Treasures

" Lay up treasure in heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt nor thieves break through and steal."

My husband was cleaning up this week and found five of these old coins. The 1886 one is the oldest and the youngest is a 1918. In the top picture you see the face and the rear of the coin.
In the second picture you see the coins compared to a modern Canadian $1 and a penny.

The old coins are Pennies. On one side it says ONE PENNY and the date; on the other side it says "VICTORIA DEI GRA BRITT REGINA FID DEF IND IMP
Does anyone have an idea what country these belong to?
H. doesn't know how he got them unless he found them in an old piece of furniture that he recovered.

Global Warming - What A Laugh

People often don't believe we go out in this cold weather. Here is how I get ready to go.
First layer - nylon stockings and longjohns.


Layer 2- cotton socks and sweat pants.










Layer 3 - wool socks and nylon wind pants.












Up top; layer 1- t-shirt (not visible)
layer 2 - heavy hooded sweat shirt.
This attempt at a self portrate is a little fuzzy.













Final layer - hooded parka, boots, mitts & hand warmers ( the green blobs in the cuffs of the mitts). If the wind is really bad I can tighten up the parka hood until it is fairly snug around my face.










Last picture is how I looked after being out on foot for some errands. I was gone about 40 minutes. The temp. was about -28c with some NW wind blowing. I don't know what the wind chill temp. registered at.

Christmas 2007

A few views of from Christmas day. Opening gifts in the afternoon and playing with T.'s racing set in the evening. No pictures of the food - it was the ordinary Christmas menu - turkey, mashed potatoes & gravy, veggie (I can't even remember which ones now) cranberry sauce, dressing, and dessert - vanilla ice cream, raspberries & cookies.

I think we could have done better with the pictures - we need to practice.

More Folks I Know

At the top we have T. eating the finished product ( except the photographer didn't aim well). then a view of the Ultimate Chippers. Third is T. helping R. make cookies.

The two little girls in the bottom two pictures helped to entertain us at our breakfast date in NE.

Some Folks I Know

When we were last in NE we stayed with Some Folks I Know --does anyone out there know them? Ha!

Thank you Sarah & Matt. These are early morning shots of the kids playing with U. H. & R. and one of the kids getting breakfast. U. H., R & J went to another place for breakfast.

Helper

This is Oma's helper. Vacuuming is hard work you know. Inspecting the slot in the tubing where it is so nice to stick the dirt in and see it get sucked up. After doing that in the hall way we went to the living room where he found dead blooms from the house plants to stick in the slot to be sucked up.

Cooking Class 101*

On Mon. Jan. 21 the first session of Cooking 101 began with one student who you see observing the hamburger patties that she has just produced.

The menu: Homemade hamburger patties; store bought buns; all the condiments - ketchup, mustard, pickles, tomatoes, lettuce & salad dressing; & green beans. Dessert was prepared ahead of time by the instructor - applesauce & cookies.

All the taste testers OK'd the resulting products of the class.

*In the high schools the "101" or any course ending in "01" denotes basic course.

Dog Days or Daze

You know those eye shields that some folks wear on the airplane - Long ago the airlines used to give them out in kits. This dog has her own built on one. She sleeps under the kitchen table where it is bright sun shine for a long time everyday. You can also see her getting a bath back in June. She had a bath on Christmas day courtesy of Opa & T. again on New years eve T. said " Abby is stinky" so of course T. thought that A. should have another bath. A doesn't fight the baths now like she did when she was younger. However, a once a week bath for her is unheard of before this recent episode.

Headed North From Dallas

Moving day for Ruth. Thurs. Dec. 20Th. On Wed. evening we packed as much of Ruth's belongings as we possibly could and had them lined up in the living room area ready to pack into the cars in the morning. After our fairly early breakfast Helmut took apart the bed and then started to pack our van. Ruth had to go on an errand to the post office and bank but it didn't take her too long. H. & R. carried all of the stuff down to the cars and got everything packed snugly in. I remained in the apartment until we were ready to leave because my knee and leg hurt so much from the fall and I just didn't feel like I could negotiate three flights of steps more the once.

I think we finally got away from Dallas about 10:30 in the morning. You can see Ruth's Honda entering the free way as she led us through the busy highway system of Dallas. Then you see some tall buildings behind a bit of highway as we left the city. The multilevel highways and interchanges are quite impressive but very difficult to photograph from the car window.

In southern Oklahoma we came through some interesting landscape I think is is the Ardach (or something similar) Wilderness. It is very rocky and hilly with lots of forest.

Further north in Oklahoma we noticed a lot of red soil so we also had to take a picture or two of it.

Our traveling was uneventful with clear dry roads the usual pit stops and food breaks. Ma & Pa need a few more of these stops than Ruth does but she cooperated and stopped when we did.

As we were approaching the Kansas City area Ruth signaled us to stop. When we found a parking lot where we could pull in she told us that Aunt Pat had phoned and wanted us to come to Lincoln for the night. We settled the arrangements and headed to Lincoln. We would have gone a different route if we had known earlier but at this point it was only a little back tracking.

We arrived in Lincoln pretty close to midnight. Matt & Sarah kindly put us up for the night with the understanding that we would have breakfast at Pat & John's as Val & Dennis & girls were there. this way we got to see everyone.

FRONTIERS OF FLIGHT MUSEUM - DALLAS LOVE FIELD

The last point of interest that we visited was the Flight museum. We were rather late in the day arriving there and it wasn't very busy. The guide was anxious to tell us all about everything - even though the place had nice texts explaining in minute detail. Ruth enjoyed learning about the history of flight as well as the history of the two World Wars - she was a very attentive listener to the elderly gentleman who was the guide. Helmut went along on his own reading and investigating all the displays. I tried to listen to part of the guide's talk and read some of the stuff and generally show some interest in this place. I sure wouldn't fancy flying in some of those early aircraft that were wide open to the sky - of course those brave pilots & machines were needed to bring us to what we have today.

CORNMEAL MUSH

I am decorating the recipes with flower pictures. This is my current amaryllis when it had its first two blooms. Now those two have wilted and the second two blooms are open. The blooms have two rows of petals which I don't recall seeing before on other plants.







CORNMEAL MUSH

4 cups of water
1 tsp. salt.
1 cup cornmeal

Bring water and salt to a boil in a medium sized sauce pan, slowly add the cornmeal while stirring. Cook it for about 5 minutes or until as thick as you desire it. stir it frequently.

Serve as a hot cereal or

Serve along with eggs or

Place in a greased loaf pan, cover and refrigerate until the next day. Cut into thin slices and fry them in a skillet with oil or fat of some sort at a low temperature until golden brown.
Serve like pan cakes with butter and syrup.

This can be a good substitute for pancakes for people who do not tolerate wheat.

Spooon Bread

1 cup milk
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup of water
3/4 cup yellow cornmeal
2 tbsp. butter (cut into bits)
3 large eggs, separated

In a large pan, combine milk , salt & water and bring to a simmer over low heat. Stir in cornmeal a little at a time and cook, stirring constantly for 2 minutes or until it is thickened. Put in a food processor and blend 30 seconds. ( I used the mixer in the same pot where I cooked it. You could also blend it vigorously with a wooden spoon.) Add the butter and egg yolks and blend until combined.

In a large bowl beat the egg whites until they just form stiff peaks. Use the electric or hand beater or a whisk and lots of elbow grease. Stir 1/4 of the cornmeal mixture into the egg whites and then gently fold in the remainder. Pour in to a 1 1/2 quart casserole dish that has been greased and bake at 375 F for 30 -40 minutes.
.
Serve with a gravy or stew of some sort.

Thanks goes to our neighbor, Peter Grant, for this recipe.

Tour of Dallas Heritage Village

Our next stop of interest after I was changed was the Dallas Heritage Village which of course was over on the side of town where we had come from when I got wet so we had a little driving to do. We thought we could stop for lunch on our way at a fast food place that Ruth recommended but there was no parking available so went on to the Village hoping that they would have a place to eat heritage food. No such luck with that idea but we stayed there to see the place before we went looking for lunch.

This village is set up with some of the old houses of early Dallas, a farm, the main street of early Dallas, and other houses that would have been on the range of TX in the early days.

The white house where Helmut & Ruth are standing out front was the largest of the houses and had belonged to an influential family of Dallas. the "lady of the house told us all about the family and house and times. ( she wasn't dressed in the style of the era).

In many to the houses the "guides" were dressed as in the era that they were representing and they talked to you as if you had come to visit them on a Wed. afternoon of long ago. We saw a couple of houses that went by the name of Dog Run or Gun Shot houses, these had the front and back doors exactly opposite of one another with nothing obstructing the passage between. The idea was that you could shoot straight through the house or the dog could run straight through. The farm house was not closed in the passage way - it had a roof over the hall way with two rooms on each side on the main floor - I can't remember it the second floor crossed the passage way or not. Ruth was up there but I refrained from climbing those steps. We didn't take a picture of those houses. The interpreter at the farm house said that in the hot summer nights the family would sleep in this open passage way as it would be cooler than in the house. There was a wreath or long fan of laural leaves on the wall we were told that if the leaves are fresh it is useful to repel the flies.

The house with the big porch, red roof and lots of gables where two "ladies" are rocking on the porch was a favorite of Ruth's.

Helmut is all set to give us a performance of some sort in the band stand. Funny to see Christmas decorations all over the place on such a lovely warm day.

If I could find the pamphlet that we got at this place I could give more details.

By the end of this tour I was quite hungry and in need of lunch. We decided to try Panera Bread and Ruth knew of one near our next point of interest so we head that way. The sandwiches proved too big for Ruth and me so we each saved half of ours to eat at supper time. We had a cooler bag with a ice block so put them away for later.

It is a strange thing to look across the yards from these old time places and see the Dallas high rises in the back ground and see and hear the steady stream of traffic.

Remember that if you double click on a picture it will fill the whole screen - they actually look much better enlarged.

Dallas Tour Cont.

Ruth decided to show us this outstanding group of sculptures that reside in a little park in the downtown area of Dallas. First Ruth and Helmut admired the cowboy on his horse driving the cattle over the little bluff and down a stream. Ruth figured that we could have a better advantage by going to the other side of the stream to view the herd and another cowboy on a horse. So Helmut crossed over on the stones in the stream followed by Ruth who offered to help me - I said I could make it alone as the stones appeared quite flat and not far apart. Ruth made some comment about me being careful with the camera or that it was a good thing I didn't have it ( I never heard the comment). Actually Helmut had the camera which was a very good thing. I stood on the first stone and put my foot to the second stone and some how missed or slipped off the side of it and fell into what looked like a shallow stream - it turned out to be enough water to soak me from head to foot even getting my face wet even though it was facing the sky. Both Helmut and Ruth rushed to my rescue and helped to pull me out - quite a task because I hurt my knee and shin and had trouble getting my footing again in the water. Finally you see me standing on the pavement soaking wet with the herd of cattle looking quite undisturbed.

It was a good thing that the weather was warm - at first the water seemed quite chilly but once I was out of it I warmed up quite quickly. ( No worse than a swim in Lake Winnipeg in June) We changed our tour plans and went back to Ruth's apartment so that I could get dry and have a change of clothes.

We continued our tour and the pictures and details will be on the next post.

Dallas Tour - Wed. Dec. 19, 2007

Day Three of our trip will be spread out over several posts because we did so many different things that I want to share. The first thing after breakfast Helmut and Ruth took Ruth's car to the Honda dealer because she needed the brake shoes changed. They returned to the apartment for me and we set out to tour Dallas.

First stop was the Dallas Theological Seminary campus part of which you can view in these pictures. It is close to the down town area of the city. We also went inside the library of DTS but didn't look around in too many buildings.

The grass was still green, many trees were green and many flowers were blooming through out Dallas. Pansies were prevalent and made a bright spot every where. It is hard to think that Christmas is just around the corner (six days) when everything is so lush and green. It was also a nice warm day in the sixties and perhaps even seventy by afternoon.

Trip to Dallas - Day Two

Snow and ice - why would Manitobans want to take pictures of snow and ice? We were asked such a question when one of the family was looking at the pictures that we took on our trip to Texas. Snow & ice are not so strange to us but finding it where these pictures were taken was unexpected. This herd of cattle were grazing on a north central Kansas field. The trees were delicately trimmed in ice as well as the grass and the snow likely had an icy crust. Thankfully the roads were as dry "as a bone".

One of the points of taking these pictures was to capture the beauty of the ice covered trees in the sunshine. I do not think that this goal was achieved.

We left Lincoln, NE right after breakfast Dec. 18Th. there was snow on the ground but the roads were very dry. It had been well below freezing when we left Winnipeg and remained that way until we were in the southern part of Kansas.

We reached Dallas by 8:30 or so in the evening - it wasn't too difficult to negotiate the super highway system and eventually find Ruth's apartment according to the directions from Google.

We were happy to spend the remainder of the evening relaxing with Ruth and planning our sight seeing for the next day.