country grandma

Now for my mom's mom; my country grandma! It was a real adventure going to visit grandma! She lived on 40 acres right next to some federal land; so we had plenty of room to roam! (and get chased by bears!)

This is the grandma who let us pick out our own chicken in the spring when she would get an order of 100 chicks in each year and of course, we always knew just which one was "ours" (lol!) each time we came to visit. I don't know how many times I would go into the chicken coop and walk around with the chickens. I had a blast catching grasshoppers and feeding them to the chickens.

Now come the end of summer, we would go up to visit and we would have a big grilled chicken dinner! Yep, we got to help her kill "our" chickens. We held them steady while she cut their heads off. A modified plastic gallon milk jug helped also. She would slide the head of the chicken though the 'mouth' of the jug from the inside (the bottom of the jug was cut away) and we would hold the body of the chicken, she would grasp the head with one hand and cut it's neck with a wickedly huge knife with the other hand. Then we would toss them in the air and they would run around for a bit with their head cut off and we would have to chase them down. We also plucked our own chicken!

This is the grandma with no bathroom indoors. She had water to the kitchen but an outhouse out behind her house. (it was a two seater but only one person used it at a time)

This is the grandma who taught me how to tell when a berry was ripe. And boy did we pick some berries! Blackberries, blueberries, raspberries! YUM! And grandma could make some pies!! My favorite of hers was blueberry! I can still remember the taste.

I must also confess that this is the grandma that I inherited my "ratapackotosis" from; yeah we saved everything.... although I am not up to saving bread wrappers! I'm pretty sure that since she has moved from there and now lives in a real city, she no longer 'saves' like she use to. But I do enough for both of us!

This is the grandma I learned perseverance from. She dug out and built a two story addition onto her home by hand by herself. Laying each cinder block and hammering each nail. The basement was block and the top floor was wood. It was a nice addition! Not huge but doubled her small house size at least.

She is a fiery little domino who does not quit for anything, not even heart surgery! (we found out AFTER it was done)

I am very blessed to have such a grandma in my life! I'm just glad I was smart enough to learn from her!

city gramma

I was blessed to have four grandmothers however I'd like to pay honor to my "city" gramma (dad's mom).

Now one would think that it would have been my country grandma that spiked my interest in gardening but it wasn't. I wasn't allowed in her garden. I could go any where else, chicken coop or even keep an eye on her "wild" asparagus growing in the front field; but going into the garden was a no no.

It was my city gramma that really spiked my interest in gardening. She would buy me every year a small "green pepper starter kit". And every year I would grow green peppers. I managed to wheel and deal and whine my way for a few feet of growing space from my mom in the back yard.

One small spot was in the raised bed right behind the house and by the back door. It held my six pepper plants perfectly. Mom planted some strawberry plants there also. I loved that garden.

When I was a bit older, I confiscated a small three foot long and about 8 inch wide strip of yard against the garage for some snapdragons. It was for a trial run that first year but they looked so good, I was allowed to grow them every year and yep it was my city gramma who bought me the seeds.

Did you notice I spell gramma for my city gramma?

Gramma lived in the heart of Flint Michigan ...in the middle of drive by shootings and home invasions. She was left alone thankfully. It was a time when even the 'bad guys' had some respect for the elderly.

I remember racing hot wheels up and down her side walk and talk the city bus to go visit her with my older brother.

And while my dad didn't like us visiting with her without him, we did it anyways.

Gramma was great! She charmed squirrels to come knock on her door for acorn and other nut treats: both the front and back doors. She had a huge basement that was our play room and a small pantry off in one corner with home canned goods in it. Lot's of pickles.

In her small back yard she had a small metal shed a couple trees not really right for climbing and a TALL fence in the back and down one side of the yard and a smaller fence on the "good neighbor" side of the yard. Thus we could see into the 'good' neighbor's yard but not the others.

When you walked out her back door, you could 'hang a left' and see where she had fenced off the very small area under her bathroom and back bedroom window. It must have only been about 5 feet wide and maybe at the most 17 feet long. But that was her garden.

Now in this old neighbor hood, all the trees were mature and it was a shady area but this small garden got plenty of sunlight for her to grow a few of her favorite things: green peppers, green beans, tomatoes, a few stalks of corn, and a cucumber or two. I think she even managed to grow some pumpkins and squash.

I could go in there and "check on" the plants looking for ripe and ready fruit or nasty ole bugs. The bugs I could pull off and toss over the fence for the birds to nibble on (I tossed them onto the side of the garden fence where there was a concrete sidewalk from the front yard).

But I could only report if I thought a fruit was ripe or not. Then Gramma would come and double check and it was, we harvested it together.

This love for growing your own food somehow stuck with me and I've always tried to have something growing in my home or yard.

I've also tried to instill this love into my kids; but I'm thinking that this modern world with all it's toys for kids has flushed out any patience for gardening. Being able to simply walk into a grocery store any time of the day or night now, gives kids and adults a false sense of security. They don't think about a time that may occur (sooner or later) where there won't be a grocery store around.

I now have a grandchild of my own. A grandson. And again I will attempt to instill a love for dirt and the things one can help to grow in it. I don't know if it will work, maybe -maybe not.

But I do hope to pass on this incredible gift given to me by my "City Gramma".

Creation vs evolution

It always amuses me when an evolutionist mocks a creationist. Recently I saw this happen when a creationist asked: 'if man evolved from monkeys, what are there still monkeys'? Which I think is a legitimate question. However, for a different reason than what is normal.

Being a 'biologist', I have found that many creationists do not realize that science has changed the definition of 'evolution'. It's current definition is "a change of allele frequency in a population over time". However, scientists STILL assume a lot. They take this definition and expand it over MORE than just a population...and MORE than just a species.

I doubt any creationist will ever deny that there is variety and differences among individuals within a population and that the environment can drastically change a population's dynamics.

However, where the creationists have a problem is when science attempts to say that those changes go beyond species and "populations" (because science does not hold that individuals 'evolve') will keep changing until they are no longer the same species.

Now also scientists try to get around the "frogs from fish" or "humans from monkeys" by saying that these had a common ancestor; in other words, there was once an "organism" that had at least two offspring that were divergent from each other. Kinda like a woman who had two children, one dark haired and one light haired. Then these two 'offspring' kept diverging and diverging with each generation or every so many generations.... until one day, these 'cousins' looked so different from each other, they would be considered two different species.

However, the evidence shows that no matter how many offspring, the organisms are still the same. There was a ten year study with the E. coli bacteria and they were literally able to view thousands of generations; yet while they contend that they "saw" evolution because they found a new trait 'appear'; they still ended up with E. coli bacteria. And they have yet to show how that new trait appeared. (I jokingly say that God could have slipped it in)

Personally, I do think science needs to stick to more exact terms. Variation is simply variation. And they need to drop their faith in the word "evolution". Or redefine it clearly and then stick with that definition and do not expand it to include speculation and assumptions.

Finding that life shares many genes, does not equal evolution. Considering all life is made up of four basic nucleotides aka: building blocks, it would be expected from a creator. What a mind to conceive of using such a simple plan to build such complex organisms and such a variety of them. If 'evolution' were true, it would be expected that at least ONE of these would have 'evolved' or been discarded over the billions of years of life, especially if one was arguing that time is the reason we have so many changes and variety.

The fossil record also only shows when a specific organism lived at a specific time. Yet so many organisms have no fossil record to prior of 'transitional' forms. Also, saying that something similar looking yet complete within itself, is a transitional form, is bad science. We have MANY organisms NOW which look similar yet scientists do not claim they are 'kissing cousins' or closely related.

So science: get your act together and just keep finding facts. Quit speculating and assuming and quit applying terms to theories without evidence and quit stretching their definition beyond what it is.

and creationists; you also need to cool it! Find out exactly what science is CURRENTLY teaching before using half baked arguments that are out dated and against things science is not teaching or supporting.

Scientific knowledge keeps changing: both sides need to remember this!!!

all brown thumbs

I am a person who loves plants. I love saving seed, planting seeds, watching the young seedlings grow, doing all I can to help them along....etc.

But.

I have the brownist/blackist thumbs ever. Currently I have about a half dozen tomato plants and NONE have any fruit. A couple had a few flowers but none have any fruit.

I have two green pepper plants that I had in the green house from last year (from which I had only gotten ONE fruit from) which now each have one fruit. These are plants that I practically ignored since LAST year.

I think my problem is I'm trying to use just pots this year. I will be working on raised beds for my yard and hopefully get them going this fall for next year. There will only be a couple, three at the most. It's all I really need.

But sometimes I wonder why I ever bother. MOST of the seeds I start don't make it. Those that do, only grow "so high" and then stop growing for some reason. So I usually end up buying a few plants at a local nursery and those have grown this year but are not producing anything.

No tomatoes, no cuc's, no squash, and only six beans so far.

UGH! Why do I have to love plants SO much and yet be SO bad at growing them?????

Finding interesting blogs

Have you ever checked out someones blog and then clicked on those they follow? and then those THEY follow? lol! I do that a lot! And in doing so today, found a blog that caught my attention:

HERE

I've not read the whole thing yet but it seems to be updated regularly and has some really good links on it.

oh, btw, it's on wilderness medicine from what I can tell.

Now if you like to read about TEOTWAWKI stories; HERE is a good writer! This is the beginning of just one of her stories. She also has a 'zombie' story going on HERE.

I warn you though, her stories are addictive, so plan on losing sleep, missing work, and ignoring your kids while you read! lol!

take care and happy trails! (have you ever noticed that if you misspell trails, you get trials?)

So I went fishing this morning but after a short time I ran out of worms.

Then I saw a cottonmouth with a frog in his mouth. Frogs are good bass
bait.

Knowing the snake couldn't bite me with the frog in his mouth I grabbed
him right behind the head, took the frog, and put it in my bait bucket.

Now the dilemma was how to release the snake without getting bit.

So, I grabbed my bottle of Jack Daniels and poured a little whiskey in its mouth. His eyes rolled back, he went limp. I released him into the lake without incident and carried on fishing using the frog.

A little later, I felt a nudge on my foot. There was that same snake with two more frogs in his mouth. Life is good .


yes a joke, lol!

Bluebird update

Bluebird season will be over (for me, not the bluebirds, lol) on the 8th. I've many pictures on my phone which I hope to be able to transfer to my PC via bluetooth - but I'll have to find my software which will allow me to do this. I have to reload it. I took a picture this morning of a nest with NINE eggs in it!!!

Hopefully an update will come soon.