COOKING FROM SCRATCH

            We had company a couple of weeks ago, our daughter Chris and her family. While they were here I fixed sloppy joes. She put a note on Facebook about that and another daughter stated that I  “made awesome” sloppy joes. It reminded me of a comment a friend of ours made at one time. (This friend has since moved, so don’t any of you wives wonder if it was your husband!) He said, “My wife is not a good cook. But I know that when our children are raised they will all say what a wonderful cook their mother was. That is the great thing about children.”

            So I don’t get a big head when my children praise me for my cooking, because I know I’m not a good cook, but they don’t know that! I cook plain but filling meals. With seven children my thought as a mother was quantity. When we had four teenagers I had to cook big harvest-size meals, and during the summer that was three times a day.

            My mother was an excellent cook, at least her children always thought so. I have some of her recipes and use them at times. She, too, was a basic cook. This reminds me of another story I heard years ago:

            A young girl  was visiting with her grandmother. Grandma fixed dinner and served cake for dessert. “What cake mix did you use for this cake?” the granddaughter asked. “It is the best cake I’ve ever eaten.”

“I didn’t use a cake mix,” Grandma answered. “I made it from scratch.”

Scratch? The granddaughter didn’t ask what that was, but decided to find out. When Grandma went to bed that night, granddaughter went through the kitchen cupboards to find a box of “scratch.” She found a container with flour, one with sugar, some boxes with things that were labeled baking powder and baking soda, but no scratch. She checked the fridge and even the freezer. No scratch.

The next day grandma sent granddaughter to the grocery store for some milk. While there the granddaughter looked for scratch on all the shelves up and down the aisles. Finally she asked one of the workers at the store if they had any scratch.

“I’ve never seen scratch, what’s it used for?” asked the helper.

“Grandma used it to make a cake,” granddaughter replied.” So they went to the aisle where the baking supplies were, but no scratch.

“Why don’t you try the pharmacy next door?” the helper said.

So granddaughter went to the pharmacy.

“Scratch?” the pharmacist asked. “I don’t have anything here by that name. Maybe it goes by another name. Why don’t you try the health food store down the street?”

“Scratch? Never heard of it,” was her answer at the health food store.

“Maybe it’s something special she used to bake it in. There’s a store over on the next block that has baking pans. Maybe they would know.”

No help there either. When the granddaughter got back to grandma’s with the milk, grandma quizzed her on what had taken her so long. Granddaughter told grandma about her search for scratch. Grandma laughed so hard she had to sit down.

“Oh dear, I guess our generation is really different from yours,” she said. “Scratch is a term we use when we cook everything from basic ingredients, not from a mix. That’s the way I learned to cook and that’s the way I prefer to cook now.”

            In this day and age  I  have the best of both worlds available to me when it comes to cooking: when in a rush, I can cook from mixes and boxes, when I have the time I can cook from scratch – and know that my children will always think that I’m a good cook no matter what or how I cook. Life can’t get much better than that, can it?

OF MICE AND MEN

            I don’t like mice. Why anyone would even want to have one as a pet is beyond my understanding. Our son, Jon, had some white mice once. I’m sure I didn’t give him permission, but there they were in a cage in his bedroom. That was all fine and good until the day they got out. Fine and good no longer mattered, they were now rodents in my house and I had the right to kill them. I can’t remember if we set traps or if he finally found them and transported them somewhere else but they disappeared.

            I remember when my Dad had a mouse run up his pant leg while he was out working in the shop repairing some farm equipment. It didn’t take long for Dad to discard his pants, all the while dancing and hollering.

            One summer day when we were living at the ranch in Dehlin, my two oldest sons, then about the ages of four and five, were in the shed helping their Grandpa Schwieder. You can imagine how much help two that age would be. Well they came to the house and into the kitchen with their hands held cup like. “Look what we found Mom. Grandpa said to bring them in to show you.” In their hands were tiny, pink baby mice. They didn’t even have their eyes open. Now I really believe the boy’s grandfather was grinning out in the shed, just waiting to hear a scream from me and maybe even see me run from the house. Instead, I calmly looked at those two innocent boy’s cupped hands, being careful not to get too close, told them what cute baby mice they had, and said, “Now take them back out to Grandpa.” Grandpa never said a thing to me about that incident, but I think I disappointed him.

            We have had problems with mice in our house at the ranch all of the time, but traps would usually control them. I used to be really naïve, believing anything Boyd told me. “Don’t worry,” he said one night as we were in bed and could here mice running around, “they can’t climb up on the bed.” When one ran across my pillow, over my face and onto the window sill, I knew I had been deceived! Boyd calmly moved over to the window, which was on my side of the bed, closed the window, trapping the mouse between the window and screen, and figured he had the problem solved. He slept well that night, I didn’t. Next morning he opened the window, caught the mouse and escorted it outside. And I no longer believe everything he says.

            Another time, again at the ranch, we had been to the valley and when we got back we found the screen door hadn’t been shut tight. We had a lot of mice running through the house that evening. We handled this one differently: I laid on the couch on my stomach, while Boyd was on the floor with a BB gun and a flash light. When I saw a mouse run I pointed it out to Boyd and he would shine the flashlight in it’s eyes and shoot. He shot quite a few mice that night.

            We still get mice in the house at the ranch but with traps and DeCon, we seem to be able to control them. They like to move into the house in the late fall and stay all winter, besides running through during the summer.  We have had mice in our valley home, but not as often. And we have a cat that is a good mouser. Our dogs like to chase and catch mice also, so the mice have to be extra brave before they venture into the house. And then they have to face me, that person who hates mice.

TAILGATE PARTIES

          Boyd and I traveled to Boise to watch the Boise State/BYU football game this past week. I told Jon we were going early so we could go to Agri Beef’s tailgate party. Our daughter Chris works for Agri Beef and they always have really good food at their tailgate party, probably because they have their own brand of hamburger and hot dogs that they serve at their party. They also furnish bottled water to go with their meal. And it is all free.

            Our son Jon said we should stay away from the BYU tailgate parties because they would be having green Jell-O with grated carrots in it, five different recipes of funeral potatoes, rolls, and water to drink. Many different kinds of cake would be for dessert. I got thinking about that and thought I would enlarge my idea of what a BYU tailgate party might be like. Now I can do this as I am a Mormon and know all about the idiosyncrasies of the Mormon culture.

            The Elder’s Quorum would have been assigned to get the chairs and tables to the party, and then the Young Men’s organization (boys from age 12-18) would be in charge of setting those up. The Young Women’s organization (girls from 12-18) would be in charge of getting the tables clothes on the tables. The Relief Society (women from 18 on up) would have made the assignments for the food, and they would also make sure there were table decorations on each table. The Young Women would be called upon to take care of the children running around. They would gather them together and play games, read stories, and sing songs. The High Priests would be in charge of the opening and closing prayers. I’m not sure many of them would go to the football game, but they would enjoy the company of everyone and probably talk about anyone who wasn’t there, therefore they would have a big turnout. The women would also be there with their aprons on to serve the meal and to clean up the dishes afterwards.

It would be interesting to see how many different kinds of green Jell-O and grated carrots could be found at one of these parties. Each bowl fullwould look completely different from the others. And all of the women could be given the same recipe to follow for the funeral potatoes, but again every pan would look like a completely different recipe. It used to be that when there were rolls at these parties, they were always homemade. Not anymore, but they would still be good. And the cakes would be homemade, though from a cake mix.

The cleanup wouldn’t be too hard as they would use paper plates and cups, and plastic forks, knives, and spoons, and it wouldn’t take long as the Young Men and Elders would make quick work of folding up the tables and chairs and getting them in the pickups to take back to the church. Someone would have brought brooms, dustpans, mops, and buckets. When it was time to leave, things would look neat and clean as if nothing had taken place in their spot.

Well, we did go to Agri Beef’s tailgate party. They even had a TV on for those volunteers to watch the game while they worked. We didn’t even see a BYU tailgate party, so didn’t get to check it out to see if what I thought might be, actually was.

            

HANSEL AND GRETEL SYNDROME

I think if Hansel and Gretel had been wearing the kind of shoes my men wear, their dad would have been able to track them down very easily, even through leaves and grass.

I swear that my guys don’t take a step anywhere in the house but what a big glob of mud or manure, falls off their boots. I sweep, dust mop, vacuum, mop, pull my hair out and want to scream, but know that won’t help. And I don’t think they even realize the mess they leave behind with each step. Every step on the stairs coming up from the basement has a “glob.” Every step coming from the back porch into the kitchen has a “glob.” Plus every place else.

            Their shoes have the waffle type sole on them. And they all have them. If they would only take their shoes off on the back porch, or when they come in the basement door. But these are lace up boots, and it takes time to take them off and put them back on. Especially if all you are doing is going into the kitchen to get your little red book to check on the number of a cow or a calf, a 2 minute job at the most – compared to probably 5 minutes for taking shoes off and putting them back on. I realize there are shoes without that “waffle” type sole, but these are the ones my guys like. It is almost impossible to convince a man to try something different, especially if he is comfortable with what he has!

            And of course we have had a muddy late winter early spring time here, which doesn’t help the situation. A pull-on shoe would help, but have you ever tried to walk through the muck and mud out in the corral with a pull-on shoe, and lose the shoe in the muck? So that’s not a solution. We could have all the books out on the back porch where the guys come in, but we really don’t have that room set up for book work. I guess they could lean against the washing machine or dryer to do their checking in their books, but I’m not sure they would agree to that.

            An office out in the garage, where they would have a desk, a telephone, and even a bathroom connected is another idea. That would save a lot of scooping of muck in the house. But I would probably be expected to visit the garage/office quite often to clean it  and I already have a house bigger than I can or want to keep clean.

Maybe I need to invent a shoe that the guys could wear that wouldn’t leave so many clues as to where they have walked, perhaps one with a detachable sole that was easy to take off and put back on.

            When it comes right down to it, I do enjoy my men dropping in often and I do have rugs everywhere. They don’t always walk on the rugs, but I certainly encourage them too. Sometimes I have to shout to make them hear me about using rugs. But I have found that mud dries to dirt and dirt sweeps or vacuums up easily. Manure doesn’t dry to anything but manure and it sometimes sticks to floors and rugs. But rugs can be washed and floors can be mopped and the day may come when we won’t have mud and wet manure being brought into the house on the soles of shoes. Then there will be something else that I can find to complain about.

            Come to think of it, maybe Hansel and Gretel were probably wearing the waffle sole shoes and tracked mud into the witch’s house. No wonder she set them to cleaning her home! Now that’s an idea! Maybe I should have the guys clean up their own messes, because I certainly act like an old witch at times when the floor gets a lot of mud tracked on it.

           

BRANDING

Derrald, Jon, and Sydney - Branding

           Time to think about getting those new calves branded before we move them to their summer pasture. Branding day is usually a long, hard day for those involved in the process.. When our son, Derrald, picked the date for this year’s event, Skyler, our live-in grandson, wrote  Branding Party on our kitchen calendar.

            Not everyone would consider rounding up calves, separating them from their mamas, pushing calves through the corral and into the chute, getting manure all over your clothes as a “party” but Skyler does.

            And we have a lot of people who actually volunteer to help on this day. It’s interesting to see our volunteers and how they work:

• Lee, our unpaid hired man who comes every day and fusses over the calves as much as the mama’s do. Lee often is seen on his horse when the cows are moved from the back pasture toward the corral and he is one person who can rope if needed.
• Glenn, who has his oxygen tank hooked over his shoulder, oxygen tubes in his nose. His job has been to put the elastrator’s on the bull calves.
• Ken, who was 85 on his last birthday. His job is to help get those little “doggies” moving through the alley way so the branders can keep busy.
• Scottie, a truck driver for a potato warehouse and who keeps a few of his cows with ours during the summer. He works the branding chute, and that’s a hefty job, but Scottie is a hefty guy and perfectly capable of doing this.
• Craig who works at the INL, and also keeps some of his cows in our summer pasture. He’s out in the corral moving the calves toward the alley way.

And our not-so-volunteer group:

• Derrald, our son who is taking more and more responsibility with the cattle operation, usually works at the head end of the calf, giving shots if needed.
• Debbie, Derrald's, wife, who oversees the whole thing and keeps things moving.
• Jon, another son, who helps where ever he is needed.
• Boyd, who turned 74 recently, works in the corral separating cows from calves
• Jack, Boyd’s brother and partner. He is in charge of and does most of the actual branding.
• Spotty, our dog who encourages the calves to go through the correct gate when it’s released from the chute.
• We also often have nephews and grandchildren come to watch and/or help.

We have to keep Ken and Glenn separated, as those two argue about everything. If a calf comes through the alley way and Ken hollers to say it’s a heifer, Glenn would say it was a bull. If Glenn said the calf was black, Ken would say it was red. So to keep our records straight, we keep those two at opposite ends of the branding process.

My men are not ropers. You can’t expect guys who walk around with their shoes untied to be able to rope a calf, do you? And we don’t heat the branding irons in a fire anymore, but use electrically heated irons.

By the time everyone arrives, gets equipment assembled, brands heated, calves ready, it’s usually 10 a.m. before the actual branding begins. However, when it begins there are no breaks until the job is finished.

When the last calf is branded there are a bunch of tired, filthy dirty, stinky, and hungry people. That’s when I step in. If the day is warm I make sloppy joe’s and a salad and serve it outside. On cold days I fix soup or stew with hot rolls and they come into the house to eat.

Branding is a big day: one that grandkids like to come to; one that encourages a hot shower or bath and a good nights sleep afterwards; one that gives the workers a feeling of having accomplished something – of doing a necessary job and seeing it to completion.

After this day we look forward to moving the cattle to the ranch!

CHILDREN'S MEDICATION BOTTLES NOT CHILDPROFF

       “Child proof” lids are a thorn in my side. Most of our over-the counter and all of our prescriptions medications have these types of lids. Those lids are doubly challenging in that you have to push the lid down and while holding it down, turn the lid. For people with arthritis, even the pressure from pushing the lid down is hard, let alone trying to turn the lid at the same time. It is also difficult for those of us who are coordination challenged. Shoot, if I can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, what makes a manufacturer think I can push and turn at the same time!

These’ child-proof” lids not as much “child-proof” as they are “elderly-proof”.  I really believe the elderly have a harder time opening their medications than children do.  I have found you can request your pharmacy to not have the “child-proof” lid, and this makes it much easier to open the bottles. And when I purchase over-the-counter medications, I leave those bottles in the cabinet with the lids off. Is that a safe practice? No! But I do this so I don’t have to struggle every time I need to take one of those pills. If I didn’t leave the lids off, I’d probably have a worse headache by the time I got the aspirin out of the bottle than I had before I tried to open the bottle.

And to add insult to injury, the over-the counter medications that don’t have the “child proof “lids have aluminum foil seals that aren’t easy to remove. I take a steak knife, puncture the seal, and then cut around the edge to get to the contents of the bottle.

Who came up with the idea of “child-proof” lids anyway? Could it have been a special marketing plan by some enterprising person that proved to be a lucrative venture? And they are not really “child proof.”

I was struggling with one of those “child-proof” lids not long ago. My grand-daughter, Sydney, was about six years old at the time, and I needed to give her some medicine. I couldn’t open the lid to that medicine, no matter how hard I tried. She watched me as I tried and finally said, “Here, Grandma, let me have it. I can open it.” And she opened it with no trouble whatsoever. Now that’s not what I’d call “child-proof”.

Is there a better solution to making our medicine cabinets safer when there are children in the house? If there is I can’t think of one. I do feel, however, that “child-proof” lids are not the answer as they seem to cause problems for too many other people.

            But this situation has made me wonder about the evolution of medicine for children. When I gave Sydney her medicine, it was liquid; I asked her if she needed a drink of water to rinse the taste away. “Oh, no, Grandma, it really tastes good.  I like it.”  I’ve noticed more and more that children’s medications are made to “taste good.”

            When we give them the medicine do we emphasize the “taste good” part of it or do we say “this will make you better?”   

            As our children were growing up, we didn’t have “taste good” medication.  I did as my own mother did; mash the pill between two spoons, add a bit of sugar and a drop or two of water to it, and administer it. “Just a spoon full of sugar makes the medicine go down,” was what Julie Andrews sang, and that is what we did. I can also remember some medication I took as a young child that was definitely “yucky”.

            “Child-proof” lids, aluminum foil seals, and “taste good” medications are probably here to stay. It is not only for the safety of our children, but for our own peace of mind. But I will still have my opened bottles of OTC medications; just put them up higher – out of small peoples reach.

BACKING UP A VEHICLE

         BACKING UP A VEHICLE  

Jean, out helping feed, driving the pickup

           Is it a gender thing or not? I cannot back up a car let alone a pickup, truck, or tractor, worth a darn. I’m told to turn left, I turn right, I’m told to go straight, I go crooked, I do stop when I’m told, but that’s about it. I can’t take instructions from looking in the rearview or side mirrors. When they signal me through those means, I always turn opposite from what I’m supposed to. I can’t even follow instructions if someone is standing in front of the vehicle and trying to direct me. The gestures they use don’t mean a thing to me. And I hear about my lack of ability to back up in not too pleasant of language.

            I’ve watched my men folk back up expertly from the time I was a teenager. I remember my brother’s backing up the truck loaded with sacks of potatoes into the cellar. They communicated with whistles. Out in the field, my Dad always communicated with whistling, so they picked it up from him. I don’t know what the signals were because I can’t whistle loud, but they knew, and they could back-up into the big black hole of a cellar without hitting any of the poles or the doors. I would probably have a problem driving forward and getting in straight!

            The other day I was backing out of the garage and forgot to open the garage door. The car was just creeping and I heard the noise just as the back of the car gently scraped the garage door, so there wasn’t any damage to either door or car, but it is another example of not being able to back up.

            Last summer when I was backing the car out of the garage, I was visiting with Jon, our son, while doing so. I noticed some men working in the yard waving their arms wildly just as Jon said “You’re going to hit it!” I threw on the brakes just as I hit a car parked behind me. The car wasn’t hurt, just a scratch because I wasn’t going that fast, but the young man who owned it started parking at a different spot.

            I watch Boyd back up to a trailer and he can come close to perfect the first try. I have been on the end guiding him the direction he should go. I’m not sure I’m worth having at that end of the back-up process either, but he hasn’t complained about that. However, he will often get out of the pickup to see where he is at while I am there guiding him. Kind of lets you know that I’m somewhat lacking in ability to not only back up but to give instructions.

            Boyd can back across the yard without a mishap. I can’t. My car, for some reason, doesn’t obey my commands when backing up and will go the wrong direction. Maybe if I could get a “voice command” car where I could say: “I want to back up straight toward that gate,” the car would follow my command. And it wouldn’t say “which gate?” or “why do you want to go that way when it would be simpler to go another way?”

            I can’t park the car in a horizontal parking place either. Probably because it entails backing up again. I think I’m turning the wheels the way they should go and I end up out in the middle of the street. I’ve found it’s easier to walk five or six blocks after finding an easy parking spot than trying to park horizontally.

            At the age I am, I don’t think I will ever learn how to back up. But I’m not ashamed to admit that I can’t do it and tell the guys to do it themselves rather than to put me through the turmoil of trying something impossible.