Country Cousin

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Hi Folks!

What a wonderful turnabout in our TIMESland weather! Gorgeous Autumn days, lots of sunshine, just warm enough, and nights so clear that a half moon casts as much light as a full one in other seasons. Wouldn’t it be wonderful now if this weather would just last until, say, Deer Season? That has happened, you know, so it really isn’t too much to hope for.

Since there’s been a hard frost, most of the urgent garden work is done, but that doesn’t apply to work in the kitchen, where we’re still frantically trying to use up all the produce harvested in haste when the hard frost forecasts were issued early last week.

Jars of salsa, tomato sauce and tomato juice are lined up. Broccoli is frozen, but apples are still to do. Green tomato relish and sauerkraut remain to be made. Bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches will continue to be enjoyed at almost every opportunity.

TIME TO DECORATE

Halloween is rapidly becoming our nation’s second most popular holiday, and decorations that prove it are popping out all over.

Isn’t it great that an idea so ancient is providing so much fun in our troubled times?

So get out the pumpkins, set out the straw bales, carve the jack-o-lanterns and enjoy.

Better be thinking about costumes too. Not even four weeks left ‘til haunting day!

By the way, figure these out:

1. Why did the witch’s envelope rattle?

2. What is a witch’s favorite subject?

3. What happens to a fast witch on a slow broom?

See answers just after today’s recipes.

MORE ABOUT SUNFLOWERS

Wrote recently about some multi-flowered sunflower plants in the garden of Kay Wagner near Crivitz. The most prolific plants, blossom wise, appeared to have come up on their own. Maybe they interbred and developed a new variety.

Anyway, that information brought a letter from Jerri Olson, who said she too has several multi-flowered sunflower stalks in her fenced garden off County G in Porterfield. At least two of them came up as volunteers, but some plants she started from seed this year also have several buds per stem.

Wonder if this is a fluke confined to a fairly limited area or if sunflowers for some reason are mutating?

Thanks for writing, Jerri!

SPACE MAKERS

Spring cleaning time has come and gone, but Fall seems to be a better time to get things shiny clean while the weather still allows for open windows and the wonderful scent of line-dried linens and throw rugs.

Once the spiffing up is done you’re well on your way to having the house ready for Thanksgiving and the Christmas holidays. And all the long, dreary winter days of indoor confinement at least won’t be quite as dreary if the house is sparkling.

The old saying of “a place for everything, and everything in its place” is wonderful in theory, but in real life many of us really, really do not have enough space.

Here are a few tricks you might want to try to expand the space that is available.

First, for the bathroom, if there is floor space but not drawer or shelf space, move a bookshelf or stepladder into the room. Intermix folded washcloths, books and knickknacks with practical necessities, such as cotton balls, bath oils and cosmetics in pretty jars or tossed together into small baskets. Or get double duty from a travel chest, antique flat-topped trunk, or even a heavy duty plastic tote with a solid lid. Put extra towels, bedding, and cleaning supplies inside, and seat yourself on the outside while trimming toe nails and such.

Or, create a space. In the living room, bedroom or front hall, anywhere that you can fit a table can turn into a storage area. Just top that table with a pretty cloth that hangs to the floor, and under it store anything you choose, from memorabilia to video cassettes to boxes filled with out of season clothing.

Incidentally, to get more garments into less space without hopelessly wrinkling them, roll them up tightly and pack the rolls in like cord wood.

If you’re up for a somewhat ambitious project, one of the finest pantry ideas I’ve seen involved removing the plasterboard between 2x4 studs on a bare kitchen wall and adding shelves the same depth as the opening, spaced just as far apart as a soup or vegetable can. The one I saw had the shelves tilted slightly backwards so the contents wouldn’t fall off if someone bumped a wall, danced a happy jig, or operated a vibrating washing machine.

First, the brave do-it-yourselfer would make the cuts, opening the wall from stud to stud, floor to ceiling or as high up as you can reach. The area inside of course is unfinished, so you need to paint or wall paper it, and add trim around the outer boundaries of the opening. Then install the shelves, preferably on a slight slant, higher in front, a bit lower against the back wall. The shallow “pantry” I saw had the cans lying on their sides. Unlike a regular pantry, the cans were all easy to get at, and the labels were all readily visible.

An ideal finishing touch is to install folding louver doors if there is room. If the doors are pre-finished all you need to hang them is a screw driver.

If you can’t manage the doors, hang curtains or pull down window shades to cover the clutter, keep the dust off, and still have the shelf contents close at hand.

LATE NIGHT LECTURES

With today’s stiff drunk driving laws more and more dedicated imbibers are leaving their cars at home. That’s a good thing, but it can bring some strange results. Heard about an elderly man stopped by the police at around 1 a. m. as he was staggering along, on foot, on and off the sidewalk, in a residential neighborhood.

Asked where he was going at this time of night, the man drew himself up proudly, looked the officer in the eye and declared, “I am going to a lecture about alcohol abuse and the effects it has on the human body.”

“Really?” the officer asked. “Now who would be giving that lecture at this time of night?”

“That would be my wife.”

FUELISH THOUGHTS

It’s wonderful to see the price at the pump the lowest it has been in a year or two. Gas was reported at $3.199 per gallon in at least one Wisconsin service station this week. Who would have dreamed, a few years ago, that we’d ever think that was low?!!!

Sure do hope the trend continues. That one thing alone - a return to reasonable gasoline and diesel prices - might just save our nation’s economy. For we in the working class with long commutes, most of the budget has been going into the gas tank and there’s little left for anything else.

To save money on fuels, some of us would either have to move or quit our jobs. We drive long distances to work and that can’t be helped. Often a new fuel efficient vehicle just doesn’t fit into the budget, but then again, neither does providing sustenance to the old fuel guzzler. Simply can’t win.

There are side effects to high fuel prices, and we keep paying for them. Farmers spend more to plant and harvest their crops, so their price has to go up or they will be out of the farming business.

Then the crops must go to market, and that generally involves trucks. Wheelbarrows are definitely out of fashion these days as a means of mass transport.

Whether those crops are headed for the supermarket and ultimately our dinner tables or to a factory where they will be raw materials for something else, transportation expenses are a huge factor in cost of production. If our country is to resume any sort of competition at all on the world market, we simply must get back, somehow, to competitive manufacturing, whatever the product may be.

So there it is. Whatever caused it to happen, a drop in fuel costs could prime our nation’s economic pump and get us back on the path to prosperity.

Might even work well enough to get certain incumbent politicians in Washington re-elected.

Oh, well. Guess there’s always a downside!

By the way, need to wonder if just the suggestion of allowing some new oil well drilling here on the good old U.S. mainland could have frightened the oil moguls into bringing their prices down. Maybe they’ve concluded that half of the unreal profits they’ve been raking in are better than none at all. And maybe they believe, with good reason, that if they drop their prices just a little bit, the urgency will be gone and our national regulators will be less likely to let the proposed new oil wells in Texas get into production.

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

Parenting seems to get harder and harder. A frustrated father complained to a childless friend, “When I was a youngster, I was disciplined by being sent to my room. But in my son’s room, there is a color TV, telephone, computer, and CD player.”

“So what do you do?” asked his friend.

“I send him to MY room!”

COOKIN’ TIME

Found some great recipes for easy lunchbox and before or after school snacks. Although they contain too many carbs to be really healthy, if your youngsters are not prone to chubbiness a couple of the no-bake cookies with a glass of milk (whole milk, please, none of that low fat stuff for kids, especially if you’re giving them sugar) make quite a nourishing breakfast treat. Do try the Turkey legs. With the price of meat so high today, we need to find more ways to enjoy the low-cost parts of the bird. This is a good one.

CROCK POT TURKEY LEGS

Make this with turkey thighs if you prefer, but peel off as much visible fat as possible. Skin them if you like. Don’t skin the legs. They tend to be a bit dry already and you don’t want the meat falling off so all those flat bones get into the sauce. Chicken drumsticks or thighs work too. By the way, this dish, bones intact, would be perfect for Halloween. Properly ghoulish, if you tell the story right!

2 to 4 pounds turkey legs

1 onion, sliced

1 green or sweet red bell pepper, sliced

1 can tomato soup (10 1/2 oz.)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1/2 cup water

1 garlic clove, minced

1/2 teaspoon oregano

1/4 teaspoon thyme

Place turkey drumsticks, thick end down, into slow cooker with onion and pepper slices. Mix soup and remaining ingredients and pour over the drumsticks. Cover and cook on low 4 to 6 hours. Serve with rice, noodles or mashed potatoes, even instant ones.

NO BAKE PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup dark corn syrup

2 tablespoons butter

1/2 cup peanut butter, chunky or smooth

2 cups Rice Krispies

Heat stir sugar, syrup, butter and peanut butter together until the peanut butter melts and then add the Rice Krispies and blend well. Drop by teaspoon onto wax paper until set. Flatten slightly with hand if you wish.

NO BAKE OATMEAL GOODIES

3 1/2 cups one-minute oats

Pinch of salt

1 tsp. vanilla

2 cups sugar

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup butter or 1 stick

3 tablespoons cocoa

3 Tbs. peanut butter, preferably crunchy

Cook sugar, milk, butter, cocoa and peanut butter for 3 minutes in saucepan at medium heat. Take off stove and add vanilla and a pinch of salt. Stir in oats. Drop by spoonful onto greased pan or waxed paper. Flatten slightly with hand if you wish. Let cool.

1. It was a chain letter.

2. Spelling.

3. She flies off the handle.

Thought for the Week: Lord, help us relax. Help us stop to enjoy the wonders You have made. Help us to play in the piles of leaves instead of just raking them up. No matter how much we would like to live in an always orderly house, let us remember to wipe away the tears before wiping up the spilled milk, to pick up the child before picking up the toys, and to love our children and accept them for who they are, not who we would like them to be. (Thoughts inspired by Barbara Johnson’s book, “Fresh Elastic for Stretched out Moms.”)

COUNTRY COUSIN

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