Monday, May 18, 2009

THE "OLDEN" DAYS

One of my daughter-in-love's that works for the state historical society suggested that I tell you some stories of the past. You all should have such wonderful daughter-in-laws as the two I have. So for awhile we'll see where we can go with this. I really need some of you "old-timers" like me to join me in the box below the stories & add your memories, too. I was born in the 30's to a dad & mother that had their own farm and that was how they made their living. It was a Milking Shorthorn, Duroc hogs, Laying hens (raised from baby chicks we bought each year and when they weighed a pound Mom would start butchering the males for food), Pasture/fields we put up for hay, crops that had to be planted-tilled-harvested. Anything I forgot Brother? Yes, I have an older brother. Just read in our local home-town paper "65 Year Ago Items" that he graduated from our 1 room country school house where we attended 1 through 8 grades with 1 teacher teaching all 8 grades in that one room. We went to school everyday in the days that no matter what the weather you went to school. The teacher rented a room just down the road from the school and no matter how high the snow, she could get there. If you had to ride a horse we had a 3 sided pole barn beside the school to leave your horse while you were in school. I can remember several times my dad would take me through the fields (snow blew off and into the road so it was not as deep there) because it was too deep to walk. Yes, we walked to school or when they invented bikes ha. ha. weather permitting we could ride to school. It might sound bad to some of you younger people but those days to educate the kids a community would dig a hole for a basement & build a building (ours looked like a house) with one large room for our desks and entrance hall to hang our coats and leave our lunch box. The basement had the big old wood furnace the teacher had to build a fire in before we got there so the building was warm. By the way most of my teachers were women with the qualifications of having graduated high school. The basement also had big tables with benches where we ate our lunch & had community pot luck dinners, etc. The school was the center of the community. One was built about every 2 or 3? square miles so the distance for the kids to walk wasn't that bad. However, I was lucky we were only a mile. I feel very fortunate to have attended that school where you heard every classes education each day. By the time you were in the 7th & 8th grade our classes were pretty easy even if you did have 4 different teachers during the 8 years. When I graduated from 8th grade the county bought school buses and everyone rode the buses which ended the one room school houses. All the kids now joined the town kids that had gone to school together all their schooling and it was quite a transition for the country kids who were used to 2 or 3 classmates.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Barbequed Pork Loin

I really do not get any money for advertising. Names just pop up in my stories. Like the fact that Hy Vee Grocery is only 4 blocks from our church so when we get out at noon that is our next stop to eat lunch (great chinese food) and get our groceries we need that week. It really isn't the prices that keep me coming back but it's the smiles. friendliness, and helpfulnesss of their employees. I have not seen that since we worked a couple winters at Disney World but that is another story. Today they were giving samples of 1-1/2 lb. Center Pork Tenderloins for $6.99. Hers was delicious but I was telling of a recipe I got years ago and was told, "put it on your blog." SO here it is.

Barbequed Pork Tenderloin

Heat oven to 325 degrees. Place 1-1/2 lb. pork loin roast in roasting pan and bake for 2 hrs. or till a stick with a fork says it's tender or 170 degrees with meat themometer. Baste with 1/2 of the sauce recipe I'm going to give you the last 30 minutes. Serve with remaining sauce.
Sauce:
1/3 cup Kraft Barbecue Sauce (you may have noticed we do not like burn your tongue spices.)
5 ounces Apple Jelly heat over low heat till blended.

I'm looking forward to eating mine.

Friday, May 15, 2009

I'm Back

We just had a wonderful trip to the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia to our Grandson's wedding. We took 5 days driving there through Missouri (ST. Louis Zoo), Illinois, Indiana (Evansville Zoo), Kentucky (I-64 east of Louisville to Frankfort) where we toured & sample Buffalo Trace Bourbon Distillery). Called that because the huge herd of buffalo came through there and stamped down a wide "trail" (the Indian word is "Trace"). Later the trail was used to travel west. West Virginia (tour and sample a wonderful little Mom & Pop Winery(Watt's Roost Vineyard) that is so small they do everything by hand. He spent 20 yrs. in the Military, came home and started his own electrical shop which he's now turned over to his son. Bought 30 acres beside the farm he grew up in a beautiful valley. Farms around him were raising beef cattle & dairying but what do you do with 30 acres? Doing some research & having a good friend with a winery he found out y0u can raise 1,000 grape plants on 1 acre of ground and get 1 gallon of wine from each plant. You do the math. It's still work & you can never tell if a batch is going to be good. Beautiful Greenbrier Award winning Resort nested on 6,500 acres in the Alleghany Mountains & the wonderful shops & eating places inside got SOME of my money. The Biltmore (America's largest home) built by George Vanderbilt at Asheville, North Carolina got the rest . After the most wonderful Southern Wedding I've ever attended we headed north to Washington, D.C. to see the Mall with the memorials to the WW ll & Vietnam wonderful young men & women that gave their lives to the cause. My 1st cousin was killed in WWll & a young man from my home town was killed in the Vietnam war. We were able to look up both their names. We saw the Smithsonian's National Zoo (of course). Now to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. For you that don't know, it is a skinny little island with Highway 12 running down the middle of it for about 30 miles with some places only a long bridge width between it and the mainland. We were there in 1956 at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina and what a change since then. Both sides of the Highway is huge homes & condo's for the people up north to come in the summer. Lots & lots of shops!!! BARGAINS!!! Good time to go. They are selling last years stuff dirt cheap to make room for the new stuff this year. With about the same visitors each summer they have to change their merchandise. Driving home across the southern end of North Carolina & Tennesse was nice but I'll take the hills of Kentucky with a little Mom & Pop shop around every corner that has neat stuff in it like old whiskey barrells full of little bags of Sassafrass, Green Apple, etc. etc. hard candies, homemade fudge flavors you don't see anywhere else. Springfield, MO is the home of the real life Laura Ingalls (that wrote all those books after she was 65 yrs. old). It was where her and Alfonzo raised their daughter who followed in her mother's footsteps and became a famous writer, also. All & all we were gone for 17 days delightful days. I want to go east on I-64 again before I die.