Dealing With the Heat

78°f /25.5°C and humid at 7:30am, 92°f/33°C now with heat index of 101° and expected to get hotter this afternoon. No chance of rain.

We were out early again this morning, getting done what we can before it gets unbearable. I have finished my stringtrimming work for now, thank goodness, but haven't been in the vegetable garden in the last 2 days, so that will be tomorrow morning's work. So far everything looks okay, although I did have some watering to do for the pots and planters. I added a little liquid fish and seaweed fertilizer to the water to give them a little boost.

The rest of the morning, once I showered and rested a bit, was inside work. I did some organizing in our work/storage room, hung out some laundry, and started a pot of broccoli- cheese soup, which is simmering as I write. I used broccoli stems and leaves from the broccoli I harvested (and we ate) the other day, plus a couple packs of broccoli frozen last year that need to be used. This afternoon I plan to make black raspberry jam, and put the last coat of wax on the desk I have been working on. And maybe do a few easy listings. 

A little note here on the plastic bag dryer I use. I don't know if any of you reuse plastic bags, but this card displayed works great for me.

I am adjusting to this new staying-inside routine, but i do get restless. I want to be outside! But if course that's impossible in this heat. I did finish another book, an older title by Judith Guest called Errands. It follows the lives of a family before and after the father's death from cancer. I must say, it was a bit of a downer, yet at the same time hopeful. I don't know if the author has ever experienced what she was writing, but she certainly has a deep understanding of grief, and of how and person progresses through a cancer diagnosis. She was spot on, at least in my own observations of friends with cancer, and my own journey through deep grief. Now i am starting a book by one of my favorite authors,  Alice Hoffman, titled Here on Earth. I hope it is as good as others I have read by her 

A couple of you suggested hiring a lawn service to mow for us. Larry mows between an acre and 2 acres, it's just the way our place is laid out, and it's not easy.  I have no clue what lawn services cost, but I am sure it would be quite costly. I am thinking about it though, and about how we will manage as we get older. To pay for such a service would probably strap us very tightly financially,  if we could afford it at all. I really don't want to tie down my one son who lives closest to us either. But I do not want to move either. So trying to think this through

How are you managing the heat where you are? Iris, I know you are not warm at all! Right now I am kinda jealous of those of you with more moderate weather. It used to be that we might get a few days of extreme heat in mid-July, but never in June. 

I remember when I was a child in northern Virginia,  the local radio station would have a contest to guess the day and I think the time  when the temperature reached 100°. It happened almost every year, usually in July. Manassas had very humid, sticky summers, as I recall, even worse than here, and similar to that of Washington,  DC, which was only 25 miles away. We had no air- conditioning back then, almost nobody did. Mom would close up the living room and pull the curtains so that at least that room would stay somewhat cool. 

The rest of the house though, would really heat up. We children played outside under a big shady maple, or in the sheltered and shade side yard. Sometimes we were allowed to turn on the hose and run through the cold, cold water, or fill a galvanized metal tub to play in. What bliss. We would make Kool-Aid popsicles in ice trays, using sticks saved year to year. Dinner was often just sandwiches or something very simple, because who wanted to cook in that heat?

When I moved here, we had no electricity for about 15 years, so no fans or AC to cool off. We didn't have these big shade trees either, so the house would really heat up. Fortunately these hills cool down nicely at night usually, so sleep wasn't difficult, and mornings were not too bad. Even when we got electricity, we didn't get an air conditioner until 2003, when my parents were coming for a (very) rare visit.

Today we have 3 window units--a big one in the kitchen that cools the main part of the house, a small one in the log room, and another small one back in the work/storage room. Often these are all turned off at night, and we will open the bedroom window. Maybe it was all thosevyears of our lives without AC, but we both enjoy the night air, and the quiet music of summer nights.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

So Hot That...

Looks like we're in for a few scorching days with temperatures in the mid-90's. I am no fan of hot weather--I'd rather deal with cold and snow anytime. We will be sweltering for sure at the flea market this week. Yuck. We will bring our good old fan with us, lots of water in a cooler, Gatorade, etc. to help us stay hydrated. Basically girding our loins to deal with this.

It's funny how when we were young the heat didn't seem to be a big issue. Behind our house was a narrow tar-and-chip street, more like an alley, really, and when it would get this hot the asphalt would seem to melt, and send up bubbles of tar. My brothers and sisters and I would pop the bubbles with our shoes for fun. Mom would get so mad because of course it made a mess of our play shoes. I guess it's a good thing they were play shoes because new shoes were a rare commodity and good shoes were treated with care.

I remember one summer, the temperatures were regularly over 100. The tar bubbled up as usual and  we thought it would be fun to pop them when we were barefoot. NOT a good idea. We got burned pretty good; the tar pretty much cooked the skin right off and left raw places. Poor Mom. She was probably pregnant as she usually seemed to be in my childhood, and having to deal with tar-footed children was surely not something she needed or wanted to do.

Temperatures went over 100 almost every summer in my childhood. Northern Virginia's climate in summer is not ideal; often the humidity was unbearable and the heat would rise in shimmers from the ground. Although I am at roughly the same latitude where I live now, our weather is more temperate, with less humidity and rarely does it go above 90-95 degrees--although it does happen and this summer is on track to be one of the hottest on record.

The big old house where I grew up. It sure suffered a lot when we lived there. The girls' bedroom was the top right window.

We never went to a pool when I was young. Swimming was something that only happened during the annual pilgrimage to "the beach." It wasn't a real ocean beach, but a park on the Potomac River, a few miles from its convergence with Chesapeake Bay. The water was salty though, and there were often jellyfish when we went, usually July or early August. We were watchful of them, but even so someone almost always got stung. But those were glorious days or sun and sand and shells...and sunburn. Back then no one had even heard of sunscreen as far as I know. I got so badly burned one time I had blisters on my back and the doctor had to come to the house to see me. After that we wore t-shirts when we went to the beach and wore them all day.

This was taken after I was married and gone, probably about 1970. Some of my younger siblings in the water--Julie in the life vest, which I am sure was put on at Mom's insistence.

We had ways of staying cool at home, even without air conditioning. There was the water hose and squirt pistols and a big galvanized tub we'd fill and use for a splash pool. We had to be careful about how much water we used because it was city water and there was a bill to be paid. Sometimes we'd take a cool bath in the middle of the day and just lie down in our rooms with the curtains drawn and the fans on. The old house had high ceilings and it was quite close to the neighboring homes so it stayed fairly dark and cool most of the day.

One thing we often did was to make mint tea. We'd pick some spearmint from the herb garden, smash it with a wood pestle in the bottom of a glass with a little water, then strain it off and add sugar, water and ice, along with a fresh mint sprig. It was delicious and cooling, a special treat. We also made popsicles in ice cube trays, using Kool-aid for the mix and sticks we saved from year to year. Of course, if we made popsicles then there would be less ice--but there was never enough ice in the summer. Kool-Aid was a constant presence in our old fridge, the white ball pitcher often full of bright red sweetness.

Summertime! Shorts and peddle pushers and me, for some reason, in a dress.

When the sun finally began its descent, the yard would cool down enough to go back out to play, or to sit on the front porch swing and talk. Fireflies by the hundreds would begin flashing and we'd grab jars and try to catch them to make a nightlight for our bedroom. At bedtime, we'd move our beds so we could lay our pillows on the windowsills and catch the cool evening breezes as we slept.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

The Kitchen: Memories and Memories

A conversation with my husband today got me thinking about kitchens and the ones that left an impression on me.It is funny how one thing--in this case a large preserving kettle in an antique shop--will spur a memory and lead to remembering long-forgotten places, people, or things.

Me, first Christmas in this house, 1976. That's my
first Tappan stove in the background. The house
was nowhere near finished yet.

The kettle reminded me of the neighbor we called "Grandma" Compton. She wasn't my grandmother, of course. My grandmothers lived in England and New Orleans. But she suggested to my mother that we children call her that, even though to be honest she was a little frightening to us. She was, we thought, really old. Now I realize Grandma Compton was probably about the age I am now, possibly a few years older. Her deep, rich voice intimidated any child thinking of mischief, and her eyes didn't seem to miss a thing.

(This memory of Grandma Compton's kitchen is sharing space with some pics of the evolution of my kitchen here in this house I built with my first husband 40 years ago.)

 We didn't go to her house often; in fact, I can only remember being there twice. Once was with my mother for some kind of party event where pretty things were shown by a lady to a group of other ladies, and the pretties were passed around for everyone to see. I don't remember what the things were, but I remember trying to keep one of them until my mother's firm voice told me to pass it on.

About 1979, pretty tired from canning all summer and getting
ready for my parents' second visit. Things were a little more
finished, but no electricity yet.

The second visit is the one I remember most clearly. Grandma Compton had come up to our house with a large, steaming preserving kettle--the blue-black speckled kind--full of the most heavenly-smelling applesauce. In her booming voice she suggested my mother send me down to get more apples, as she had more of them than she could work up.

So a little bit later I was shyly knocking on the door of the big white Victorian house two doors down
from us and shaking a bit when a loud voice called "Come on in!" I made my way timidly through the dark hallway with its looming oak hall tree and wide stairs that disappeared in darkness above me. "Come in, come in!" the voice boomed again, and then I was in the kitchen.

About 1982. My parents were visiting for
the third time, bringing English family
with them. Still no electricity, and the Tappan
had given up and was replaced by this stove that
I came to hate.

And what a kitchen it was. A cast-iron, white porcelain sink with a high backsplash was on one wall, and another wall was covered by tall dark wood cabinets with beadboard doors at the bottom and glass doors at the top that reached all the way to the ceiling 12 feet above. Windows looked out to a sunroom and gardens beyond. The smell of spicy applesauce filled the room, wafting from steaming kettles on a large old-fashioned porcelain stove that stood on curving legs. A large aluminum kettle added its own heat to the room as it boiled away on another burner.

Grandma Compton's sharp eyes saw me and she said, "Hello there. You've come for the apples, I expect." I could only nod, my voice completely trapped in my throat."

She clumped over to the door that led to the back porch and lifted a brown bag full of apples, bringing it over to where I stood like a statue. "Will you help your mother with these?"

I nodded quickly and swallowed. "Yes ma'am," I squeaked.

She smiled. "Well then, get along home now." I scurried out of there and up the walk with the heavy bags, my feet seeming to grow wings.

Early 1986, when I was working fulltime as a security guard in
Charleston. That year I had my 5th son, and in 3 years I would be a
 sophomore in college, and we would finally have electricity.

I can still see that kitchen in my mind, with the crockery bowls on the shelves in the cabinet and Grandma Compton in her full apron and sturdy black lace-up shoes with their chunky one-inch heels. And I think now she would have liked it if I had stayed and talked, for she lived alone. I also think her kitchen is part of what inspired my love of vintage kitchen tools and crockery from the 1930's-1950's.

What about you? Is there a kitchen that stays vividly in your mind, one that brings back emotions and even smells when you think of it?

And another thought: Where does the word kitchen come from anyway? According to Wiktionary: 

My wood cookstove, which I finally sold
2 years ago.

"From Middle English kytchen, kichene, küchen, from Old English cyċen, cyċene (“kitchen; cooking; cuisine”), from Proto-Germanic *kukinǭ (“kitchen”), a borrowing from Vulgar Latin cucīna, from Latin coquīna (“kitchen; cuisine”), from coquō (“to cook”), from Proto-Indo-European *pekʷ- (“to cook, become ripe”). Germanic cognates include Saterland Frisian Köäkene (“kitchen”), West Frisian koken (“kitchen”), Dutch keuken (“kitchen”), German Low German Köken (“kitchen”), German Küche (“kitchen”), Danish køkken (“kitchen”). Romance cognates include French cuisine (borrowed into English cuisine), Italian cucina, and Spanish cocina. In other languages, the cognate term often refers both to the room and the type of cooking. In English, the distinction is generally made via the etymological twins kitchen (“room”) (of Germanic origin) and cuisine (“type of cooking”) (from French)."

My kitchen today, with another beloved Tappan range:

For a fascinating look at kitchens through the ages, check out these sites:

Wayfair's Kitchens Through the Ages.

This Old House's American Kitchens Through the Ages

If vintage stoves are your thing, this post on Old House Online is a fun browse.

I am looking forward to reading about your favorite kitchens in the comments!




Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Tomatoes in the Attic

Ah, tomatoes!

It's that time of year--at last! Our tomatoes are later this year for some reason. Perhaps all the rain in June and early July slowed down pollination. We've been getting a few here and there, enough to keep us happy, but now the boom is on. Yellow, pink, black and red are filling up the table on the deck as Larry brings them in. He prefers picking before they're completely ripe; I like to leave them on the vine as long as possible but since he's doing the picking, I'm not complaining.


I have always loved tomatoes. Some years we plant as many as 14 varieties, but this year I think we're down to 7 or 8. My absolute favorites are the black varieties--Black Prince and Black Crim. This year I could only find black cherry tomato plants so that's what I bought, along with some Cherokee Purple that seem like black tomatoes to me. Next favorites are the big pinks and deep golden yellows. This isn't to say I don't like reds! But these others are pretty much only available to us in summer, so I really look forward to them.

Our house at 514 East Quarry St, later renumbered
as 8807 Quarry Road, in Manassas, VA. We were
hard on that old place! You can see the attic window
in this photo.

I remember when I was 11, I would sneak down to the garden and get a half dozen tomatoes at a time, hide them in my pockets or wherever I could, then go up into the attic before Mom caught me. It was a trick to get into the attic because there was no ladder and the ceilings in our house were 12 fet high. First I had to position the bedroom door just right. Then I would get my feet on the doorknobs. From there I could pull myself up to the top of the door, and from there stretch to reach the attic opening. I would get my hands on the sides of the opening, and pull myself up until I could get a foot on top of the door trim. I could lift the attic trapdoor with my head, and then pull/push myself up and inside to fall on the floor. Now as I read this, it seems impossible, but at that age I was agile and strong and it seemed easy once I figured it out.

Once inside the attic I would tiptoe carefully on the boards that spanned the rafters, being careful not to let my foot slip and go through the lath-and plaster ceiling of the room below. That would have disaster! I'd have been in bad trouble and even worse, I'd have given away my hiding place in the dark, unfinished, hot attic.

There were three secrets, I discovered, in the attic: First, if I stretched out on the floor in front of the half-circle window at the front of the house, there was a most delicious, steady breeze. It was cool there even on the hottest northern Virginia days.

Me, at about the age I was in this post.
I remember Mom trimmed my bangs, and as she tried
to even them up, they just got shorter and shorter!

Then there were the boxes and boxes of old books. These books had belonged to my grandparents and when they moved a lot of their things ended up in our house, and up in our attic. There I discovered Janice Holt Giles, an author I still enjoy re-reading. There were many other books, all best-sellers from the 1930's, 40's and 50's. I read all that summer, eating tomatoes or sometimes Concord grapes when those came ripe.

And the third secret: from that half-round arched window, I could just barely see, if I positioned myself right, the blue Bull Run Mountains. I would look at them as I read Giles' The Enduring Hills, imagining myself living in a cabin in the mountains. How little I knew then that that is exactly what would happen.


Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.