Friday, April 15, 2011

Flashback Friday # 27 ~ Gardening in Jim's Early Life

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Mary, Mary, quite contrary
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockle shells
And pretty maids all in a row
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That's part of what Linda has going today at her FlashBack Friday Headquarters. Click there at the right to see what Linda and others ended up doing today with a post about gardens at our homes when we were growing up.

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Do you have any memories of gardens from your growing-up years? Did your parents have a flower garden? Was landscaping important to them? Did they take care of the yard themselves or have someone else do it? What about a vegetable garden? Did your family have one and was it big or small? Any fruit trees? Did your mom (or anyone) "put up" (as we say in the South) or can the bounty from a garden? What involvement did you and any siblings have in planting? Was growing things encouraged, discouraged, or treated with ambivalence? What is your attitude, ability and involvement in gardening today?

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I have lots of memories of the garden we had at home. It was a family garden but Mom was in charge and we all called it Mom's garden. We also had a potato patch and sometimes a watermelon patch. Us kids would have a couple of pumpkin plants too.
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It was those potatoes that made it possible for me to be paid for when I was born. We were very poor but for some unexplained reason God wanted me paid for. A large crop of potatoes in that patch did it. In the midst of a terrible drought and all our potatoes exceeded all of Dad's previous harvests.
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There were enough for a very nice sale to the grocery store in town which completely paid the doctor bill for me being born. I was born at home in our old country house so there wasn't a hospital bill to be paid. My sister, Lois, was born there later as well.
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We raised all the common vegetables, like carrots, radishes, tomatoes, snap beans, green peas, strawberries, sweet corn, cabbage, onions, lettuce, asparagus, etc. My favorite eat-in-the-garden-fresh was carrots, followed by tomatoes, strawberries, and then the radishes. My favorite cooked vegetable was rhubarb pie. MOM MADE THE BEST!
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Mom would also plant a few rows of flowers too. (SIGH. SIGH, again.) It is sad to think about her and those really pretty flowers of hers. Mom was city girl who married the farm boy, my dad. Her life changed completely after that. No more being secretary for a state senator. No more walking down for an ice cream cone. No more walking to church. And all that city living stuff.
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We raised a lot more vegetables than we could eat. Mom would can everything there was an put in the storm cellar. We also put the potatoes there in a potato bin. One of the jobs I like was sprouting the potatoes (rubbing the sprouts off). Before I got to doing it all it was a family job. Just nice sitting down there by the cellar door working together and talking and thinking.
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We all had to hoe the gardens. That was to keep the soil soft and to cut the weeds out. I also helped hoe the corn. Back then it was unpatriotic and a sign of a sloppy farmer to have weeds sticking up above the crops. Now the farmers spray for weeds.
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We did not get to plant, that was for Mom and Dad to do. Dad plowed it with a farm implement type plow. First with horses, and then later he got a tractor in about 1938. That was the same year that we got electricity because REA finally put in power lines in our area.
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Unfortunately I did not inherit the green thumb. Mrs. Jim doesn't have one either so we aren't very pretty with flowers around here. Shrubs and azaleas, our flower red, and ornamental pear trees and a small redbud tree doing the flowering for us.
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By the way, we were far north to keep the fruit trees from freezing. I had a cherry tree, meaning it was my job to pick the cherries and prune it, which did fine for maybe ten years before the freeze got it. Our peach orchard really didn't get big enough for a nice crop of peaches before they all froze.
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Posted: April 15, 2011 05:00 AM PDT

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Tuesday, April 12, 2011

My Wash for the Week — MidWeek Blues — What I Am Wearing Now


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[click on any picture for larger size viewing]
I do my own washing and that's my wash for this week, nice and simple. The best part it all fits in one load. It is typical for summer washes. Note there aren't any LONG SLEEVED shirts.
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You are seeing my four of my everyday around-the-house shirts. They are old work shirts that either are too faded and worn for wearing places or are too good to throw away. And besides, they fit me, they are comfortable, and I like them, partly because they are BLUE.
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Next in line are eight golf shirts. I wear these a lot going places and doing things. They are comfortable too. I have others but these I really like because they have POCKETS. Generally I carry a lot of junk (pen, notebook, reading glasses, sun glasses, comb, and chap stick) so I need the pocket. Or I could carry a MAN PURSE but I'm not quite ready for that yet.
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Far to the right are my dress clothes for last week. I wore the end shirt and the khaki pants to church. I don't know about the checkered plaid shirt as to where I wore it but it did need washing.
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Mostly I wear my shirts one time or a day or an evening and then I wash them. The pants I wear until they look wrinkled or get stained from something I SPILL or BUMP INTO. Socks have a different rule, I always put on CLEAN SOCKS when my feet are clean or if they get to SMELLING BAD.
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Mostly I look like this around the house except for the hat. The hat I needed to show you how I look out and around but not really going any place fancy or seeing anyone who cares how I look. I need the hat outside to keep the sun out of my face (I wear sunglasses for my eyes) or to keep my hair from blowing when I am driving in my Mustang (1998 GT Convertible) with the top down.
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Since my feet don't show real good in this picture you can look below to see that I generally wear sandals or flip-flops like I am today. That is another reason you don't see a lot of socks in the basket above. The hat is just one I wore for the picture and because it is BLUE for blogging today.
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Thought I'd show you better my favorite BLUE shirts for being every day or casual. On the left are my old work shirts and golf shirts. On the golf shirts I have other favorites. And did you notice that the shirt I'm wearing today is my fifth and last work shirt with fine blue stripes.
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I don't have any more in my size, an extra large. And I can't find any that I like in the thrift shops (new ones are too stiff and stuffy). I don't know what I will do when these WEAR OUT.

- - - - - - - If you want to post a MidWeek Blues picture, go get directions from Rebecca by clicking here. She has a Mr. Linky and good directions . Just do what I did. Or do less. All she requires is a BLUE PICTURE or BLUE THOUGHT, you don't have to write.

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Learning Puns from the Pun People

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April 12, 2011 - I met a girl...

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