It sticks on cars and is hard to remove.  Cliff used to always have a clean, shiny car.

When we moved here to the trailor house, I realized I had a cottonwood tree I could see every day, but far enough away that it didn't mess up the car... not that Cliff would care as much now, since Blue the cat puts footprints all over the hood and he doesn't worry much about it.  In fact, he has decided to let both cats live in the garage!  He has really changed with age.

You can see the clouds are still around after the nightly rain, and some weather-guessers think there will be more this afternoon.  Time will tell.

I have blogged about my cottonwood tree before, although it's nothing fancy in the way of trees.  After strong winds blow, there are tree limbs on the ground under it.  Cottonwood isn't really good for anything as far as I know.  If you dry it and put it in a wood stove it will burn, but it gives out very little heat.  It isn't a beautiful tree... the branches falling in every storm make it look raggedy.  It grows fast, and can be really huge; in a yard, one fears that they'll fall on the house .  

I think I like the tree for two reasons:  It whispers in a summer breeze, and it has a lot of faults, just like me.  

When I think about my cottonwood tree, it reminds me of Debbie Reynolds singing Tammy in Tammy and the Bachelor (circa 1957). 

I always put this song in when I'm blogging about my Cottonwood tree because I so loved the song when I was thirteen.

Looking for leaves

Our leaves are rapidly changing to their autumn colors, and I needed a road trip.  I saw somewhere on the web that this was the peak time to visit Lake of the Ozarks to see the beauty of the changing leaves.  Then I stumbled on another site entitled 6 Fabulous Fall Drives in Missouri and read through the various places.  Cliff doesn't enjoy road trips as much as I do, so I decided to choose a trip that would begin in the town where he was born:  Versailles, Missouri.  His mother had her first four children at home.  Of course there's nothing new to us about the journey to Versailles, since we visited his aunts and uncles often.  We've tried every road you can use to get from our home to Versailles, especially when we were riding our Honda Goldwing.  Motorcycles are made for riding the backroads.  

At Versailles, the leaves were pretty much like ours at home, but I figured maybe they'd be more colorful when we got to the lake.  I wanted to end our trip at the Ha Ha Tonka Missouri State Park.  It's been a long time since we were down there on the motorcycle.  The ruins of the old castle are on a steep hill, and Cliff wouldn't have been able to breath by the time he got halfway there.  So he waited in the car while I took some pictures.  When we were there in 2011, people could walk around in the ruins, but now there's a fence around it.

The view from the castle yesterday

You can find the sad, entire story of Ha Ha Tonka HERE.

As you can see, the autumn colors at Ha Ha Tonka aren't at their best yet.  

In fact, I took the following picture from my backyard when we got home.  You can read the entire story of the place throughout my  blog.  (Ha Ha Woodhaven)  

We ate at Volkers Pub and Eatery in Sedalia; I had a delicious Pub Reuben sandwich, and Cliff had a salad.  We don't eat out a lot, so the shock of paying $14 for a sandwich, and another $10 for a salad, was a reminder of what inflation is doing.  With the tip, it cost over thirty bucks.  At least my Reuben was unique and not something I could probably imitate at home, so there's that.  And I got loaded kettle chips free with my sandwich; I shared them with Cliff, and we both liked them.

My investing game

The only investing Cliff and I ever did was with 401K, and neither of us worked long enough while we had it to make a big difference in our retirement.  We've never really made enough income to have a big savings account, either.  We do have savings accounts, but they wouldn't last long in a crisis.  

One day I watched two facebook friends in a conversation:  Friend #1 mentioned that the money in her savings account was earning a ridiculously small amount of interest.  Friend #2 told her that T-bills were doing pretty good at the time.  Well, I'm nosy, so I decided to see what these T-bills were about.

Google told me that T-bills were making 6% and more at the time, and was a decent investment.  What really fascinated me was that a person can invest as little as $100 and get it back in a very short time.  In fact, one year is as long as you can invest your money, unless you decide to give it another turn.  You can choose to do that at any time while Uncle Sam is using your money.

I wanted to see how this worked in person, and since I only had to invest $200 to find out, I was willing to risk losing it to my government.  First I had to fill out some things for the website, Treasury Direct; I also had to allow them to receive money directly out of our checking account and return it later.  I told my husband what I was doing, and he thought I was crazy... but he didn't tell me not to do it; he just worried about it some.  The first time I opted for three months, so I wouldn't have to wait long to see how it worked.  When that came back to my checking account with a little bit of earnings, I got braver and invested $500 for six months.  So $488.32 left my account, and my money returned six months later with $11.68 added to it to make $500.

You can't get your money out early, though, if you're going to Treasury Direct and doing it yourself.  If you go through a broker he could get it back for you by selling it to someone else.  But what fun is that?  Besides, I'm only using very small amounts of money.

It's great fun.  I send some money to the government, forget about it, and six months later there is magically $500 in the bank to help us pay for our propane.  

This is how low middle-class people invest.  We'll never get rich, but we'll have money to pay for the propane.

Meet my friend from the Ukraine.

I remember when I discovered Meesha's blog.  There was a group of bloggers in and around Kansas City who shared their websites, and that's how I discovered Kansas City with the Russian Accent.  I met him once, long ago, when he and his daughter came out to our place.  We're friends on Facebook these days.  He has a great sense of humor.  

In yesterday's post I mentioned Meesha's recipe for borscht, and Leilani, commented, asking me to share it here.  Well, I'm going to do better than that.

He doesn't blog anymore, but the blog is still there in its entirety.  There are many Russian recipes in it, and they are easy to find:  You'll see the word "RECIPES" at the top of it, click, and go.

Meesha is close to the age of my children, I think; they are both in their fifties.  He came to the United States after he finished school and had done his bit as a soldier in his homeland.  I've gotten the idea he wasn't too fond of being a soldier.  There are lots of stories in his blog about what it was like living and growing up in Ukraine.

I want everyone to have a chance to peruse one of the most interesting blogs I've ever read, so I'll just give you the web address and you can thank me later.  

By the way, I thought he had been putting new things in it, but he says not.  I never did read the whole blog, just kind of hopped around different posts.  

 Kansas City with the Russian Accent

Soup season

We had chili last weekend; I'll bet if a person knew, half the households around here were having soup of some kind.  I just wish I had some beets, because from the first year I met a friend from Ukraine, I've made borscht at least once a year using his recipe.  

But today I'm making hamburger soup:  It's my favorite to make because it's fun to decide what things to put in it (besides hamburger).  I still had some garden tomatoes, so I skinned three of them, cut them up, and tossed them in the pot.  Carrots and celery and plenty of diced onion are always part of it.  I usually add a can of any kind of beans and sometimes some corn from the freezer.   Oh yes, and I happened to remember the okra I froze this summer!  That's a great addition, but I can't add too much or it'll taste "slick".  I'm not adding any potatoes this time.  I always put a handful of barley in, and that's about it except for the seasoning:  Cumin, pepper, black pepper, and whatever else I feel like, and salt.  I've been taste-testing it for an hour now, and I can't wait!  

Now to make a skillet of cornbread to go with it.  Very few people I know make cornbread from scratch; they buy those little boxes of fake corn bread.  I say fake because there's more flour than cornmeal in it, and so much sugar it's like you're eating something that's trying to pass for bad cake.  Cliff likes it fine, but he doesn't get it at home, because I want real corn bread like I grew up with... although if I'm eating somewhere and that's what they're serving, I won't say a word.  I think it's the only cornbread some people know about.

I did not realize until I'd finished eating that I forgot to add cabbage to the soup.  Cliff said, "I noticed it, but I  didn't want to make you mad, so I didn't say anything."  Yeah, he's really scared of me.  Ha!  

Pursuing my quest for a turnip as big as my head

Not quite, but maybe someday.

This turnip will be my dessert today.  Well, not all of it at one sitting, because that's a two-and-a-half quart pan.  I might let Gabe had a little bit, since Cliff won't touch it.

By the way, I'm going to get the garden off the top of my blog very soon.

A difficult version of Sunday Stealing

This is the hardest Sunday Stealing I've ever done.

1. Write about the best decision you ever made. How did you make it? Was it reasoning or gut instinct?  I suppose my best decision was marrying my husband.  It was probably just reasoning at the time, but I've certainly had a happy life for the last 57 years.

2. What ONE thing would you change about your life? How would your life be different?  I probably wouldn't change a thing.  "I don't look back, somebody might be gaining on me."  Satchel Paige said that.  I know there are many things I SHOULD have done differently, but I also know that if I had a second chance, I'd likely do it the same way all over again.  I'm weak.

3. What is the hardest thing you have ever done? Why was it hard for you? What did you learn?  I don't do hard things.  I'm too lazy.  

4. What is your greatest hope for your future? What steps can you take to make it happen?  The greatest hope for my future is that I don't end up with dementia.  That's not something you can fix.

5. If you can time travel, what will you tell your teenage self?  You're going to find somebody who loves you just like you are; be patient.

6. Write about the most glorious moment in your life so far.  I find glorious moments often, usually in nature.

7. Write about a moment you feel brave.  I don't know how to answer this.  Maybe I've never been brave.

8.  What made you happy today?  The fact that I can drink coffee again.  I had stomach problems for two or three years, and coffee made my stomach hurt so I quit drinking it.

9. What do you dislike most about growing up?  Worry!  I never worried when I was a child, and had no responsibilities.  My parents never gave me a reason to think the world wasn't perfect or that God wasn't on His throne.

10. Write about ten activities you love the most and why you love them.  I'm past doing some of them these days, but here goes:  1.  horseback riding through the countryside  2.  Choring and milking my Jersey cows and raising bottle calves.  3.  Taking daily morning walks: when I walked alone I thought up songs I later wrote, and talked to God; when my husband walked with me, it was a nice time to be together and talk.  4.  Tending to all the wonderful dogs I've had in my life, especially Sadie, may she rest in peace.  5.  I like going to church.  My husband says that's just because I was raised that way.  Maybe so.  6.  I enjoy cooking most of the time.  7.  I used to write poems and songs; if they turned out to be good, it was the best feeling ever.  8.  I like to read, and in my old age I thank God every day for ebooks that I can check out of the library from my easy chair.  9.  I can't say I love television, but when I find a great movie, I enjoy watching.  A couple of days ago I was looking for something to watch on Netflix.  My husband and I ended up watching a movie based on a Pulitzer-prize-winning play, Fences.  It shook me to the core.  10.  I like being around infants and toddlers; they are so loving and innocent, and wise in their own way.     

11. Do you have an embarrassing moment that still makes you cringe?   Write about it in as much detail as you feel comfortable!  I have hundreds of embarrassing moments!  I am a loner, and not very good with people.  I can remember moments even from my childhood when I said the wrong thing, not even knowing it was wrong until someone told me.  And yes, I still do that.  It's a character flaw; I have always been self-centered because "alone" is how I feel safe.  Sometimes my husband will say, "I can't believe you said that to (whoever).  Only then do I realize what something I said in innocence sounded like to the other person.

12. What has been your best trip so far?  I love road trips.  I enjoyed most of our trips to Colorado.  When we had the motorcycle I enjoyed riding on the backroads anywhere.

 13. Write a list of 5 things (physical or personality-wise) you love about yourself, and why they make you unique.  Well, I'm definitely unique; maybe that is one thing I love about myself, that I've never met anyone like me.  Honestly, it goes against the grain for me to say I love anything about myself.  So I won't.  That should tell you something about me right there! 

14. Discuss 5 things you wish others knew about you.  I don't worry about what people know about me.

15. Is social media a blessing or a curse?  It's what you make it.  I've seen both sides.  

Found and restored: A forgotten flower

In May of this year I was getting the weeds out of the flower bed behind the house and found a tiny hidden Chrysanthemum plant.  I didn't remember that I'd bought it or that I even had it, but I'm sure I did buy it a few years ago, because this was a cow pasture before we moved back here, and mums don't grow in pastures.  I had the tiller in that flower bed and almost gone right over it.  In fact, I've had the tiller in that bed every spring, so it amazes me that the little plant was still alive. 

You don't see a lot of mums blooming in May, but there it was.  Maybe it put on those blooms in hopes I would see it and stop trying to kill it with the tiller.  I moved it to a spot at the far end of the flower bed and watched it grow.

  

Look at it now!

We won't talk about the poinsettia I dug out of the garden and brought inside, though.

Lady Blues Singers

After figuring out my Wordle word this morning, scanning the scary state of the world on CNN.com, and doing my Kappa word-search puzzle, for some reason I started thinking about all the old-time blues lady singers I have enjoyed.  Yesterday I made a note of the ones I could recall, and today I decided to listen to at least one song from each of the women on my list.  I would tell Alexa the name of the person, and she'd select the song.

 

I started with Aretha Franklin singing "A Natural Woman".  What a nice start to my day.  Aretha is a favorite of mine.

Bessie Smith sang "Down-Hearted Blues", reminding me how we feel when we love someone who doesn't love us.

Etta James told me At last her time had come.  It's a soothing song;  I never cared for her jazzy scat singing, though.

On the other hand, Billy Holiday was singing Good Morning Heartache. 

We can't forget Big Mama Thornton, who sang Ball and Chain, later recorded by Janis Joplin.  Big Mama was also the first person to record "Hound Dog" and she made it known that "her song" made Elvis famous.

I ended my little morning party with the woman who is called Mother of the Blues, Ma Rainey; she died in 1939.  I listened to her singing Daddy Goodbye Blues.  Her songs can be very suggestive.

I tell everybody I am a true fan of classic country songs and folk music; well, I consider the blues about as folk as you can get.  I need to listen to these ladies more often. 

About strawberries

Last weekend my husband bought twenty bails of straw, at five dollars a bale.  I like to put straw around my tomato plants to hold moisture in the ground; people tell me that also help keep blight away, but it hasn't worked for me.  I also like to put straw on strawberries for the winter.  I searched the Internet to find out when I should cover them and found out I should wait until we've had several nights of hard frosts.  

I wasn't too worried about it anyway, because my mother and grandmother never covered their strawberry plants.  I usually take the easy way out of things, because I have a lazy streak the size of Texas.

If you've ever gone to one of those places where you pick your own strawberries, you have seen the plants in nice, neat rows.  Not so in my garden, because my mom and grandma didn't have rows.  I remember one time I went to pick strawberries at my mother's house, and there was no way to get to the middle of the patch without stepping on plants.  I asked her about that and she said, "Oh, just try to step in the same places every time you pic and it will make a path through them before long."  So that's what I do.  

I googled how farmers keep strawberries in rows, and I couldn't make heads or tales out of it.  I'll just go ahead stomping out a path in my mess, like I was taught.

After cruising the Internet for berry information, I realized I was hungry for strawberries and got a package out of the freezer.  They were delicious on a scoop of vanilla ice cream.  It was a nice treat for both of us.

I've been reading a lot, now that I don't have much to do in the garden.  Right now I'm into The Warmth of Other Suns, the story of how and why millions of Black Americans left the South between 1915 and 1970 to escape the brutality of the Jim Crow Laws and find safety, better pay, and more freedom in what is known today as The Great Migration.  (Yes, I copied and pasted that sentence, because my own words seemed too awkward.)  

The stories are of real people. 

I'm glad to say that so far I've avoided my usual fall and winter depression.  I'm hoping to be able to focus on my own safe little world at home, and not worry about the terrible things happening in our world right now.  Nothing I can do would change things anyway.  I check the news on CNN.com every morning, but I don't dwell on the negative.

There really isn't much that's interesting to share these days, but I intend to do an occasional entry, just to keep things going.

How much fun can a woman have?

Yesterday I spent an hour and a half in my dentist's chair; he was getting me ready to get my new partial.  He, the lady at the front desk, and one dental assistant were the only people in the building with me.  I figured I'd just be in and out in a short time; I've had a partial before, and it didn't take long for that dentist to get the impressions made.  But this guy said he had to do some things so the partial would have the best possible fit.  

If you could see his office from the outside, you would think he must be a terrible dentist.  His office is an older, one-story house modified on the inside, but looking a bit sad on the outside; there is no sign at all to let you know there's a dentist inside; it just looks like an old house that nobody loves.  He's been in that same place since 1990, but back then there was a sign.

My husband, who has been around a lot of dentists, swears this guy is as good a dentist as he's ever had, and better than most.  I only wish I'd gone to him years ago.  

In two weeks I'll have my teeth, and believe me, I'm excited!  It's been a long journey, because all my appointments were about two months apart.  At first he looked at my teeth and told me we could use the denture I already had, and just add what was needed after one tooth was pulled.  Unfortunately, he found out another back tooth had to go, and one near the front.  So I'd need a whole new partial denture.  He pulled the teeth himself.  I've often wondered why so many people want to be put out to get teeth pulled.  The only real pain is just at that moment the needle goes in the gum, and that's so brief it doesn't matter.

After those teeth were gone I've been chewing mostly with my front teeth the best I can, and have swallowed a lot of my food half chewed.  Hallelujah, I will be able to chew my food thoroughly again!  My Medicare Advantage took care of it all.  I don't have to pay a penny.  I surely do hope Medicare Advantage plans continue to be an option, because some doctors and hospitals have stopped using them.

I'm still getting more stuff from the garden that I can use.  So many tomatoes!  I've made ratatouille two or three times a week since July.  At least we haven't gotten tired of that; I have to buy a couple of zucchinis to make it, but the tomatoes, eggplants, onions, and peppers have been from my garden all the way.  Smothered okra and macaroni-and-tomatoes help to use up these late fall tomatoes, too.  Of course "chili weather" is on the way, but I have frozen tomatoes aplenty for chili.  

I have about half a bushel of green beans picked and in the fridge that I'm not sure I want; I didn't think I'd ever get tired of green beans, but I think I've had enough.  Maybe I'll cook some of them in a couple days, and throw the rest out.  I picked those beans day before yesterday, and now look at them this morning.  

The only thing I'm watering now is the peas, because I've never had peas in the fall before.  They are sort of hit-and-miss, but there may be enough of them to be useful.  I have several cabbages around in the garden, but I'm out of Sevin dust, and Diatomaceous Earth doesn't even seem to slow those white butterflies down.  Some of my cabbage leaves look like green lace, they have so many holes in the leaves.

The drought we are in is quite worrisome to me, this being the second year of it in our area.  Will we wind up with another dust bowl story like Oklahoma had in the 1930's?

Sing it, Woody.

Turnips for breakfast

If my mother hadn't had the habit of adding sugar to certain things, I probably would never have liked turnips.  They have a little sweet taste all their own, but not enough to make up for their smell and strange taste.  Mother made a white sauce to put them in, and added sugar.

Turnips are best planted in late July or August and can be picked when they're big enough.  You have to harvest them before there's a freeze.  Many people eat turnips raw.  They are related to cabbage, kale, and broccoli.    

My biggest turnips weigh just under one pound.  I brought two of them in yesterday to have for my breakfast.  Cliff doesn't like them at all, but in turnip season I eat a lot of them.  I tried for years to make my cooked turnips taste like my mom's, and got pretty close, but not quite.  I googled recipes for turnips and finally found one that was similar to what I ate as a kid:  Thanksgiving turnips, on allrecipes.com.  

I had a big bowl full of cubed turnips for breakfast this morning.  My mom didn't cube them, she sliced them like you do potatoes, before you fry them; I think I prefer her method, and will slice them next time.

Turnips have vitamin C, calcium, Vitamin K, potassium, folate, and antioxidants.  They are low in calories and high in fiber.  And "just a little bit of sugar makes the medicine go down".

Turnips have been grown for over 4,000 years.  They were a staple food in Europe during the middle ages, and arrived in America with the early European settlers.

From the garden

to the house

To the pan

to my mouth

Oh, and by the way, I got signed in to my blog on Google Chrome again, in my comment section.  When I looked down at the comments on yesterday's blog and started to answer one of them, I noticed the drop-down thing where I could sign in with my Google account.  Silly me.  Sure enough, when I did that, I went back to my blog and saw I was still logged in.  Yay!  But will I remember what to do if it happens again?  Probably not.   

Sunday Stealing

Another stolen meme

1. the last song you heard

     What a Friend we Have in Jesus (at church)

   

2. the last food you ate

Leftover cold Kraft mac and cheese in the pan because I hate to waste food.

3. the last drink you had

     Hot tea

4. the last line in a book/newspaper or magazine you read

"Asher very slowly wilts toward the table, pressing his cheek against it, as if all the will to fight has gone out of him."  From the book Mad Honey

5. the last movie you saw

I don't recall.

6. the last tv-show you watched

     I'm watching football today

7. the last news you read about your hometown 

    From the Facebook community page:

: 

You can sign up for this event now! Come join in on community and cooking! The Craft Fair and Tractor Show will be on the same date!

8. the last photo you took with your phone, with a little explanation

Me showing off my 7-inch-long radishes... but I didn't take it.

9. the last video you watched on youtube

An acapella version of "Let Him Have His Way With Thee" because I hadn't heard it for years and wanted to see what the words were. 

10. the last thing you brought in the supermarket

     Fish fry stuff, 2 zucchinis (for ratatouille) and Louisiana Fish Fry New Orleans stye breading mix (Our grandson has become quite the fisherman). 

11. the last time you were on an airplane

     Three years ago when we flew to Georgia to visit      our son and his family

12. the last long drive in a car

     What do you consider a long drive?  We drove         one hundred miles to a cousin's funeral.  That's            quite a trip for us these days.

13. the last telephone conversation you had

    My sister

14. the last letter you wrote

    Oh my, that's been awhile.  I don't know.

15. the last concert you attended

   Whisperin' Bill Anderson, I think.  He says he won't be doing any more live shows except for the Grand Ole Opry once in awhile.  He's 85 years old.