Getting ready for spring

Despite the morning temperature of 25 degrees, I went ahead with plans today to work in my greenhouse and plant some seeds.  I filled a lot of small pots with potting soil (designed for growing seeds) and planted Homestead tomatoes, red and green peppers, cucumbers, zucchini squash, chives, and some marigolds and zinnias.  I also planted some blazing star seeds that a friend gave me.

Now I will sit back and wait for them to come up and grow large enough to transplant in the yard.  The pots are small so I will have to keep the plants watered.  this is the first time I've started plants in the greenhouse.  Last spring I had so many plants I propagated for our master gardener sale that I didn't have room for growing plants from seeds.

Seeds are expensive and you only get a few in each package.  It's so hard to plant 3 tiny seeds in a pot. And when they come up you need to thin them.

Last summer we had tomatoes throughout the summer and lots of peppers.  The cucumber vines kept us supplies with cucumbers all summer, as did the zucchini.  I hope this year we will have another good year gardening.

Our daffodils (jonquils) will be in full bloom by this time next week, especially with a forecast of warm, sunny days for the next week.  Birds are flying about singing their mating calls.  We hope a martin family will come to our new martin house which is located near the greenhouse.

Ah, spring is upon us.  And I can hardly wait.

Joining the Dames of the Magna Charta

King John signing the Magna Charta in 1215

Who hasn't heard of the Magna Charta, but at the same time has no idea what it is all about?


 The Magna Charta resulted from the peace made between King John of England and about sixty of his rebelling barons in 1215. After preliminary negotiations with the barons through the Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, as go-between, the King and his party met the barons on 15 June in a meadow known as Runnemede next to the Thames River. After several days of face-off discussions on the 19th the document language was agreed upon and the barons elected 25 of their number to be "Sureties", holding title to a few of the King's properties, including the Tower of London, to guarantee the King's compliance with the laws and liberties of the Magna Charta. at the same time has no idea what it is all about.  

When Englishmen left their homeland to establish colonies in the New World, they brought with them charters guaranteeing that they and their heirs would "have and enjoy all liberties and immunities of free and natural subjects." Scant generations later, when these American colonists raised arms against their mother country, they were fighting not for new freedoms but to preserve liberties that dated to the 13th century.

When representatives of the young republic of the United States gathered to draft a constitution, they turned to the legal system they knew and admired--English common law as evolved from Magna Carta. The conceptual debt to the great charter is particularly obvious: the American Constitution is "the Supreme Law of the Land," just as the rights granted by Magna Carta were not to be arbitrarily canceled by subsequent English laws.

This week I mailed my application to the National office of the Dames of the Magna Charta, along with my sister Christine's and her daughter Joann's applications.  Chris has spent about 8 years researching our family (William Cole) back to one of the barons who lived in 1215 and served under King John.    One of my friends, a member of the Dames of the Magna Charta, Alabama Division, proposed us for membership.  


The next step in joining this prestigious society is to have our applications accepted and offered a formal invitation to join (that's when we send in $200 application fee).  

Men's Club at Elba United Methodist Church in 1953

(Click picture to enlarge)

This was the year we got married - 58 years ago this coming October.  I graduated from high school in May, 1952.  When I looked at this old photo someone gave me to display at the Homecoming/100th anniversary of our sanctuary on Feb 13, I recognized so many of these Elba men.

The photo was small and I cropped the top and bottom and made the photo large - like a large banner. I put a number on each of the men and then at the bottom of the photo I listed their number and name. I printed the photo as a poster photo, which included several 8-1/2 x 11 pages of prints.  Then I trimmed them and pasted them together like a puzzle on stiff foam board.  I will display this poster at homecoming at church this Sunday.  It will be in the display area with other old photos and items of interest.

Included in the poster above are Sheriff Tillman on the front row near the center.  His daughter Doris was one of my good friends.  Her mother cooked for the jail inmates.  The jail was a big brick, 2 story building just one block south of the court house.  We could walk by and see the prisoners in the cells behind bars.

There were many I could not identify so I have been going around town for the past week asking some of the "old timers" to help me identify people in the photo.  I lacked one person and I was so happy today to get an email from someone of town that I sent the photo to, and he gave me the name of that person.  I was so happy to get everybody identified (except for two who were partially hidden and we couldn't see their face).

Also included in the photo were store owners, lawyers, judges, farmers, my school principal (this was his 5th year as principal when this photo was made).

My friend printed out several  8x10 photos from small snapshots for me to mount on poster board.  Most of those in the photos are now deceased and were at one time well know members of our church.

Click to enlarge

My favorite photo is of the youth choir at Easter time in 1949. A member of our church brought this photo to me and wanted us to copy it for our display.  He said he was 17 in this photo.

He knew every name and as he pointed them out to me, he had a story behind each one.  One was his best friend in high school and he had not see him in over 60 years.  He said he would love to see him again, but he spent most of his life as a Nazarene preacher in other states.  I called his friend's brother who lives in Elba and asked about Freddie's friend and got his telephone number and called him out in Arizona.  I promised to send him pictures from homecoming.  He is 80 now and has retired after 60 years in the ministry.  Married a girl he met in college in Missouri and never came back to Elba to live.  I have heard from many who moved away after they grew up in Elba and they are planning to come back to homecoming.

It's going to be a great day and we're supposed to have good weather - sunny and in the 60s.  It's hard to believe the next 3 days we'll have a winter storm watch with snow and ice in parts of Alabama.

Getting ready for homecoming at church

On February 13, 2011, the sanctuary of Elba United Methodist Church will be 100 years old. I learned this when I became church historian last Nov.  I started reading about the history of the church and read an account in the Elba Clipper (local newspaper) dated 14 Feb. 1911, about the first service held in the new church.    I knew immediately that we must have a celebration for the 100th anniversary.

On Jan. 12th, I talked to  Stanley Carter, our  pastor, and he agreed that we should have Homecoming and an anniversary celebration on 13 Feb 2011.  With only 5 weeks to plan, I got busy.  I made invitations for Stanley to sign and mail to several former pastors who live in this area.  I wrote a letter to former members, friends, and others who live out of town and mailed out 92 letters.  Sent press releases to area newspapers.

Just one more week left to get ready for homecoming.  It's going to be a great day.  I've had so much fun gathering information, printing copies of old photos to display, writing weekly articles about the history of the church to insert in Sunday church bulletins, and meeting with committees working on meal planning, decorating, music, the service, etc.

I learned that our beautiful old sanctuary cost $11,000 to build in 1911.  The red bricks were made from red clay in our town and fired in a brick kiln near the banks of the river.  The beautiful stained glass windows were mostly funded by money collected to build a memorial to confederate soldiers on the courthouse square.  When  they couldn't collect enough money for a statue, the money was given to the church to purchase stained glass windows in memory of the Confederate soldiers from Coffee County.

Another window has written on it "Angus Vaughan and wife".   I've always wondered why he didn't put her name on the window too.  It's amazing that those windows are 100 years old and have withstood numerous storms over the years and 3 floods that got into the building.

The old bell hanging in the steeple was cast in 1908 by C.S. Bell Co in Hillsboro, OH.  Church bells could be ordered from Sears Roebuck at that time and cost about $70 (I looked this up in an 1897 Sears catalog).
Our bell is rung on Sunday mornings when it's time for church to begin at 10 a.m.

Our church has so much history.  Many of the older members were interviewed in 2001 after cleaning up from a flood in 1998, and talked about the history of the church.  A video tape was made.  Jim and I made 100 DVDs from this VHS tape to give to each family attending homecoming.

Today I learned that the weather next Friday, 2 days before homecoming, is forecast to be the coldest this year.  But in Alabama, the weather changes almost daily.  It might be 60 degrees on Feb. 13th!!  I'll keep my fingers crossed.   I told someone today that we will have a captive audience:  too cold to go to the lake or beach, no super bowl that day, no races - so people will have no excuse not to come to church.

What happened to January?

January has come and gone and I never got around to writing anything in my blog.  It has been a very cold winter with temperatures below freezing most days and many days in the teens.  Fireplace felt good.

We converted from an electric heat pump to a natural gas furnace. They came the coldest week of the year to install the new furnace.  First they removed all the ducts and put in new ones.  This meant we didn't have central for a week.  Used electric radiator type heaters and it kept the house warm, plus used a lot of kilowatt hours.                                                                  

After the heater was installed, and a new gas hot water heater, we got the painters back to finish painting that they started last fall.  Here you see them in the den painting the ceiling and woodwork.         

                                                                                    

Also in January our new electric stove arrived.  We ordered it in December from Sears.  Bo and Tom came on a Saturday and it took about 5 hours to fit it into the space the old one occupied.  Works like a charm.  Now I can bake and things won't burn. 

We aren't the only people remodeling.  Shown here is my brother Perry's "country condo".  He bought this 66' mobile home off Craig's List and had it brought to land at Pine Level that belongs to Carol's brother. Perry spends a lot of time at Mt. Olive Baptist Church in Pine Level and wanted a place to go when he's out there working.  Carol will have her art studio on the east end, with a lot of natural light. They were adding a deck on front when we went out to check on the progress last week. 

Jim snapped this picture of me on January 31st.  I was seated at my

computer one morning when he said "look up".  This is our work station wall.  The TV we use to watch the news at breakfast every morning, then my computer desk, with Jim's "Man Cave" behind me.  We spend a lot of time each day at our computers.  Jim reads newspapers first thing in the morning and I like to check my email and facebook.  Then I usually have some work to do on the computer. 

Tomorrow I will write about my latest project - planning for homecoming at Elba United Methodist Church and 100th anniversary of our church sanctuary - Feb 13, 2011. 

Note to Guy:  I'm back in business writing my blog.  Sorry you missed reading it every day.  I'll try to write more.

Happy New Year

The girls with "Uncle Larry"

Christmas in Florence, SC  - it snowed!

Katie got a rug for her apartment

Caroline got the coat she wanter

Nerissa got a crock pot!

One week til Christmas

I can't believe I'm ready for Christmas!  I have a week to just sit back and relax and wait for Santa to come on Christmas eve in Florence, SC at our son's house.

We will be traveling to SC in our little red truck, to deliver a hot water heater to Bill.  We replaced our electric hot water heater (less than a year old) with a gas heater when we installed a gas furnace last week.  We decided to replace our electric heat pump with gas furnace - and it's so much warmer in our house without the fan blowing cold air.

Jim's brother Larry will be joining us for Christmas this year so he won't be all alone in Virginia Beach.  His wife Suzi died last February after suffering a stroke.  We will stay in a motel in Florence and visit Bill and girls during the day.  The girls are all grown up.  Not a single toy on their list this year.

I've been cooking for almost a month, baking cookies, jellies, candies, etc. to take with us on our trip.

I haven't bought Jim  a present yet.  He won't give me a list.  So I am going shopping on Christmas eve and find him something special.  There's so much excitement when shopping on Christmas eve.  Ordering gifts on line and having them shipped to persons on your list is so "un-Christmas".  I love making decisions at the store, purchasing the presents, and coming home and wrapping them.  We are still using Santa Claus wrapping paper that James loved.  Enough for one more year. He got a bigger thrill out of choosing and buying gift wrap paper, bows, and bags than buying the presents.

So come next Thursday morning around 7 a.m. you will see us pulling out of our driveway in our little red Christmas pickup, heading northeast to SC - about a 9 hour trip, depending on weather and traffic.

My cousin Linda  suggested that I put a recipe on my blog every time I write one. Something I make often are oatmeal cookies.  They never turn out the same, even using the same recipe.  I blame this on my oven, and Jim has ordered us a new stove.  It won't be delivered for 2 or 3 weeks - special order from Sears, slide-in oven, to fit space we have for our "drop-in"stove which is very old, went thru a flood, bad thermostat, etc. etc.
                             OATMEAL COOKIES

1 cup vegetable shortening                 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup sugar                                         1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

1 cup brown sugar, packed                1 teaspoon baking soda

2 eggs                                                  3 cups Quick oats (not instant)

Preheat oven to 350º.

Lightly grease cookie sheet.

Beat shortening and sugars until cream.

Add eggs and vanilla; beat well.

Combine flour, and baking soda.

Add to mixture and mix well.

Stir in oats; mix well. Shape into 1-inch balls.

Place 2 inches apart on cookie sheet, flatten slightly with fork.

Bake 10 to 12 minutes, or until light golden brown.

Let stand 1 minute before removing to racks to cool.

Makes 5 dozen.