A Pile of Beans.

I wanted to post a blog last night,

but I was lost in a pile of vegetables.

Even this crew was lost in them.

 The auction and a local Amish market was too enticing yesterday with the fall weather and a sunny day.

While I was busy with the broccoli, cauliflour, and peppers,

lettuce, and turnips,

two cases of lima beans were being snapped.

 By the time they were done, we had 10 quarts of limas.

 Violet showed me what those two full boxes seemed like before snapping.

 Of course, when they were done, it turned into this:

Their father told them how he has memories of helping his granddad shell limas,

a sweet memory for him.

I hope the memory of all working together someday will bring the same.

Word Game...with Pictures.

There is nothing like a good game around the dinner table.

We were working on one tonight.

Violet thought up a few.

The other two tried, but, 

well, it might be a few years for them.

The farmer even got into it, and he SAYS he doesn't like games...

but we all know how those kind can sneak into the fun.

Here are a few:

Combine feline

and the appendage sticking out back from the torso of an animal.

 What is the answer?

Cattail.

Here's another:

If you combine studiously using the brain

with hat,

what do you get?

Yes, that is a thinking cap.

What about a boy cow

 and an amphibian from the pond.

Did you guess bull frog?

This one might be hard:

 mubbling and stumbling on words...

 

 and the key above "A."

Answer:

 Bumble bee.

 Here's another: 

Charlotte, friend of Wilbur.

Duck's feet.

 Spider web.

A couple more:

Eyes closed, body lying down resting.

The faces of flowers
(hint: she changed the beast with a kiss).

 

 Why, sleeping beauty, of course!
(Two of them, actually.  No beasts here.)

 What do you get when you combine:

the chips in cookies,

 and moo juice.

Chocolate milk.

Alright.  Last one.

This one is three parts:

Combine smiling,

the time of year when we harvest apples and pumpkins,

and addressing a group if you're from the south.

Can you think of any?

Linking to:
Minettesmaze.blogspot.com
Themodestmomblog.com
Bystephanielynn.com

In the Eye of the Beholder.

His face was bright as I filled his cup.

He lifted it to his lips, closing his eyes and swallowing the orange liquid as if he were drinking an ice cream cone: pure bliss.

"Ooooo, I love orange juice," he said with a liquid mustache.

I suddenly felt a twinge of guilt.  We rarely bought orange juice.  Luxuries like that seldom made it into the budgeted grocery money. I wished we could have orange juice all the time, and he would have the joyful acquaintance with this cup every morning.

The grocery store has special sales of drastically reduced items each week with one of their coupons,

limited usually to one of the item.

It is an enticement to get shoppers to visit, I suppose.

This week, it happened to be orange juice.

A carton made it into our refrigerator with eager eyes watching.

As I thought about it later, I began to question in a different perspective: are we the ones who are deprived, or are we the ones who are actually privileged to possess something only tasted by those who embrace the contentedness of simple "limitedness."

I remembered going out to eat with a family once a while back for breakfast

and when the orange juice came out, their little girl said,

"I am sick of orange juice.  We have it all the time."

She had no idea in her little mind how unappreciative she sounded,

especially to orange juice loving ears.

I began to wonder.

Is it really the "rich" who are privileged,

or are they the ones who are missing something.

By giving every indulgence to our children,

everything that we felt we didn't have or should have had as children,

are we creating a better person?

Everyday luxuries become commonplace to the one whose tongue is spoiled to its taste.

The person who sees treasures in simplicity will find a life full of unexpected enjoyment.

The spoiled tongue must wait for rare, expensive moments while plodding on in daily trivialities:

a cup of orange juice to one is a treasure in a cup to another.

I do not consider us poor by any means.  

We are well cared for and have abundantly more than we need;
I am certain my kids have lots of "spoiled" attitudes that pop up,
as does their mother.

I still have to think, though, that it has to be considered that often blissful appreciation is worth waiting for a coupon to experience,
more often than not.
It develops the sense of how really precious every good gift is in our lives.

"Better is an handful with quietness,
than both hands full with travail and vexation of spirit."
Ecclesiastes 4:6



Linking to:
Raisinghomemakers

Themodestmomblog.com

A Box from Home.

Apricots.

An Apple.

Pretzels.

Nuts.

A few fresh cherry tomatoes from the garden.

 Granola bar.

Some cookies.

They are place into that stained, square-foot compartment in random fashion,

apricots cushioning the apple from bumping and damaging its skin.

There is still room for the main course:

usually the leftovers from dinner.


I hesitate over the colorful crew and think a little prayer over them,

a prayer for my husband's day tomorrow,

something I try to remember to do as I pack his lunch,
although sometimes in my weary hurry to get to bed,
I forget.

But I shouldn't.

 He has to eat his lunch away from the comforts of home:

the kitchen table and chairs,
the sound of birds and the rooster crowing,
the atmosphere of home.

It is a quick few moments over his future day,

a recognition that he is away at work
so that we may enjoy a satisfying lunch in a home we can call ours,
sitting on chairs that have the price tags removed.

A small prayer for a large duty,

greatly appreciated although not nearly thanked enough for it.

A small thing,

a packed lunch with the power to change the world,

or

at least,

hopefully his.

Linking to these Blog Parties:
Themodestmomblog.com
Theprairiehomestead.com
Btweennapsontheporch.net

Same Mess, Different View.

My kitchen for the last few weeks...

well,
it isn't pretty.

"You bit off more than you can chew."

It's a common enough phrase, but what if it feels more like sometimes is,

somebody threw the pie into my face,

no, threw four pies into my face,
one after another,

and then handed me a napkin to clean up the mess.

It all has limited life,

counter life to be more exact,

or floor life.

It is a race against the ever breeding fruit flies,

the power of the invisible spatters of the creeping corrosion of mold.

 

 None of it will wait long.

It all demands immediate recognition and care.

And yet, still life goes on.

The little humans demand constant feeding and care.

Somehow, three square meals are supposed to go into their little bellies,
although with as much as they eat, they don't seem so little.

The big human needs his meals as well.

The magnificence of a pristine kitchen is a dream that only those colorful magazines

and homes where the people live somewhere else all day long must possess.

Someday I will have a kitchen that doesn't look like a zookeeper's workshop.

The son calls from the other room.

His dinosaur domino kit is frustrating him and he wants some help.

The oldest is beckoned to fill in for the steamy, sticky-faced kitchen maid.

The assortment of single socks that Violet has weeded out of the clean laundry for me waits in a pile.  Without their missing mates, she leaves them on the couch unsure of further direction.

  The couch wears a temporary "slip cover" since the other has been forced to take that trip to the mountain in the basement where the washer forever trudges through it's daily spins.

 Other sorted and folded pieces await their final trip up the stairs.
Little bodies are limited in their hauling abilities, so this rests on my shoulders.

I groan at the thought.

 Craft projects litter the ironing board...

while others cover the table.

 The molding fruit is sorted and tossed; the good is cooked,

stirred, a hot and tiresome job with the many others still looming and silently shouting,
"Process ME!  Process ME!"

 

The fruit is then dumped into the bag to drip,

splattering sticky purple drops in precarious heights hinged on thin legs.

 

I sigh.

Messes, messes, everywhere.

How does one ever conquer.

Then I see this.

And I realize that maybe my view of things should be...

different.

Maybe my view is spoiling the fruit that is all around me.

A garden that produced well so that we will have food for the winter as well on our tables today, yesterday, and tomorrow.

 

Organic peaches an Amish woman was willing to sell for a reasonable cost:

an unexpected happiness.

I had given up on ever finding organic peaches.

 Food for supper:

most of it we have grown ourselves,

but just the fact that we have food for supper,

something not everyone in the world has,

is something to give thanks for.

 A kitchen:

I have a kitchen:

I have a stove that works,

I have electricity to make it work,

I have counters to work on,

a floor to stand on,

I have food to cook,

I have the ability to cook.

It may not look beautiful all the time,

but it is.

My kitchen is beautiful.

 I have kids who want me to help them

who like for me to play with them.

They create things

 and that is far better than sitting idly and having to be entertained by somebody else in a digital box.

 Their messes are temporary schools of learning that will someday turn into something useful

and if I squint really hard, they are actually colorful.

The tiny pieces all over the floor

are plastic raindrops of colorful happiness.

(Okay, that may be slightly overstated about the ones on the floor,

especially when I step on them and have then sticking to my bare feet;

but pretty colors: yes, I can say that.)

 

The kids do help and do their part;

they do their jobs, what they can.

 And we do have

 socks to keep our feet warm...

even the mixed pairs I occasionally find on my feet,

when necessity demands.

 We have clothes to wear and keep us warm,

a sizable assortment of them, actually.

 We have special treats, like berries that Levi loves to eat

and are so good for him,...

and the syrup they make will be a great treat in yogurt
and on pancakes.

 

They are bottled up treasures stored away for a time when I don't feel so overwhelmed in the steam of the kitchen.

A harvest of thanksgiving in September is certainly better

than having to 'beware of  grouch prosesing' in the kitchen.

Sometimes, I get lost in the steam of life's hot oven,

but there is a better way.

"Thou are good, and doest good;

teach me thy statutes."

Psalm 119: 68