Halfway through my BritBox “gift”, I have not yet developed a British accent, but wouldn’t be that surprised; the majority of the voices I’m hearing these days are British (or Australian).
As you can imagine, I’m getting my fill of Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie. It’s been years since I saw all of the Jeremy Brett/David Burke episodes. I do think they are my favorite. No offense to Benedict Cumberbatch/Martin Freeman or Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce but the Brett/Burke are more accurate to the original stories.
I’m a little hit and miss with Agatha Christie. Some of her stuff I can’t get to because it’s “Premium” and some of the stuff I’m finding is just dreck. But I’m getting enough. “Why Didn’t They Ask Evans” was excellent and I’ve watched a lot of David Suchet as Poirot. One of the most fun things was a documentary that followed the Christies on a worldwide trade mission trip around the world in 1922-23. Archie Christie was on the trip as an assistant to the British envoy and the Agatha was part of the mission to support the support. Although her first book (The Mysterious Affair at Styles) had been published two years earlier and was a huge success, she still wasn’t the wildly famous author she was later to become.
The best tidbit in the documentary was that Agatha Christie learned to surf in Muizenberg, South Africa during that trip. In fact, she is believed to be the first Western woman to stand up on a surf board. She apparently adored surfing. This is an excerpt from a letter to her mother:
“Oh, it was heaven! Nothing like it. Nothing like that rushing through the water at what seemed to you a speed of about two hundred miles an hour. All the way in from the far distant raft until you arrived, gently slowing down, on the beach, and foundered among the soft flowing waves.”
There were also trips in her life to Hawaii, where she again spent time riding the waves. It’s wonderful to think of Agatha as young and vigorous, since most of her fame came after this and most of the photos we see of her are from her older years.
Makes me hope that some of my favorite authors have a secret life that we don’t know about. Maybe John Scalzi has swum with dolphins. Maybe Andy Weir has time traveled to another planet and back. Maybe Naomi Novik has flown dragonback.
What fun facts would you love to know about your favorite authors?
I’m having fun churning through a bunch of “listicle” books in preparation for Blevins. Shipwrecks, Nellie Bly, plants, more plants and Phineas Fogg.
The latest is The History of the World in 100 Objects, which was a BBC radio show awhile back. I found the CDs through Interlibrary Loan and it’s prodigious – 20 discs! It comes with a pamphlet that have 100 teeny little black and white photos of the items. Luckily I was able to find a website that has nicer photos of the objects, so I’ve been keeping that open while I listen to the CDs.
It’s well done – not nearly as stuffy as I was expecting – and I’m enjoying it, although I’m having to keep at it since you can’t renew ILL items.
All the items are in the British Museum, including a statue of Chicomecoatl, the Aztec of Goddess of Maize and Sustenance. The narration starts out with an overview of food having a divine role throughout history and then moves on to the history of maize, the plant it derives from and where it grows (just about everywhere). Then came this funny bit:
“But crucially, maize is a rich carbohydrate that gives you a rapid energy hit. But it is, let’s face it, pretty stodgy, and so from very early on, farmers also cultivated an ingenious – and tasty – accompaniment, the indigenous chili. It has virtually no nutritional value but, as we all know, it’s uniquely able to liven up dull carbohydrates – and it shows that we’ve been foodies for as long as we’ve been farmers.”
I laughed out loud especially since I had just added a slug of frozen poblanos to a dish I had made about an hour before. Now I want to go to Penzey’s to see if they have any good chili mixtures.
I mentioned the opera movie on Saturday. Kelly and I are going. Lots of video and looks like some fun scenery so I’ll enjoy that part. And having a date with Kelly. And popcorn. And I’ll get a nap during the rest of it. But the projections look cool!
Same old, same old here. More snow, more cold. It hasn’t been this cold in a few years. Anything above minus 20F doesn’t really count you know. Minus 20, OK, now we’re talking cold. It’s rather exhilarating isn’t it? It was -21F Friday morning.
I made sure the chickens had extra feed and I filled their water and they puff out their feathers like wild birds do and they’re fine. The two chickens living in the garage usually walk down to the crib during the day, but today everybody just stays inside.
You know, I can give them a bucket of fresh water and they’ll still drink out of the bucket of dirty water. The dogs do the same thing. Here’s a pail of fresh water and they’re over drinking out of a mud puddle.
Fresh water
dirty water has more flavor.
I was part of a zoom meeting this past week on cover crops, and in a few weeks is a meeting on food grade oats. A lot of continuing education happens in winter for farmers. Because, you know, we don’t have anything going on… (sarcasm!)
I thought I’d talk about the history of our farm.
My Great Grandparents came to the farm in 1898.
My grandfather was 4. They arrived from Germany in 1882 and had moved around this area a bit before ending up in our valley. Gustave and Ernestina Hain arrived in the US with 3 girls. Three more girls and my grandfather Carl were born here. My grandfather wrote an autobiography in 1973 and I’m getting some photos from that and some photos I have at home. He loved cutting the head off one picture and glueing it onto another. The original photoshop.
Grandpa and Grandma way back when.
Here is the oldest photo of the farm.
The dairy barn in the background was built in 1920. There’s a granary out of sight behind the house that was built in 1899. Can you see a child playing in the road in the foreground? One of my uncles, never been sure who that was.
This next photo was taken sometime in the 1950’s.
The dairy barn in the lower portion has been expanded twice. My grandpa, uncle, and dad added to one end in the early 1940’s. Then in the 1950’s dad added the lean-to on the back. That allowed a second row of cows inside the barn.
The granary in the upper right corner was originally twice as big as I remember it. Grandpa writes that when the barn was finished, people wanted a dance. “I remember that nice floor, 24 x 48 of clear space. There was a big crowd, about four boys to each girl. Everybody was having a great time until a fight started. After the fight was stopped, Father was very angry. He said “You better all go home now.” and nobody stopped to ask questions. So you see even in the good old days, a few can always spoil a good time.”
Dad had torn off the front half by the time I was around. He said the back of the barn was so dark the calves would end up blind. There was part of a stone wall standing until I pushed it over last summer. I wanted to push it over 25 years ago and dad didn’t think that was a good idea. So I kept working around it. After I pushed it over, it was too dang big and heavy to move and I haven’t managed to break it apart yet, so I’m still working around it except now it’s lying flat and ten feet further into my way. The granary collapsed in 2013 with a heavy snow. We’ve salvaged some boards from it. The frame was built with wood pegs. Kind of a cool old barn.
In the left middle of the photo are two old buildings I don’t remember. Dad said there was a machine shed there, because after every rain I’d pick up nails in the road. So many tree’s around the house! And notice the one silo by the barn.
This photo is from 1969.
The new house was built in 1968, and in the bottom right corner is the outhouse we used while living in the machine shed. The old house was torn down and the new house built in the same place. I was only 4 at the time, so I don’t remember anything about the old house, and just a few tidbits of living in the machine shed. There’s a corn crib, which is now the chicken coop in the middle right. A new silo behind the barn, built in 1968. And you can sort of see the granary minus the front half.
My parents sold some land in 1967, i think that’s how they afforded a silo AND a new house in 1968.
My dad was one of 5 boys. The three oldest served in WWII. Dad, being the youngest, had to stay home and help on the farm. He always regretted that. He had a collection of rifle shells and bullets used in the war. I heard he had them mounted on a board. Apparently they were live shells. Mom never liked it, especially with kids in the house, and when the new corn crib was being built, she took the board down and threw it in the cement. Eventually Dad forgave her.
Notice all the tree’s behind the barn. They will be missing in the next few years. There’s a pole barn back there now and I haven’t figured out yet when that was built. The old silo in the front was torn down about 1975. We remember that because my brother and dad used a sledge hammer to knock out silo blocks and I sat on the hill with my brothers girlfriend and he met her in ’75. It is always fascinating that you need to knock out 3/4’s of the blocks before the silo will fall over. Dad hauled the refuse back behind the barn where the pole barn is.
1995
Quite a jump to his photo taken about 1995. We added an addition to the back of the house just before our daughter was born. The pile of trees in the field in the bottom was from that project. The second silo from 1976 is there, the pole barn is there.
With all the internet mapping these days, a photo of your house is no big deal. It used to be *quite* the deal when the airplay would fly over and a month later some guy would drive in with a photo of the farm. Farmers were suckers for those photos. And think about it; everything you worked for, all in one photo to show off. With any luck they took it from different directions over the years so you could see the background. It wasn’t cheap; it was a few hundred dollars it seems like. Less if you didn’t buy the frame.
Somewhere I have a photo with me standing in front of the barn. I heard that low flying airplane and walked out there and got into the picture.
This picture is grandma and grandpa and my four uncles. Taken before dad was born. He came around in 1925.
Grandpa didn’t write about this photo. Not sure I believe he was only 16 here.
Grandpa wrote, “When I was 17,18,19,20, and 21, I call them my fun years. The less said about them, the better. I wll say they passed by very quickly Oh yes, those were the days.”
I’d sure like to know what was up, that rascal. He and his fiancé eloped to Red Wing and got married in about 1918. Being the only boy, he also had to stay home and farm and missed WW1.
I’ve always said I have really deep roots. 128 years in one place.
I am sure it comes as no surprise that I have had this as an earworm all week.
This got me thinking about the history of protest songs, which I learned goes back centuries. It wasn’t until the 16th century and the invention of the printing press that protest songs were written down. They existed word of mouth before this. After Guttenberg, protest songs were often printed as broadsides and handed out in the streets. They were also sung in taverns and other meeting places. They were composed in response to religious and political upheaval as well as poor working conditions and economic inequality.
I found a recording of a very early German protest song from the 16th Century Peasant Revolt. It champions freedom of thoughts and ideas. It has been somewhat modernized, of course. It is amazing to see how many centuries-old protest songs are available to listen to on-line. One good source was the website for The First Amendment Museum, a museum located in Maine.
Yankee Doodle and A Mighty Fortress are protest songs. I imagine Baboons are most familiar with protest songs from the 1960’s and 1970’s. Husband recomnended this one:
I hope there are protest songs being written right now, and that we get to hear them. They are the earworms we need to have.
What protest songs you are you familiar with? Do some research and find older protest songs from other centuries.
The holidays brought me a nice cache of giftcards so yesterday I had a “gift card day”. Dunkin for breakfast on the way to knee therapy. Blicks Art Supply. Barnes & Noble. Taco Bell. A great day.
I spent about an hour wandering around Barnes & Noble. As a dedicated library patron, I have to admit that I haven’t been inside a bookstore since last year when Jacque’s sister was signing her latest book at Once Upon a Crime. Nothing against bookstores but my pocketbook prefers the library system.
Anyway… as I was checking everything out, I found two tables that had various history books piled up. I’m assuming that B&N stores get table recommendations from headquarters with a few title suggestions but that most of the books are picked for display by store employees. (That’s how it was back in my day in the bookstore.) The history tables had the look of employees having a bunch of fun. History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks, History of America in Ten Expeditions, History of the World in Six Glasses. Clearly this is a trend and it reminded me of a couple of titles I’ve read – A History of the World in 100 Objects and Orchid Muse: History of Obsession in Fifteen Flowers. 100 Objects started as a BBC radio series – I stumbled upon in once it was published in book form. It looks at objects from all over the world, from as long ago as 2 million years. It was absolutely fascinating. Orchid Muse was a book I read last year as part of my Rivers & Ridges Book Festival experience. The author was at the festival so I got to hear her speak – a lot of extra little details that weren’t in the book.
I didn’t realize that history in a set number of lessons was a thing but if you do a quick internet search, you can find a glut of these books. 47 Borders, 50 Books, 50 Failures, 12 Maps, 500 Walks, 50 Lies. I could go on but this is enough and it makes me wonder if authors are starting out to do a “number of things” or if they have an area of interest and publishers/agents push them in that direction?
Any other suggestions for “History of the World in”…….?
I took a walk on Christmas morning. Me and the dogs, out through the fields. Saw a bunch of pheasants, tree’s I need to cut down, and lots of deer tracks. The header photo is from our walk.
Weatherman Mark Seeley has a weather forecast and article on the back page of The Farmer magazine. In the last issue, he talked about January of 2006 being the warmest January in MN weather history. “January 2006 started a remarkable trend of warmth in Minnesota. Fifteen of the 19 Januarys since that time have brought warmer-than-normal temperatures to the state. Of further note, seven Januarys since that of 2006 also rank among the warmest 20 in state history.” — https://www.farmprogress.com/farm-life/january-2006-started-warm-and-never-wavered
There are many reasons to be appreciative of the deep-freeze cold we normally get in winter. It kills off harmful bugs, it helps breakdown the soil for better working conditions in the spring, helps break up compaction layers in the soil, it helps keep stored grain in condition, to name just a few benefits. The worst thing is repeated cycles of freezing and thawing. That’s hard on certain crops, like alfalfa. Ice sheeting, and the repeated freeze thaw or a lack of snow cause winter kill. I bet you master gardeners have examples of the problems repeated freezing and thawing can cause in the gardens. Not to mention how tough the warmer temperatures are on cattle that have a winter coat and are prepared for cold. Respiratory issues can really become rampant.
We’ve had this one chicken living in the garage all winter. During the day she has taken to perching on the bottom rung of a sawhorse and looking at herself in a mirror.
Mirror Mirror…
And then the other night, there were 5 chickens in the garage! OK, seriously, the poop from the one chicken is gonna be bad enough come spring, and at least she’s over in a corner. Having five of them: one in the rafters, two more on recycling containers, and one on the dogwash wall are too much.
An unneeded bonus chicken in the garage
The next day I kept the garage door closed. I figured they’d just go back down to the coop. Three spent the night around the corner perched on the bird seed containers. Why have they moved up here in the first place? I don’t know what their problem is. I’ve got several spending the night in the nest boxes where they lay their eggs. They’re not supposed to do that either. They’re not too crowded as some are in the right side space, some are in the left side space (and they all pile up on top of each other for some reason), some are up in the rafters, and the rest are in the main coop area. I did add another board in there if they need another place to perch. Is it too many roosters? I think we have 5 roosters these days. And maybe 55 hens? I don’t know exactly how many, they are too hard to count. Really 2 roosters would be a good number. There’s a couple that seem extra ornery to the chickens. How come they never get picked off by coyotes?
Christmas day late afternoon I forgot to shut the garage door in time and had to chase out 3 chickens. Yeah, even being Christmas, I chased them out. I had given them extra corn and layer ration in the morning. They’re fine. The one in the corner, she’s earned it, she can stay.
Out in the shop, I added a metal top to the work bench. Dad built this work bench after the shed was built, so maybe in 1982 or 1983. When I started on the shop project two years ago, the guy doing the insulation wanted me to pull the bench off to redo the insulation behind it. I said no. Dad had put styrofoam and fiberglass insulation on that wall before he added the bench. I tore the top four feet off the wall as part of the shop project. The old insulation was pretty bad. Yeah, I probably should have redone the bottom four feet too, but I was already in over my head on this project and didn’t think I could handle any more. Hindsight you know. The bench is pretty well built, and the top is 2×8 boards with a gap between them. Stuff is always falling into that gap. Maybe it was Dad’s way of cleaning off the bench, to sweep the dirt and dust into the gap. Which then ended up in the bolt storage he had underneath. A couple weeks ago, I lost a screw down that gap and I decided that was it! I am covering this! I bought two sheets of 16 gauge steel (about 1/16th inch thick) 2′ x 4′ from a big box store. ($70 each! Jeepers!) Thanks Obama! (That’s a joke you know) And I rounded over the front edge. I need to get some different screws to hold it all in place, but it looks real professional. I’m glad I did that.
Kelly helped me get the last screen back in the 630 grill and I have that all reassembled.
Reassembled 630. Runs and sounds Great!
Needs an oil change yet and it will be ready for next summer’s work and projects. Next summer’s project I think will be rebuilding the belt pulley assembly. Clyde probably knows what a belt pulley is. You’ve seen pictures of back in earlier days, a long canvas belt ran between the tractor and an implement to provide power before the advent of power-take-off on the rear of a machine. That’s the belt pulley.
On the 630, that belt pulley is also the hand clutch assembly. And it rattles like some of the plates inside there are broken. I remember Dad adjusting it once in a while, but I don’t recall him ever pulling it all apart. The tractor also hasn’t had a working tachometer / speedometer / hourmeter for as long as I can remember. A few hundred dollars will get me a new gauge, new cable, and I don’t know yet if I’ll need a new gear inside the governor assembly or not. It’s all only money.
I’ve done my crop rotation maps for next year and got the acres figured out. Talked with Nate at Meyer’s Seeds and I’ve got until January 16th to lock in the early order discount pricing on oats, corn and soybean seed. I was approved for $43,000 in loans for chemicals and fertilizer from the Co-op. That doesn’t include the loan for seed. I’m really hoping I don’t need all of that loan as the crop prices aren’t that good. The first few years I farmed I stressed out a bit more about the crop loans. Of course 35 years ago I probably spent $10,000 on everything and it was still big money. Now days it’s just part of the deal. I don’t stress over it so much.
I thought for sure Kelly and I were gonna win the lottery the other night. And what would we do with all that money? As the old joke goes, keep farming until it is gone!
EVER BEEN THROWN OUT? TOLD TO LEAVE? EVER THROWN SOMEONE OUT?
Husband and I made a trip to the Rock County Historical Society last week to look around and see what they had in the gift shop. I was delighted to find 8 oz bags of Old Mag Seasoning, an all purpose spice mixture for meat, eggs, and veggies developed by the rather rascally proprietor of the now defunct Magnolia Steak House and Bar in Magnolia, a little town about 6 miles east of Luverne. It was famous for decades as the place to go for the best steaks. I am really looking forward to putting it on our food at home. It smells wonderful. I have fond memories of the wonderful food I ate at the Magnolia Steak House when I was a kid.
AC Dispanet was ftom Estherville, IA, and opened the Steak House in 1938. He went by Ace or Claire. My dad grew up near Magnolia and graduated from High School there. For a while in the 1950’s he worked at the steak house as a bar tender. He got to know Claire pretty well. Claire worked for Al Capone in the 1920’s driving a beer truck on the North Shore. He quit and left the area after he had to phone Chicago to report one of the trucks was stolen and two guys he knew who had driven the truck were sumnarily executed by Capone. He started his own bootlegging business after that, and was arrested and put in Leavenworth Penitentiary for a few years. He lost his US citizenship due to that, and didn’t get it back until the 1950’s with the help of Hubert Humphrey.
My dad’s brother farmed near Magnolia and liked the clearly illegal high stakes poker games Claire allowed to operate after hours. My aunt got so mad at my uncle for spending so many nights away from home gambling that she threw a chair through a glass door at the bar when the door was locked and they wouldn’t open it to let her in. He stayed home more after that.
Claire’s wife was a very devout Roman Catholic. Claire was not. When he died in 1972 his wife had him buried in the Catholic Cemetery in Luverne as close to the grave of the former parish priest as she could arrange. My dad said she hoped Claire could grab onto the priests robes and get transported to heaven in the Resurrection.
In 2010 I wrote a post about the Steak House, so feel free to read that, too. I can’t believe it has been 15 years!
Tell about some noted rascals you knew or knew of. What are some of your favorite spice mixtures.
Brrrr. We are hardy Minnesotan’s but it’s still cold out. Hope you can stay inside and warm for the weekend.
Honestly, how did people do it 100 years ago? Or 500? Or 1000??
We have so much to be thankful for.
I got my corn check from the co-op last week and put it in the bank. And this week I paid off the loan I borrowed from a month ago to pay the bills. And the co-op emailed about setting up the loan and credit for 2026 crops. Easy come, easy go. Repeat. I spent some time this week comparing interest rates. It’s kinda hard to find out what the actual Prime rate is. Course it varies by bank and how much money you have. And it was kind of interesting how that works. One of the companies the co-op uses does Prime minus 0.5% until August, then Prime + 0.5% until Feb of 2027. Another company has different rates on some of the products and zero interest on some, but then Prime +2% on fertilizer. In the end, it doesn’t amount to that much money. It would be a different story if I was spending $450,000 at 7.5% interest. (That’s $33,750 @ 7.5% if you’re curious. Now we’re talking real money!) And the government is going to bail me out with the poor prices on soybeans. So they say. I don’t know what that’s going to amount too yet. It won’t be $33,000 I can tell you that. I’ll bet I can take off a couple zero’s there and be more like it. I always say the difference between me and the big farms is a couple zeros on the expenses and the income.
I’ll fill out the forms this weekend and figure out next years crops. Samantha, the agronomist I work with at the co-op sent out a rough worksheet of next year expenses for my planning purposes, and I’ll get things ordered and prices locked in by mid January for the best rate.
Yesterday on the blog we were talking about things from the past. I had a guy at the farm the other day who had a front wheel drive car and was almost stuck on the bare, but snow covered driveway. He clearly didn’t know how to drive on snow. His wheels were spinning and he blamed the posi-traction. I can still hear my dad’s voice “DON’T SPIN YOUR WHEELS!” Our mantra in winter back in the day of rear-wheel drive cars. “Sit heavy! Don’t spin your wheels.” And my family jokes that Dad would say, “NO TALKING! BE QUIET BACK THERE!” I don’t remember that, but I’m sure it was so Dad could hear the wheels not spinning. Shift to low, back up to the garage so you can get a run at it, and don’t spin your wheels. And the guy got out. Our driveway is long and starts right off with an uphill “U”. (So right, “get a run at it” but you’re making a corner at the same time. You learn a lot about friction doing that.) Then you’ve got a flat 75 yards to gain some speed before the next uphill corner to the left. Most people, if they get around the U, can make the next corner. Although there was some days I had to back up 50 yards and get a run at the second corner again. But a front wheel drive car? Dude. Learn to drive. I remember years ago, the guy who would come in to breed the cows. He had a little tiny car. Rear wheel drive. He couldn’t get out. And he turned around and went backwards really fast around both corners. I was very impressed. But he made it.
Last weekend Padawan called me about 10:00 at night to see if I would help pull a friend of his out of a ditch. So I went. Because we’ve said Padawan is our second son, so, that’s what you do for your kids. The friend had a new sporty little car. Still had the temporary plates. Skidded on the snow and slid into a ditch. Another kid who needs to learn how to drive. He was only a little stuck. Pulled him out with the truck.
Haven’t had much time to work in the shop this past week. Concerts at the college, homework, (had the last ‘in person’ class. I have a couple tests to take yet and some online lectures to watch. Last day of classes is next Friday) And I’ve been moving snow.
Our mailbox is out on the highway. It’s on a swinging post so the snow launching off the snowplow doesn’t damage it, the box just swings out of the way. Meaning it WHIPS the mail out into the ditch…More than once we’ve found the mail under that pine tree behind the mailboxes. Sometimes we may not find it until spring. Hopefully it wasn’t the check we’ve been waiting for. There are three mailboxes as there used to be three homes down our road. The third, unused mailbox our neighbor named “S. Lamb”. The sacrificial lamb. Our neighbors are very witty.
The choir sounds really nice this year. It’s a new conductor and he’s doing a great job with the students. At rehearsal I heard him ask the kids, “Are you ready for the concerts Friday and Saturday?” And they responded, “Thursday and Friday!”
“Good. What time is the concert?”
“7:00”
“Good. What time are you going to be here?”
“6:00”
“Good. Saturday and Sunday concerts, It will be fun!”
“THURSDAY AND FRIDAY!”
“Good.”
Clearly, he’s worked with teenagers before.
In my happy place.
HOW YOU GONNA STAY WARM THIS WEEKEND?
HOW DO YOU THINK YOU WOOD HAVE STAYED WARM 500 YEARS AGO?
For the first time ever we have an insulated three stall garage with copius built-in cupboards and cabinets. It has yet to get below freezing out there.
There is some trouble in paradise, however, since the cupboards take up so much space that Husband’s pickup is too long to fit in the garage. He is happy to park it outside, but he is concerned how to make sure it can start on the coldest days.
When he worked on the Fort Berthold Reservation he had an electromagnetic thingy that attached to the engine block and kept everything nice and warm. The only problem with one of those now is that he has to crawl under the truck to attach it, and he isn’t that limber anymore. It also needs to be removed before you drive the vehicle. I phoned a local car repair place and asked if the still installed block heaters, something that he could easily just plug in. They hemmed and hawed and told me that block heaters are a thing of the past but they could install one. I declined, as they sounded so hesitant. We went to NAPA and got another electromagnetic thingy and he will deal with it. It is on the oilpan now. If he has trouble crawling out and standing up I will help him.
For some reason, this put in my mind a conversation I had with a directory assistance operator I had in the early 1980’s when we lived in Winnipeg. This was before computer search engines. I needed the phone number for the Curtis Hotel in Minneapolis. We had stayed there on our honeymoon a year or so before and were planning a trip to the Cities. The operator told me there was no such number. I argued with her that there must be, and she finally got exasperated with me and said “Ma’am, they blew it up!” I had missed that news.
What have you discovered to be obsolete? Any memories of the Curtis Hotel? Do you have an engine block heater?
Husband and our 7 year old grandson spent most of Thanksgiving Day in the basement messing around with various string instruments. Grandson brought the three-quarter size guitar we got him in the summer. He and his Opa (Husband’s German name. I am Oma.) practiced tuning the guitar and his cello to eachother, and Opa taught him the difference between bass and treble clef, and that you could play the same tune in both clefs. Grandson also noodled around on the piano upstsirs using the sustain pedal until it got too annoying and we had to have him stop. He actually asked Opa if they could “jam” next time.
During the afternoon, grandson came upstairs and excitedly announced “Opa is teaching me finger picking”. He is to start piano and guitar lessons in the spring. At home he likes to just strum his guitar once a day and practice trying to play chords. He also thought Opa’s cello was pretty cool.
I learned cooking, gardening, and that History was a most interesting subject from my grandparents. Grandson wants me to make tirimisu with him one of these days, and loves to cook with his parents. I am so glad we can help foster these interests, as they really make for a satisfying life.
What skills did your older relatives and grandparents teach you?What names did you use to address your grandparents?
Trail Baboon 