Experimental Jam

Granddaughter Michaela and her brother James are here for a few days, and yesterday Michaela and I got into jam-making. Strawberries and cherries are ripe, and I had a few currants so we made what I call Cherry Berry Jam. The cherries make this jam a beautiful bright red, and the currants give a nice zing to the strawberries.

The kids were intrigued by the hand-cranked cherry stoner and it certainly made our work easier.

We decided to try something else too: we had some bananas and we mashed up one of them and added it to one batch of the jam. Bananas have such a strong flavor that I didn't want to add too much for fear of overwhelming the berries. When we jarred it up the jam was still pretty runny.

"No problem," said Michaela. "We'll have syrup!" But by this morning all the jam had set beautifully. We tried the Berry Banana this morning on pancakes. It's delicious! We could taste the banana but it was nicely balanced with the other flavors. The consistency was beautiful, too, thick but not too firm, just right.

More berry-picking today, along with some fishing for the guys and painting and summer program practice for me and Michaela.

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

Visiting Granny's

Visiting Granny's means

Petting dogs early in the morning,

helping big strong Daddy feed the dogs,

going for a ride to Uncle Derek's and to the log cabin

to watch Daddy work on taking off the roof,

while you munch on a super-big sucker we bought at the store.

It means

being brave enough to explore the spooky old cabin together,

even going upstairs to see what might be hiding up there,

and being careful not to get any oooey-gooey thing on your sucker,

and then going back to Granny's house for a shower and a good swing in the yard.

Cadyn!

We were in Wal-Mart yesterday, looking for a catnip mouse for our cat Charley, when we saw this beautiful little lady and her mother. It was our great-granddaughter Cadyn and her mother Jordan. Since I am in Wal-Mart rarely, it was a real coincidence to run into them.

Cadyn is 8 months now (born on May 6th) and crawling and sitting up by herself.

She really liked my hair and had a great time pulling on it. Fortunately, I have one of those scalps that isn't bothered by pulling so she could pull away.

A quick shot with Jordan and Cadyn, difficult to do because Cadyn really wanted my camera.

Who is that grabbing at the lens?

Why it's Cadyn!














I can't wait to see how she reacts to springtime and all the flowers, bugs and being able to be outside. It will be a new world to explore for her. I think she's completely up to it, though.

Some Things Poppa Larry Learned About Girls

This old fire truck rests at the beginning of Tug Fork Road, where Larry took the girls to look for the ghost dog.


Last night Larry regaled me with stories of his time with the girls.

Some of the things he learned about teenage girls:

1. They eat--a lot. He made 12 eggs, a pan of biscuits, a pound of bacon and a pound of sausage, along with sliced tomatoes, for breakfast. They ate it all.


2. They like pickles. The ate a pint of my dills as soon as they arrived. He offered them a jar to take home and they ate the whole jar before they left.

3. They like salsa too. Two jars went home with them.

4. The 6-foot black snake in our root cellar held a horrid fascination. They were terrified of it, but couldn't stop looking at its slithery length.

5. They love to scare each other. One in the shower, another outside banging on the bathroom window equals screaming bedlam.

6. They want to know all about his ex-wife, who, he tells them, was a boohag. They are fascinated by the idea. Of course, they have learned to believe few of his stories.

7. They will go for a walk up on the ridge at 3 am to look at the stars. They will hear coyotes. One (who lives near me) will tell the others that what they hear is actually a werewolf. More screaming bedlam. I was told that one of the girls traveled the entire 1/4 mile of our driveway in three bounds to reach the porch. I believe it.

8. They will help with dishes without being asked. Amazing.

9. The mountain of towels to be washed on their departure reminded him of his Marine Corps days when there were many men in a barracks. But we're talking four girls here.

10. He had no idea how much he would enjoy spending time with them. He was astounded at their chatter, imagination and appetites. And he is very glad to be their Poppa Larry.

Revenge or No Revenge?

Some of my granddaughters have been visiting for the past two days. Unfortunately, I had to go to work. Fortunately, Larry was home so while their parents were golfing, Larry entertained the girls.

Yesterday the girls got up at a leisurely 11:00 am. He packed them up and headed to the Downtowner, where breakfast is served until 2:30pm. Then they took off to Goodwill, where the girls tried on clothes to their hearts' content. They bought nothing but had a great time.

These girls lust after getting to shop at second-hand stores. They usually go with their mother to the mall and new clothing stores to shop. I got so amused on Sunday night when they begged, "Mom, please take us to yard sales! We never get to go!" At their age, I would have given anything for the opportunity to buy new clothes, but in our large family we were lucky to get one new outfit to start the school year, and by the time I was twelve I was buying my own clothes with my babysitting money. So my granddaughters are the exact opposite, wanting to shop for vintage clothes and "cool stuff" at yard sales and Goodwill. I hope my daughter-in-law understands the dynamics of teen reasoning--if you don't have it, you want it, is basically how it works.

We spent Sunday evening cooking and visiting--barbecued chicken and corn on the grill, sliced tomatoes and cucumbers, butter potatoes, and blackberry cobbler. After dinner, we browsed through the old pictures and letters I'd bought at a yard sale on Saturday.



After dinner, we browsed through the old pictures and letters I'd bought at a yard sale on Saturday.

The old spoon is the one found when Mr. Wyant was digging a grave for a friend in Henderson, WV, some years ago. We think it might be tin or pewter. My imagination wants to say it was a spoon bought from a traveling pack peddler. It could have been, you know!

The girls' imaginations were caught by the little soap operas revealed in the letters--a girl who went out on her "fellow," another who dreamed of a box of chocolates that when opened proved to be full of spiders, but her boyfriend fed them to her (sounds like a nightmare to me), another young man chastising his girl for having her picture taken with another man, another that announced the typhoid scare was past. So many long-ago dramas played out by people who remain a mystery to us, but they came alive through those letters.

Yesterday the girls got up at a leisurely 11:00 am. He packed them up and headed to the Downtowner, where breakfast is served until 2:30pm. Then they took off to Goodwill, where the girls tried on clothes to their hearts' content. They bought nothing but had a great time.

After shopping they went on another adventure with their Poppa Larry--down Tug Fork in Jackson County, home of the rumored headless ghost dog. You can read the story in one of Ruth Ann Musick's collections of West Virginia Ghost Stories (I think it's in Coffin Hollow, but I'm not sure).

The evening was filled with volleyball for them, blogwriting for me, then dinner at our favorite (and only) local Mexican restaurant. I fell into bed at midnight


but the girls were going strong, playing with their dog Benson,



getting air mattresses out and pumped up (my guest furniture lives in a tote in my closet until visitors arrive), watching movies, and catching up on Facebook.

At 5:00 am--that's FIVE in the a.m.--I woke to the sounds of giggling and crunching. Bleary-eyed, I stumbled into the kitchen. The girls were still awake! and eating cereal! At FIVE A.M.!

"Hey," I snarled, "some of us have to go work! BE Q-U-I-E-T!"

"Okay, Granny," contrite little voices sang. I bet when I turned my back and left the kitchen there were more giggles and a few this-is-what-grouchy-granny-looks-like faces. Which at their age, I'd have done myself.

I was back up at six to get ready for work. I looked in on the girls and this is what I saw:

Awwww. Aren't they sweet? Should I have shouted and yelled and made lots of loud, rude noises to wake them up? Should I? Revenge would be so sweet...

Nah. How often will I have the chance to see them like this in the future? Seldom, I'm sure. They're early teens now and the years are passing quickly. I will keep these pictures to remember them as they are at this moment.

I let them sleep. And grinned all the way to work, remembering.

At My Granny's House...

I have more recent pictures of my Granny, but unfortunately had not gotten them on my computer before it decided not to "see" the scanner. In this photo she's with my mother, who was about 8 years old, so Granny was about 33. Photo was taken around 1935.

I was not blessed with a granny right around the corner, in the next county or even in the next state. My granny lived in England and came to visit every five years or so. When she came, she stayed for months and we loved every minute with her. She was such a perfect lady, such a perfect...granny. Sensible shoes, gray hair pulled back, glasses, sweet smile, soft hands, good-smelling hankies in her pockets, soft English accent and the ability to produce tea at any time of the day. She wrote long letters on thin blue airmail paper that made reading difficult and sent lvoely hankies and manicure kits at Christmas. Sometimes she called on the phone and there was always great excitement in the house then.

Although my memories of my grandmother are usually of trying to keep out of her way, I remember her infectious laugh very well. And this photo makes me wonder if there were sides to Grandma I didn't get to know.

My grandmother was of German/Prussian heritage. She lived in a nearby town when I was very little, but by the time I was 5 or 6 she and Grandpa had moved to Louisiana and later to Texas. They made long road trips to Canada, the Southwest, Northwest, all kinds of places. They stopped by to visit every 6 months or so, staying for a few days. I was scared of Grandma--she had a deep voice, a stern way with us children and thought our mother let us run amuck (She did, thank goodness. That's why so many of us are creative people). We liked it when these grandparents came because they brought slides to show of all the places they'd been. Grandma made tied quilts for us, and dresses of always the same pattern. She sent us $1.00 in dimes that stuck into little slots on our birthday cards. Still, I was aware of her disapproval of our mother and of our family in general and that still colors my memories of her. That is a whole different story, however, and one I may tell here one day.

Neither grandmother was what I'd call accessible. They were just too far away. I have no memories of sitting in their kitchens making cookies with them, or working in their gardens or hearing stories of when they were young. I don't remember them being there to listen to my sorrows or to watch proudly when I was in a school program or won an award. They just weren't part of my life in that way.

So I love to hear Larry's stories about his grannies. About visiting them, helping them with chores, hearing ghost stories from them or about how they'd kept their grown sons in line (with a coal shovel, I think it was). They were part of his every day, just down the road, a place to go whenever home got too difficult or just boring.

For my grandchildren I try to be the kind of granny I think I would have liked. I am sorry to have to be a working granny with a job that seems to get in the way quite a lot. But when the grandkids are here, we cook. We talk. They visit the chickens and walk up the hill to get my mail. We tell stories and sing songs. We watch the stars and the dogs. We build fires and watch those too. We go Mothman hunting and ride ferryboats and go to the Downtowner for breakfast. I hope they carry these memories with them and remember being at my house with the kind of comfort with which Larry remembers his granny's homes.

Which got me to wondering. What is it you remember most about your granny or grandmother's house? When you start a sentence with the words "At my granny's house" how would you most likely finish it? Leave a comment and tell us about what it meant, or still means, to you to visit your granny.

When Haley Comes to Visit

When Haley comes to visit, she doesn't stay inside with me. She'd rather be outside, doing things like:

Stalking rabbits with Poppa Larry's .22.

We had a lot of trouble with rabbits in the gardens last year. So far this year, we've only seen two, probably because of the three electric fences we've installed. Or maybe Otis (the black Lab) can take credit for keeping them away. But Haley was on the lookout anyway.

Then there are trees... Haley decided to join the birds in the mulberry tree. (Pardon the picture quality--I sent Larry out with the camera and he didn't know how to adjust the light. It was nearly dark when he took these)

Up...

and in.

This girl is going to live forever. She is strong, fears nothing and ready to try anything.

You ought to see her on a skateboard. Enough to give her granny heart failure, but the boys are all admiration. Which gives her Daddy heart failure.

But she beats boys in arm-wrestling, so I think her Daddy can rest easy for a little while longer.

Maybe.

Boys and Girls

The girls (clockwise from front left): Jordan, older sister to Allison, Kate and Cassidy; and sisters Haley and Hannah

I raised 5 sons. I learned a lot about boys during those years.

This week, I've had 5 teen and pre-teen granddaughters at my house. What I've learned:

1. The bathroom is never empty (we only have one, so competition is fierce)
2. Don't let anyone tell you girls don't eat much.
3. Toilet paper doesn't last long.
4. Insane giggles erupt at any time, over anything.
5. Girls joke about passing gas as much as boys do.
6. The bathroom is never empty. The toilet paper is always empty.
7. We will stop at every rest area and fast food place en route to wherever we go because someone has to go to the bathroom.
8. They will need hair ties, my shoes, bug spray, and food at regular and frequent intervals (but some are out of luck on shoes because their feet are bigger than mine!).
9. Bottled water disappears faster than water on Venus.
10. They will play 20 Questions for hours and never tire of it. Who cares if they don't know the moon is not a planet or that a certain movie star isn't blonde? It isn't about accuracy, ya know!
11. They will be fascinated by the romance in local history, and want to hear scary stories over and over.
12. Any little thing can make them squeal. Sometimes nothing at all makes them squeal.
13. They can stay up as late as I do, and will sleep several hours later in the morning (except Hannah, who is literally always up with the chickens).
14. They will sleep on air mattresses anywhere, as long as they are close together (except Kate, who prefers privacy).
15. They will believe anything Poppa Larry tells them but are beginning to get wise to his tall tales. (for years they believed he was six feet tall, but his legs got blown off in Vietnam and the doctors sewed his feet to his knees!)
16. They scatter as much stuff as boys do, but their stuff is smaller, and usually pink or purple (unless it's Haley's--then it's camo).

17. They love to gather eggs.

18. They hate the smell of the pigpen.

19. They know chants, rhymes, songs and can sing all the Free Credit Report.com TV commercials.
20. Did I mention the bathroom is never empty?

I could go on, but you get the picture. I am constantly amazed and silenced in the face of so much female force.

What fun!

Happy Birthday, James!

James is 7! How amazing--I remember so well the night he was born, Jaime's long, long labor, his birth in the wee morning hours. I remember him learning to walk, talking so early and clearly. He is so like his Daddy, curious about everything and never hesitating to take something apart to see how it works, still curious about that chair on the wall.

Happy Birthday, James! Granny will see you soon.

What It Takes to Please Grandchildren

...is not so much:

*dinner ready when they arrive, or eating out at Chinese buffet (what's Chinese about it I've yet to discover)

*baby chicks that they can play with and name

*a trip to Wal-Mart for groceries (go figure)

*singing ballads in the car (and John Denver's "Grandma's Feather Bed")

*sitting around the fireplace, just talking

*a CD player (it was in the cupboard in a box, and I hadn't used it in 4 years. One of those personal ones, just what Hannah (aka Shopper Girl) wanted. We found batteries, the DC adapter, headphones and she was in heaven).

*MySpace time on the computer (this would be Haley) and a chance to email their Dad in Iraq)

If you haven't guessed, Hannah and Haley are back for a weekend with Granny!

Teatime

Granddaughter Hannah found my stash of china teacups yesterday in the cabinet, and she insisted that we have a tea party.

This morning before breakfast we fixed up the teatray. As I look at the picture, I realise that the items on it are from such diverse places:

The Royal Albert teacup belonged to my mother, one of many English ones in her cherished teacup collection.

The silverplate tray is from Rachel's Relics antique store in Ripley, purchased on sale for $1.00. My mother, who loved silver, would be proud of me for finding such a bargain.

The green dragon creamer and sugar bowl were made in Bavaria, but somehow wound up in an antique mall in Lewisburg, West Virginia, where I purchased them for $3.00. I still haven't figured out why the price was so low.

And the teapot we found in Virginia over ten years ago, in a Vietnamese grocery store. My husband (a Vietnam war vet) talked for a long time with the store owner, who had fought in the South Vietnamese army and barely escaped with his life when the Americans left.

Now all these items live comfortably together in a small country house in the West Virginia mountains, where my granddaughters drink English Breakfast tea with breakfast, unaware of the provenance of the things they use. To them it does not matter, it is tea at Granny's and that is after all the point of all of these items--to have a delightful cup of tea.

But I enjoy the secret stories and memories held within each object as I sip from my china cup.