The last "fruits" of summer

Today I gathered most of the remaining hot pepper in our garden to make pepper jelly.  It's so good spread over cream cheese and eaten with crackers.  Sometimes I use green food coloring if all the peppers are green. Using red peppers will make the jelly turn red.  You make it just as you make jelly from fruit.  You use Sure-Jell to make sure the jelly gets solid like other jellies.

Back to School - Then and Now

I always think about how we prepared for back to school when I was growing up in the 1940s and early 1950s.  It's much different from today of course.

To begin with - buying school clothes.
I remember having one new outfit to start back to school.  Usually mother made it, taking apart dresses given to her by her younger sister in Washington, DC and her friend (she in turn sent them bags of farm produce ie, peanuts, pecans, and in cold weather other non-perishable items).  In this photo I am wearing a dark green wool silk with white satin blouse (made from my Aunt Nellie Faye's old suit).  I remember that mother curled my long red hair which I usually wore in pig tails.  We were told to "dress up" for the group photo and I did.
Click to enlarge photo

Look at the clothes in this photo of my classmates at Curtis, our country school.  Most of the boys wore blue denim overalls.  They mostly had one jacket or sweater and wore it every day.  I look at these photos and can recall many of the jackets.  Most popular were wool plaid ones.  I doubt that any of them had fashion labels sewn in them.  And shoes...  mostly they wore high top "brogans" because they lived on a farm and were outdoors helping with chores before and after school.  The basketball players usually had a new pair of black high top tennis shoes.

Penny Loafer

I remember a new pair of shoes I had in the 8th grade - brown and white saddle oxfords and the next year I saved my money from picking cotton and bought a pair of brown penny loafers.  You inserted a penny in the band across the top of the shoe.  I would remove the penny and shine it when I polished my shoes with either wax or liquid shoe polish.  I'm not sure you can even buy shoe polish these days.

Girls could not wear pants to school until I was in the 9th grade.  We had one pair of blue jeans and the girls would get together and decide what day we would wear our jeans to school.  Boys mostly wore blue jeans after the got to Jr High and white t-shirts (no graphics).

This is all about shopping for school clothes.  Now for supplies.  My dad went to Grimes General Store and picked up notebook paper and tablets, pencils, etc. for us.    We had to buy our books back then and usually you could buy used books from someone the year before.  No internet or even a school library so we pretty much learned all we knew from reading the textbooks.  We had Weekly Readers that we got current news from (nobody had a tv back then).  I remember reading that there were over 52 million people in the US back then from reading in the Weekly Reader.  I wondered where all those people lived??

Over the years we have helped our granddaughters with their school supply list, and shopping for clothes.  This could  be a pretty big bill if you have more than one child.

there is Nothing Like a Dame!

Recently I received my membership certificate to be a member of the National Society of the Dames of the Magna Charta.     (Click to enlarge)


My sister Christine Knudson did all of the research and shared it with me so I could complete my application. She and her daughter Joann Handler also became "Dames".


OK, what does this mean?  It means one of our Cole ancestors who living in 1215 actually signed the Magna Charta document.


Go to this website and read an interesting article by Jeanette Saddler Taylor that was broadcast in June 2008.
It is very informative as well as amusing.   http://www.mchron.net/ee/radio/celebrating_magna_charta_day/

My hand-painted, large certificate arrived in the mail yesterday, inside a big cardboard tube.  Had to place heavy books on it overnight to flatten it some.  I will frame it this week, and hang it along side my DAR certificate on the den wall.

I am going to order a book from Amazon: 1215: The Year of Magna Carta    Here is a description of the book .  Can't wait to read it. 

"Surveying a broad landscape through a narrow lens, 1215 sweeps readers back eight centuries in an absorbing portrait of life during a time of global upheaval, the ripples of which can still be felt today. At the center of this fascinating period is the document that has become the root of modern freedom: the Magna Carta. It was a time of political revolution and domestic change that saw the Crusades, Richard the Lionheart, King John, and -- in legend -- Robin Hood all make their marks on history.

The events leading up to King John's setting his seal to the famous document at Runnymede in June 1215 form this rich and riveting narrative that vividly describes everyday life from castle to countryside, from school to church, and from hunting in the forest to trial by ordeal. For instance, women wore no underwear (though men did), the average temperatures were actually higher than they are now, and the austere kitchen at Westminster Abbey allowed each monk two pounds of meat and a gallon of ale per day. Broad in scope and rich in detail, 1215 ingeniously illuminates what may have been the most important year of our history."

Making Candy using a candy mold

Yesterday the postman bought a package with 2 silicone candy molds
that I ordered earlier this week.   Nerissa asked if I could make some chocolate Clemson Tiger paws (the school logo) out of chocolate for her to use at her wedding next April.

I couldn't wait to try them out, so I melted some semi-sweet chocolate chips and poured into the mold.  I let it cool for awhile, and then pressed the mold and they popped out - all in one piece. She is going to love these!

Clemson Tiger Paw made of chocolate

 She doesn't need them until next April, so I will practice making them.  You can use the molds to make ice cubes, jello, or for making all kinds of candy.

I might try making some orange fondant tiger paws and paint the foot pds with white frosting.

I am going to have fun with these soft rubber molds.
you can even put them in the oven and bake tiny cookies, or put them in the freezer.

I used baking chocolate and they're not shiny and smooth like they will be when I use chocolate wafers and melt them down.

Orange Clemson University logo mold - Tiger paws

Happy Time Visiting Old Friends in Albany, GA

We took a stroll down memory lane last Monday when we left home at 7 a.m. and traveled for 3 hours to Albany, GA, where we lived 1990-1996, until Jim retired and we moved to the farm in AL.

We have talked about going back for a long time, to visit one of our "back yard" neighbors, Susan.  There was an alley between our houses and we each used the alley to get to our carports on the back of our houses.
Susan's father died soon after we moved there so we didn't get to know him.  Her mother Betty was such a sweet lady.  Susan had some learning problems and her mother took care of her needs.  After we moved to the farm, Betty had a stroke and never came back home to take care of Susan.  We worried about who was taking care of her and called often and she would always tell us her mother's friends were looking after her, and she was staying at home alone.

Then one day I got a card in the mail with her new address; she had moved into an assisted living apartment.
We were so relieved.  She had no siblings; just two first cousins who live in VA.

We hear from Susan throughout the year when she sends cards on birthdays, Christmas, etc.  She was so sad when James died in Feb 2009 as he was her friend.  Every afternoon when he came home from the workshop she would be watching for his bus to make sure he got inside the house if I happened not to be home.  Then at 4 pm almost every day, you could expect the doorbell to ring at the back door.  Susan would come for her visit while I cooked dinner or did other chores.  She and James would chat for awhile and then she would move into the kitchen to talk to me.   I think she was lonely from sitting at home all day watching TV.

We also visited another friend, our maid Lillie Mae.  It was so good to see her again and to see her beautiful new brick home that was built by her daughter and friends from Proctor and Gamble where her daughter worked.  Her old home was destroyed by the Albany flood of 1994.  Lillie Mae loved James and helped me out many times.

We took both of them to a buffet at Ryan's Restaurant and spent more time talking than eating.  After lunch we got in the car and drove all over Albany.  Couldn't find some sites we wanted to see; they are no longer there.  The County Extension Office is now home of part of Albany Tech.  Bob's Candy outlet is gone and they no longer make Bob's Candy in Albany; family owned business sold to a big candy company.  M&M Mars manufacturing plant had a For Sale sign on it.  Our favorite restaurant, Merry Acres, was closed and someone remodeling it.  The newest thing is the development of the waterfront downtown where the Flint River flows south thru the city.  How I wish we could do something like that with our Pea River in downtown Elba.

At 3 pm (EST), we took them home and headed back to Dothan to do some shopping and attend a church laity banquett at 6 pm (CST) at Covenant United Methodist Church before returning home to Elba.

Traveling from Dothan to Albany we noticed the big farms had a different landscape from past years.  If there were crops planted, they were suffering from the drought.  Many of them were "laying out"; probably in some type govt. program.  I missed seeing the beautiful rows of peanuts, cotton, etc.  The little towns are all "drying up" - not much left.  Roofs were caving in on some of the vacant school buildings and businesses in the towns.

It was a good day and we had so much fun with our old friends and it was good to see them in good health.
Oh, and our old house on Ardmore Lane looks the same.  The present owners are taking good  care of it.

Jessica's and Jeff's Wedding

             

The Bride and Groom, Jessica and Jeff

Jessica and her Maid of Honor

Jessica Estienne, my great niece graduated from William and Mary College in June and a week later she got married to her high school sweetheart, Jeffrey Schildt.  They both graduated from Suffolk (VA) High School.  Jeffrey went into the navy and Jessica went to college in Williamsburg, VA.

Jessica's mother Cyndi  is my sister Christine Knudson's middle daughter. Jessica has 3 younger brothers.

The wedding was beautiful.  It was held at Holy Neck Christian Church which is located out in the country where Jessica and Jeff grew up.  It was held at 11 a.m. and attended by a lot of friends and people from the community where they grew up.  Guests were treated to a sit-down barbecue lunch at noon. Despite the hot temperature, the younger set changed their clothes after the wedding and enjoyed playing volleyball, and other lawn games.  We, along with other older guests, went back to the air conditioned Hilton Garden Inn in Suffolk.

Holy Neck Christian Church

breakfast at the Hilton

The Hilton Garden Inn in Suffolk, VA

Family weddings are always so much fun.  The night before we got together and visited while the wedding party was at the rehearsal.  After sending the bride and groom off to Puerto Rico on their honeymoon late Sat. pm, the rest of us all went out to eat and then returned to the hotel to cut a big watermelon on  the "veranda" of the 5-story Hilton Inn.  We all had a big breakfast on Sunday morning and headed back to CT, MD, MI, NC, and AL.

Celebrating two birthdays the same day

 On July 15 we celebrated two birthdays.  Bill turned 53 and Jim advanced to 77.

Katie put "131" numbers on the cake. It should have been 130 but we didn't have a "0".

Also attending were Alice and Jerry Thrasher from Charlotte, NC.
We actually had several parties that weekend, beginning Friday and ending at noon on Sunday.

Bill had Friday off and he and Jim played golf.  They went back Sat. morning to play golf again and included Mark.

We had chocolate layer cake and a pound cake with coconut icing.

Bill and Jim had made "wish lists" and they got a lot of nice birthday presents.

Front row: Nerissa, Nell, Caroline Gilmer; back row: Mark Vahle, Bill Gilmer & Jim Gilmer