Tomatoes

Its tomato plantin' time again, but I don't think I'll bother planting any this year.

The beautiful ones at the market are so much nicer than the pitiful harvests my little garden usually produces. The store I shop in sells clusters of 4 or 5 vine ripened tomatoes still attached to a portion of vine. They're large, red and juicy as only perfect tomatoes can be.

They bring to mind the tomatoes my mother grew in a small kitchen garden when I was a child. I was about 8 yrs old and on warm summer mornings I would come downstairs for breakfast only to find breakfast over, and my siblings out playing with friends.

I'd go searching for Mom and find her picking tomatoes in the little garden near the back porch. She would let me pick one to eat as I sat on the back porch steps. I'd often choose a 2nd and even a 3rd.

I can still smell the distinctive odor of tomato vines as I walked thru the rows to find the biggest, and juiciest ones, and recall slurping tomato juice as it dribbled down my chin.

Those delightful red tomato breakfasts and golden sunshine mornings are among the fondest memories etched in my memory bank.

Tomato Cluster

The 17 Year Spread by Barbara

It was back in 1987 when my sister Allene had come to visit with Mom and Andy in Abbeville Louisiana for a couple of weeks and of course her husband was with her.

Our visit was going great. We girls would sit around and talk about things we wish we could get and things we really didn't need of course, as our closets were bulging at the seams already. But you know how we girls are, if any thing new comes out, we want it!

Mom and Allene had gone shopping and bought each of them some new yarn to start new throws with the new colors that had come out. Not that they needed one more throw, because they had plenty all ready.

When Andy and James saw all the new yarn they asked them what in the world are you doing buying more of that stuff, you all ready have a closet full!

They answered, but we don't have any in this color!!!!

Then the guys wanted to know what's for supper.

Oh, okay, we'll fix your supper but then we're going to sit down and get started on our new throws.

So this is how it went for a few days. Cook, clean up the kitchen, sit crochet for a while, take a break have a cup of coffee and a slice of cake or maybe eat some good cookies.

Once supper was over, then the guys had to get their own eats and drinks 'cause the girls had done their job for the guys for the day, and now we can sit and work on the throws as long as we want. Yeah!

After a few days, I wanted to join in too, so I asked Sis (as I called her), if she would show me how to crochet. Of course she would be happy to! Then all three of us could sit and work together on our throws.

I couldn't just do something simple, oh no not me! I wanted to do a bed spread not just a throw.

Well, my birthday was coming up, so she told me we would go to TG&Y in the morning and she would let me chose the colors I wanted. So after taking care of breakfast and cleaning up, we head off to do our thing.

Now, don't ask me why I chose the colors I did, because I couldn't tell you. Only thing I can say is, I like fall, and browns, oranges and cream colors remind me of the fall colors. So there you are!

Sis even bought the needle for me. We check out and home we go. I'm so excited I'm going to learn how to crochet, and not just that simple throw either, mine will be a bedspread! Hallelujah!!

Now I'll confess I'm not too smart. I didn't see the days or the hours that it was going to take me to get this job finished. No sir! I had not a clue.

When we get home, its time for lunch so we set the stuff down; get in the kitchen (again); get through that and now time for me to learn! Yeah!!

We sit down and Sis gets it started, hands it to me and says make a long chain so I work and work. Finally, I ask if its long enough. She says lets go check it on the bed if it will go all the way across. Well of course it didn't. Back to chain a little more. Finally I have it long enough and its time to start doing the shell stitch, making a shell in each one of the holes.

By now its time for a break, so we relax for a while and have a cup of coffee. This was back in the days when I could drink a pot by myself. Can't do that any more, thank the good lord.

Any way, we worked on our projects for the rest of the week. I learned how to get to the end, turn around and come back. I had started off with the brown now it was time to start another color, so Sis showed me how to tie the thread and start again.

I did a little more work on it then put it away, so we could spend time talking before they left for home in Georgia.

I thanked her for my gift and for teaching me the art of crocheting. I hated to see them leave, but maybe they would visit again soon. Well that didn't happen.

Now, I never pulled that project back out for at least three months. I finished the orange did the cream color and put it away again. Only this time, I didn't pull it back out for at least one year.

One day, going through the closet, I came across the unfinished bedspread and thought how nice and warm that it would be for the coming winter, so I pulled it out once again. This time i finished it, except for the edging, but at least I could use it. Now its 1980.

Jerry and I move here to Groesbeck, Texas in 1988. We live in the country 'till 1990, when we buy this property; I want to say, maybe in 1995.

So, around 1995, I pull that bedspread out and completely finish it off. Praise the lord and hallelujah! Job well done, even if it did take me 17 years to complete. Like they say, better late than never. Right?

Hope ya'll enjoy my story.

P.S. My sweet loving sister got to see the finished project before she passed away in 1996. A good ending, huh?

[Editor's note: This story was written by Barbara.
Apologies from the Editor for not getting this wonderful story on line a lot earlier. At least is not quite 17 years.]

[Who is Barbara? Barbara is the widow of MrsB's brother Jerry (Gerald Dean Abbott October 6, 1931 - July 25, 2010). MrsB's brothers and sisters are: Adeline, Esther, Richard, Jerry, Elbert, Charles and Mickey.]

Fall Trees

500 Post Milestone!

[Note: Editor's Post]

MrsB's Blog has hit a new milestone: 500 posts! Amazing!

It's hard to imagine all the work and effort that's gone into the blog over the last decade but the proof is right there: 500 posts and MORE to come!

As always, the thanks belong to those who take a bit of time to write up interesting stories, or share memories with us. The readers of the blog get extra treats, insights and a chuckle, now and then, as we tell the story of our lives.

It's not too far off to say, a LOT of people read the blog and come back again and again to follow our family saga: fights with gophers, heroic efforts to get potatoes to grow, commentary on current events and historical musings.

500 stories have been told so far and here's hoping for 500 more.

KimB Editor (post 501)

Rhinos

Cory Knowlton and a secret partner's bid of $350,000 wins the auction held by the Dallas Safari Club to kill a black Rhino in Namibia. The Rhino is said to be old, non-reproducing and showing signs of aggressiveness, which could be a danger to young Rhinos.

Allegedly, the money will be used to help in the conservation of black Rhinos. In short, they want to kill a Rhino in order to save Rhinos.

I don't understand why the animal can't be moved to another area where it's no longer a danger to young Rhinos so it could live out its life, and perhaps, even allowed to be a tourist attraction.

The inborn urge to kill something is a trait that I have never understood. Killing animals just for the 'experience' is repugnant to me.

I hope those in charge of the shooting, will have second thoughts and just make a gift of the $350,000 to the conservation efforts to save black Rhinos.

Afterword

The National Geographic (Dallas Black Rhino Hunt Auction) has a good article expounding on the why this particular hunting permit is available in the US where trade in rhino products are illegal.

The countries where rhinos still exist do have limited permitted hunting of them and normally those permits are not seen by outsiders to the Big Game Hunting industry. The money obtained from these permits does help conservation. In this case, Namibia decided that they could obtain more money from selling the permit directly to a wealthy individual than from selling the same permit to one of the Big Game Hunting safari companies.

The value of an animal whether legally shot or poached, reduces the overall economic value of the eco-tourism safari industry, because that animal is no longer there to be "seen". If it's poached the carcass is left to rot while the "important parts" become a by-product, and if it's a "trophy" it's still dead; with the head stuffed and mounted on a plaque nailed to a wall in the home of it's killer, collecting dust.

[Editor's note: The Afterword was written by KimB.]


Black Rhino

Missing flight 370

I've listen to every snippet of information that's reported on television about the mysterious disappearance of the Malaysian plane, flight 370. Speculation of what happened, how, why and where has the whole world wondering if this mystery will ever be solved.

When I first heard there was a missing plane, I lamented the tragedy of such a horrific lost of life, 500 souls at one time.

In recent years, we have become used to (if not blasé), about mega deaths and mega happenings.

Before WWII we used to shudder when reports of events listed several fatalities. The prior patriotic deaths during wars were deemed acceptable, but the shocking Holocaust in WWII prepared us for mega deaths and mega events. Since then, genocides and wanton killing of citizens by tyrants and dictators is daily fare on TV. Fanatical religious groups plan and study the killing of large numbers of people and elements of extreme nature, floods, hurricanes and winter storms are causing mega disruptions of towns and cities. Severe droughts are turning agricultural lands into mega deserts. We are getting used to mega changes in mega bursts. Is it any wonder that flight 370 has become a mega mystery?

The history of planes being hi-jacked by religious extremists has led to speculation that flight 370 was deliberately flown off course for nefarious reasons. Reports of data being pieced together by manufactures and aviation agencies allows imagined scenarios of what may have happened in the cockpit and may even solve the mystery.

Regardless of the real happenings, I imagine a scenario that is one of heroism and bravery. In my alternate history, the pilots, honest, brave and dedicated to the safety of passengers, surreptitiously left clues as they were overwhelmed and control of the plane was taken from them. The odd remark, “good night” at the last check point which didn't follow protocol may have been their last indication that something was wrong. In my scenario, the pilots, under supervision from some criminal element, made every effort to keep the plane in the air as long as there was fuel. Contemplating what transpired on board then is just too horrible to think about.

In my fictional world, I can have a miracle. I imagine the possibility that the plane flew to another country on purpose and so my imaginary plane lands safely; the authorities are able to arrest hijackers and keep pilots and passengers safe.

If only that fiction became reality...


Van Gogh In Alternate Universe
by Aisa Mijeno