Wine Vessels

Leave it to my sister-in-law on hubby's side.  She's a creative one, always making things and giving them to others.

Yesterday she gifted us with two Red Neck Wine Glasses.  She took a Kerr pint jar and, with a type of Super Glue, attached it to a glass candle holder.  Talk about conversation pieces!

Tonight I intend to initiate my new wine glass with one of the three bottles included in our gift basket.....Chardonnay, Cranberry, or St. Croix Grape.

Oldest
Bottle of
Wine

After a bit of looking, I learned that the oldest known bottle of wine was found in Speyer, Germany, when excavation workers uncovered it in a vineyard back in 1867.  It was inside one of two Roman stone burial containers that were dug up.  The bottle dates back to around 325 A.D.  Its greenish-yellow glass has handles shaped like dolphins.  It was one of several bottles found, but is the only one with the contents still preserved.

The ancient wine has quite a bit of silty sediment, about 2/3rds a thick, hazy mixture.  This is most probably olive oil, which the Romans commonly used to 'float' on top of wine to keep it from deteriorating.  Although corks were known to exist at the time, they were uncommon.  This method of oil preservation was apparently effective enough to keep the wine from evaporation even up to modern day.

If you're ever in Speyer, Germany, the bottle is on display at the Historisches Museum der Pfaltz.

The Color Yellow

• Yellow has come to symbolize our support of the men and women of the armed forces.  Remember the song, "Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Old Oak Tree."
• On the Native American medicine wheel, East is represented by the color yellow, signifying the beginning.  The sun rises in the east, and with the sun comes a new day.
• The color yellow is said to stimulate the memory.
• Yellow dominates the Chinese culture like nowhere else in the world. 
• In India, yellow is the color Hindus wear to celebrate Spring.
• In the U.S., taxi cabs, school buses, and warning signs are painted yellow to grab our attention.
• In the Aztec culture, yellow symbolized food because it was the color of corn, their primary food source.
• In medical terms, a yellow flag indicates a quarantine.
• 75% of the pencils sold in the U.S. are painted yellow.
• In car racing, a yellow flag signals caution.  Cars must remain in their current position when the yellow flag is shown.
• In football, when a referee throws a yellow flag onto the playing field, that indicates a penalty.
• Yellow's complimentary color in the garden is purple.
• Yellow is a primary color that is parent to other beautiful colors.
• Ripe bananas are dressed in yellow.
• Juicy yellow pineapple isn't sweet, it isn't tart, it's a taste of its very own.
• The yellow lemon peel refreshes, lifts the spirits, and rejuvenates.
• Smiley faces, butter, canaries, baby chicks, daffodils, slicker raincoats, yellow jacket wasps, and egg yolks are fine representatives of this endearing color.

Yellow Rose of Texas

Early Thanksgiving Dinner

Today we're getting ready for Thanksgiving dinner at our house tomorrow.  There will be nine of us on hubby's side, and we can't wait to see their cars pull up in front of the house.
 
One can't help but think about the days when our parents hosted these dinners.  It's not easy admitting that we're now the family patriarch and matriarch, but, hey, we love it.  For years I fretted about getting this age, only to find it to be my best yet. 

Our home has a living room, a den, kitchen, and bath downstairs, and two bedrooms and a walk-in attic upstairs.  Even though we don't have a dining room, we've adapted just fine over the years to an informal style of entertaining.  It's that business of being creative with what you have and not wishing for it to be otherwise.

No fancy china at our house, we preferring festive Thanksgiving paper plates with matching napkins and dessert plates.  A few years ago we remodeled our kitchen, and we put in a movable island.  It's just the ticket for serving buffet style, plus it provides storage space for the silverware and utensils, skillets, crock pots, cake and bread pans.

All groceries are bought.  Migod, but the cost of food is going up and up.  I overheard a few shoppers openly complaining, questioning where the price hikes will end.  A person has to be a vigilant shopper, like my husband was yesterday, when he noticed a generic brand soup was marked at a higher price than Campbell's.  Campbell's was 5 for $3.00 (or 60 cents a can) and the generic store brand was 79 cents a can.

It's overcast here today, the sort of weather one would expect for this time of year.  Both of us are, for the first time, feeling a titch of anxiety with the time change.  Makes me cringe when I say that, cuz I never understood why my mother used to fret about the long evenings after the time changed.  Well, in the last couple of years, I've learned not to criticize the generation before me.  I know now that I'll be fitting into that same mold myself, like it or not.  Humans are humans, we are all the same, no matter how hard we try to pretend otherwise.

I'd best head for the kitchen and get to making pies......

Ta-ta for today.

Corn Harvest

This is a typical sight now where we live.  Wagons and semis are hauling load after load of harvested corn to
local grain terminals, where it's put into these huge stockpiles.  Much of it will then be taken to the river terminals, loaded on barges, and exported around the world.
Just for fun, go to www.ontariocorn.org/classroom/products.html for a list of products that are made with corn.

A Wayside Sacrament

"...people living close to nature tend to be noble.  It's seeing all those sunsets that does it.  You can't watch a sunset and then go off and set fire to your neighbor's tepee.  Living close to nature is wonderful for your mental health." ~Quinn

"The sky is that beautiful old parchment in which the sun and the moon keep their diary."  ~Alfred Kreymborg

"The air up there in the clouds is very pure and fine, bracing and delicious.  And why shouldn't it be?  It is the same the angels breathe."  ~Mark Twain

"The sky, a perfect empty canvas, offers clouds nonetheless.  They shift and drift and beg interpretation.....such is the nature of art."  ~Jeb Dickerson

"God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars."  ~Author unknown

"When I do not walk in the clouds, I walk as though I were lost."  ~Antonio Porchia

"When I admire the wonder of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in worship of the Creator."  ~Mahatma Gandhi

"Never lose an opportunity

 of seeing anything that is beautiful;

 for beauty is God's handwriting....

a wayside sacrament.

  Welcome it in every fair face,

 in every fair sky,

 in every fair flower,

 and thank God for it

 as a cup of blessing."

  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

A Beloved Pet

This is the fuzzy one's first "best fend."  Yesterday a pack of puppy angels came down, swooped her out of her mamma's arms, and took her with them up to Puppy Heaven.  She went from arms of love.....into arms of love.....to forever be cuddled close. 

It was I who nicknamed her 'No Nose,' cuz her Pekingese nose was nearly flat against her face.  I would tease her, "You ain't gotz no nose!" 

I remember one day this last year when we sat on the outdoor patio at her house.  No Nose was laying ever so sickly beside her mamma, barely able to move, or so we thought.  All of a sudden she heard the "clip clop clip clop" of an Amish buggy going by the front of the house.  Her head perked up, she took off lickety split, ran up the back porch, down the other side of the back porch, headed straight for the horse and buggy.  Her daddy got his foot caught on the leg of a patio chair and nearly killed himself trying to catch her.  Thank goodness he got to her just in time, grabbed her, and carried the feisty fluff ball back to the patio.  The four of us just stood there......did she really do what she just did?  Yup, that's how I choose to remember spunky No Nose.

I'm so sad.....

Sleep tight, little mouse.  Don't worry.  We'll take care of your mamma.

Cranberry Hootycreek Cookies

I've searched and researched how this cookie got its name, but haven't been able to find anything about its history.   All I know is that the hootycreek is one of the yummiest cookies to have in the cookie jar, and they make perfectly sweet holiday gifts to give to special friends and co-workers. 


2-1/4 cups flour
1 cup old-fashioned (not quick-cooking) oatmeal
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup butter, softened
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 cup dried cranberries
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup walnuts, or pecans, chopped

1. Set oven to 350.
2. Line baking sheets with parchment paper, or spray with Pam or like spray.
3. Sift together flour, baking soda and salt.  Stir in oatmeal.
4. In electric mixer, cream the butter for 1 minute.  Add white and brown sugars and vanilla and beat on medium speed until light and fluffy.  With beater running, add the eggs, one by one, and beat 2-3 minutes or until mixture is light lemon-colored and perfectly smooth.
5. Add dry ingredients all at once and mix on lowest speed just until blended.
6. Remove bowl from mixer and stir in cranberries, white chips and nuts by hand.
7. Drop batter by tablespoonful onto prepared baking pans, spacing cookies 2" apart.  (You can get a dozen cookies on an average-size cookie sheet.)
8. Transfer cookies to hot oven and bake about 10 minutes, or until firm and slightly brown around the edges.  (Depending on your oven, this may take from 8-15 minutes.)
9. Transfer cookies to wire racks to completely cool, then store in an airtight container.
10. Makes 36-50 cookies, depending on size.

Always remember:  A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand!

A Poor Man's Burial

An inexperienced preacher was to hold a graveside burial service at a pauper's cemetery for an indigent man with no family or friends.  Not knowing where the cemetery was, he made several wrong turns and got lost.  When he eventually arrived an hour late, the hearse was nowhere insight, the backhoe was next to the open hole, and the workmen were sitting under a tree eating lunch.

The diligent young pastor went to the open grave and found the vault lid already in place.  Feeling guilty about his tardiness, he preached an impassioned and lengthy service, sending the deceased to the Great Beyond in style.

As he returned to his car, he overheard one workman say to the other, "I've been putting in septic tanks for twenty years, and I ain't never seen anything like that."

Whitetail Deer

11 people sitting at a table in the restaurant last evening, celebrating an 11th wedding anniversary, on 11-11-11...now, that's what i call a once-in-a-century celebration!

Hasn't the moon been magnificent the last few nights? This is when a moon roof is nice for a romantic drive under the light of the silvery moon. Or, something like that.

Drivers beware of deer on the roads. This time of year it takes more than two eyes to avoid hitting one, and most drivers appreciate watchful help from the passengers, even those in the backseat!

Most evenings at dusk we go for a deer run.  That's when the whitetail deer come out in the open fields to graze.  After dark, our headlights find deer for us by what's called 'eyeshine.'  Deer, as well as other creatures like rabbits, fox, cats, raccoon, bullfrogs, and owls, have a mirror-like membrane at the back of their eyes that gives them a superior night vision.  When bright lights go through the eye retina and are reflected back from this membrane, it sends back twice the light as normal.

When I was a young girl at home on the farm, there weren't nearly the number of deer there are today.  My Dad would find it hard to believe that sometimes as many as 200 deer are roaming around our farm yard.  Winter can be sadly harsh on deer, especially when there's a lot of snow cover and they can't find food.  A few caring farmers will put food out for them.  A sure sign that they've had to struggle through winter is when the arborvitae trees and shrubs have been eaten away.

Today's agenda is full.  Invitations and places to go.  Best find some clothes to wear and get myself dolled up.....if that's even possible at my age.

Veterans Day in America!

Right side up.

Right side down.

Left to right.

Right to left.

No matter how you read it,

Today is 11-11-11.

1 standing beside 1.

Great Spirit,

Every day, not just today,

we honor our veterans,

heroes and she-roes

who gave their best

when called upon

to serve and protect

our beautiful America.

Please bless them

for their selfless service

to maintain our freedoms

and our safety.

Bless them...

for the hardships they faced,

for the sacrifices they made

for their individual contributions.

May they know how much

we respect them,

we thank them,

we honor them,

we pray for them, and

we love them.