Throwing My Hat Over the Fence
A story of how to start a job that you don’t want to do. A man stood before a tall fence. He was fine where he was, to be sure, but he needed to be on the other side. The fence looked too tall and too difficult to climb, and the thought of attempting the climb filled him with dread. He looked to the left. The fence stretched off without a break to the horizon.He looked to the right. The fence stretched off without a break to the horizon in that direction, too. He looked down. There were no gaps … Continue reading Throwing My Hat Over the Fence
Bagels
Making bagels isn’t substantively different from making bread. There’s an extra step here and there, and it isn’t that tough. Because of arthritis, I use a stand mixer with a dough hook. The Recipe Measure your flour by weight. 13oz Bread Flour (sure, you can use AP flour; bread flour gives a better chew)1T Yeast1T sugar1C 110-115° water Mix the yeast, sugar, and water, let proof until you’ve got a good sponge going, about five minutes. Add the flour, mix to combine, then knead. I run the mixer at #2 speed for 6 minutes, #3 for an additional six. In … Continue reading Bagels
Dig dig dig dig dig…
My son listens like any thirteen year old boy, which is to say, he gets the gist of things but the details often bounce off his brain like tennis balls off a brick wall. Our driveway is about a hundred feet long, with a decided downward slope. At the end is a fence providing the southern enclosure to The Back Yard. For reasons having to do with How it Was Back Then, the driveway continues on under the vehicle gate a few feet then narrows into a pathway angling off through the neighbor’s back yard. The point of this exposition … Continue reading Dig dig dig dig dig…
A Little Evening Magic
More fire, another trashcan filled to (almost) overflowing, another load into the trunk of the Civic. The pile of remodeling debris continues to shrink. I invite Katie out with me as I’m doing all this. I like to keep her involved, and it gives Michelle some time with one less demand on her. So, we putter around the yard, me laying in big stuff, Katie tossing in small stuff, us having a grand time making the side yard look like yard again. We were climbing up onto the deck’s second level to go in for a drink, when I heard … Continue reading A Little Evening Magic
Potato Soup
Dad made potato soup on Saturdays. That was his lunch and, sometimes, mine too. His recipe wasn’t special. There was no elevating it. A country boy from south-eastern Nebraska, a farmer from a line of farmers, my dad didn’t go in for “elevating.” When it came to cooking, he was not an imaginative man. Dirt colored russet potatoes, white onion, milk, a pat of margarine, salt, pepper. Sometimes a little ground beef – on those days my child’s heart would sing for joy – mostly not. We shopped at the neighborhood market, back in the days when there were such … Continue reading Potato Soup
Shreddin’ it.
Aside from their allowances, I don’t like giving my kids money. This isn’t to say I don’t think they should have all they want; what I mean is, I want the money to come from having done something. Pride of accomplishment, reward for a job well done, all that shit my dad used to tell me that I swore I’d never tell my kids if I had any. And I haven’t. I haven’t told them that. I just put it into practice as often as possible. (They don’t like it much either, poor things. ) My son and I were … Continue reading Shreddin’ it.
Halloween 2017
This was a terrifically busy weekend. I did nothing for any business, mine or day-job. All my time was spent on making Halloween happen for my children, or enabling it. Katie did most of the work in striping her own coat and pants; I drafted and put the pants together. Katie did her own makeup. For Jami’s, I altered and recut a brown polyester pants suit – ugly as hell, very popular with Democratic presidential candidates. To save doing gray makeup all over his body I made legs and sleeves of gray fabric. With his costume done, I grabbed a … Continue reading Halloween 2017
Autumn Music
There is a gigantic oak tree in the back yard. Pin oaks are usually chosen for neighborhoods because of their fast growth rates, and I suspect that’s why my uncle planted the ones in our yard, somewhere around 1955. It’s dropping acorns. You can hear them bounce off the fence rails, hit the top of the hen house, occasionally even one of the hens, eliciting an outraged and offended *buh-KAWK* from the victim. Walking back there is like walking after a hail storm. Crunchy. Certainly never barefoot. It’s dropping acorns. Hundreds. So I did what any good neighbor would do. … Continue reading Autumn Music
So I wouldn’t have to mow.
There’s an old saw about how European settlers to the American continent had lots of children because there was lots to do. Every child you added to the stable, so to speak, was another laborer to help till the land, carry the firewood, cook the food, to contribute, as it were, to the running of home and farmstead. (I think that we’re forgetting the fact the birth control was pretty much non-existent, but that’s an essay for another time.) We live on a third of an acre, with about a third of that taken up by a house and deck. … Continue reading So I wouldn’t have to mow.
Defining the Battle Ground
Katie has begun to chafe some under my delegation. Over the last few years I’ve grown more comfortable with throwing tasks at the kids. Mowing the yard, emptying and filling the dishwasher, and cleaning the kitchen are givens, the terms of their allowance start there with the understand that that they do whatever is needed as asked. The side garden has become greatly overgrown with redbuds and maple trees, so I set Kate loose on it this evening. Like most teenagers she has an attitude about physical labor where she does some of a job – never all – calls … Continue reading Defining the Battle Ground
Books on Tape
Science tells us that the Earth is an irregular sphere approximately 4 billion and change years old. There are people in this world who believe that the Earth is flat, based I presume upon the fact that from an airplane you can’t see the curvature of the horizon. (You can, it just isn’t obvious from your 6″ wide window.) There are people who believe the Earth is young, less than 10,000 years old, a calculation based on assigning an arbitrary value to a “generation” and counting the “begats” in the Bible from back to front – starting with Jesus who serves … Continue reading Books on Tape
Don’t do that.
I tell my children, “A practical joke isn’t funny unless everyone involved has reason to laugh when it’s done.” I think there needs to be a law that no one should be allowed to pretend to pull anything out of the ear of anyone older than the age of eight years old, and nor to demonstrate their proficiency with the “french drop” to anyone old enough to drive. For those who don’t immediately place the reference, the “french drop” is what your uncle or grandfather used to do to you when you were a kid when he’d take a quarter out … Continue reading Don’t do that.
