Wringer Washers, oh we’ve come a long way, baby…

There have been pictures of wringer washers on Facebook lately, and a lot of the younger generation don’t know what they are.  They also don’t know how lucky they are. 

Mother’s beast of a thing was a Maytag, it looked just like this picture and resided in the “wash house,” a building behind our house.  Mother didn’t wash on Monday, which I never understood anyway, why wouldn’t wash day be on Friday so people would have clean clothes for the weekend?  But anyway, she worked, so Saturday was the day.

In the winter she washed inside the wash house, but in the summer it was hot, so we had to manuever the bulky washer down a couple of steps to the grass so that we could wash under the shade tree.  Then we would have to carry out the two heavy rinse tubs as well, and position them next to the washer.

And then the fun began.  First, there was no power, so she had to open a kitchen window and string an extension cord, and there was no running water, so we had to dip a bucket in the well, draw bucket after bucket after bucket of water to fill the tub, not only in the washer, but in two rinse tubs as well, and we had to first heat the water on the stove to make it hot.  You were exhausted before you even started washing the clothes.

She would fire the thing up, it would chug and churn and belch, and she would have to hand feed the clothes through the wringer to squeeze out the soap, then transfer the clothes into the first rinse tub, flip that ringer to the tub and run the clothes through the ringer again to get out the excess moisture, then repeat the process once more in the second tub so that you got out all of the soap.  You had to be really cautious, too, because more than one woman got her arm caught in that wringer.  She always had a washboard handy, and she would take a cake of lye soap that she had made, rub the soap into the stains and then scrub it against the washboard.

Then she would pile all of that wet laundry into bushel baskets and we would trudge to the clothesline to hang them to dry.  But first I would take a damp rag and run it the length of the clothesline, in case a bird had pooped on it, and then I had to take a 2x4 and prop up the middle of the line or the weight of the clothes would make it sag to the ground.

But we’re not finished, yet!  After the clothes were hung to dry, we had to empty the water and somehow lift that heavy washing machine and the rinse tubs back into the wash house.

It was a full day’s work, and regardless of how tired we were, we still had to take the clothes off the line, fold them and put them away.  The only bright spot is the smell.  There is nothing that can duplicate the smell of clothes dried in the sunshine.  It is a beautiful thing.  It’s also gratifying to see them blowing in the wind, knowing what it took to get to that point.  But it wasn’t very graitfying in the winter, when your hands would freeze as you pinned them to the line, and the clothes would freeze on the line.

And if I go back a generation, my grandmother had no electricity, no washing machine, ten kids, and she boiled water in the yard in a big copper pot, washed all of those clothes on a washboard, and hung them to dry.  I can’t even imagine.

So the next time you complain about having to do the laundry, rethink it!  It’s so simple now compared to the way it used to be, many of you don’t have a clue!

~ jan

George Lindsay, dead at 83

You’ve given us countless laughs over the years, George Lindsay.  Rest in Peace…

My little country granddaughter…

Lindsay sent me pictures of Abby playing with the cows.  When she would turn her back to the calves to pick grass for them, they would inch their way towards the fence.

Then, she would abruptly turn and run at them yelling, “You want some grass, cows?”  and they would scatter.  Linds said it was the weirdest game of red light/green light ever.  It seems like only yesterday that Ryan was carrying her down to the cow pasture in his arm.  Those eyes would get as big as saucers, and she would point that little index finger and say “cowwwwww.”  They grow up so quickly…

 

I’ve decided I don’t like gardening anymore…

Oh, I’m sure I’ll feel differently tomorrow, but right now, after being outside since 7am, trudging to the garden center to buy a car full of plants, sweating in the sun, and being absolutely filthy, I don’t really like it much!

This was not my year to plant.  I wasn’t in the mood, just couldn’t get into it and ended up buying flats of begonias and impatiens and sticking them everywhere.  I threw in a few geraniums, hung all the ferns, like I normally do, but I didn't shop and plan and buy unusual plants.  Oh, it will all look good next month when it’s established, but I right now I’m just tired of messing with it!

I’m sure it’s just a passing thing, this old(er) country girl has always loved to dig in the dirt, and if Butterbean doesn’t absolutely destroy the patio, it will be colorful, even though it’s the samo.  The little scamp was trying to eat the stalks of my clematis this morning, I think I need a little fence around it, because he’s so fast I can’t watch him all the time.  I did plant him a huge oblong container of carrots, Burpee Kaleidoscope Mix, five different colors, and Short ‘n Sweet, little fat carrots.

But right now, I’m going to take my tired body to the comfy chair, with a glass of iced tea, Mags tucked in beside me and read for a bit.  I’ve definitely earned it today!!!

That cwazy wabbit!!!

Ladies, you haven’t lived until you tried to pot flowers with a bunny rabbit as your helper.  Butterbean is getting bigger now, so we let him out of his hutch, and he explores the patio. It’s fenced, so he can play in a safe environment.   He also eats the fronds on my ferns, chews on the hostas, and nibbles on pretty much everything, including tree leaves. He hops from one end of the patio to the other at breakneck speed, and then he jumps high in the air, and does a complete spin before he lands.  Talk about entertaining!!!!

So now that he’s used to us letting him roam the patio when we are out there to watch him, as soon as he sees us he starts jumping on the door of his hutch, trying to get out.  And did I say that he’s nosey?  O.M.G, I didn’t know rabbits were so inquisitive, but trust me they are.  He has his little face stuck in everything!

This morning was cool, clear and gorgeous, and the flats of impatiens and begonias were calling my name, so, with hubby’s help, and Butterbean’s too, I might add, it was time to plant.

Well, he nibbled on the begonias, he stuck his head in the bucket of potting soil, he sat beside me, he did everything but dig in the dirt, which I’m sure he would do, if left to his own devices.

It was so much fun, that little rabbit, right in the middle of everything!  The M&M’s co-exist with him pretty well.  He and Mags are buds, she sniffs his tail, he sniffs her nose, they hang out.  Mollie isn’t as interested, she gives him a quick once-over, then goes to lie in the shade.

And so is life, this pretty spring day in Heavensville.  God’s little creatures certainly brighten my world….

Girlfriends are a wonderful thing.

My buddy, V came by Saturday to see Butterbean, and she told me before she came that she had a surprise for me.  When she gave it to me, she thought I might not like it as much as she did, but oh my, it’s the funnest (is that word?) gift I’ve gotten in maybe ever!

I didn’t realize that she didn’t know I’m a smiley face girl.  We’ve known each other since the dark ages, how did she not know this about me???  Nevertheles, I adore smiley faces, I always have, and when I opened the bag, this was what was inside!

It’s a Yellow Fiesta Smiley Face Plate.  Is this not the cutest thing??? I use it every meal and feel like I’m a kid again. 

Girlfriends are a beautiful thing, and V is just the BEST!  She knocked it out of the ballpark with this one…

~ jan doin’ the happy dance here 

The best snack I’ve had in awhile…

I’ve been busy with other things lately, so I’ve been buying Fage Unflavored Greek Yogurt instead of making my own.  I know, bad girl, bad girl…

I seriously adore Greek Yogurt, seriously.  I eat it on baked potatoes, I make dips with it, I add Splenda and fresh berries, and now…

I’m eating it with Jif Extra Crunchy Peanut Butter, and it is totally awesome!  I take 1/2 or 23/ cup of Greek Yogurt, add 2 packets of Splenda, a tablespoon of Peanut butter, stir thoroughly and eat!  O.M.G. ladies, it you are a peanut butter person, you will love this.  Good for you, and under 200 calories.  It’s a great snack!  I’m also reading that you mix Greek Yogurt with Jello Cheesecake Pudding, the kind in the little four-packs.  I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m hearing it tastes like real cheesecake.  I’ll update you…

~ jan

Law-dee, it’s a beautiful morning in Heavensville….

Talk about easy living, cool, breezy, windows are open, birds are singing, I had breakfast down by the creek, took a few pictures, listened to the sounds of nature, oh what a glorious morning.  Now I’m doing a bit of computer work with Maggie asleep on my lap.

I talked to Lindsay this morning, caught up with her and listened to sweet Abby’s voice.

Life is really good here today, really good!!!!!!

Justin Bieber, I just don’t get it…

I’ve been meaning to post about this little pipsqueak for sometime now.  What is going on with teenage girls?  What is the attraction to this kid?  He looks positively prepubescent, yet he’s famous, young girls think he’s sexy????? He drives around in his customized Batmobile of a car, dating that little Selena Gomez, wearing those stupid earrings, jeez, he’s eighteen, but he looks like he’s about twelve years old.  This is what  real heartthrobs looked like in the day.  When I was a teenager, 14, 15, 16, these were the guys we thought were hotties.

Fabian Forte

Ricky Nelson

And the King, Elvis Presley

I guess the closest lookalike we had in those days to the Bieb was Frankie Avalon.

There is just no comparison.  Poor girls, they just don’t know what they’re missing.  They really don’t!!!

I have such exciting news to share with you today…

Click on the picture, you will want to see this full screen

Families are a beautiful thing…

XX ~ jan

^{Graphics: Lorie Davison}

The World’s Best Chicken Coop

No, no, don’t worry, I have no desire to have chickens.  I’ve never even liked them, they poop everywhere, they smell and they’re really noisy, the nasty little varmits!  But I found this post over on Tales from The Coop Keeper, appropriately titled “Chicken Porn,” and just had to share the picture.   I also sent it to my friend, Nan, because she is interested in raising chickens.  This coop is from, who else, Martha Stewart, lots more pictures of it at Tales from The Coop Keeper.  And while I was at it, I browsed Heather Bullard’s site, as apparently this is where the photo originated – she has a really nice blog. I’m always amazed at the talented women and the blogs they create.

But back to the chickens, apparently Ms. Stewart has had a long love affair with the fowls.  This photo dates back to 1976.

I found videos from her show about chickens.  In the video I’m going to give you the link to, the second chicken, a Mille Fleur, is the most gorgeous creature, and later in the video you will see a White Silkie, unbelievably beautiful!  If you let the video play, the next segment shows chicken lovers. I thought the videos were so interesting, or maybe it’s just the country girl coming out in me.  It does pop up often, doesn’t it. 

Here’s the click for the videos…

Boy,  I really went outside my box with this post didn’t I?  You never know what you will see when you click on here.  And the chickens fascinate me, even if I don’t want to visit them up close and personal.

And this is proof positive that I once was once obviously a fan.  I’m about Abby’s age in this picture, and yes, people say she looks like me, there is a resemblance, it’s the fat little face, but she has her mama’s gorgeous eyes, and  she’s so much cuter than I ever was!  And speaking of my sweet little granddaughter, I do have news to share, but that’s for another post.  For now, just concentrate on these chickens!

I need to “remember” to practice what I preach…

I used to be in the habit of regularly telling myself, “you can do just about anything, Jan, if you just take your time.”  But that kind of fell by the wayside, as do  most things with me.  I’m old(er), I forget.  I was getting hubby’s script filled this morning, he has a bug and hasn’t felt well all week.  The clerk asked for my address and I just went blank. I  looked at her with this silly vacant stare and could not remember my street number for anything.  She was about my age, she laughed and said she forgot her phone number and had to speed dial her husband to find out what it was.  Oh, old(er) age is such a hoot!

But back to my story,  I have fleurs sitting in a flat, waiting to plant.  Most of them can wait, but I have several  “Peachy Keen Superbenas” that I really wanted to get in the ground, as it’s going to rain all weekend, and there is nothing like rainwater to give plants a good start.

So I loaded Milly up with a trowel, a bucket to sit on, Epson Salts, more about that later, a Diet Coke, my plants, and, with Maggie riding shotgun, we headed for the patio.

I unloaded the golf cart, ensconced Miss Maggie in a comfy chair, took Butterbean out of his rabbit hutch and gave him a snuggle, and finally gathered everything around me and sat down on the bucket to plant the verbena.

Well there were roots, lots and lots and lots of roots, and my trowel wasn’t going through them, and I was thinking, drats, I wish Larry were out here!  But he wasn’t, and then I calmed myself and told myself once again, “you can do just about anything Jan, if you just take your time.”

I wasn’t in a hurry, a gentle breeze was blowing from the north, Maggie was snoozing nearby in the chair, so I just sat there and slowly chipped away at the soil and the roots.  It took me awhile, but they are planted, all ready for the rain, and I smiled to think that it was such a little thing, but it gave me such pleasure to accomplish it.  So just take your time, ladies, chip away a bit at whatever you’re doing, a little at a time, and you’ll get there. 

Oh, about those Epson Salts.  We have a local legend in Heavensville, a great gardener, who’s often on the news programs giving advice, and he said to sprinkle a tablespoon of Epson salt in the hole before you plant your flowers, it’s good for the plants, promotes strong stems, growth and vivid blossoms.  So I sprinkled away, we’ll see what kind of results I get from doing this.

And earlier I was down by the woods, I go every day on Milly, just observe nature, enjoy the smells, the trees, the dappled sunshine.  I took this picture of what I like to think of as “wild fleurs” but they’re probably just “weeds.”  Nevertheless, they’re nature, and they’re so pretty…

This is so true…

Mom had so many sayings, you’ve heard me mention a lot of them before.  My two all time faves are:

I’d rather take a lickin’ from a chicken

She drove her ducks to a poor market (meaning she didn’t marry well)

My boys quote grandma all the time.  Their favorites are:

“Everything tastes better with a little brown sugar”

“Done or raw, it’ll fill your craw”

Mother would be 94 now, so of course these are really oldies, but goodies

So I’m in the kitchen making Salad-in-a-Jar

I’m watching FoodTV, I always have it on in the kitchen, and Paula Deen’s son, Bobby is at their Mother And Sons restaurant, and he’s  hugging on this sweet, jolly black lady who has been cooking for them for the past ten years and her nickname is “Jellybelly.”

Well, something just clicked when I heard that nickname, and if I don’t get a handle on my food intake, I’m going to be using it as my handle when I sign off.  That’s just the cutest name I’ve heard since “Butterbean.” 

I think I’ll take it for a spin right now.

Hope you’re all having a good Sunday!

~ Jellybelly 

My eggs this morning were a religious experience, SERIOUSLY!

Hubby went to a town wide rummage sale yesterday morning and he came back with not one, not two, but three dozen eggs, sold to him by some old hippie looking women out of the back of their truck.  Just look at these brown speckled beauties. Aren’t they awesome?

The taste is so amazing, it’s unreal the difference in fresh eggs.  The yolks are so golden yellow, the taste is so fresh, it’s indescribable.

I took things like this for granted when I was growing up.  We always had hens, and I was terrified of them, too.  They would peck the heck out of me when I tried to get their eggs. I still remember their fat tummies, and how warm the eggs felt as I tried to scoot them out from underneath the irritated hens.

But I’ve looked at Martha Stewart’s bevy of beautiful hens over the years, and often wondered what it would have been like to just have had a couple of gorgeous chickens.  But then you have to get a rooster, and those suckers can be mean.  I always wanted a duck, too.  And don’t get me started on the horse!

I’m just an old country girl, sitting here this morning, drinking horrid decaf coffee because I’m out of regular, watching the finches on the feeder, my windows are open, the birds are singing, the sun is shining, and I once again live in the country!

It doesn’t get better than this.  Well, if Abby were coming to spend the day it would be better.  *sigh* 

I firmly believe that families should all live within a fifteen mile radius of each other.  I think it should be some kind of national law, and I just bet most grandmothers would agree with me!

My take on Trisha Yearwood’s premiere cooking show

Well, she made these killer brownies with German Chocolate Cake Coconut Pecan Frosting, need I say more?  Yep, I posted the recipe, it’s on Jan CAN Cook.

She was a natural, relaxed, funny, obviously at home in front of a camera and it’s very evident that she knows her way around the kitchen.  I think she could be just a bit bawdy too, if she let loose, probably as a result of being on tour buses with all those guys in her band for years.  It was a good half hour.

So what’s bugging me?  Well, it isn’t anything to do with the show, it’s her references to “her” girls.  And here’s an excerpt from a newspaper about the show.

Although Yearwood said the couple's three daughters are interested in cooking, she doesn't plan to have them on any shows for matters of privacy. She and Brooks want the young women to continue to lead lives as normal as possible.

Okay, she’s a stepmom, I get that, but these aren’t “her” girls, they’re Sandy’s girls.  The girls belong to Garth Brooks first wife, whom, if you believe the tabloids, he left for Ms. Yearwood, and who lives just down the road from them, and who has battled breast cancer in the past few years.  The woman has had a lot to deal with.

If I were the “first” wife, it would bother me to no end to see the pretty, talented, stepmother referring to my daughters as “her” girls.  Maybe I’m being old fashioned, but for some reason, this really rubbed me the wrong way.

But I still like her, I think she is enormously talented, and maybe they are all one big happy family, I hope they are, and I hope by now that it doesn’t bother his first wife at all.  So why should it bother me?  Oh fiddledy-dee, I don’t know, just got a bee up my bonnet about it…

Wolfgang Puck Pressure Cooker

 

I was telling my friend, Nan, this morning about this great price for this pressure cooker on eBay.  The seller has 26,000 pieces of positive feedback, plus a 30 day money back guarantee.

$45 for this 7 quart pressure cooker, free shipping.  Amazing price!  I have a Wolfgang Puck Pressure Cooker and I love, love, LOVE it!  Can’t say enough good things about it, I use it several times a week.

HSN is showcasing these today for $139.  It’s the same pressure cooker as this one, except the dial is different, this is probably last year’s model.  I’ve had mine for several years, ever since my friend, Jean, told me to check it out on HSN.  I think I paid $129 for mine back then.

And Wolfgang will be demonstrating these on HSN today at 4, 5, and 10pm Central Time.  I’m going to tune in and pick up some more tips. 

So, if anybody is interested, here’s the link -

Or if you have questions about cooking times, just email me, I even boil eggs in mine (5 minutes) potatoes (6 minutes).  Just set it, forget it, walk away and don’t worry about whether or not your food will cook properly, it turns out perfect every time.  Your kitchen stays clean, great for summer, and it doesn’t explode like those range top ones your mother used to have.  What more could we want???  And my favorite thing to cook in it – BEANS!  1 lb. of any kind of dried beans, seasoning, and 6 cups of liquid, water or broth.  You set it for an hour and forty-five minutes and come back to perfect beans every time.

I know, you’re thinking, well that’s not fast!  BUT, I never remember to soak beans ahead of time, and I don’t have to watch them, they don’t boil dry like they do on the stove, I don’t have to babysit them, sometimes I leave the house and run errands.  You couldn’t do that if you were cooking them on your stove.  And if you do remember to presoak the night before, you can cook them in less than thirty minutes.  I use mine more for veggies, cabbage rolls, stuffed peppers and beans than meat, I need to shake it up a bit and cook meat in it.

Update:  Nana emailed me to say she ordered this from eBay. It was too good to pass up!

Orange Blossom, Jo Malone

ORANGE BLOSSOM
The scent of clementine leaves in the morning dew sparkles above a heart of orange blossom and water lily, transporting the wearer to a garden oasis.

Doesn’t this par-fum look amazing?  I’m sure I won’t be able to smell it in Heavensville, but it sounds wonderful.  That is all…

Ma’am, I’d like to add something to that order…

Could I have an organic doggie biscuit please.  What???  You don’t have organic doggie biscuits??? Well drats!!!

Okay, I’ll take a small chicken breast, grilled with no oil and chopped into small pieces, hold the bun, no fries and a glass of water please, lots of ice, no straw.  And would you ask the manager about carrying those biscuits, after all I do come here often.

Thank you very much.  Have a nice day… 

Trish Yearwood Is Coming to FoodTV Saturday, April 14th

She will be on at 9:30 am, right after Pioneer Woman.  Here’s some more information…