Lately Pennsylvania has been in the news a lot. I keep hearing the name of the state and it triggers a musical memory. It was on the morning show. Was it Connie Kaldor? Priscilla Herdman? Anne Hills?…YES! Anne Hills.
We’re counting on you. Pennsylvania!
Do you have a favorite song, poem, or book about a state?
Friends asked me. Facebook folks asked me. I saw the question online in multiple places. Even Nonny asked me. “What are you doing for Halloween this year?” Nobody wants to just give up on Halloween but at the same time, nobody wants to be taking any chances either.
We decided to do a slightly modified evening. Normally the kids come up on the steps, I stand just inside the porch (with a dog gate up) and put two or three pieces of candy in each child’s bag. But somehow that didn’t seem quite right for me to handling candy that I’ve just touched.
I found some cute orange and white bags online and I filled them with four pieces of candy each and some inexpensive Halloween stickers that I found last month at Michaels. I tied them up with orange ribbon that I had on hand. The bags have been “quarantining” (or should it be “sheltering in place”) in my closet in a bag for the last three weeks. Tonight I will dump all the bags into a big orange bowl and when (if?) the kids come up I will hold out the bowl and say “take one”.
I don’t even know if we will have trick-or-treaters. For the past 10 years I’ve had between 20-24 visitors; I made 30 little bags because that’s how much candy I had. The big change this year is that I only used candy that I like so that if we have bags leftover, at least it will what I like!
Are you giving out candy this year? Do you give out what you like or don’t like? Anything special you like on Halloween?
I was impressed a while back when Margaret wrote of ordering a turkey leg quarter that weighed seven pounds. That must have been a really big bird. A local grocery store here sells boned, skinned, split chicken breasts, and each half of the breast weighs a pound. I would be afraid to run into a chicken with a chest that large.
It must be the season for supersizing. The following photo is of a leaf off of our August-planted spinach. I stationed my glasses in the photo to give a sense of how big that leaf is. There were many leaves this big in this fall crop.
I never grew spinach this big before. It was the same variety I tried in the Spring with disappointing results. I attribute the success to planting it in August in the trenches the peas had grown in, so that the soil was warm and full of nitrogen, the nights were cool, and the days weren’t too hot. I doubt I will plant spinach in the Spring again, as it just bolts to seed.
We don’t have a Costco or a Sam’s Cub in our town. The nearest are in Bismarck, and I have never ever been in one. I know that people here love to go to those stores, but they just don’t appeal to me. I would worry that I would go off the rails and buy supersize lots of too many things that we don’t have storage for. It is hard enough to figure out what to do with gargantuan spinach leaves and scary chicken breasts.
What are your favorite supersize and supersmall stores?
Our local Cashwise store lines up carts in the front of the store by the checkouts for people who have ordered on-line and have requested curbside loading. The names of the purchasers are displayed prominently on the carts, and it is easy to see what they ordered. Several times in the past months I recognized the name on the carts, and have been aghast at the things they have purchased. “Really, Pastor Lisa? You ordered all that pop and chips? Is that what you feed your children? No wonder they look so pale ,” I think to myself as I pass by with my organic skyr and healthy (in my opinion) food items. Oh, to not judge others is so hard.
What do you judge other people most harshly for? What would people think of you if they glimpsed your grocery cart?
My third cousin, Tom, lives in Madelia and likes to hunt for fossils. He posted recently a story about someone finding a 5 foot long wooly mammoth tusk near New Ulm. That must have been so exciting to dig up! Who would have imagined mammoths near New Ulm?
Paleontology was fun to learn about, but I always wanted to be an archeologist. I love reading about history, and right now I would really love to focus all my attention on the very distant past. (Thinking about the future isn’t so pleasant at this point. ) I think I would like to explore Frisian and Saxon settlements anywhere in the world, just to get a better sense of my ancestral culture.
What era of history fascinates you? What would you like to dig up?
Daughter informed me she is going as Guy Fieri for Halloween this year. She showed me a trial run, and she somehow, with her long brown tresses, got a bleached blonde, sticking straight up, head of hair complete with head band and goatee. Gone are the days when she wanted to be a princess or a fairy.
In my grad school days I once had to accompany a distraught client to the ER on Halloween. The clinic tracked me down at a costume party where I had dressed like an enormous strawberry. (I sewed the costume myself). I showed up at the hospital in costume. I was lucky they didn’t hospitalized me instead of the client!
I used to sew elaborate costumes for our children, and I will be quite ready to sew for my grandson in the future. This year is a not the best for fun costumes, although I bet he would make a pretty cute Guy Fieri.
What are some of your favorite costume memories, Halloween or otherwise?
We took our tortie cat to the vet clinic on Friday, and the young vet who examined her had trouble drawing blood because poor Millie was so dehydrated. After trying both jugular veins unsuccessfully, he took her to the senior vet to try because “she can get blood out of anything”. I don’t know if I would like someone to say that about me, but I suppose in the veterinary world it is a nice skill to have. Who am I to talk, though, since I am thought to be the regional expert in curing elimination disorders (behavioral peeing and pooping problems) in children. It is a strange specialty to have, and even stranger to talk about. Husband is an expert in doing parental capacity evaluations and sex offender evaluations. He no longer does that kind of work. He is much happier now that he is striving to be an expert Scandinavian rye bread and cracker baker.
What would you like to have expertise in? Who are some experts you admire? What experts have disappointed you?
As I drive around these days, I’m enjoying seeing all the Halloween decorations. I have to say that the folks in the house across the street from Southdale Library have taken it to a new level. I particularly love the two skeletons that appear to be climbing onto the roof using a ladder. The big skeleton may be as tall as the house!
While I don’t do a lot of outdoor décor for the various holidays, for many years I did a lot of inside decorating. Over the years I have cut down for various reasons: Nimue, my terrorist tabby likes to eat the Easter grass and bat the plastic eggs around, Rhiannon couldn’t stay away from the Chinese New Year decorations that hung down from various places. And truth be told, it was just too much some years. As I’ve been downsizing my stuff, I’ve really whittled down on all my décor, which lives in big plastic bins in the attic.
For Halloween and Thanksgiving, I have mostly autumn décor: candle rings, pumpkins, lots of flint corn. And, of course, some ceramic bowls with fall designs that have candy in them.
Are you a holiday/seasonal decorator? Inside or out?
Today’s post comes from Jacque.
Recently I scrolled through the Social Security Administration list of popular names. I found a lot of Liams, Michaels, Benjamins, Emmas, Avas, and Fridas. Brittany and Tiffany are now parenting Liam and Ava. It is so interesting how names run from generation to generation. I found this in my own family tree during 3 generations of naming that stretched from 1718-1750’s.
During the early part of the pandemic, when we were socially distanced at home without end, sorted and scanned family history information which I have inherited from my mother and my grandfather’s cousin, Muriel, who gathered together some Civil War letters from her grandfather who fought in Sherman’s March to the Sea. She, at age 92 years, is his only living grandchild.
In her things I found a letter and application to join the DAR under the Patriot Christian Hamaker. A polite response from the DAR points out that there was no documentation for a Christian Hamaker. This must have been disappointing for Muriel, who wanted badly to join the DAR. Only a John was documented. HMMM, I thought, logging on to Ancestry.com to clarify. Yes, indeed, Christian fought, but with a name complication. Here is what I found. Johannes Adamus Hammacher emigrated to America in 1740, marrying Eva Marie Licht upon arriving. They produced 12 living children from 1743-1764. They were as follows:
Johannes Adam Hamaker
Anna Maria Hamaker
Maria Salome Hamaker
Maria Eve Hamaker
Elizabeth Hamaker
Johannes Henry Hamaker
Johannes David Hamaker
Johannes Abraham Hamaker
***Johannes Christian Hamaker –my direct ancestor
Johannes Isaac Hamaker
Johannes Samuel Hamaker
Johannes Phillip Hamaker
Do you see patterns here? Poor Elizabeth with no “Maria” listed must have felt left out. All eight sons fought, all were recorded as “Johannes” or “John” from in the same Pennsylvania Regiment from 1776-1783. It appears from the records that after one of them married and started farming or running a sawmill, the next brother would report for duty when the call was issued because the practice was that they travelled back and forth from home to the front as needed. I suspect that the oldest, Adam, fought the most since there were four daughters between him and the next son. Poor Muriel did not know this. I called her several years ago to discuss it, but she could no longer follow the conversation, which was sad. She did the family such a service by preserving a great deal of important family history.
In subsequent generations the last name is recorded as Hamaker, Hammaker, Haymaker, Hammacher, Hamacher. My three greats grandmother is listed as Nancy Ann Hammacher in an Iowa census. She then married Martin Klein. Kline. Cline. Only George Foreman who named all his children, George Forman, including the daughters, created more confusion.
Got some interesting family names? What names would you like to see come back into fashion? What names are you tired of?
Husband and I try to limit our shopping these days, especially at bigger stores like Walmart. We always go masked and try to shop quickly. The other day I was rushing through the store, grabbed what I thoughtvwas a double box of the toothpaste I like, proceeded to the checkout, and headed home.
There are many different types of Crest toothpaste. The boxes kind of look the same. Well, I realized after I got home that I bought the wrong kind. This is a kind I would never have purchased under normal circumstances. It must have hydrogen peroxide or something similar in it, because it is touted as foaming when you use it. I can’t say I am looking forward to having two tubes of it. I don’t like to return things to stores at the best of times, and certainly not now. I guess I will spend the next months foaming at the mouth whenever I brush.
Got any good return stories? When have you bought the wrong thing?
Trail Baboon 