From a walk in December:

Mormon, the Waters of Mormon, and Mormon Housekeeping

Mormon: the prophet-historian who wrote The Book of Mormon.

The Waters of Mormon: the place after which Mormon, the prophet, was named. Not necessarily the most inviting place; it is described as "being in the borders of the land having been infested, by times or at seasons, by wild beasts." (1)  However, it was also a place where people hungry for the word of God gathered to be taught and baptized; this is how the same place is described, twenty-six verses later: "And now it came to pass that all this was done in Mormon, yea, by the waters of Mormon, in the forest that was near the waters of Mormon; yea, the place of Mormon, the waters of Mormon, the forest of Mormon, how beautiful are they to the eyes of them who there came to the knowledge of their Redeemer." (2)

I love the implication that the place was not beautiful to start with, but that the things that happened there made it beautiful in the eyes of those who loved those things.

So: I think that the central thing around which Mormon Housekeeping should revolve is making a home which will be "beautiful in the eyes of them who there c[o]me to the knowledge of their Redeemer." There are some practical, tangible ways in which I think this can be pursued: specifically, I think that a home should be clean, tidy, well-organized, and beautiful. On the less-tangible side, I think that people who come in the home should be able to feel that it is peaceful, restful, and happy. When they feel that their souls as well as their bodies are being given appropriate chances to receive true and delicious nourishment, chances for exercise, time and space to rest, and help with healing of wounds or illness, they will be coming to a knowledge of their Redeemer.

I do have more to say about this, but I am tired, and I think this is enough to discuss for one day.

The photograph is one of the ones from last Spring, when I visited the place of my Great-Grandmother's nativity (the old Cunningham Place, as I blogged about it later). One of the photographs I posted then showed this stream as I looked southward, and it was flowing towards me; in this photograph, I am facing the other way, more north-east, and the stream is flowing away from me.

1. Mosiah 18:4
2. Mosiah 18:30

That's the spire of the Washington, DC Stake Center you are seeing to the right of the temple spires. As I was driving in the other day, it was just too pretty to pass up.

And as long as I was taking pictures of what it's like to approach the temple by car, I was struck by how nice it is to see the flag as you drive up to the temple. I see now that I could have pushed the exposure on this one a little brighter. Oh, well.

And this is not what it looks like when you approach the temple by car, except very very briefly. This is what it looks like if you hop out of the car and walk back to take in an appreciative look at the lovely gardens which surround the temple. Also this is what a photograph looks like if you are focused more on centering the sidewalks in your photograph than in centering the temple itself. Sigh. Better next time.

OK-- I think that's enough for now. The usual rules apply: you are welcome to use these pictures, without attribution even (but of course not with incorrect attribution), as long as you aren't particularly rude about their subject matter.

Washington, DC temple

By all means, use this photograph; I don't care if you credit me; just don't do anything defamatory to me or to the church with it, 'K? I do the (printed) program for church, and I get SO TIRED of trying to find stuff that is copyright-free that I can use. So use it, and welcome, just be nice, right? Right.

I occasionally remember to tote my camera down on Fridays when I work in the temple. I think that it's most gorgeous when the sky is gray and cloudy. I probably won't have many chances to take more like this any time soon, since I tend to get there JUST in time for my shift, and nowadays it is dark by 7:00 p.m. when I get out. (Besides the fact that my night-teaching job is now running Friday nights as well, which makes my Fridays veeeeeery interesting, these days.)

At the old Cunningham Place

Cunningham really is my maternal great-great grandmother's maiden name. I make up most of the names on this blog, but since it was that long ago, I figure we're safe. Both of the structures in this picture were not in place at any time when my ancestors were around-- I think (though Grandma used to visit as a little girl, so who knows; that hen house could have been built in the forties, right?)

Watercress still grows on the banks of the stream that runs through the old place; they used to have watercress sandwiches for lunch, from time to time.

The story is that my ancestor who fought in the Civil War on the side of the South passed through a beautiful valley on his way to the war, and said to himself, "If I live through the war, I am going to come back and settle here." He did, and he came back and married the daughter of the man who owned the vast majority of the land in the valley.

My mother's third-cousin-twice-removed (if I recall correctly) lives on the same patch of land where that Civil War vet landed, and as we were driving through Alabama on our way to Uncle Charlie's funeral, we stopped at her place (the old family farm) for the night. Early the next morning, I woke up and went out with the camera and caught a few things in that nice early morning light.

And, just in case you were wondering: as far as I know, these particular Cunninghams did not have slaves-- it being after the Civil War and all-- but that surely does not clear them of charges of ever having been racist. And on the other hand, it is also true that this branch of the family, at this point in history, seems to be more anti-racist than most people I've met. My thinking is that when it's in your face like that, you have to make a decision, and they (the ones I've met) made one that makes me pleased to be related to them.

Grandmere et Grandpere

Mom kindly phoned me this morning with her permission to publish the following.

In case you can't tell, Mom is smiling gently and Dad is being mock-serious.

Oh, and happy fourth!

I finally remembered to put the flag up this year-- on the first!-- after three years of living here. I always seem to remember on, like, the sixth, when it would seem silly to start. But, having started on the first, I can put it out every day until the end of the month, which makes me very happy.

Just so you know, this is not a normal view from our front porch. It's my obsession with trees, again; I felt that the stars and stripes would be shown to best advantage if I could pair them with one of my favorite portrait subjects. I stood on the concrete block beside the porch (the one that's there to prevent skunks from nesting under said porch) with my back smushed into the bushes to the right of the door as I was taking this picture. I also gave a presumably tasty breakfast to a couple of mosquitoes. I protested that I had given enough already this season, but they didn't seem to care.

Portrait of Papa

From when he and Mom and Ivy and I all went down to Florida for his oldest brother's funeral. I took this just before we left for the funeral, outside the hotel; the light was just too darn good to ignore, and the metal bench was pretty cool-looking, too. Also, he was smiling-- or, I could get him to smile, which amounts to the same thing, right? I have one of him and Mom together, which I like even better than this one, but I haven't asked her yet if she minds if I put it up on the blog. If she says yes, I'll post that one, too.

The Wrong Tool For the Job

He's trying to take his shoe off with a screwdriver.

His father calls this one Sextus, but I rather like "Piglet" (like from Winnie-the-Pooh)  because I always identified with Piglet's smallness and general confusion about what was going on, and I sometimes see that expression on this kid's face, too. We did monitor him to make sure that he didn't poke it in his eye or toddle off to an electrical outlet, and we did eventually take it away, but not before I got a picture first.

A few more pictures from the Provo trip shall follow (I hope).

Spiderweb and Path (near our house)

I DO understand that some people prefer deserts, such as the one I was born in and mostly raised in. I'm actually pretty happy about that fact, because it means that not everyone gets crowded into the places with trees..

These are from a couple of months ago; I just now got around to downloading them. (But it was worth the wait, right?)

Squirrel!

Papa is now contributing photos to the blog, thus:

In the spring, Papa tried to run the squirrels off from eating the birdseed which he puts out on the balcony for-- er-- the birds-- but once he realized that he could get good shots of the squirrels from the other side of the patio-door (which looks on to the balcony) he forgave them and let them eat in peace.

I wondered, at first, why the squirrel-on-the-seat picture came first, but then I realized that this is a very ground-centric view; of course the squirrel landed on the seat before it landed on anything else.

This is the same bike which has been on the balcony since last winter.

I wasn't going to include this one, but Mom liked it so much that I decided to post it anyway.

The plant which our visitor is exploring in this photo is my lovely basil which Papa rooted from some we got last winter.

Pictures taken in the early(ish) morning, when the mosquitoes are out

I think I fed at least ten mosquitoes from this photo-run. Either that, or I was so delicious that some of them kept coming back for more.

The above is the sidewalk one walks down as one is going towards the library.

An this is along one of the paths behind the house. I finally got the flash to shut up when I figured out to use the "landscape" setting. The only problem with that is that my camera then wanted me to have a tripod. I compromised by steadying it on my knee or a nearby tree (don't remember which, for this shot). But-- isn't it lovely? Even if it is shakier than it would be if I'd had a tripod?

As I came up the rise and saw this view, I thought: this lamppost looks triumphant. Now why is that? And then I realized: it's because it is bathed in the glory of the rising sun, whilst all around it has yet to feel its rays.

Still catching up: a little from the family reunion in New Hampshire

for my mother's side of the family.

On the right: Susie (Mom's/Nana's first cousin, so my first cousin once removed); on the left is her husband, Frank. Both are black powder rifle champions, and both are retired teachers. Susie said that at one of the black powder rifle championships, someone asked her what her profession in "real life" was. She said, "Oh, I'm a home ec. teacher". Her competitor looked surprised. "Well, what'd you expect a home ec. teacher to look like?" Susie asked, because clearly, what one actually looks like is: this. (Yes, I'm sensing a theme with the last two posts, too.)

Both are lovely people. They let me sleep in their very comfy camper-trailer, the night before the reunion-proper started.

This is what the tent/pavilion for the reunion looked like, the night before. Um, with some background, because with a background like that it would be practically criminal to leave it out. I have to say, the scenery in New Hampshire was SPECTACULAR. I would go every summer, if I could, but they only hold the reunion every three years (I think?) and at any rate they don't hold it in the same place every time.

And this is how they got the Official Photographer high enough to get everyone in her viewfinder for the BIG family photo. She covered her eyes on the way down. Heights, evidently, scare her.

Assateague

I am trying to catch up with myself. I suppose that this means that I should post more.

Assateague is a barrier island on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, just a few miles south of the ever-crowded-and-commercial Ocean City. We visited just before school let out, and it was very, very lovely (and sparse enough to be fun).

Yes, it's true that it's just a beach; but it is also true that this was my first true view of the Atlantic Ocean, and it was QUITE exciting to me.

All three of my pictures are from rather late in the day. I guess that this could be explained by the fact that we didn't get out the door until ten or so, and didn't get there until after noon, and didn't actually get to the beach until around five. That is, indeed, Papa; neither he nor Mom went swimming that day, but I had a nice dip in the Atlantic, and did a bit of shell collecting to boot. Papa just collected pictures with his camera (there were dolphins! If only one of us had had a telephoto lens and a tripod...) and Mom collected the sun's rays and chapters from the book she was reading.

While we were driving, Mom mentioned that they usually go to a beach in Delaware. I said that it was fine with me if we went to Delaware; I just wanted to go to the ocean. But she kept driving towards Assateague. Finally, she explained that she wanted to see the horses on Assateague. Ah-hah! And we saw some, literally as we were driving away. I got two shots (Mom asked me to); I chose to post the one I thought was more interesting.


One Friday morning a couple of months ago, my mother knocked on my bedroom door and said, "How would you like to go to Assateague today?" I promptly agreed. We had planned-- sort-of planned-- to go to Assateague a month before that but were waylaid by medical problems on Mom's part. I have to say that this experience is the only time in my entire life that I remember my mother spontaneously deciding to take a trip. (No vacation with Mom would be a vacation with Mom without her spontaneously deciding to change plans mid-stream; but actually deciding to go and then leaving the same morning is unheard-of, in my experience with her.)

Turtles, Ducks and a Heron

From that one day a couple of months ago when I was so trigger-happy with my camera. But it was really cool-looking!

There were more turtles out than I have ever seen at the same time, before or since, and it seemed like they were all sunning themselves.

These were sitting on the tubing which is somehow connected to the dredging of the lake-- a LOT of turtles were on the tubing that day.

The ducks and the turtles didn't seem to mind each other much.

And this is as close as I could get to the heron I saw.  I was afraid you wouldn't be able to see it at all, but this picture came out OK.

I don't feel like Writing (or at least, not on this blog)

But luckily I took some pictures a couple of months ago which I feel like sharing.

Cherry tree at sunset

Looking up at a different cherry tree, around the corner from our row of townhouses

I kept trying to get a shot of this from my room-- then you'd have had a chance to see it from the top, which is the angle from which it brought loads of happiness into my life-- but the light would never  quite cooperate. It was worth taking the picture from different perspective, though; doesn't the streetlight remind you, just a little, of the lamp-post you first meet at the beginning of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe? And I would never have even realized the possibility if I hadn't come around the other side.

And the same tree from closer by. I love the contrast between the creamy-white blossoms and the red and blue of the child's toy. This shot comes closer to showing what bliss awaited me whenever I looked out my window, down on this tree, in those heady few weeks of spring.



:)

And Now, Spring

Moss on the roots of the neighbors' cherry tree:

And a bush, whose name I should know but don't, at the corner of our property:

The poor, snowed-upon hedge by the front walk has been rejuvenated (I was going to take an "after" shot from the same angle that I took that one during the snow storm, but then I realized that only a full-on side view could do justice to the beauty of the new growth. It's almost like a teenager, it's so leggy.)

And finally, an only slightly blurry shot of the walk up the side of the house-- it doesn't normally look quite this ethereal, but I happened to be out at the right time of day to make it seem like Galadriel was going to make an appearance at ANY MOMENT. (Though you may notice that the "Galadriel Effect" is somewhat dampened with the realization that the boxy thing at the top of the hill is in fact our (communal) mailbox.)

And now my camera card has properly been dumped, and I'm off for an evening walk.

Maybe tomorrow, if I can, I will get a shot of the cardinal which has been frequenting the deck. Wish me luck.

Snow: check.

I took pictures and meant to post about last December's 18-inch-deep blizzard, but never got around to it. Then, a couple of days ago, we got 33 inches in 24 hours or so. On Thursday night, the library looked like Grand Central Station (or, to use my mother's inimitable expression about the grocery store just before the December storm, like the Post Office on April 15th). Friday afternoon was when the storm was scheduled to begin; I got home around noon-ish, feeling like it was Christmas or something. On Saturday afternoon, I finally got around to taking a few pictures:



The above is our "deck;" it's more like a balcony, and often we keep plants on it. In the summer, for instance. For your information, there are no plants on it in this picture; the snow really is up to the railings like that. Here, you can see it better in this one (those plant silhouettes are from plants on the inside of the building):



I wasn't sure if you could get the idea just from the pictures of the back, so I took a couple of pictures out the front door:





This really doesn't give you a good idea at all of how deep it is on the cars, but a photographer with a nearly-full card can only do so much. Now that I've uploaded these, I can take some more. That snow bank at the back of the parking lot, below the fir tree, is approximately as high as an SUV. No, come to think of it, actually a little higher.

I really do love the snow. Can't tell you why, other than that when I was a little girl in Idaho, I loved walking through the snow that was as deep as my thighs (remember, I was short-- also, it snowed more then) and I still kind of miss it. I especially love how bright it is.

We did have a bit of drama when my sister got sick on Saturday night and couldn't really talk and Mom got super-worried and called an ambulance (because, we were clearly NOT going to be able to just drive her to the doctor's office); she is fine now, but quite tired, and no, we have no idea what was wrong. She was going to go to her regular doctor's office today, to get checked out, but-- surprise!-- they're closed. As is the Federal Government, which means that she doesn't have to take sick leave, being sick. Blessings abound! Also, since the ambulance came with a snow-plough in tow, we have one of the few ploughed streets in the area. Which is nice. And also means that several of the folks who live down the hill from us, whose road hasn't been ploughed, chose to park in our lot rather than risk going down hill again. That's why we had SUVs randomly sitting next to the snowbank, next to the fir tree, handily giving me a basis for comparison so that I can impress you all with how deep the snow REALLY is. (Oh, and to answer the question I'm sure you will ask: Ivy is hoping to go to the doctor's office tomorrow. She has announced that, snow day or not, she isn't going back to work until she's been checked out. Most sensible of her, I say.)

Also, tomorrow we are getting another light storm, originally predicted to be 6 inches-- now they're saying 8. Ivy (my sister) and I are kind of thinking that it's possible we'll get another snow day. No telling for sure.

Now I must needs get down and help Dad again. Because of the ambulance emergency, we do have one car dug out, and (more blessings!) Mom already left for a work trip and Dad is going out to Utah for a family thing tomorrow, which means (this is the blessing part) we don't really need that much in terms of car-age. Still, it would be nice if Ivy and I didn't have to coordinate to try to get us both to and from work and, for me, school, so Dad and I are trying to get Mom's car out. Dad decided to just gamble and try to drive it over the snow which hadn't been removed yet. He lost. We're now trying to dig out under the car. Also, Ivy suggested that I might walk to the grocery store for more peanut butter chips (being good Mormons-- meaning, in this instance, that we keep enough food stored to last several months-- that's the only thing we don't have on hand for a Perfectly Delightful Winter Storm Snow-in). Wish me luck.

Pumpkin Soup

First, the backstory for why this pumpkin--er, I mean, recipe-- had to be done today. I mean, why I had to blog about it today.

A few years ago, I moved in to a house that my Dad had just moved out of, and to my continually increasing gratitude, I inherited the garden he had planted. Besides discovering that I LOVED Juliet tomatoes (the kind he had planted), I also discovered the joys of fresh-baked home-grown pumpkin. That fall was when I came up with this recipe, which is darn quick and easy, and eminently edible.

Which is just the kind of recipe one needs when one's mother gets a 60-lb supposed-to-be-decorative (and it was, in its past life) pumpkin from freecycle with the intent of processing and, over the course of time, consuming said pumpkin.


"I'm going to get a very big pumpkin from freecycle," she says. "I'm bringing your dad along to help carry it."

I deeply regret to tell you that I didn't get a shot of this thing when it was whole. In fact, I was thinking of calling this posting "The Slaughter of the Great Pumpkin: A Photo Essay," but that seemed to be over-promising without the "before" pictures; I hope that the ones I have here will give at least some sense of the scale of the thing.

When I came downstairs this morning, these four pieces were all that was left of the once-great pumpkin; three similarly sized pieces had already been chopped even smaller and then distributed in such a way as to take advantage of every large cooking apparatus available in our teensy kitchen: two baking trays in the oven, both two-quart cooking pots simmering on the stove, and the one-and-a-half quart crockpot on "hi" on the counter. Needless to say, the house was suffused with the smell of baking-and-boiling hard winter squash. Which, I am very thankful to report, is a very happy smell for me.


You aren't getting tired of this yet, are you?

We had discussed whether or not Dad might have to use a chainsaw or, since he doesn't personally own one (a chain saw), perhaps he might use an axe (which he does own). In the end, a trusty kitchen knife worked out just fine. The pumpkin was surprisingly soft, which isn't necessarily a good sign-- Mom ended up cutting out bits which she felt were too dodgy for non-starving humans to eat.

This last shot is for the sheer pleasure of showing off my mother's beautiful, strong, capable hand(s-- not much of the second one showing). When I was growing up, she was always the one who opened stuck jars. She had been a pianist and a clarinetist before she married, and hadn't given either of them up yet when I was small; even now, the fact that she types so much in her job means that she hasn't lost much strength. I also love the fact that her palms are slightly plump, like Yo-Yo Ma's. Being a cellist-- specifically, going to many concerts and paying close attention to where the action was-- has made me a bit of a hand conniseur. Aren't hers beautiful?

And now for the recipe section:

Pumpkin Soup (makes approximately 1/2 gallon?)

Ingredients and instructions:

1 T or so fresh slivered ginger (if you hate the recipe because you used powdered, don't blame me)
1 T or so fresh chopped OR bottled garlic
1 T or so olive oil or other preferred cooking oil

Get the oil spitting hot in a skillet, then fry the garlic and ginger until the garlic is getting brown. Remove these from the skillet and put them in the big pot you're planning to cook the soup in.

1 c (more or less, depending on taste) sliced onion
2 T or so oil

Fry the onion until it is both soft and brown; when these have been achieved, put it in the soup pot, too.

5-6 cups cooked pumpkin
1 can coconut milk
1 1/2 t nutmeg, if desired (adjust according to taste)
2 t salt (yes, you can definitely add more-- I tend to cook low sodium)
2 T sugar, according to taste
garnish of cashews or peanut butter, if desired

Dump these in the pot; heat everything through. If you have an immersion blender, you can use it, but if I were you I definitely wouldn't put it, in batches, through a regular blender. Maybe use a potato masher if you have one handy. I just used a spatula tonight. The goal of blending/mashing/sorta-chopping-with-a-spatula is to get the pumpkin in to small enough chunks that the other ingredients/flavorings have a chance to do their jobs.

Snarfable (grown local)

(The picture: blueberries; my feet; one-half of my summer garden (a potted parsley plant-- the other one is basil); and parts of two Pothos plants, all hanging out on the balcony at my parents' house, because inside there isn't enough light for my camera to want to take a picture without a flash, and fruit this gorgeous deserves to be photographed in 100% natural light anyway.)

Today, a meditation on the snarfable fruits of summer.

You know how to pick a watermelon, right? You go around thunking on them (some people flip them with their fingers, but that hurts my fingers, so I just knock and it works fine for me) and listen for one with a nice, low tone. I personally feel that my success in the field of watermelon picking is partially due to my years playing cello under a strict teacher who made me listen carefully to the pitch I was making; it isn't so hard to transfer the skill to a pitch played on melons instead of strings.

Then you take it home and wash it off and cut it in half and then cut off an entire circular slice and cut off the rind and snarf it. Then, unless you were foolish and already ate some other kind of lunch, you eat another entire slice. (Also, please forgive the junior-high-ness of this, but part of the joy of this experience comes from the fact that watermelon burps are some of the best.)

This sort of event (specifically, melon-snarfing) has been repeated throughout my childhood, teenager-hood, and adulthood. I have also experienced heaven in the form of peaches the size of grapefruit, grown on the tree next to our front door, with skin so thick and sturdy and unattached that you just peel it off with a knife. Also, of course, are the lazy summer days when you wake up and think, "I'm starving and I just don't feel like fixing breakfast," and then you remember that the apricots are on, so you stumble out to the apricot tree (it's between the front and back yards, so it's a little further than the peach tree) and pick four or five ripe ones, and take them inside and rinse them off (just in case of-- um, diseased ants walking on them, or something) and by the time you are done eating them, you feel quite human.

And what has put me in mind of all these things? Well, a few weeks ago a woman from church emailed people at church and said that her family gets fresh blueberries from an Amish farm nearby every year-- $35 for a 20 pound box-- and if anyone wanted the same deal, she would be happy to pick them up for us. Long story short, the process ended up being more frustrating than I was expecting, and by the end of it I felt like it just wasn't worth the trouble. Not that I'm going to even be in the area next year.

However. I then TRIED the blueberries. Now, I knew that I liked blueberries, because I am willing to pay exorbitant prices for them (frozen, usually-- fresh are too expensive to be worth it) in Utah now and again. However. These blueberries turn out to be on a different existential plane than any I had ever tried in Utah, or even out here for that matter. They were picked-- all of them-- at the peak of ripeness. The first few seem perfectly normal, but then after a bit you realize that there aren't any sour or moldy surprises; they are ALL delicious, and that is when you end up snarfing two colanderfuls of blueberries within the space of half an hour. And this is also when you start thinking to yourself: maybe there really is something to this "eat local" schtick. I realized as I thought about it that probably all of the watermelons I have snarfed in Utah were grown in Utah, and that most of the blueberries I have eaten before now have traveled hundreds, if not thousands of miles to get to me.

The funny part about all this is that my parents-- and I can say this with absolute certainty-- did not intend to raise me as a food snob. When they grew their own tomatoes and ground their whole wheat as they needed the flour and planted fruit trees, they were following the teachings of the latter-day prophets to be self-sufficient-- they weren't even thinking about how things tasted. I have been a student for so long, SO long, that I only daydream about having hundreds of pounds of wheat in storage and being able to grow a little garden patch, let alone being in one spot long enough to plant a fruit tree (or bush) and being around to harvest it the next year. But as I look forward to a new, slightly more stable, slightly less poor phase of my life, I have motivation for doing as my parents did from two sources: one, my devotion to following the teachings of the prophets; and, two, my ever-growing epicurean streak. Well, that, and blueberry burps.