Out with the old

    This is a good day to check the closets, time to move the summer clothes down to the guest room closet for the winter and to move the winter clothes up. One year I did that and immediately we had Indian summer so hope that works again. The act of moving clothes takes a while as I look over each piece of clothing to see if it is in good condition and if I did indeed wear it at all this year. It is time to get rid of a lot of clothing that just takes up precious room in my closet. Time to give it to the Salvation Army perhaps. When I was librarian at our church years ago I recall a book that said it is a sin to keep good clothing that you don't wear because there are people that need it. I try to keep that in mind but I am a person that has worn the same size for probably 20 years and I take good care of my clothing so even though it is older it still looks like new. But I must remember what I read and take it to heart. When Don and I decided to sell our home and go rving full time it meant getting rid of things we had for years. That is a hard thing to do because many of our things had memories attached to them, but it was a cleansing move. You never realize how much junk attaches itself to you and fills up your space. All those boxes on shelves what do they contain? If they were truly something we cherish we would have them out where we can see them not tucked away gathering dust. Boxes of kitchen gadgets that we were sure we would need but only used once and boxed because it took up space in our kitchen drawer. Boxes of Christmas ornaments and lights that no longer light up, old books no longer read, etc and etc. Yes it was a freeing moment to get rid of so much unneeded things. Perhaps it is also time to clean our spiritual closet too, tossing out old grievances and grudges. Sweeping out our dusty thinking so that we can see more clearly to make good choices and making room for God to work in our lives. God has His way of cleaning too, for many years ago when I received Him as Lord and Savior he did just as his word said in 2 Corinthians 5: 17  Therefore if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. God swept away the old sins and made me new again, a fresh beginning. What a blessing to not have the burden of sin cluttering up my life.

Nature's Bounty

   It's that time of the year when the apples are heavy on the trees and we view them as apple pies warm from the oven when frost is etching the windows. But why do the trees produce so many apples. Of course I have my ready helpers, the deer, to help with the bounty. While sipping my morning coffee I can look out and watch the deer standing on their hind legs reaching high into the upper branches to pick the choicest apples.. it seems they prefer to pick their own rather then eat any from the ground but so do I. We co exist with the deer as long as they do not lunch on my favorite flowers. They are beautiful creatures and oh how we laugh as the fawns kick up their heels and chase each other around the lawn, they know they are safe here and pay no attention to us. I dread the gunshots that come at midnight some times but here on Shaw's Acre's they can safely play.
   Canning brings back so many good memories of my mother. She always had a good sized garden if possible and canned all she could and if she lived where there was no yard for a garden she always seem to have vegetables from someone's over flowing garden. I remember she had a gas stove and a large container called a "double boiler", the boiler was oval shaped and would cover two burners on the stove and many times it was used to heat water for washing clothes but my dad had made wooden racks,one for the bottom of the boiler where mother would sit jars of green beans and another to put on top of the jars to make a second layer.  This was filled with hot water and allowed to cook for hours making sure all jars were covered with water at all times. The kitchen was steamy and you could hear the jars jiggle in the boiling water. Mother would wipe her hands on the ever present apron and sit down at the table for a cup of tea. We enjoyed our tea together. In later years Linda and I also liked to share tea time together, in fact a few years ago I received a package in the mail and it was from Linda and inside was a Boyds Bear figurine of a mother bear and her daughter bear having tea and Linda's note said "look on the bottom" I turned it over and this is what it said "Come and sit with me and we'll have tea and talk of things that were and things that are to be, of places we will go and things that we will see. Just the two of us my dear daughter...and me." A tear still comes even as I write this for my dear daughter is a thousand miles away and I would give anything this moment for us to have tea together.
   What a pleasure it is to stand and view the shelves laden with many jars of green beans, corn, beets, tomatoes, not forgetting the jars of peaches, pears and pickles. Rosy jars of jams and jellies ...what a treat. Apple butter to spread on warm from the oven home made bread. Mother's bread was better then the best cake to me. Mother knew hard times, depression years were my childhood years and we learned not to waste and to do with what we had. A good thing for us to remember in these times. Somehow you felt more secure when you had rows of canned foods in the pantry. Little did we know that we were eating healthy, no insecticides on our veg's and no chemicals added to preserve freshness or artificial coloring. There were no boxes of foods on the shelf, cakes were made from family recipes and for years no canned soups were used in casseroles and gravy came from a good roast not a can. Little wonder food seemed to taste better back then. Like they say "ah the good old days"
   Well there, I am done with the apples and I have seven bags of pie apples to go into the freezer, I think I can smell a pie now but no it is the apples I am frying for supper tonight to go with our fried fish. I better check them ..don't want them to burn and it is time to sprinkle on a little sugar to help them caramelize. I'm thinking of you mother while I am making them. Thanks for the memories!

Grand Marais

    If you look at the word Marais you might ask how to pronounce it and you may also hear the word and never guess the spelling but if you have been there you know it is a "Grand" place like the name suggests.
    This was the week we finally made our way up to spend a few days camping at the camp grounds there. While the weather at home was rain, one inch of rain to be precise, the weather at Grand Marais was beautiful, sunny and almost no wind, the perfect weather to sit on a bench by the lake and just gaze at the water until all of life's tensions are melted away. The benches are tall and we sat on one and swung our feet like little children do when feet do not reach the floor. The sun was warm on our faces and we had the beach all to ourselves which is rare. After 56 years of marriage we can sit and chat about all kinds of subjects or just sit comfortably silent. We are so much in tune with each other we often can finish the others sentence knowing exactly what or who the other is referring to.
    Back at the fifth wheel we realized that seeing we don't have cable tv here at this camp and since we did not bring the TV dish with we should have brought some music cd's or some movies but alas we did not think to do it. We also had no books or magazines but to save the day we had at least brought our cross word puzzle books. So we did some pages of puzzles and then laid back with our feet up and napped. Our radio brought in the local station at Grand Marais so we heard some PBS radio program's. One such program was a lady taking a walk in the woods listening for the different bird calls which was very interesting to me since I have never heard a Brown Capped Chickadee before only Black capped.
    One day we did our tour of all the antique, gift and my favorite art shops and no we didn't buy the very expensive fudge but it did make me think of making some fudge when we got home. What I did buy was a cook book named "Recipes of Minnesota:. This one had a beautiful and mouth watering cover but what caught my eye were all the Swedish recipes, we are not Swedish but we have lived along side them for years and they are very good cooks and have enjoyed so many of their traditional dishes.
    Now that we are home again Don is busy getting the fifth wheel ready for winter and I have hauled back into the house the things that can not take freezing. The house smells so good from the beef roast that is in the oven and I am anxious to serve the Swedish Hasselback Potatoes, a recipe from my new cook book. Yum

Sign's of Fall

   We all recognize the sign's of Fall, the tree's leaves are taking color, the yellow school bus goes by, the arts and crafts stores are full of fall materials to make your home colorful even Halloween crafts are displayed. For us here at Shaw Acre's it means the winter birds are coming to the feeder and the fat has been hung out for the woodpeckers. Our tiny nuthatches and chickadees still come to eat out of our hands when ever we come out to sit on the deck, they prefer we feed them by hand then to go to the hanging feeder. The grass has slowed down so that mowing is less frequent and I heard the furnace come on so it is definitely cooler outside. Don busies himself with getting the wood piles covered with tarps to keep them dry when the fall rains come. His piles of wood are a work of art with each chunk of wood stacked just so and in long neat rows. There are many cozy warm days inside those logs when the snow is blowing against the windows this winter. I love to go down to the furnace room and throw  a log into our Daka wood burning furnace, it means that as long as it is heating our house the fuel oil furnace won't come on and that is quite a savings. Wood is a different heat , more comfortable. Also a pleasure to watch as we snuggle together watching the logs burn in our fireplace in the family room. Don keeps our woods free of dead and dying trees by adding them to the wood pile and a bonus is that Don keeps fit and trim as well.
   Fall is here when the White Pine Harvest Show is on. Sunday before last Don and I stopped by and picked up our friends and neighbors, the Nelson's and we drove to the show. It was a beautiful sunny day and there was a terrific turn out, we found some very good seats and watched over 200 tractors go by just feet from where we sat. Mary Ann and I sat together and talked of many things while the men sat and discussed each tractor as it went by. Marv and Don have so much in common and their knowledge of tractors astounds me. Marv said " that is my dad's old tractor" as one old tractor passed by and he was right but what amazed me was he recognized it by a small bit of welding on the grill. We walked around the park and went into the various buildings to watch them making wooden kegs, sawing logs, making horse shoes and in one house we watched a lady cooking on her cast iron stove while the scent of warm cookies filled the air. We watched them harvest grain and chop corn using vintage machines. We strolled around to see the wares of the vendors and stopped only long enough to eat lunch. At the end of a long day we decided to go to Finlayson for our supper at the town cafe. What a fun day it turned out to be and for me Fall is now officially here.