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Valentine’s Day in a Shoe Box

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It is that time of the year again when the store aisles are bleeding red with Valentine’s paraphernalia. At the local Walmart the other day I almost became a single person fatality when an avalanche of giant stuffed animals wearing Valentine themed shirts fell from the shelves. Rows of heart shaped boxes, perfume, cards, conversation hearts that, when strung together, create sentences more disjointed than a text from a 13 year old, and roses by the dozen all culminate to assault the senses and empty the wallet. The holiday seems to be designed to kill you with candy while providing flowers for the funeral.

All sarcasm aside, when I think of Valentines Day I am transported to Mrs. Grandstrand’s 1st grade classroom. My classmates and I are seated around a long scarred oak table like we are about to hold a séance. In front of each of us is a shoe box and in the middle of the table are stacks of construction paper, glue, old magazines, tissue paper, brightly colored plastic scissors, crayons, markers, and the ever adored pinking shears. With a word from Mrs. Grandstrand we are off like a flash. Art supplies go flying, scissors are snipping, and flakes of tissue paper saturated in glue are melting onto the surface of the table where they will remain forever, a testament to our efforts like the markings of ancient civilizations.

Back in the day (way, way, way before Pinterest, Etsy, and online tutorials) it was a tradition to save the very best shoe box from the whole year and spend a morning at school transforming it into a gaudily decorated receptacle for Valentine’s cards. We, as children, called upon every creative atom in our 6 year old bodies and, with brows furrowed in concentration, set about the task of wowing the teacher and our parents with our crafting prowess.

Then, the big day arrived. The shelf in the back of the classroom would be lined with our finished masterpieces ranging from the delicately decorated creation of my friend Sara who always did everything perfectly, to the giant men’s boot sized box covered in brown paper and a strategically placed ad for women’s bras that the classroom misfit found in one of the magazines. His reasoning behind the ad on his box was “They had lace on them Teacher, you said to decorate with lace!” The type of twisted logic which landed Patrick in the principal’s office in our strict private school on more than one occasion.

Once the commotion died down, Patrick’s “offensive” box was removed from the lineup and replaced with a plain Buster Brown one with Patrick’s name written across the top in the teacher’s precise hand. After a prayer to save Patrick’s soul we were finally allowed to commence with the festivities. We went down the row inserting cards into the slot on the top of each box. The cards ranged in theme from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to Snow White and Donald Duck. Some were fancier than the dime store variety I could afford. Incased in ivory envelopes printed like fine lace were cards beautifully illustrated and decorated with velvet and scented with chocolate. These came from the dentist’s daughter who was not afraid to flaunt her wealth and who often times reminded me of Nellie Olson from Little House on the Prairie with her pug nose, blonde hair, intolerable disposition.

Fancy or plain, there was a certain thrill about opening each envelope and waiting to see if that boy in the second row sent a special card just for you. Ahhh, first grade romance. My dabbling in the subject amounted to a hug followed the next day by being pushed off the top of the slide by my beloved and breaking my nose. The next day I returned the favor by giving him a black eye and getting myself sent to the Principal’s office.

Then, suddenly I was not in the first grade anymore but in high school where Valentine’s Day took on a whole different meaning. Hormone driven boys appeared on the bus loaded down with flowers, candy, and wearing enough cologne so that if the gifts didn’t make their girlfriends swoon the Old Spice would!

Middle school and high school were awkward years for me. I was tall and clumsy with glasses and horribly curly hair that was the result of the perm from hell. So, I would sit on the sidelines and gag as my friends exclaimed over how sweet their boyfriends were on Valentine’s Day. I was bitter, I will not lie. Life had dealt me an unfair hand in the form a of a crooked nose caused by my one and only attempt at love, ugly glasses, and hair that made me look like a poodle had overdosed on acid on my head thanks to a beautician who was intoxicated every day by 9am. But, I digress. The fact is that I hated Valentine’s Day with a passion and let the whole world know about it.

Finally, in my 20’s, someone asked me out and saved me from becoming the first Lutheran nun in history. I got roses on Valentine’s Day that first year together and I got to see what the hype was all about. Too practical to ever be a hopeless romantic, I found it to be kind of nice getting wined and dined one day out of the year. (My expectations were pretty low back then)

Years passed and I soon discovered that I was not the only one being wined and dined. In fact, he was filling more shoe boxes than Nike in those 8 years we were together. So, my view on Valentine’s Day darkened to Ebenezer Scrooge-type proportions once again. I cursed the day and scowled at all the cutesy decorations and declarations of love. The holiday was forever ruined for me and I kept a box of goose loads by my side just in case Cupid dared to enter my “no fly” zone.

Then something happened to change my outlook on everything. I was working one particular Valentine’s Day when an elderly gentleman came into my office to pick up his wife’s death certificate. He looked tired and sad, his shirt collar had lost its starch and he had not shaved in days. I asked him how long he had been married and he replied “All my life!” I smiled and he continued “Now don’t go thinking I am some funny old man for saying that. My life began the day I married her.”

I left work that night humbled. Instead of going home to my mint chip ice cream, Hallmark movies, and my cats on the couch I went out and bought bouquets of flowers and took them to the local nursing home to hand out. I was met with love, kindness, and gratitude and I wondered to myself how I could have gotten the meaning of the holiday so wrong in the past.

One particular lady asked me to sit with her as she looked at her bouquet of flowers. She told me a story of how the day after her wedding her groom was sent over seas to fight the war. They kept in touch with letters and each kept a dog eared snapshot of the other close to their hearts. Then the letters stopped. She knew her husband was busy fighting a war but she was not expecting the knock at the door. Instead of her beloved, there stood a stranger. In a matter of seconds she went from being a wife to being a widow. She never remarried, never took off her ring, and never forgot how that once in a lifetime love felt.

That, my friends, is what it is all about. Sharing love with those around us. You do not need to have a romantic relationship to celebrate Valentine’s Day. All you need is a heart and the capacity to share love with others.

Need further motivation? Go home tonight, call upon all of you childhood crafting powers and make a shoe box Valentine container? Yes, I mean take a shoe box, cut a slit in the top and decorate it like crazy. Don’t hold back, make it yours. And then ask friends and family to fill it with paper hearts on which they have written special messages to you. Then write some of your own motivational quotes, Bible verses, prayers, sayings, sentences giving yourself encouragement and love, or plans on how to make the year ahead a good one such as going out and visiting people in nursing homes. Fill the box with enough hearts for the entire year ahead. Every morning open the box and remove one heart. Read it to yourself and let it guide your day. The theme of Valentine’s Day is love. That means to love others and to love yourself!

Hopefully my post gave you all something to think on for this Valentine’s Day. Like I said, all you need is a heart and the willingness to share it and you will never be alone on Valentine’s day or any day for that matter. Go on now! Spread the love!

Restored by Nature

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I spent the afternoon climbing the hills and walking the fields near home amid softly falling snow yesterday. I went out to clear my head from a very long week, to look for deer antler sheds, and because I felt the groggy headache of an impending cold coming on.

The fresh air does wonders. Like the alcohol laced tonic sold a century ago, it takes off the edge that is caused by living in a modern world. To be the only person on hundreds of acres of bluff and farmland has a quieting power upon the madness that exists in over stressed minds. Snow floats in the air like the ivory down of heaven’s eiders creating a blanket to hide the barren ground and casts a hush upon the earth, upon the soul.

Stands of goldenrod bend in the wind. Their stems holding orbs once pregnant with a single larvae laying dormant over winter only to chew its way from a woody womb and become something new entirely in spring. Gilded blades of grass bend beneath the weight of slowly falling snow. Snow that is nothing more than an icy mask to cover the ugliness of winter’s death. The earth is transformed into an alien landscape and the feet of lone creatures mar the surface like man’s first walk upon the moon.

One can never get lost following the tracks of nature’s greatest survivalists. Not man with his GPS and fire starters, but animals whose very bodies have the power to transform and adapt to every extreme in terrain and weather. Dens on sides of hills where bears slumber through the months, oblivious to the world outside their earthen cocoon. Leaves bunched in branches that provide shelter for squirrels who never seem to stop for rest. The very trees themselves, such as the oak, aid in the survival of others by clinging to their leaves far into the winter just in case some creature of the forest needs forage for its frost bit bed.

The hills offer views of the river below. Frozen and still, a misleading field of ice appears barren yet teams with unseen life just below the surface. Currents flow strongly beneath the crystal sheets and back water sloughs fill quickly with species of fish that provide feasts for those who will brave the bite in the cold. Along the main channel areas of water remain unfrozen and attract bald eagles in groups who stand sentinel on the icy edges in wait for a feast of their own.

The view from the cliffs is hypnotic, humbling, and for me a place where I choose to worship in a cathedral built by God not man. From heights that force me to see beyond what is in front of me, to gaze past the horizon and witness all that was created by a hand strong enough to carve stone yet gentle enough to love even the lowliest among us.

My trips to the forest and hills are more of a sabbatical than just a mere walk in nature. They are an escape from the din of a demanding world. They are what I need to get back to myself, to get back to who I am when I take off the mask of necessity and shrug off the cloak of responsibility. A time where I can silently enjoy the company of someone who understands me more than anyone; myself.

High Tea on the Farm

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Herb and Verna were my mom’s aunt and uncle on her father’s side of the family. They lived on a farm in Brownton, MN and were all but retired from farming by the time I was born. Their farm stood in a grove of trees amid endless acres of crop land. The buildings were ramshackle and a passel of rangy chickens that were more feathers and dirt than meat roamed freely in the yard. Each trip to the farm was like Easter to me because I spent hours searching the yard for brown, white, and blue/green eggs amid rusty farm machinery, old cars, and weathered buildings.

The house was a typical square farmhouse with a large front porch overlooking an overgrown yard. Through the parlor window you could see an old Buick crushed beneath the weight of an elm tree that had already started to crumble with rot. In the entryway between porch and kitchen stood a crate that once housed every generation of chicken to live on that farm. I remember peering into that box in the glow of a heat lamp with my 6 year old fingers just itching to pick up those peeping balls of yellow down, but I was always shooed away into the kitchen by Uncle Herb.

While the rest of the house was a hodgepodge of mismatched furniture and dusty clutter, the kitchen was Verna’s domain. A plump woman with glasses so thick they magnified her rhumy eyes and the gentleness with which they glowed. Verna was a woman of great faith in God and that faith was not displayed through loud professions but through kind deeds and the way she had about her of comforting all those around her. She had a calming aura born of strong faith and a gentle heart and I remember many a time clinging tightly to her while hot tears rolled down my cheeks. Then she would set me on a tall chair that folded out into a step stool and feed me one of her latest desserts with a thick coffee mug full of milk from Polka Dot Dairy.

Every morning at 7am, Verna would sit with pen in hand listening for the recipe of the day on the Hutchinson radio station. All of those recipes were kept in a tattered spiral notebook with pages so browned they looked like ancient parchment. Then, in her gleaming kitchen with white cabinets, a proud Monarch range in the corner, and her line of pink and white canisters, Verna would set to work on “trying out” the newest recipe. The final result was usually 30% recipe and 70% of Verna’s ideas on how to make it better.

Many of Verna’s recipes became favorites of my own mother to serve at family gatherings, holidays, birthdays, funerals, and to give as gifts to friends.

Creamy pistachio bars with a buttery crust and a slight tang of cream cheese, golden pineapple bars that tasted of the tropics with brown sugar that lent a warm Carmel flavor to the crust, ambrosia salad made with vanilla pudding, tapioca, mandarin oranges, pineapple and mini marshmallows, and pumpkin bars spiced to perfection so as to rival any pumpkin pie ever baked.

Rows of oblong aluminum cake pans would line the dining room table. Herb’s clutter of newspapers, magazines, seed catalogs, and the latest Billy Graham book was set aside to make room while I plinked away on an out of tune upright piano. I waited impatiently while desserts were cut into precise squares and placed without a single wayward crumb onto delicate plates decorated with roses. Fragrant Swedish coffee was poured from a chipped enamelware pot into translucent cups to match the dessert plates. A pink Depression Ware bowl held snowy white sugar cubes and the light of late afternoon played off of gleaming silverware. Chicken feathers clung to the upholstery of the padded dining room chairs yet the shabby scene took on the glow of the Queen’s high tea all thanks to one woman and the magic she created from simple ingredients laced with love.

Herb and Verna passed away when I was barely a teenager but every time I see a yard full of chickens I think of Uncle Herb with his striped overalls and squinty stare. And every time I prepare one of Verna’s recipes I am transported to her big bright kitchen where she stands waiting for me by the sink, a smile on her face and a plate heaped with her latest treats that have yet to meet my approval.

So that all of you can enjoy the flavors of my childhood, here is Aunt Verna’s pineapple bars.

Verna Jaekel’s Perfect Pineapple Bars

Crust

1/2 cup butter

1 cup flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

Combine and press into a 9×13″ pan and bake at 350° for 15 min

2nd Layer

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs beaten

3 Tablespoons flour

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup chopped nuts

Combine and pour over the already baked crust. Bake 20 minutes at 350°

3rd Layer

1 cup heavy cream

1 cup sugar

1 1/2 Tablespoon butter

2 Tablespoons cornstarch

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

Cook in a saucepan over medium heat until thick. Add 1 (14 oz) can of crushed pineapple that has been drained. Pour over the baked crust and refrigerate 4 hours.

A Few of my Favorite Things

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After watching segments of one of my most beloved classic movies, The Sound of Music, the song about favorite things got me to thinking.

The holiday season is a distant memory, we are struggling to keep resolutions, we are in that lull before spring strikes bringing with it renewed hope, fair weather, and new life. So many things to be thankful for yet not many can envision hope through frosted windows.

Winter has a way of dampening the spirits of some,making them grumble about the cold, and struggle to find any positives amid the barren late January landscape. For me, winter is my favorite season next to Autumn because it pushes me to be creative in finding ways to keep occupied. The crisp air is invigorating and I have all of my outdoor activities such as ice fishing which I so enjoy. Winter is also a good time to curl up with a good cup of coffee and go over my list of favorite things.

With that being said, here is my list of “Favorite Things” and I hope it inspires you to create and write down your own as a reminder of what is truly important and worth making time for!

-Church early in the morning when sunlight filters through age old glass lending prismatic color to ancient ritual.

– Family. Not just blood but friends near and far who bring joy, love, and unconditional support.

-Pets and their ability to love without question making us better as humans.

– Conversations. Not just awkward small talk about work and the weather but long conversations full of ideas, thoughts, hunting and fishing stories and laughter with people who make me want to stay up all night chatting.

– People who make me laugh so hard that I get the hiccups.

-Nightly calls to Dad. Just to hear his stories.

– My mother’s hands that once cradled my peach fuzz infant head, cooked meals, sewed quilts, brought down and cleaned wild game, and worked until they were raw and bleeding.

-Road trips. Getting in my truck with no destination in mind and just letting my internal compass guide me.

-Small town diners where old men gather to gossip over strong coffee and good food.

-Bakeries that are more long johns and Danish and less cupcakes and boutique.

-Books. The feel of a brand new copy yet to be devoured or the smell of a musty old tome filled with the ghosts of past readers tucked within its leaves in the form of discarded book marks, scribbled notations, and dogeared snapshots.

– People who are so unapoligetically themselves that they make you feel comfortable in being yourself.

-Sunrises and sunsets in my duck hunting marsh.

-Shed antler hunting when the last vestiges of snow provide enough nourishment to paint brown grass green in late winter sunlight.

-Watching old couples, who are still as in love as the day they got martied, blowing drinking straw wrappers at each other in restaurants.

-Being held at night by someone who doesn’t make me question how they feel about me. Safe, warm, loved.

-Wearing a fancy dress for no reason other than to go out to dinner.

– Cooking and sharing a meal with someone over lighthearted conversation.

-Old cookbooks; pages yellowed with age or burnt on the edges from getting too close to the stove. Chapters full of recipes that may not be good for the body but nourish the soul with their simple nostalgia.

– Old houses and barns that tell stories of times and people long gone.

– The sound of duck wings on opening day.

– The smell of REM oil after a day out hunting.

– The smell of horses and leather. The feel of a trusty steed’s heavy head resting on my shoulder as I gaze into his liquid eyes alive with love and understanding.

-Ice fishing in a worn out old portable shack that my dad bought for me at a yard sale.

-Panfish fried in butter because that’show Dad did it.

-Mason jars lining shelves like a colorful timeline of the year’s harvest.

-Fog lifting off the surface of the water, revealing the still beauty of the world as on the very first morning.

-Teaching someone something and then having them teach you even more about yourself.

-Old quilts on clotheslines that represent the subdued artwork of hard working women.

-Classic cars on modern highways. Candy painted steel time capsules on white wall tires.

– Snow falling in the light of a street lamp.

-Leaves that fall in autumn like scattered shards of cathedral glass.

-Black and white photos that force your mind to paint in the colors from distant memories.

-Gifts that are from the heart and not from a store. Time, love, a homemade treasure.

– The laughter and innocent trust of a child with wide eyes as you speak of impossibilities like Santa and the Easter bunny while you wish secretly your faith in legends was half as strong simply for the joy they bring.

– Old farmers, tractors, sunlight on wheatfields, the sound of a steam whistle on a Case Steam engine, the smell of logs burning in winter, holding hands while ice skating, watching movies for hours snowball fights in city parks, living, just living….

I could go on and on with my list of favorite things that involve simply the memories and experiences they evoke. For me, the list of things for which I am grateful is seemingly endless because each and every day presents new blessings to add to that record of my life. So, what is on your list?

Quilts and Kraut

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In the basement of my parent’s 1920’s house is a back room that was always used as a root cellar. Wooden shelves lined the walls and it had a musty, metallic, damp smell like a rusty coffee can full of dirt. My mother kept the shelves full of glass jars that she put up every year of peaches, cherries, pickles, sour kraut, salmon, tomatoes, tomato soup, wax beans, and other assorted vegetables from the garden. A single naked bulb hung from the ceiling and 60 watts would illuminate the room and colorful jars like sunlight through stained glass. I cannot even count the number of times Mom found me down there as a small child in the middle of one of my adventures, spoon in hand, eating cherries straight out of the jar their dark sweet syrup running down my chin to stain my shirt.

Mom would simply shake her head and shoo me back upstairs. As good natured as she usually was, I still think I feared her wrath even more than that of my dad and his menacing leather belt.

Mom grew up the youngest of 4 children on a rattle trap farm. Her dad was a hard worker but lived the life of a sharecropper, never owning his own land. He put in crops, raised livestock, raised his children, and still found time to teach his daughter how to hunt, fish, and trap. By the time she was a teenager, Mom was running her own coon hounds across Carver County and cashing in on the good prices for pelts. She was also an impressive cook, seamstress, and farm hand. When I was a child it seemed like there was nothing she couldn’t do.

Mom made sure she taught me everything she could think of that I would need to survive out in the world from sewing to canning. She knew that there were grocery stores but argued “what if” something happened. You need to know how to do things just in case. So she would put on her calico apron and fire up the black enamel canner on the stove bringing water to a boil. One by one she would drop fat tomatoes from her garden only to scoop them out a minute later and drop them in ice water for easier peeling. She repeated this process and all of the other steps canning involved while polka music played in the background on KCHK radio station out of Hutchinson.

When I was really little I had the grandest job in the world during canning season (or so I thought.) Mom would shred large heads of cabbage on a medieval looking kraut cutter into a 10 gallon Red Wing crock, sprinkle it with salt and sugar, then place a stoneware platter weighted down with a rock on top of it all. Every day a cheesecloth was lifted from the crock, the rock and plate removed so that I could take the old wooden kraut stomper and go to work on stomping down the cabbage to get the juices to release. The pungent smell of fermentation would burn my nostrils but I stomped away. Then with a sharp “Schon gut” (very good), Mom would replace plate, rock, and cloth and the kraut would wait another day.

Another favorite event for me as a child was bread day. Mom would haul out her big aluminum bread bowl that had a matching lid and all the ingredients she would need to make her famous German potato bread. My job was to put a boiled potato through the potato ricer and smash it into the warm water and yeast mixture. The riced potato would form a fluffy island in the middle of the foaming yeast water and I would poke at it with Mom’s slotted spoon that was used just for baking. Mom would add the final ingredients then get to work on kneading the dough into a soft silky mass. A quick brush of the dough with butter and she would drape a freshly laundered flour sack over the bowl. Soon the dough took on a life of its own. Rising and growing until the lid of the bowl slid to the side and Mom knew it was ready. She would knead the dough again and then form loaves into dented bread pans that I had brushed with Crisco.

There is no greater smell on this earth than that of bread baking in your mother’s kitchen. Mom would pull massive loaves out of the oven, brush the tops with butter and put them on racks to cool. My treat was the “kinder” or end piece smeared with butter and Mom’s homemade strawberry freezer jam that tasted of summer on the coldest of days.

Mom’s quilts were another thing that kept the chill out in winter. She would set up her rickety quilting rack in our large living room and attach her latest masterpiece for the process of quilting. I would sit under the stretched quilts for hours watching the flash of the needle in Mom’s hand move quickly with stitches so perfect that no machine was necessary. I played with scraps of material and clumsily sewed clothes for my teddy bears, puppets, and misshapen potholders. When the quilt was done, Mom would give if one sharp shake and spread it out gloriously on the floor for all to see. What once was mere strips of cloth had been magically transformed into intricate patterns that looked like the workings of an engineer’s mind and not just the simple art of a farmer’s daughter.

So many memories are ignited in my mind at the slightest of things. The smell of bread baking, the flavor of fresh kraut, the sound of canning jars sealing with a pop, the feel of a sun bleached quilt on my skin when I am sick. All of these things and so many more have the power to transport me back in time to my mom’s classroom of life. The lessons she taught me were far more valuable than anything I learned in college. She taught me about survival, of making due, of turning ordinary things into works of art that can be handed down and cherished for years to come; much like the memories that she handed down to me. The older I get, the more I embrace the simple life Mom held so dear and all of the hard work that it entails. Every year I put up glass jars of fruits and vegetables to use the year round and to share with others. Perhaps that is the most important thing mom taught me. No matter how little you may have there is always something you can share with others. Whether it be food, love, lessons, or just the silent company of someone who cares.

Blood Knots and Swedish Pimples

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As many of my blog followers know, I do not like to let grass grow under my feet. My year is divided into a plethora of outdoor activities that run the gamut from ice fishing to antler shed hunting to duck hunting. Every season is full of reasons to be in the woods, stomping around the marsh, or on the water.

Ice fishing is in full swing right now and I have been getting out every weekend since before Christmas to enjoy some quiet time in my portable ice shack and catch fish. My shack is of the old Fish Trap variety with a myriad of holes in it from a combination of much use and critters who have a taste for old canvas. The fact that it probably belongs in a fishing museum does not take away from its usefulness in keeping me cozy, with the aid of a propane heater, even on days when the temps dip well below zero.

So, what is the draw to pulling a 50lb shack out across a stretch of frozen sloughs with the sting of negative degree wind-chills freezing my face worse than a Hollywood Botox clinic? For one, I am a sucker for braving the elements. The feel of icy air in my lungs is invigorating and to be out on a frozen sheet of ice at a time when everyone else would rather be tucked in at home makes me feel like I am truly living. Also, ice fishing holds a certain nostalgia for me in that it was something I did with my dad when I was a child.

As I mentioned before, my dad taught me about life. He was all about showing me how to fend for myself and that included hunting and fishing lessons which I absorbed with great gusto. I was no girly girl. In the summer I would dig worms to fill rusty coffee cans and fish the creeks for chubs that we kept in a dented milk can full of spring water. In the winter we would load up our rickety ice shack with thick summer sausage sandwiches on homemade bread, thermoses of hot chocolate and coffee, a few rods, our bait and we would be on our way. I remember the anticipation I felt riding in that 1970 Chevy pickup. I can still smell the vinyl of the seats and feel the cold of the window nip my fingertips as I drew pictures in the frost.

When one is a child, everything is magical because the imagination has not yet been tamed by the reality of adulthood. Even mundane events have the potential to be an adventure and for me, arriving at the frozen lake we were to fish was akin to landing upon a newly discovered planet. The wind whipped across the barren landscape like a scene straight out of Star Wars and old ice holes became indentations left by ancient meteors in my 7 year old mind. We were on a great quest to find life below the crust of this whole new world and I was ready to begin.

The buildup to the actual event was more dramatic than what gernerally followed but, once we were settled, my dad and I would spend hours chatting about anything and everything in the warm glow of a sunflower heater. I heard every one of his childhood stories, advice on how to tie the perfect blood knot, how to properly thread a wax worm on a freshly sharpened hook, and how the Swedish Pimple was the ONLY lure to use for picky pan fish.

My dad was a gruff man who never showed much emotion except anger but when we were alone in that ice shack he was a different person altogether. If I got bored with fishing he would pull out my ice skates and tell me to go for a spin but to not fall in any spear holes. He wanted me to have fun and to learn. For me, however, the icing on the cake was to have my dad actually want to spend time with me.

I have not been fishing with my dad in years. He is 83 years old now and entering a new stage in his life that involves relocating my mom into a permanent nursing home for her Alzheimer’s care. His lungs can no longer take the cold and he just doesn’t have the energy anymore. So, I go out and in my mind he is right there with me making me laugh with his stories, telling me what I need to do next time to catch more fish, and just being there enjoying each other’s company.

Life goes by very quickly, as we all know, however, things slow down a bit when you go out on the ice or into the woods. I can flip the top closed on my ice shack and shut out the entire world for hours. Basking in old memories, making new ones, continuously learning lessons that will help me when I go out again. Then, when it is time to go home, I open up my shack and blink against the sudden brightness of light on new fallen snow. Everything is the same as it was but somehow it is different. Or perhaps it is me that has changed in those hours on the ice and my eyes are more focused on what is important because I allowed myself a moment to slow down, to stop time and just live.

Freidrich

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I am the kind of person who goes through life flying by the seat of her pants. I make flash decisions without doing all the research and yet live with no regrets. I have found that when I allow myself to ponder my ponderings turn to over thinking which turns to insecurity and thus, inaction. So I act quickly and worry about the consequences later.

I had been paying frequent visits to a friend’s dairy goat farm a year ago when one evening I entered the loafing barn and saw a tiny white and black newborn goat huddled in the straw while his mother munched on grain. He was an angel in my eyes. As white as new snow with just enough black markings to create a pleasant contrast. The sound of his bleating melted my heart and the feel of his velveteen muzzle nibbling on my fingers won me over completely.

He was to be sold as a meat goat I was told. My blood ran cold, I felt physically ill and knew I had to do something. I had some money at home from the sale of my ATV. I had a barn at my disposal, I was ready. I took home that sweet little boy and two more baby goats. A female Toggenburg which I named Marta, a female Nubian which I named Liesl, and of course my little boy whom I named Freidrich. 

What joy these babies brought to my life!! Early morning feedings with soda bottles fitted with nipples, sitting in the pen with them as they crawled all over me nibbling and pressing up against me for hugs and kisses. They filled a very large hole in my life, they brought me happiness that I never dreamed myself capable of. 

In May all of my happiness came to an end. Friedrich started yelling day after day as though he was in pain. I spoke with the farmer I got him from. He was silent on the phone and I feared the worst. At 8pm I rushed him to the emergency vet and at 9:30 he was taking his last breath. Friedrich had developed urinary tract stones and there was nothing they could do so I had to make the decision to wait until his bladder burst or allow him to pass peacefully without pain. Friedrich was 3 months old, he was my greatest comfort, my joy, my baby and he was lying lifeless in my arms. 

I was numb all the way home. Friedrich’s little body lay in the backseat wrapped in a towel, my heart was broken. Then I started crying, I cried for hours over the loss of life, over all the things I had been through in life that no one but that little goat could mend, I cried in loneliness, I cried in rage over how everyone I ever have loved either left me or died, I cried until I went still. I thought I would lose my mind, to be honest. 

Friedrich was buried under a pile of boulders in the new play area being constructed for my goats. Liesl and Marta called out for him day after day, I could not heal. Headaches were frequent, I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t move on. People would tell me that he was just a goat, a farm animal, get over it. Those words hurt. I am not able to have children, my mom had just been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, things were not going well at work, and those goats were my only source of joy. 

After particularly bad days at work I would go out to the barn and Friedrich would be the first to come running. He would jump into my lap and snuggle his little head under my chin while I let my tears of frustration flow. He loved me, he was always so happy to see me, and he healed me in so many ways. How does one just simply “get over” that?

In June the farmer I got Friedrich from presented me with a tiny, floppy eared, Nubian buckling to help ease the pain of losing Friedrich. Then a couple weeks later he called with directions to a farm 2 hours south and when I got there the owner came out of the barn with a tiny, yet long legged, white and black Alpine buckling just like Friedrich. It was June 11th, my birthday.

Gunter and Gustav became my world. I kept them in the house and would wrap them in blankets so they could nap with me on the couch. They went with me all over and Marta and Liesl soon adopted them as their new brothers. My family was complete again. My heart was still broken but I had not lost the capacity to love.

Animals are great healers. Somehow they have the ability to enter our lives and make them better. They love unconditionally, do not judge, do not suddenly decide to stop loving you, and they give everything they have. I will never be fully over the loss of my Freidrich but his death taught me a very valuable lesson in how short life truly is, how things can change at the drop of a hat, and how you are never truly alive until you have loved someone so much that to lose them is like losing yourself.

Christmas Cookies

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This time of the year the one thing I miss the most is baking Christmas cookies with my Mom. Every holiday season our baking was something akin to an Olympic event involving painstaking preparation and powerful tests of endurance. We would line up our ingredients, crank the Loretta Lynn Christmas album and get to work.

The first recipe on the docket was always the one for rolled sugar cookies because the dough had to chill in our “Polish Refrigerator” aka the un-insulated back porch, for a couple of hours to firm up to make the cut outs.

Everything was done from scratch from the fragrant smooth dough to the decadent icing tinted every color of the rainbow. Mom would pull open the stubborn bottom drawer of her kitchen cabinet, the one that always smelled of the brown sugar stored in the drawer above, and retrieve an ice cream pail full of cookie cutters as old as time.

In the yellow glow of the kitchen light the aluminim cutters reflected warmly on the worn Formica countertop. I would eagerly dig through the pile to find Santa with his gift bag, the snowflake, and my favorite leaping reindeer cutters, relieved that they survived another year.

With the table liberally dusted in flour, Mom would roll out sections of dough with a 50 year old rolling pin that creaked with each push. Silken dough, perfectly chilled, was rolled to 1/4 inch thickness before cutting into the cheerful shapes of the season. Hearts, diamonds, spades, Santa’s, reindeer, snowflakes, clubs, and stars covered well seasoned cookie sheets lined in parchment.

The cozy house soon filled with the scent of warm sugar, butter, and of home at Christmas. I would eagerly watch through the amber tinted glass of the oven door for the cookies to finish baking and then hours were spent in decoration. Mom would whip up a large batch of basic powdered sugar icing with just enough Watkins vanilla to turn simple into spectacular and set me to work with bowls for mixing colors.

Red for Santa was the most important and drop by drop from a tear shaped bottle of coloring would be added to achieve the correct hue. Containers of sprinkles emerged from the battered spice drawer perfumed with the exotic scents of cinnamon, allspice, and ginger. The icing was applied and quickly after the dusting of sprinkles, silver and gold baubles, and colored sugar that dyed fingers red and green.

Sheets of waxed paper spread across the dining room table like red carpets awaiting special guests. Soon, row upon colorful row of cookies littered the table painstakingly decorated by clumsy yet determined 7 year old hands. A Christmas mosaic of sugar laden artwork.

The memories of our special baking days sits neatly in the part of my heart reserved for that which I hold most dear. I cannot stir flour, butter, and sugar together without picturing Mom in her calico apron piped in peach fabric, her work worn hands gently guiding my soft childish ones in the making of so many recipes. Yes, one could say, the golden glow of a mother’s love never fades even when she is no longer capable of expressing it.

With this post from Christmas Past I wish to share with you our favorite rolled sugar cookie recipe so that you too can create memories to cherish like mine.

Corn Syrup Cookies

1 1/4 cup sugar

1 cup butter at room temp

2 eggs

3 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

Dash of salt

1 1/2 teaspoons of Watkins Pure Vanilla Extract

1/4 cup corn syrup

Beat sugar and eggs until lemon yellow. Add syrup and vanilla, stir in dry ingredients to make a smooth dough. Chill 2 hours. Roll out on floured surface and cut into shapes with cookie cutters.

And at 350° on parchment lined cookie sheets until the edges are slightly golden. When cool, ice with your favorite icing.

Icing on the Cake

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With winter fast approaching I always laugh at people who bundle up like they are headed out on a trans Siberian adventure when they are merely going to the mailbox at the end of their drive.

Living in Wisconsin the number of complaints filed to the weather gods rivals that of the daily postage arriving at the North Pole this time of year. People curse the cold, stomp their feet, and proclaim loudly about how much they hate winter. What is the reason for so much animosity? The cold temps, messy roads, snow to shovel? With all the energy that goes into hating winter isn’t there at least one positive? Oh yes my friends, there are many.

Ice fishing! The best tasting fish of the entire year are the ones caught through the ice from December through March. Every winter I drag out my Fish Trap ice shack and treck across frozen backwater sloughs to my favorite spots. The crisp air stings in my nostrils and through watery eyes I survey the bays for the perfect local to drop a line. It is either feast or famine out there and while nothing beats sunfish fried in butter, just a few hours out in the peaceful quite of my shack melts away the stress of a long work week.

Hiking! I absolutely love going hiking in the winter through snow frosted forests. Like a sparkling wedding cake, the landscape is perfectly iced without a single flaw save for the tracks of woodland creatures going about their winter routines. The clear sharp air clears my lungs and the most minute of sounds is amplified and carried to my cold nipped ears. Squirrels rustling, deer foraging, and birds of prey swooping almost silently down into the snow to catch a meal while the sun reflects off of crystalline surfaces painting rainbows on pure white templates. Every sense is heightened in winter. Unable to succumb to the sluggishness that warm weather fosters, the cold has a way of heightening and sharpening awareness of ones self and ones surroundings.

I could go on and on extolling the joys of the season and I am a firm believer that people who partake of the outdoors regularly, no matter the weather, are happier and, as a result, healthier people. I am living proof of this in the fact that I can feel a change in me when I have not had enough time in the wilderness. Headaches become frequent, irritability takes over, and my mood becomes generally glum until I get outside for a few hours. Yet there are those who think I’m crazy for feeling this way. The outdoors is my therapy, my spa, my place of renewal despite the weather because there is so much to experience when you head out into the woods, fields, and valleys.

Tell me how one cannot find beauty and peace while standing amid falling snowflakes. Angel feathers dropping from the sky to gently kiss upturned faces. Or the watercolor glow of a January sunset melting across sky and frozen land like a overturned painters pot spilling warm color before darkness falls. How can one complain about the cold when bearing witness to mornings following a fresh snowfall when every twig and surface is flocked in lacy white sweaters knitted by unseen hands?

There is beauty in the death that signals winter. Life yet to be discovered and savored with each icy breath, each crunching step. The cold months are a time of inner renewal, a time to explore and push ones limits and find splendor where others see only despair. Perhaps the sole purpose of winter is to serve as a test, a test of endurance, a test of appreciation, a test of imagination. Or maybe it is what I have called it all along; a gift.

The Art of Giving Thanks

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I am well enough aware that the internet and blogging community will be full of Thanksgiving posts speaking volumes on the origins and meaning of the Holiday. I will not try to veer from that theme but merely share my thoughts and memories about a the day we all gather to give thanks.

At 5am the motor fired up on Mom’s ancient meat grinder as she fed through it’s churning blades the various and unexpected ingredients for Grandma Lenzen’s German stuffing. I would pull the covers over my head in an attempt to drown out the incessant noise to no avail. Mom and Dad made preparing Thanksgiving dinner for the 6 of us sound like they were creating a feast for the 7 kingdoms. Dad would bark orders, Mom would scurry around the tiny kitchen dicing here, peeling there, stirring this, and mashing that. I watched, learned and then crept off to find the turkey coloring page in the newspaper while watching Macy’s parade on TV.

Then came the wait, and I’m not talking about waiting on the food. The wait for my sister and her husband to make the 30 minute drive to our house which seemed to take them 40 days and 40 nights. When they finally arrived, my sister would unpack her kidney shaped Tupperware container of 7 layer salad and I would go about the business of snatching off as many hard boiled egg slices as I could while no one was looking.

When it was finally time to eat, we all gathered around that old butternut table, said Grace, and dug in. Each flavor was one to savor, so familiar yet foreign in the fact that it had not been partaken of in an entire year. We ate until our eyes bulged then Mom wold bring out dented aluminum pans filled with desserts and we would eat again.

Dishes were washed and games played while Bing Crosby crooned in the background about a white Christmas. It was a cozy time, a time to soak in all the love and comfort that a small family shares. A time to make memories and to recall old ones to laugh over again. I miss those days.

Since being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, my mom can no longer commandeer the kitchen. Part, a huge part, of the Holiday cheer has vanished. The food doesn’t taste the same because her hands and her love are not preparing it. The memories are not as funny, home doesn’t quite feel like home anymore. Yet, time goes on.

Change is something we expect in life except when it comes to the holidays. We never want to see that picture postcard Thanksgiving or Christmas of our childhood to ever end. The holidays are the one thing we can still count on as adults to give us the wonder of being a child again. We look for Santa at the mall, we gaze fondly at brightly wrapped presents, we snatch colorfully iced cookies off of sugar laden trays, and we watch Christmas programs on TV just to capture the nostalgia of a time when innocence had not yet been lost to the demands of adulthood.

Like a time machine, boxes of decorations take us back as we unwrap memories with each ornament. We prepare food that has the flavor of times long past that allow us to cling to happy memories of moments that will never be again.

For me, the holidays may have lost a bit of their cheer but I give thanks for the memories I do have of a warm home, good food, and family. Although things will never be the same perhaps it is a sign that it is time to make changes of my own. To share the blessings, invite new members to my circle, volunteer more and give others the chance to expierece the holidays through my eyes. Giving thanks is not to be isolated to one day but something practiced the year over. The gifts of the season are not to be contained in boxes and stockings but to pour forth from full hearts and believing souls. So, on this approaching Thanksgiving I wish all of you the very best and challenge you to make one change in your routine that includes touching a life that might not otherwise have reason to celebrate. God bless.