Paddy's Wanderings

Then & Now ~ Canning

Yesterday, Better 1/2, Gammie, and the Techno-kid went to the local Farmers Market and had a good ol' time. I got to sit home and suffer through the Annual June Capt Tripps sickness. (I do joke about it, because it seems ever since I read The Stand a zillion yrs ago, I get a major upper respiratory infection first week of June.. go fig.) Anywho, they acquired some strawberries and rhubarb and assorted bits and bobs. The canning season has begun at the ol' homestead.

The t-k says he wants to go back again and again. He had a good time, and today had fun with the canning. When I was a wee lad(queue middle son playing air banjo~smart aleck) I would go with my grand parents and my great aunt and great uncle to pick strawberries so my gram could make strawberry jam. Not a whole lot different other then we picked em ourselves and they were a fraction of the current price, but the idea is the same.

Trust me the smell was fantastic, and I got a tiny taste before it went in the jar. The t-k and me had to taste test! The rhubarb/strawberry flavor was great, and will go well in a pbj. The t-k helped take stems off, and start the batch, then hung out with me while it was cookin'. He had to tell me twice, no touch Dad, it is hot. I know better then to get between the canner and her pot, I just stay out of the way.

I have seen this many a time over the years, not as exciting to me as the wee lad, but it may be a matter of age, not so much the coolness. He was dancing around with the jar tool, trying it out on everything in sight. Apparently, tools are his thing and they blamed me went they didn't have it right there when the jars were ready to come out.. peshaw. It was the little wee lad and the big wee lad, goofing off in the living room picking up objects. It was not just me!

Then a small voice would gleefully announce, 'It popped!' Kinda like another small voice, about forty years ago, would do. I swear I heard an echo.

Personally, I think it is cheating to label the jars, but what do I know. I also miss taking the boxes of jars, filling the ol' radio flyer, and walking them to the cellar under the barn. These went to the table and will go into the pantry when they are fully cooled. Not the same I tell ya, not the same.

That cellar was creepy cool, usually in the dead of summer musty and not quite dry. After a rain, mostly during the spring and fall, there was standing water and you had to make sure you did not step off the boards or you would get some nasty water up to your shin. The winter time, it was frosty, not brutal cold like outside, but that wierd underground coolness and the water would not freeze. It may have a thin layer of ice and no, if you stepped on it, then you had a shin high ice bath.

Cobwebs, old barnbeams and moss coverd fieldstone would greet you as you went down the broken stone steps. Creepy, but cool, and filled with jars and jars of food. My grandmother had a tendency to can venison and pigs feet. The yellow flashlight beam would show some weird stuff in those jars. Well weird to a preteen reading too much SF and expecting to see brains or aliens or some such.

Now the t-k can just open the pantry and see the can goodness from mom and gammie mixed with bags of flour and sugar and spaghetti-o's. I dont think that is anywhere near as cool, but you know, you have what you have. Different, but still as cool, because really, the tradition of canning is still there, just a little more updated is all.

If I had a barn and a cellar underneath one end would it be cool? Oh yeah... but not necessary to keeping with the canning tradition. Probably not as creepy either, which might be a good thing!

Happy Wanderings

 

 

Chalk Art in the Driveway

Faint though they be, there are some strange lines appearing in gammie's drive. Me thinks it is the techno-kid and his sidewalk chalk! He does love to draw, and chalk on the driveway is the perfect way to do it. He can spend a lot of time, just doodling, and that is just fine by me, keeps him off the 'puter and tele.

I am suspicious of this one. I believe it may have been the work of mom. It looks a lot like her type of simple flower. Hard to tell from the pic, but I believe the pink drawings are bumble bees flying around the flower. The t-k is fascinated by 'good guy bees' who visit flowers and make honey.

I think they were on a flower kick the other day. Another example of mom helping I am sure. T-K likes to draw bees around flowers, birds and fishes too. He has lately been drawing lots of diggers and cranes and dozers too. Whatever he is drawing is okey dokey.

I said, rather innocently, that they look like Nasca drawings. Silly Dad who reads too much. I then had to go into great detail about a wide variety of subjects related to those desert drawings. Thankfully, we have the internet and I hunted down all kinds of pics and info and had a pretty good discussion with the t-k. He was fascianted, which warms my heart.

I like to think he will become an explorer of knowledge and self teach himself as he grows up, kinda like his parents have done. The thirst for knowledge can be powerful, but very, very satisfying. I do miss being a kid, but it has been fun watching the boyos discover the world.

Happy Wanderings

 

 

Of Bubbles & Maples

Sunday was a good day.I got to sit in the shade under a maple tree and watch the planting and play with bubbles. Well, actually, the techno-kid got the bubble-gun from gram and he was sending bubbles everywhere. It was fun, bubbles are like that.

 I dont know, the bubbles looked cool in the grass, so I took a couple pics. Not as good as being there but, you get the idea.

More bubbles! Actually, I may have taken a zillion pics of bubbles, so did the t-k when I was shootin' the bubble gun. Good thing it is a digital camera. back in the day, we would have taken one, if that.

Oh I was kicked back in the chair, kinda enjoying the shade and a bit of sun. I looked up and saw this. I like gram's maple tree, good shade under there.

The view did not change much. I took a zillion pics of the tree too. I did not want to move too much, thats for sure.

The big brothers put up a tent they bought for $2 at a rummage sale. Not too bad for two bucks, it even came with its very own musty basement/old storage smell. The tent is a two person tent, well two people who dont mind sleeping cheek by jowl. Not a bad find either.

Then we grilled hotter-doggers and called it a day. I have put in for more days like this, we'll see if we can't do that every weekend.

Happy Wanderings

 

In The Wink of a Young Girl's Eye

This picture has traveled many miles and many years. You might recognize the guy and gal in this summer of '88 pic. What you might not know, is that the water in the background is in fact, Lake Michigan, and that is Point Betsie Lighthouse.

The day was very hot, it was August and the sky was bright blue and the wind off the lake was not cool, it was very warm. I remember the day as if it was only yesterday. This was our first long trip together, our first vacation. This picture is pre-kiddos, way back in the Hazy Eighties.

That week was a lot of fun, and epic in the way Sheeple Migrations can be. I have a story maturing on ye olde hard drive detailing that adventure. I'll have to finish that collection of stories and share it with you all. It was a ton of fun, crazy and magical and a big adventure in so many ways.

That August Summer Day was a great day. One of many. I have time traveled back to that summer, pictures can be so powerful.

Happy Wanderings

 

A Tot And His Camera

The Techno-tot is fascianted with the camera phone. He is also fascinated with flashlights. Mix in the typical little kid desire to hide under the blanket and you get this picture.

He has taken to the phone, and for that matter, any type of camera with joyful abandon. Most times the pics are weird or out of focus and blurry. He wants to take a picture of the kitten running across the room, but the phone camera will not do that at all, it is just a black blur.

I have to say that I am happy with his desire to explore and to just grab my cheap phone and take pictures. I am cool with that. Anything that sparks his creativity is ok by me. Oh he colors and draws and builds all kinds of stuff with his duplos. He has even graduated to legos this Christmas and got his first little set and is doing well with the small pieces. But in spite of all that, it is the camera that seems to fascinate him.

Maybe next year, the big red dude will drop off a digital camera and he can really do some cool stuff. I might have to hire him as chief photographer of ye olde blog. Thats ok too, he works for chocolate and I can do that.

Happy Photographic Wanderings!

Those were the Days

This is a picture my Grandfather took over 50 years ago, we are not sure exactly when. My Dad had found this pic in a box that had been stored for years and got it enlarged. It now hangs in his garage.

We do know its two Mack trucks, and the one on the left was the old truck, the one on the right is the new truck my grandfather was assigned. Grandpa used to haul bags of cement with those trucks, starting just before WWII through the early 50's. They would quite often pull two 20 ft trailers loaded as well. 

The truck on the left did not have doors, seriously. And although this model actually has a drive shaft, the one he used prior to that, was chain driven. Seriously. The motor had a gear/sprocket where a big chain, much like a bicycle chain, was attached and the rear axle had a big sprocket. It had two forward gears and a reverse 'gear'. They also used kerosene lamps as headlights and would have to drain the radiator before going home for the night, otherwise the river water they used would freeze. Like a Model T, it used a crank to start the engine.

He then got the new truck, it had doors! and a lot of other, more modern things. You still had to have a hand for each lever to shift it, yeah.. no power steering and it was a bear to operate. I got to ride in a few different models when I was a kid. They still used that one on the right to haul trailers over to the plant to load em, it was a shunt truck.

Those old truckers had forearms of steel! I remember those old guys well. I used to sweep the shop, take out the trash and the like in the early 70's when I was a wee lad. They had a backroom to play poker with a fridge full of beer. I was errand boy and they would send me down to the store to buy cigars and a soda for myself. It was neat. Oh how times have changed.

They were tough old teamsters.

On the Hunt

So goes the hunt for the elusive eggs. As we live two streets over from the Gammie, the techno-tyke hunts eggs from our house to her house. He was all excited at our house, with a pot, yes I said planters pot, filled with a few peeps, a couple chocolate eggs and two new Thomas & Friends DVD's! The pot is for his ongoing seed project he does with mom and gammie. There are tons of pics of them doing their container garden and he has been a good little gardener. You'll have to check out another blog about container garden projects, that's not my purview.

Ah yes, the gammie sheeple car had an egg and another treasure. That my friends is no ordinary bird house, oh no. That is a rocket! The techno-tyke has two of em now to go paint at gammie's house. That is also one of their projects, painting wood houses and the like. I imagine there is a blog out there somewhere, dealing with tykes and painting..

 

See Dad, an egg. Take my picture. So we duly clicked a few more. He was finding them everywhere and giggling like mad. I think the big peoples were having just as much fun, as a matter of fact, I know they were.

Yeah well, cock your head to the side and you'll find an egg, by a tree! That Bunny left 'em everywhere, he had a pale full by the time we went into gammie's house. All in all, a fine day to go on the great egg hunt, we all had a blast.

The little guy has ate so many hard boiled eggs he is gonna asplode. Me? I'm not a big fan of eggs in general, I told him I would trade my eggs for his chocolate peanut butter eggs, he said cool. Yep, the boy is a chocolate hound, but he has limits, and as he says, he is not a big fan of peanut butter.

A good day for wandering!

Maple Tree in Spring

That my friends, is a pic I took today of ye olde Maple Tree. Spring has sprung here in the Mitten and the trees are budding just fine. Today it is a bit gray, a tad overcast and really, the clouds look more threatening than they really are. The sun occasionally peaks out and there is some nice, strange shadows floating across the road and barren fields. At least it is warm, and for that, and the very real possibility that the white stuff isn't coming back, I am grateful.

I did not take any pics in the winter and I should have, but with one thing and another, I just did not get to it, maybe next time. For now, there is fall, which I love, and spring which is my second most favorite season. The tree made it through another season, and for the record, it was a pretty easy winter.

When I walked out today (yes I left the cave for a bit!) the robins were in the tree, happily using the jeep as a potty. I may have said something about birds and BB guns and feeding the neighborhood cats some robin tartar, but really, I was only kidding. Well, maybe just a bit. I have children to wash the jeep so its all good. But when I had camera in hand, the robins found somewhere else to perch, must be camera shy.

That is my Monday. Now I have the camera bug, this week I just may have to take some pics, go on an adventure with the techno-tyke. But today it is time to scribble a bit on the fiction side, and go do an article on Martha, she has a new book coming out and who doesn't like Martha?

From the Swamp

In my on going desire to photograph everything, I decided a few swamp pics are just what we needed. Granted it is not much of a swamp, but has all the creepy feel to it. The silence broken by a falling branch or the far off call of some unknown bird, yeah it was there. Taken at sunset it didn't seem so bad really, but in black and white, you get that whole fifties horror film, B style.

I have no idea what in the world I did, but that whole unreal leaf swirling thing at the bottom is just plain weird. Its kinda like one of those time shift things you see in a crappy movie where special effects is smudging the camera lens(I may have done that, I don't know). Then again maybe, just maybe, the swamp was rising up, the monster was awakening and ticked off an amateur would even think of taking any pics. Who knows? I am still here, so maybe I dodged.

Creepy, just plain creepy. I did not see a single bit of wildlife, although that unknown bird screeched a couple of times somewhere in the distance. I took a bunch of pics, most did not turn out as usual. These were taken near the Tittabawassee River in early November and were the best of the bunch, which is sad I know.

But I'll keep wandering with camera in hand, see if I can get some really cool pics. If not, no big deal. That is what I love about the digital camera, I can take pics of my thumb and not pay an arm and a leg to get 'em developed. I must have cracked up the photo dept people over the years with the blurry finger pics. Hey, someone has to keep 'em laughing. Now I can share in the adventure!

Happy Wanderings!

Cement Plant

CementPlant5, originally uploaded by paddy's wandering.

In my photography quest, I have been clicking away at just about everything I see, much to the dismay of better 1/2. There is a real possibility you, oh intrepid wanderer, may never see a pic of her posted anywhere. This small set back has not deterred me at all from making buildings and such pose for me.

The old cement plant in my hometown has always been a fixture of my life. My grandfather and father both hauled cement from this plant as well as worked there back in the day. I will admit, that as a wee wanderer, I investigated every nook and cranny of this huge plant. It was always so quiet, and cool, even in the dog days of summer.

Now, many years later, I keep going back and taking pictures. I don't know why, it is not like there are any horror stories or some such mystery to the place. Well, I have never heard of any. It is just a very old cement plant that, over the years, made pretty much all of the cement that went into building the Great North Road in the Mitten and the Mighty Mac.

I have many more pics, most of which are so bad I deleted them, but I do have some up on my Flickr account. My quest with the digital camera continues. Maybe I will figure it out and I can capture some really cool photos. Either way, I am having fun wandering with the camera.