Putting Down Some Thoughts and Images of a New Normal

I did this on my embroidery machine

Well, it is now 2 years and 3 months since my last post! I can't believe how long I have put this off but times have changed suddenly and radically in one short (well, it feels like a very loooong ) month.  I keep thinking I need to put down some of my thoughts, impressions, images, and stories for posterity.  This came about, of course, due to the advent of covid-19 into our lives.  Several of my relatives and I have been reminiscing on Facebook about the stories my mother told about the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918, and I think I will put down some of my impressions of this new pandemic for future relatives to refer to.

At the beginning of this pandemic in December 2019, which began in Wuhan, China, we were warned that what was happening there would spread all over the world.  I just didn't believe it because I thought with modern medicine and so much lead time the scientists would get a handle on it and we would have cures and vaccinations long before I would be affected.  Well, that didn't happen!  Here we are at the beginning of April 2020 and the world has practically shut down! They are predicting that over 1 million people in the US will die from this virus! Whoa! And I am one of the at risk people since I am 80 years old and people over 60 are considered more at risk than younger healthy people.

I made this in-the-hoop on my embroidery
machine.  I need to pull it up higher on
my nose, I guess.

So here is the deal (I am writing this for future generations since we, who are living this now, all know the drill): Wash your hands, don't touch your face, practice social distancing (no public gatherings, stay 6 feet apart, stay at home unless for essentials).  Most states have stay at home restrictions in place.  This means only people in essential jobs should be out and about.  Most other people are working from home.  These include teachers and students, as all schools have been closed. Most TV programs are being sent from the news anchors', actors', and hosts' homes.  Teachers have had to adapt to online classrooms and teaching packets they made up and handout at the curb as parents drive by to pick them up.  Online Zoom meetings and gatherings are very popular nowadays.  In fact I have been Carla's guinea pig for her preschool classroom.  Unfortunately my computer is so old it didn't work very well, but I think most Wyoming schools have some type of fairly new computer for each of their students.

Sit down restaurants and bars are closed unless the restaurant does take out.  Danny and Kathi had to close down the bowling alley and lay off their employees.  Kathi is doing the take out for lunch and dinner.  They are making about 35% or less than when they were open.  The grocery stores, gas stations and liquor stores are still open.  Grocery stores completely ran out of many items the first week of the shut down in Colorado due to people hoarding cleaning supplies and paper goods, especially toilet paper.  This is happening all over the country.  Lots of jokes have been made about the toilet paper but it really is serious.  I was in the Dollar store at this time and there were people from neighboring towns 60+ miles away in our stores cleaning them out of essential items!  In our small town, we get a grocery truck in 1 or maybe 2 times a week.  This did give us a big shortage for the locals.

  Staying at home right now does not mean you cannot go outside.  We can still go for walks around the neighborhood and the park, but must maintain the 6 foot distance.  I have walked around town on nice days and have seen very few others out and about. One really cool thing that many neighborhoods all over have been doing is putting teddy bears in their windows and on porches so that kids (and adults like me) can see how many they can find on their walks.  In Walden it is bunny rabbits in the windows, porches and yards.  I have been taking pictures of them on my i-phone.  I even put my Marde Gras bunny in my window (in case any Waldenites want to count it).  The local library has cards the kids can get and check off bunnies as they find them.  They get a little prize from the prize box at the library for every 15 bunnies they find.

A few of the bunnies on my walk

I started my stay "home" rule about 3 weeks ago before it was mandated by the state of Colorado.  Before that I really didn't do much different except I did water aerobics at the county swimming pool every weekday morning and went to bible study at church and "ladies lunch" at the bowling alley every Wednesday.  Once a month I went to book club and I usually went to dinner and a movie at Danny and Kathi's once a week.  I'd go get groceries, the mail, and gasoline when I needed them and that was about it.  This was my schedule when I lived in town all winter.  In May I would move back to the cabin (when snow was gone and mud dried up) and didn't go to town much.  The last few years I worked at the Pioneer Museum 3 hours a day 3-4 days a week during the summer.  I'm guessing that might not happen until later this summer!  Anyway, I'm pretty used to finding things to do around the house and we have always bought groceries in bulk for the ranch so we wouldn't have to go to town that much.  I have always made most of my bread from scratch at home and love cooking new things so I can get along on what is in the freezer and in the pantry. I have gotten used to ordering things to be delivered at home when I'm in town but contrary to their advertising, UPS won't deliver to our cabin and Amazon contracts with them here so it is a pain in the neck to do that in summer.

I guess this is it for today.  Tomorrow I will get to what I have been doing to keep myself busy and hopefully healthy, physically and mentally.  Now, the sun is out, the wind is down and I must go for my walk in search of new bunnies in windows and maybe some new chalk art up near the post office.

Fried Mush

Fried Mush with butter and Maple Syrup!

I’ve been missing my dad lately. He’s been gone for over 10 years but is still in many of our memories. He was a huge family man and I didn’t realize that all the “little” things he did for all of us were not the norm in most families. Mom was the main cook of the family and a dedicated “foodie” (that’s where I get it from) but Dad was the breakfast maker in our family!

Dad was always finding different breakfast recipes to serve us. He had his grandmother’s 100 year old cookbook and would browse through it to get his ideas. He wasn’t into the modern breakfast casserole types of recipes. He would try out these recipes or use our favorites on the weekends. During the week when we all got up early to go to work or school, he made the same thing every morning but that is a whole story for another blog! My siblings and cousins who lived with my parents for awhile are probably smiling right now!  

Even when my dad was in his nineties and living in Florida he would get up and pick fresh grapefruits from his trees ( he was a Master Gardener) and halve them, cut around each section and serve them in china saucers with special spoons for all of us who were visiting him!  By then he was getting pretty slow but we stayed out of the kitchen until he called us to breakfast. He would go out and pick fresh flowers for the table and have it set properly. Mom taught him well!

   

Some of my dad’s favorite breakfasts were different egg dishes and pancakes, but the ones that stick in my mind were hoe cakes, which I cannot make like his and fried mush which I had a craving for this week. It is easy to make but you do have to plan ahead now days. Back in the “olden days” I think fried mush was a way to use up leftovers. I’m thinking we had hot cornmeal mush for breakfast and there was a lot leftover, ha! Not really a favorite in the family I guess!  Anyway, the next day we would have fried mush with maple syrup that we tapped from our maple trees (which was another one of Dad’s projects). Yummmm!  Today, as I was making my fried mush, I realized that the molded (not moldy!) block of mush looked and tasted like Polenta!  Hmmmm!  I never thought about that before—I guess I could go to the store and buy a block of it from the refrigerated section....

Here is the way Dad made it and how I do it—pretty simple.

 Fried Mush

1 Cup cornmeal

4 Cups water

1 tsp. Salt

Follow directions on the box for Corn Meal Mush.

When the mush is cooked butter a large loaf pan and pack the mush in it. Refrigerate it overnight or until it is chilled and set up.

Sorry, I can't make it rotate but you get the idea.
My slices

Nice and crispy!

 Unmold the block of cornmeal and slice into about 1/4 inch slices. Fry in butter or bacon grease until golden brown and crispy on the edges.

 Serve with butter and syrup or jam and jelly. You know I love it with maple syrup! Wrap the rest of the block in plastic wrap and keep in the refrigerator for later!  I haven’t tried freezing it but I think that might work too. 

I think I will look up Hoe Cakes on the internet and give them another try.  I never could get them to be as thin and crispy as Dad's were but am willing to give it another shot!  Have a great day! See you at my next blog!

Memories of Backwoods

This is one of the Backwoods Christmas parties.  The only Backwoods picture I have at this time.

 Back row: Einar Erikson, Harold Zuehlke, Ransom Tyler (my Dad), Ned Elton  Sitting:Rick Zuehlke, Pug (my Mom), Tom Erikson, Tip (my brother) in front, Henrietta Erikson, Janet Erikson(in front), KD Elton, Me in the grey sweater, Lynn (my sister), Eddie Elton.  Sitting in front on the right: Sue Zuehlke, Phoebe Zuehlke and I think Ned's Grandmother sitting in the chair.

This is one of the Backwoods Christmas parties.  The only Backwoods picture I have at this time.

Now I am going way back to reminisce about the great times we had in our neighborhood which we called Backwoods.  These memories were brought on because I just received word that the eldest of the Backwoods kids, Rick, has just passed away.  There were 8 of us and Rick Zuehlke lived next door and was probably 5 or 6 years older than I was.  The rest of the kids in backwoods were:  Janet and Tom Erikson, Sue Zuehlke (my best friend and confidant of our childhood.  She is a year older than I.), Lynn (my sister), Tip (my brother), and Ned Elton (Closest in age to me and my "boyfriend" through our childhood).

  We were a close knit group of kids because we lived sort of "out in the country".  We all went to the same elementary school (fondly called Jefferson Jailhouse) and were more like sisters and brothers than friends.  All of our parents went together and bought a piece of property from a farmer and built 5 houses in the farmer's backwoods during the depression!  It was so unusual that The Milwaukee Journal did a piece on the construction, complete with pictures, back when they were building the houses in the early 1930's. This was before I was born, of course.  The property was located about  a quarter of a mile from the Milwaukee/Waukesha county line.  Jefferson School was 1.2 miles from our houses and we walked and then later rode our bikes to get there and back home. It had started out as a 2 room school (I'm pretty sure Rick and Janet were in school at that time), but each room was then divided into 2 rooms and by the time I went there, there were 2 classes in each room.  There was no kindergarten so none of us except my brother (the youngest of the Backwoods kids) even went to kindergarten.

The backwoods was a pretty big piece of property of many acres and we had woods and ravines to play in.  Each family had a large vegetable garden (WWII was in full swing in my very early days and they were called Victory Gardens) and the Eltons  (who lived next to us on the other side) had grape vines and a raspberry patch down over the hill in back of their house. (the scene of one of our major adventures).   They had a chicken coop too.  Dad had an asparagus patch down there and there were currant bushes that Mom had us pick from to make currant jelly.  We had a chicken coop, apple trees, and a place for a milk cow (Daisy) too.  Dad had a compost hole that he made fertilizer in and he also tapped all our maple trees and Mom made maple syrup from the sap.  It was our job to collect the sap each day in the spring.

Some of my other memories of those early times were of Dad picking honeysuckle blossoms and Mom making honeysuckle fritters with them.  I never have tried it myself but I do remember how we loved those fritters! Dad also had crabapple trees and at least one plum tree.  I remember that Dad would get up early and go out and pick flowers for Lynn and I to put in our hair on Sundays and he always had fresh flowers for the house all summer long.

 Every week or so all summer the families of the neighborhood would take turns hosting a potluck Backwoods picnic. These were not quite the backyard barbeques we all think of now.  None of our properties were fenced so we had all 5 yards to play in.  The picnic sights were not too near the houses and we did not have barbeque grills. Our moms cooked over the open fire or made most of the food at the house and then brought it to the picnic sight. The grownups would sit around the fire visiting long after dark and all the kids would play 50 all scatter, Sardines, and other games using the whole neighborhood as our playground.  There were no city streets, only our private dirt road that the 5 houses used to access West Howard Avenue.

The other Backwoods event was an annual Christmas party.  It was hosted each year by a different family.  It was a potluck and I think our moms organized it so whoever hosted it had the main dish and the family that had it the last year brought the dessert and so on.  All the kids drew names for giving presents and I think there were family gifts given by each family to each family.  We had a big feast and then the whole group would play Charades (when we got old enough).  Oh how we loved playing that game!  I guess the youngest kids had to go to bed so it was a right of passage when you got to play Charades with the grownups!

There were other Backwoods gatherings but those were parts of our adventures to be remembered another day!

So long, Rick, I never forgot you calling me Vanilla Pecan instead of Penelope Ann, the time you tried to get Sue and I to pose sitting under the hose you hooked up to the clothesline pole so it dripped cold water on us in 99 degree and 95% humidity weather so you could take a picture to enter in a photo contest, and your early Disney movies shown on a sheet that you charged us a few pennies to watch after dark night after night. I will always picture you working on that Model T station wagon in your driveway.